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Candie Carawan

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Carolanne Marie "Candie" Carawan (née Anderson)[1][2] (born 1939) is an American civil rights activist[3] known for popularizing the protest song "We Shall Overcome" to the American Civil Rights Movement with her husband Guy Carawan in the 1960s.

Early life

Carawan was born to Howard and Lois Anderson[4] in Los Angeles, California in 1939.[1] Her father was a petroleum and environmental geologist.[4]

She attended Pomona College and was interested in the civil rights movement. In her junior year, she became an exchange student to Fisk University, a historically black college in Nashville.[5] She said, "I learned about southern black people, racism, nonviolence, police, jail, southern courts; I met brilliant people like James Lawson"[6] She participated in the black students' demonstrations to integrate the schools there. Carawan said "I was really lucky – my mother and father were out of the country. So I didn't have to deal with my parents."[6]

Highlander Center

In March 1960, she attended her first meeting at the Highlander Research and Education Center in New Market, Tennessee to help teach workshops, where she met Guy Carawan. She becomes a founding member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)[7]

At one point during her career in activism, after two weeks of sit-ins she was arrested and put into jail. While in jail, the guards separated the white women from the black women. "The only connection we had with the others was the music" [7]. However, with these sit-ins, she helped contribute to the abolishing of lunch-counter segregation in Nashville. Candie notes how she was "naive" saying "I was sure we would have just a few sit-ins, point out to the nation that there was something wrong, and the world would change."[7] In 1965, the white people were voted out of SNCC. Candie says SNCC should get more credit for taking away the fear in Mississippi and getting lots of people to join the movement.[citation needed]

Carawan moved back to California to finish her senior year in Pomona College[8] and spread the word about what she had learned in the south. She spoke to the Republican Club and even got a professor to be involved in the movement. While in California, her and Guy organized a local protest in support of the Freedom Riders at the local Greyhound bus station. Later in life, Guy and Candie travel throughout the south, living in Johns Island, South Carolina, Blackey, Kentucky, rural North Carolina, and New York. The two eventually have their two kids, Evan and Heather. For a portion of the kids' early lives, Guy and Candie toured Europe as folk artists. Since 1966, Guy and Candie have compiled books and albums of their songs from the movement. They have four books published. Ain't You got a Right to the Tree of Life?[9], We Shall Overcome[10], Voices from the Mountains[11], Coal Mining Women[12], and Sing for Freedom [13]are just a few of the many collections they have created over of the years.

Personal life

She married Guy Carawan in 1961.[14][8] They have two children: Heather and Evan Carawan.[citation needed] Candie now lives in New Market Tennessee, nearby the Highlander Research and Education Center.[citation needed]

Bibliography

  • Carawan, Guy; Candie, Carawan (1963). We Shall Overcome!. New York: Oak Publications.
  • Carawan, Guy; Candie ,Carawan, eds (1989) [1st pub. :1966]. Ain't You Got a Right to the Tree of Life?: The People of Johns Island South Carolina―Their Faces, Their Worlds, and Their Songs. University of Georgia ISBN 0-8203-1132-4.(photographs by Robert Yellin)
  • Carawan, Guy; Candie, Carowan (1968). Freedom is a Constant Struggle. New York: Oak Publications.
  • Carawan, Guy; Candie, Carawan (1996) [1st pub. : 1968]. Voices from the Mountains: Life and Struggle in the Appalachian South. University of Georgia Press. ISBN 0-8203-1882-5.
  • Carawan, Guy; Candie, Carawan (2008) [1st pub. : 1990]. Sing for Freedom: The Story of the Civil Rights Movement through Its Songs. NewSouth Books. ISBN 978-1588381934. (incorporates We Shall Overcome! and Freedom is a Constant Struggle above)

References

  1. ^ a b University, © Stanford; Stanford; California 94305 (16 May 2016). "From Candie Anderson". The Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute. Retrieved 6 June 2019.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  2. ^ Carawan, Guy; Carawan, Candie (1995). "Singing and Shouting in Moving Star Hall". Black Music Research Journal. 15 (1): 17. doi:10.2307/779320. ISSN 0276-3605.
  3. ^ reports, From staff. "Event Sunday in Maryville includes civil rights activists". The Daily Times. Retrieved 6 June 2019.
  4. ^ a b http://www.geosociety.org/documents/gsa/memorials/v14/Anderson-HT.pdf
  5. ^ Aaron. "candie carawan - Field Trip South". unc.edu. Retrieved 6 June 2019.
  6. ^ a b S., A.; Seeger, Pete; Reiser, Bob (1990). "Everybody Says Freedom: A History of the Civil Rights Movement in Songs and Pictures, including Many Songs Collected by Guy and Candie Carawan". Yearbook for Traditional Music. 22: 160. doi:10.2307/767952. ISSN 0740-1558.
  7. ^ a b c The Telling Takes Me Home. Produced, Directed, and Edited by Heather Carawan, Performances by Candie Carawan and Guy Carawan, Heatcar Productions, 2005.
  8. ^ a b "Guy and Candie Carawan; Song leaders for social change". 2 September 1982. Retrieved 6 June 2019 – via Christian Science Monitor.
  9. ^ Twining, Mary Arnold (December 1973). "Field Notes on Reactions to "Ain't You Got a Right to the Tree of Life" by Guy and Candie Carawan". Journal of the Folklore Institute. 10 (3): 213. doi:10.2307/3814197. ISSN 0015-5934.
  10. ^ Bobetsky, Victor V. (2015). We Shall Overcome. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. ISBN 1442236027. OCLC 903483046.
  11. ^ Averill, Patricia; Carawan, Guy; Carawan, Candie (July 1976). "Voices from the Mountains". The Journal of American Folklore. 89 (353): 354. doi:10.2307/539453. ISSN 0021-8715.
  12. ^ Sone, Sachiko (2006), "Coal Mining Women Speak Out: Economic Change and Women Miners of Chikuho, Japan", Mining Women, Palgrave Macmillan US, pp. 153–170, ISBN 9780230621046, retrieved 2019-05-25
  13. ^ Carawan, Guy. Carawan, Candie. (1992). Sing for freedom : the story of the Civil Rights Movement through its songs. Sing Out Corp. ISBN 0962670448. OCLC 963288372.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  14. ^ "Guy & Candie Carawan". snccdigital.org. Retrieved 6 June 2019.
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