Singing has great advantages over more common protest techniques, when using a versed, long, low, slow song like this (as opposed to the “cute”, cheap, grating, responsive chants):

it carries better
it lasts longer
it demonstrates unity–visual and auditory
it demonstrates impassioned restraint
it references earlier struggles, persuasive for those on the fence, dissuasive for those opposed

WSO is a great choice. Any song should be pre-1970, not merely for reference to CR protests, but because anything after then is going to have shallow texts, high vocal range* and will simply not be as well known.

* Any song written to be performed by a miked singer must NEVER be sung in a group, because you lose half your crowd (ever hear of altos and basses?) and they were not intended for harmony. In one of the great paradoxes, borne out in contemporary church services every Sunday, songs sung “in unison” produce the least sense of actual unity, while songs sung in parts manifest a marvellously rich unity of diverse yet interpendent individuals in community.

But, I think now, under the circumstances, we would consider trying to get the “mobs” at the public town hall meetings to end the meetings by locking arms and singing the “We shall overcome” verse over and over and over, swaying back and forth, as the civil rights activists did in the 1960s (many of whom were, my the way, Republicans).

Thank you.

ColdWarrior

We shall overcome.