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Her songs spoke to the souls of a people trapped beneath the oppressive weight of Jim Crow. Mahalia sang “the gospel” as they would call it, but her music was deeper than any genre alone. If the growth of Black American music could be broken down into a crude timeline, it would follow as this: From the slave songs grew gospel, ragtime, and blues, and from there grew rock ’n’ roll, soul, funk, R&B, techno, and rap-with jazz intertwined throughout. Mahalia’s music was indebted to the slave songs. It was worn and scratched, and looked to have been played more times than I can imagine. During my stay, I found an old Mahalia Jackson record covered in dust, under a bookshelf in the living room. He lives in the same townhouse that his mother and father bought after moving north during the Great Migration, and there are still bits and pieces of their previous lives tucked in cabinets and drawers throughout the house. They sang to speak.Ī few months ago I visited my parents and stayed at my father’s home. When slaves sang, they did not do so for entertainment. One of the most famous of these songs went:Ī long way from home, a long way from home Their songs usually took on the subject of deliverance, and many verses were intensely biblical. They would sing by themselves and in groups. They would sing while they tilled muddy fields and harvested crops. There was no singing in formal settings, unless ordered, and there was no singing in the presence of whites who did not condone it. They did not sing constantly there were moments in bondage when singing was not only inappropriate but a threat to one’s life. If they made it to America, slaves would sing while they worked. Because how else could you express those feelings? So what did they do? They sang to one another. No idea what’s happening, no family everything stripped from them. Then I think about those mothers and fathers and friends and children on boats like Equiano’s, locked up on top of one another in the dark. I think about the pounding panic I’d feel when I realized I couldn’t find her, and the fear that would creep into my mind with every second we were apart.
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When I read it aloud I think about the times in my childhood when I would lose sight of my mother in a crowd. I now wished for the last friend, Death, to relieve me.Įvery Juneteenth I try to remember his testimony. I was soon put down under the decks, and there I received such a salutation in my nostrils as I had never experienced in my life so that with the loathsomeness of the stench, and crying together, I became so sick and low that I was not able to eat, nor had I the least desire to taste any thing. In his autobiography, the ex-slave turned writer Olaudah Equiano described his time in the belly of a slave vessel: The cargo bays where they were jailed were breeding grounds for disease and death. Slaves on any given boat spoke many different languages, which made communicating with the person next to them difficult, if not impossible. A vessel could hold as many as 400 captive bodies, packed like spoons on top of one another. It does not store any personal data.During the Middle Passage, Africans would sing to each other from inside slave freighters. The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance". This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional". The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics". These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly.