"We Shall Overcome" became the preeminent anthem of the civil rights movement during the early 1960s. Adapted from the African American spiritual "I’ll Overcome Someday" (as well as its immediate predecessor "We Will Overcome") by Pete Seeger, Zilphia Horton, and participants at the Highlander Folk School, the singing of "We Shall Overcome" became an essential component of the mass meetings, marches, and demonstrations of the Civil Rights Era. A familiar ritual soon developed around the song in which participants at such events would cross their arms in front of themselves, join hands with the people next to them, and sway to the rhythm of the music. Organizers of the 1963 March on Washington confirmed the song’s centrality by designating it as the theme song of that historic march. The song became so identified with the movement for racial justice that Lyndon Johnson incorporated its lyrics into his speech on voting rights made before Congress in the aftermath of the Kennedy assassination, saying: "It is wrong—deadly wrong—to deny any of your fellow Americans the right to vote . . . We have already waited 100 years and more, and the time for waiting is gone . . . We Shall Overcome! "

The melody heard in the first and last lines of this song has been traced back to the spiritual, "No More Auction Block for Me," which was sung by slaves in the 1800s. This song was used previously for social change during the 1945 strike by the Negro Food and Tobacco Union workers in Charleston, SC.