Guy Carawan

Who is Guy Carawan?

Guy Carawan is an American folk musician and musicologist. He serves as music director and song leader for the Highlander Research and Education Center in New Market, Tennessee.

Carawan is famous for introducing the protest song "We Shall Overcome" to the American Civil Rights Movement, by teaching it to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in 1960. A union organizing song based on a black spiritual, it had been a favorite of Zilphia Horton wife of the founder of the Highlander Folk School. Carawan reintroduced it at the school when he became its new music director in 1959. The song is copyrighted in the name of Horton, Frank Hamilton, Carawan and Pete Seeger.

Carawan sings and plays banjo, guitar, and hammered dulcimer. He frequently performs and records with his wife, singer Candie Carawan. Occasionally he is accompanied by their son Evan Carawan, who plays mandolin and hammered dulcimer. Carawan and his wife live in New Market, near the Highlander Center.