“We Shall Not Be Moved” expresses resolve in the face of adversity; as social movements persevere in struggles to build a better nation.
Taskiana Four made the earliest known recording of “I Shall Not Be Moved” for the RCA Victor Talking Machine Company on July 21, 1926. Jubilee quartets, popular in the first half of the twentieth century, sang harmonized arrangements of spirituals as well as newer hymns. Taskiana Four’s recording featured the following verses:
King Jesus is my Captain… Glory, Hallelujah.
Pete Seeger and Johny Cash and others took to the song and popularized it.
https://youtu.be/GN-I2_vLKWI?si=GzAazuCWb4bTI19H
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fyt2Zr_Lsmk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBMdHBRpVDY
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ObYzx4fXXUs&pp=ygUZV2Ugc2hhbCBub3QgYmUgbW92ZWQgMTkyNg%3D%3D
https://youtu.be/M_Ld8JGv56E?si=TXABA71P9AFqugvW
Then as large corporations grew and paid little or no taxes and because workers are powerless against oppressive companies and policies, they printed songs that expressed their beliefs and demands. People sang them at rallies, marches, and on picket lines. Joe Hill, a Swedish immigrant to the United States, brought singing to new heights in the first decades of the twentieth century. He composed dozens of songs for Industrial Workers that sought to unite the working class in all industries. Hill explained the power of singing in movements:
A song is learned by heart and repeated over and over, and I maintain that if a person can put a few cold common sense facts in a song, and dress them up in a cloak of humor to take the dryness off of them he will succeed in reaching a great number of workers who are too indifferent to read a pamphlet or an editorial on economics.
The first documented appearance of "I Shall Not Be Moved" in the context of the labor movement is from 1931, when striking coal miners in Kanawha County, West Virginia, sang it as "We Shall Not Be Moved." While scholars contend that the use of the word "I" in African American spirituals often referred to the collective "we," secular versions of the song, as sung in social movements, transitioned to "We Shall Not Be Moved."
Activist Helen Norton Starr traveled from Brookwood Labor College in Katonah, New York, to Kanawha County to support the striking miners. She recalled the first time she heard "We Shall Not Be Moved":
The only place that could be secured for the meeting in that particular valley was the front of a dilapidated Negro schoolhouse that stood in a depression among the hill-shills so green and tree-covered that only a sharp eye could see the scars of the coal tipples. On the steps of the schoolhouse stood a mixed group of white and Negro miners and their wives, singing out their story and their hopes. The summer sun blazed down on them and on the miners' families seated on the slope in front. On the road above, a group of state "police" and mine guards watched, their guns conspicuously displayed. That strike was lost and the Kanawha Valley was not unionized until 1933, but "We Shall Not Be Moved" was sung all over the country and adapted to local conditions.
"We Shall Not Be Moved" proved to be an ideal song and one of the most commonly sung in the labor movement. Both Black and White workers, especially in the South, were already familiar with it, having sung "I Shall Not Be Moved" in church. It is memorable and easy for groups to sing without printed words. The call-and-response lyric structure enables a song leader, or anyone in the group, to sing out the first line of a verse and have everyone join in for the rest of the stanza. Singer, songwriter, and activist Lee Hays, known for his work in the Almanac Singers and the Weavers, referred to such songs as "zipper" songs because "you have to zip in only a word or two to make an entirely new verse."
Aided by the work of educational institutions associated with the labor movement, "We Shall Not Be Moved" quickly spread to struggles around the country. Labor colleges, including Brookwood, Commonwealth College in Mena, Arkansas, and Highlander Folk School in Monteagle, Tennessee, provided education for labor activists and sent organizers to help with local struggles. These colleges used theater and music as tools for organization. Traveling actor and musician troops demonstrated effective resistance tactics through dramatization and singing. They published songbooks and sheets, many of which included "We Shall Not Be Moved."