I'm Gonna Sit At The Welcome Table (civil rights song)

Edited by Azizi Powell

Latest revision - January 19, 2024

This post provides lyrics and videos of the civil rights song "I'm Gonna Sit At The Welcome Table". Information about this song's composition and its meaning are also provided in this post.

The content of this post is presented for cultural and aesthetic purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

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LYRICS - I'M GONNA SIT AT THE WELCOME TABLE (Gospel version)

1. I'm gonna sit at the welcome table
I'm gonna sit at the welcome table - one of these days
I'm gonna sit at the welcome table
Sit at the welcome table one of these days
One of these days

2. I'm gonna feast on milk and honey
I'm gonna feast on milk and honey- one of these days
I'm gonna feast on milk and honey
Gonna feast on milk and honey
(One of these days)

[Follow the same pattern that is given above for other verses such as]

3. I'm gonna tell God how you treat me

4. All God's children gonna sit together
-snip-
This is a partial transcription from https://lyricstranslate.com/en/courtney-patton-welcome-table-lyrics.html

Gospel songs (and civil rights songs) don't have any fixed order of verses. These verses and other similar verses can be sung in any order and/or can be repeated.

The words "One of these days" is sometimes given in parenthesis which means that before the song is sung, the director or the group can decide whether to sing those words or not.  

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LYRICS: I'M GONNA SIT AT THE WELCOME TABLE
(civil rights version)

I'm gonna sit at the welcome table,*
I'm gonna sit at the welcome table one of these days, Hallelujah!
I'm gonna sit at the welcome table,
I'm gonna sit at the welcome table one of these days.

I'm gonna walk the streets of glory,
I'm gonna walk the streets of glory one of these days,
Hallelujah!
I'm gonna walk the streets of glory,
I'm gonna walk the streets of glory one of these days.

I'm gonna get my civil rights,
I'm gonna get my civil rights one of these days, Hallelujah!
I'm gonna get my civil rights,
I'm gonna get my civil rights one of these days.

I'm gonna sit at the Woolworth counter,**
I'm gonna sit at the Woolworth counter one of these days, Hallelujah!
I'm gonna sit at the Woolworth counter,
I'm gonna sit at the Woolworth counter one of these days.
-snip-
This song is an adaptation of the African American Spiritual/Gospel with the same title.
*In the Spiritual "The Welcome Table" refers to being in Heaven. 

In civil rights songs, "welcome table" alludes to the sit-in protests at lunch counters in public facilities where Black people were refused service.
**
Here's information about "Woolworth from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._W._Woolworth_Company
"The F. W. Woolworth Company (often referred to as Woolworth's or simply Woolworth) was a retail company and one of the pioneers of the five-and-dime store. It was among the most successful American and international five-and-dime businesses, setting trends and creating the modern retail model that stores follow worldwide today.

[..]

For many years the company did a strictly "five-and-ten cent" business, but in the spring of 1932 it added a 20-cent line of merchandise. On November 13, 1935, the company's directors decided to discontinue selling-price limits altogether.^[11]

The stores eventually incorporated lunch counters after the success of the counters in the first store in the UK in Liverpool that served as general gathering places, a precursor to the modern shopping mall food court. A Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina became the setting for the 1960 Greensboro sit-ins during the Civil Rights Movement."...
-snip-
According to this Wikipedia article, Woolworth stores began in 1912 and ended in 1997.

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THIS SONG'S SOURCE AND ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ABOUT THIS SONG

According to http://www.ed.uiuc.edu/courses/ci407ss/welcometable.html, this song was part of a play written by the students of the McComb, Mississippi, Freedom School in 1964.

Click http://www.ed.uiuc.edu/courses/ci407ss/freedomschools.html for information about freedom schools. Two other sources for information about this song are http://www.smithsonianglobalsound.org/trackdetail.aspx?itemid=17322 "The Nashville Sit-in Story: Songs and Scenes of Nashville Lunch Counter Desegregation (by the Sit-In Participants)" and http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=93754&messages=21 "Origins: Gospel song 'The Welcome Table'"

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 FEATURED VIDEOS

The Welcome Table

Mobilecheese, Uploaded on Feb 7, 2010

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"Welcome Table" from the Old Town School Songbook, Vol 4

Uploaded by oldtownschool on Oct 18, 2007

Another sneak look & listen to one of the songs on the Old Town School of Folk Music Songbook, Volume 4 CD. It's Old Town School instructors Bill Brickey and Sue Demel (also of the famous Sons of the Never Wrong) going for a jazz/gospel version of "The Welcome Table". And they knock it out of the park. The version on the CD is slightly different from what you hear here...good chance to play "Spot The Audio Edit". - Bob Medich

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