Candie Carawan

Carawan was born to Howard and Lois Anderson in Los Angeles, California, in 1939.{{cite web | url=https://www.geosociety.org/documents/gsa/memorials/v14/Anderson-HT.pdf | title=Memorial to Howard T. Anderson 1909–1981 | first=Steven T. | last=Anderson | date=October 1983 | work=Geological Society of America | access-date=June 7, 2019 }}{{cite web|url=https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/candie-anderson|title=King Papers – From Candie Anderson | work=The Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute | publisher=Stanford University | date=May 16, 2016 | access-date=June 6, 2019}} Her father was a petroleum and environmental geologist.

She attended Pomona College and was interested in the civil rights movement. In her junior year, she became an exchange student to Fisk University, a historically black college in Nashville.{{cite web|url=https://blogs.lib.unc.edu/sfc/index.php/tag/candie-carawan/|title=In tribute to Guy Carawan | first=Aaron | last=Smithers | date=March 8, 2015 | work=Field Trip South – Southern Folklife Collection | publisher=University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill | access-date=June 6, 2019}} She said, "I learned about southern black people, racism, nonviolence, police, jail, southern courts; I met brilliant people like James Lawson"{{Cite journal|last=S.|first=A.|last2=Seeger|first2=Pete|last3=Reiser|first3=Bob|date=1990|title=Everybody Says Freedom: A History of the Civil Rights Movement in Songs and Pictures, including Many Songs Collected by Guy and Candie Carawan|journal=Yearbook for Traditional Music|volume=22|pages=160|doi=10.2307/767952|issn=0740-1558|jstor=767952}} She participated in the black students' demonstrations to integrate the schools there. Carawan said "I was really lucky – my mother and father were out of the country. So I didn't have to deal with my parents."

In March 1960, she attended her first meeting at the Highlander Research and Education Center in New Market, Tennessee to help teach workshops, where she met Guy Carawan. She becomes a founding member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)The Telling Takes Me Home. Produced, Directed, and Edited by Heather Carawan, Performances by Candie Carawan and Guy Carawan, Heatcar Productions, 2005.

At one point during her career in activism, after two weeks of sit-ins she was arrested and put into jail. While in jail, the guards separated the white women from the black women. "The only connection we had with the others was the music". However, with these sit-ins, she helped contribute to the abolishing of lunch-counter segregation in Nashville. Candie notes how she was "naive" saying "I was sure we would have just a few sit-ins, point out to the nation that there was something wrong, and the world would change." In 1966, the SNCC voted to remove whites from their membership.{{cite web|title=Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) Actions 1960-1970|url=http://depts.washington.edu/moves/SNCC_map-events.shtml|website=Mapping American Social Movements}}Clayborne Carson, In Struggle, SNCC and the Black Awakening of the 1960s, Harvard University Press, 1981. Candie says SNCC should get more credit for reducing the fear in Mississippi and prompting many people to join the movement.{{citation needed|date=June 2019}}

Carawan moved back to California to finish her senior year in Pomona College{{cite news|url=https://www.csmonitor.com/1982/0902/090251.html|title=Guy and Candie Carawan; Song leaders for social change|date=September 2, 1982|first=Maggie | last=Lewis | access-date=June 6, 2019|newspaper=The Christian Science Monitor}} and spread the word about what she had learned in the south. She spoke to the Republican Club and even got a professor to be involved in the movement. While in California, she and Guy organized a local protest in support of the Freedom Riders at the local Greyhound bus station. Later in life, Guy and Candie travelled throughout the south, living in Johns Island, South Carolina, Blackey, Kentucky, rural North Carolina, and New York. The two eventually had two children, Evan and Heather. For a portion of the kids' early lives, Guy and Candie toured Europe as folk artists. Since 1966, Guy and Candie have compiled books and albums of their songs from the movement. They have four books published. Ain't You got a Right to the Tree of Life?{{Cite journal|last=Twining|first=Mary Arnold|date=December 1973|title=Field Notes on Reactions to "Ain't You Got a Right to the Tree of Life" by Guy and Candie Carawan|journal=Journal of the Folklore Institute|volume=10|issue=3|pages=213–216|doi=10.2307/3814197|issn=0015-5934|jstor=3814197}}, We Shall Overcome{{Cite book|title=We Shall Overcome.|last=Bobetsky, Victor V.|date=2015|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield Publishers|isbn=978-1442236028|oclc=903483046}}, Voices from the Mountains{{Cite journal|last=Averill|first=Patricia|last2=Carawan|first2=Guy|last3=Carawan|first3=Candie|date=July 1976|title=Voices from the Mountains|journal=The Journal of American Folklore|volume=89|issue=353|pages=354|doi=10.2307/539453|issn=0021-8715|jstor=539453}}, Coal Mining Women{{Citation|last=Sone|first=Sachiko|chapter=Coal Mining Women Speak Out: Economic Change and Women Miners of Chikuho, Japan|date=2006|pages=153–170|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan US|isbn=9780230621046|doi=10.1007/978-1-349-73399-6_9|title=Mining Women}}, and Sing for Freedom {{Cite book|title=Sing for freedom : the story of the Civil Rights Movement through its songs|last=Carawan, Guy. Carawan, Candie.|date=1992|publisher=Sing Out Corp|isbn=0962670448|oclc=963288372}} are just a few of the many collections they have created over of the years.

She married Guy Carawan in 1961.{{cite web|url=https://snccdigital.org/people/guy-candie-carawan/|title=Guy & Candie Carawan|website=SNCC Digital Gateway |access-date=June 6, 2019}} They have two children: Heather and Evan Carawan. She lives in New Market, Tennessee, where she continues to work with the Highlander Research and Education Center.{{cite web|url=https://intersections.ilamembers.org/member-benefit-access/interface/grassroots-leadership/susan-erenrich-june-2018|title=Zilphia Horton: The Singing Heart of the Highlander Folk School | work=International Leadership Association Intersections | date=June 2018 | author-first1=Susan | author-last1=Erenrich | author-first2=Candie | author-last2=Carawan | access-date=June 6, 2019}}

• {{cite book |last1=Carawan |first1=Guy |author-link=Guy Carawan |first2=Candie |last2=Carawan |author-link2=Candie Carawan |date=1963 |title= We Shall Overcome! |publisher=Oak Publications |location=New York }}
• {{cite book |editor-last1=Carawan |editor-first1=Guy |editor-first2=Candie |editor-last2=Carawan|editor-link2=Candie Carawan |date=1989 |orig-year=1st pub. : 1966 |title=Ain't You Got a Right to the Tree of Life?: The People of Johns Island South Carolina―Their Faces, Their Words, and Their Songs |publisher=University of Georgia |isbn=0-8203-1132-4}} (photographs by Robert Yellin)
• {{cite book |last1=Carawan |first1=Guy |first2=Candie |last2=Carawan |author-link2=Candie Carawan |date=1968 |title=Freedom is a Constant Struggle |publisher=Oak Publications |location=New York }}
• {{cite book |last1=Carawan |first1=Guy |first2=Candie |last2=Carawan |author-link2=Candie Carawan |date=1996 |orig-year=1st pub. : 1968 |title= Voices from the Mountains: Life and Struggle in the Appalachian South |publisher=University of Georgia Press |isbn=0-8203-1882-5}}
• {{cite book |last1=Carawan |first1=Guy |author-link=Guy Carawan |first2=Candie |last2=Carawan |author-link2=Candie Carawan |date=2008 |orig-year=1st pub. : 1990 |title= Sing for Freedom: The Story of the Civil Rights Movement through Its Songs |publisher=NewSouth Books |isbn= 978-1588381934}} (incorporates We Shall Overcome! and Freedom is a Constant Struggle above)

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Category:1939 births

Category:Living people

Category:Pomona College alumni

Category:People from New Market, Tennessee

Category:Activists for African-American civil rights