We Shall Rise
On the wings of freedom we shall rise
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We Shall Rise
[instrumental intro]
[Verse 1 – Male lead, slow & low]
Oh, children keep marching on 'til every child is free
They locked our brother Martin up behind that iron door
But from a Birmingham jail he wrote with fire in his pen
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere, my friend”
[Chorus – Full choir, big & triumphant]
We shall rise, we shall rise
On the wings of freedom we shall rise
Though the dogs may bite and the hoses spray
We shall rise, come judgment day
Oh, we shall rise!
[Verse 2 – Female lead, building]
On Edmund Pettus Bridge the tear gas filled the sky
Bloody Sunday woke the nation when they saw our children cry
From Selma to Montgomery, Lord, Montgomery town
Fifty miles of praying feet tore segregation down
[Chorus – Even bigger]
We shall rise, we shall rise
With the ballot in our hand we shall rise
No bullet can kill what the Lord has blessed
We shall rise in our Sunday best
Yes, we shall rise!
[instrumental solo]
[Bridge – Call and response]
Call: Who said “I’ve been to the mountaintop”?
Choir: Martin did! Martin did!
Call: Who said “The arc is long but it bends”?
Choir: Justice will! Justice will!
Call: Who said “Black is beautiful”?
Choir: We all did! We all did!
Call: Then what we gonna do right now?
Choir: Rise up, children, rise!
[Verse 3 – Both leads together, intense]
Malcolm stood in Harlem fire, told us love ourselves
Stokely shouted “Black Power!” and rang a brand-new bell
From the Delta to Chicago, from Watts to Memphis town
Every chain that held us back is falling to the ground
[Final Chorus – Choir at full power, add claps & shouts]
We shall rise (we shall rise!)
Like our fathers and mothers we shall rise
In the courtrooms, in the schoolhouse, in the streets we organize
We still rise (we still rise!)
By the blood of the martyrs we shall rise
I got a feeling everything gonna be alright
We shall rise, rise, rise!
[Outro – Slowing, a cappella, then big finish]
Oh, children… keep marching on
Till every child is free
From the red clay of Georgia
To the streets of Galilee
We shall rise…
(Full choir, organ swell)
We shall rise forever!
Amen… Amen… Amen!
[instrumental outro]
We Shall Rise - Summary
Key Moments, Writings, and Speeches of the Civil Rights Movement (1954–1968)
The American Civil Rights Movement sought to end racial segregation and discrimination against Black Americans, primarily in the South, and secure legal equality. Below are some of the most pivotal moments, writings, and speeches that shaped the movement and public consciousness.
Major Moments
- 1954 – Brown v. Board of Education: Supreme Court rules segregated schools unconstitutional (“separate but equal” overturned).
- 1955–1956 – Montgomery Bus Boycott: Sparked by Rosa Parks’ arrest; led by Martin Luther King Jr.; ended segregated buses in Montgomery.
- 1957 – Little Rock Nine: Federal troops escort nine Black students into a previously all-white high school in Arkansas.
- 1960 – Greensboro & Nashville Sit-Ins: Nonviolent student protests desegregate lunch counters.
- 1961 – Freedom Rides: Integrated interstate buses; faced extreme white violence.
- 1963 – Birmingham Campaign: Children’s Crusade, fire hoses, police dogs on protesters; shocked the nation via TV.
- 1963 – March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (250,000+ people).
- 1964 – Freedom Summer: Voter registration drive in Mississippi; murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner.
- 1965 – Selma to Montgomery Marches: “Bloody Sunday” on Edmund Pettus Bridge leads directly to the Voting Rights Act.
- 1968 – Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis.
Landmark Writings & Speeches
- 1955 – Martin Luther King Jr.’s first major speech at Holt Street Baptist Church (Montgomery (“We are tired…”)
- 1963 – Martin Luther King Jr. – “Letter from Birmingham Jail” (defense of nonviolent direct action)
- 1963 – Martin Luther King Jr. – “I Have a Dream” speech at the March on Washington
- 1964 – Malcolm X – “The Ballot or the Bullet” (shift toward Black political power and self-defense)
- 1965 – Malcolm X – speech at Ford Auditorium, Detroit (after Mecca pilgrimage; more inclusive vision)
- 1965 – John Lewis – speech at the March on Washington (original version censored for being too radical)
- 1967 – Martin Luther King Jr. – “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence” (linking civil rights and anti-war movements)
- 1968 – Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture) popularizes “Black Power” (1966 onward)
Top 4 Overarching Themes
1. Nonviolent Direct Action & Moral Persuasion
The dominant strategy of the early-to-mid movement (King, SCLC, SNCC initially).
- “Letter from Birmingham Jail” and the entire philosophy of turning the oppressor’s violence into a moral spectacle that would shame America into change.
- Birmingham 1963 and Selma 1965 are textbook examples: images of police brutality forced federal intervention.
2. The Centrality of Voting Rights & Political Power
- From the 1957 Civil Rights Act (weak) to the 1965 Voting Rights Act, the movement increasingly focused on the franchise as the key to all other rights.
- Malcolm X’s “The Ballot or the Bullet” (1964) and SNCC’s shift after 1965 both emphasized that without control of the ballot, nonviolence alone was insufficient.
3. Black Dignity, Identity, and Self-Determination (Rise of Black Pride & Black Power
- Shift from integration-as-the-only-goal toward Black pride, Black institutions, and Black political/economic power.
- Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, the Black Panther Party, and the “Black is Beautiful” cultural movement (Afros, dashikis, soul music, etc.).
- Marked a generational and philosophical split with King’s strict nonviolence and integrationism.
4. Economic Justice as Inseparable from Civil Rights
- Often underemphasized in popular memory, but increasingly central after 1965.
- The original 1963 March on Washington was for “Jobs and Freedom.”
- King’s Poor People’s Campaign (1967–1968) and his opposition to the Vietnam War were rooted in the belief that racism, poverty, and militarism were linked.
- Memphis sanitation workers’ strike (“I Am a Man”) in 1968 where King was assassinated was explicitly about economic dignity.
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