Transcripts

SPEAKER 1: Frequently on the plantations, the slaves were not allowed to communicate verbally with one another. They couldn't even pray privately. So they had secret messages. They had ways of communicating. Almost every song has more than one level of meaning. For example, there's a verse that's in a number of songs. It's in "Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen." And one of the verses is, "if you get there before I do, tell all my friends I'm coming up there too. Nobody knows the trouble I've seen."

Now, the slave master said, isn't that nice these darkies just singing and enjoying? Of course, he didn't know that they weren't referring necessarily to heaven. They were saying the freedom train's coming. Somebody is going to escape tonight, and someone's going to make their way through the forest. Green trees are bending, poor sinner stands a trembling.

When you see that branch shaking, know that someone's going to be passing through on their way to the Underground Railroad. They were talking to one another about political things. They were talking about escape. They were talking about everything they needed to communicate about through the songs. The songs were an expression of the whole life and the fabric of the spirit, if you will.

SPEAKER 2: Were the spirituals created in the fields and among the slaves themselves as they got together? Was that where they were written and created?

SPEAKER 1: Well, interestingly, if you look at a book of folk songs, you will find no composer listed. So no one knows exactly how folk songs were created. But it seems that the songs were created in the fields and also in the slave shanties. In the middle of the night, there were African men and women whose children were being sold and whose families were being broken up daily.

And I imagine before their eyes could close and sleep, they had to moan and groan a bit, the groaning of the spirit. And that moaning and groaning took on a musical form because the Africans expressed their prayers in musical terms. And maybe it wasn't until the next day when they were working in the fields that that intangible, ambiguous groaning became substance and form and words were created.

You think of a song like swing low, sweet chariot, coming forth to carry me home. I looked over yonder and what did I see? A band of angels coming after me, coming forth to carry me home. They were using their rich imaginations to get out of the horrible present system of slavery. What do you see, brother? I see a band of angels coming after me. Oh, yes, I believe they're coming sooner or later.

You see, they believed in justice. And they believed that somehow, good would prevail in the universe. And so they sang about the world beyond as well as about the present world. And they were always interchangeable because although they believed that they would have ultimate freedom when they would get to heaven-- I got shoes. You got shoes. All God's children got-- well, slaves weren't allowed to wear shoes.

When I get to heaven, I'm going to have a pair of shoes. I'm going to be a man, a woman full of dignity. But before I get to heaven, I may just slip over to the other side of the Mason-Dixon line and find out what freedom is like on this Earth. Oh, freedom, oh, freedom over me, before I'd be a slave, I'd rather be dead and buried in my grave and go home to my Lord and be free.

SPEAKER 2: When you perform, you not only sing these spirituals, but you act as well. You share characters with your audience. Could you share one of your characters with us?

SPEAKER 1: Well, one of the things that I talk about in the beginning of the show is where the music came from. Who were these Africans that created a music that would become a phenomenon in the 20th century? It would change the face of music in the 20th century. Who were the people? They were powerful people. They were farmers. They were fishermen. And they were teachers of their own culture and history. They were preachers. They were prophets, priests.

And they were kings. And I tell a story about an African king who lived in the land of Guinea. On the Coast of Western Africa around the early part of the 1800s. And what happened? This King not only loved his whole community, but he had three daughters. And it said that he loved these little girls more than life itself.

And some terrible thing took place one day that would forever change the king's life and the life of his community and the kingdom. People came, strangers. They came in the middle of the night. And they came and brought terror to the village. They began to steal the young men and young women of the village. And they stole the king's three daughters. They kidnapped them. And they kidnapped all of the young men and women of the village.

And they said that in the middle of the night that you could hear the king mourning and wailing. "I have lived in this land all of my life. This is my land. And these are my people. But they have come. Oh, God, they have come from far away. And they have taken my children. They have stolen my daughters.

Do you not see? Do you not see the tears of their mothers? Do you not hear the broken cry of their father's heart? Oh, God, my heart is broken in a thousand pieces. I don't know where they are. I don't know where they are or whether they shall ever come back to me. My heart is broken. And I refuse to be comforted."

The king never saw his children again, nor they their father. They and the children of the village were put upon a boat. They were headed for the new world. And they arrived in Charleston, South Carolina as property, as slaves. And they were sold on the auction block in Charleston.

And I know the story well because these little girls were my ancestors. One of them was great, great grandmother. And if they could have sung a song, I think they would have sung the lament that the slaves sang. Sometimes I feel like a motherless child.

SPEAKER 2: Did you ever meet your great grandparents, your great-- they were too old. You were not old enough to have met them, I guess.

SPEAKER 1: No. But I did spend a lot of time with my grandfathers. And my grandfather was born in 1870 just after slavery ended. And his father was born in 1830, born a slave, the son of the white slave master and the son of an African slave.

SPEAKER 2: And your performance, is it made up of stories that came to you from your grandfather and so forth, all the way down?

SPEAKER 1: There are some stories, yes. Like the story that I've told. And that actually came from Mary McLeod Bethune, who was my great aunt. And she knew her grandmother who told the stories about the passage on the boat and about their father before they came over. And so I share my own journey in a very personal way.

SPEAKER 2: Well, you've shared your journey widely. How do audiences react to your story?

SPEAKER 1: Well, I just last night returned from a 25-city tour in the Midwest and North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, all of these places. And I was in small towns with small town people. And hundreds of people every night would greet me after the concert. Some of them would have tears in their eyes. Some of them would hug me. Some would squeeze my hand.

The thing that I like is when someone 80 years old, comes to me and says something like this, "Oh, I have learned so much tonight. And I've experienced so much." I think what people-- everyone receives things on different levels according to where they are and what they need. And I think a lot of people receive some sense of inspiration as well as learning about who my people are.