When I Hear Odetta Sing
Reflections on Song from the Deepest Regions of the 'American' (USA) Soul

"Wade in the water; wade in the water, children;
God's gonna trouble the water."

Abstract

Reflections on the power, promise, and problematics of song from the victims of slavery and segregation in Southern portions of the United States. We end with brief intimations of related issues associated with jazz, Appalachian folk music, and white southern spirituals.

I. All the pretty little horses.
II. I've been in the storm a long, long time.
III. Many thousands gone.
IV. They say that Freedom is a constant struggle.

All the Pretty Little Horses

A children's lullaby sung by the black american folksinger Odetta includes the following words:

"Blacks and bays, browns and grays,
all the pretty little horses.

Down in the meadow lies my pretty little baby.
Fleas and butterflies picking on his eyes.
Oh! My pretty little baby.

Blacks and bays, browns and grays,
all the pretty little horses…"

When I hear this song, it is pretty clear to me that the nurse attending the little white baby in the rocker or in her arms loves and cares for both the white child and her own, probably, much darker child. And — at least when she is singing — hopes for both of them even as she knows that they are both entangled in a web which contains deeper sorrows than most of us can ever say.

Iv'e Been in the Storm a Long, Long Time

One nite in 1963 or thereabouts, I attended an all nite vigil on behalf of a white minister who had been crushed by a bulldozer while protesting the construction of segregated housing in the northern city of Cleveland, Ohio. Memorable to me were some words by a cleric from Chicago, David Matthews, who stated that "Men died when white men won their freedom; Men will die as black men win their freedom."  However, more deeply anchored in my mind and soul was the singing of Bernice Reagon. Except for the introductory phrase of the song I don't remember any other words. It was a large, mildly lit auditorium (perhaps a church?) and a young woman was singing and as she sang I felt that the full weight of three centuries of slavery and segregational peonage were held upon her shoulders while simultaneously weighing upon all of us in that room and, sometimes unbeknownst, upon the entire nation.

Many Thousands Gone

"No more auction block for me. No more, no more…
No more driver's lash for me. No more, no more…

Many thousands gone. [Chorus]

"Many Thousands Gone" is ostensibly about the end of chattel slavery in the United States of America — it has been sung by Odetta, Bernice Reagon, and many others. It is the title of an essay by James Baldwin. In Baldwin's heart and in the minds of most of those who sing and hear the song, the song is not only about U.S.A. slavery, it is also about the strong shadows of slavery which have persisted in this country up until the present moment. I would like to add two brief commentaries. One paragraph concerns the roots of slavery (including its continuation into the British Colonies during the 17th Century). The second paragraph describes the particular evils associated with the empowered version of chattel slavery within the United States and its accompanying ideological/theological enshrinement within many ostensibly "Christian" congregations.

Slavery itself has been a part of human history which appears to have been present whenever and wherever humans began to record events in written or engraved words and characters on wood, stone, leather, parchment or paper. The instances are quite diverse — our words slavery, servant, servitude, and serf are all linguistically rooted in the Latin word 'servus.' The Pharaohs had slaves and so, apparently, did Abraham and other Jewish patriarchs. The English derive their name from very fair-skinned German slaves ["Angles"] brought to Rome. The 'angel-like' colored Angles/Anglas were much stranger looking than the tan, brown, and black slaves which had been brought from Arabia or Africa. It is quite difficult to tease out many important details of these diverse embodiments of slavery (for example, a historian certainly cannot, as a matter of course, always differentiate between promulgated laws and norms and actual practice). However, it is still quite clear that in early colonial America of the 17th Century some slaves could 'earn' their freedom. This practice of 'manumission' also appears to have been much more common in some Roman epochs than it was in the subsequent pre-independence American colonies and the pre-Civil War United States. And, it must be quite clearly understood — and, if possible, be neither overemphasized or underemphasized — that many slaves who came to the Americas had been sold by Africans to other Africans one or more times before they were herded into slave ships whose "Middle Passage" [collectively considered] constitute one of the greatest crimes of the past 5 centuries of western European, ostensibly 'Christian' 'civilization.'

Further anticipating the argument I wish to make below, I think it is important to fold another matter of interest into our understanding of slavery during the early post-reformation era. Within the Roman Catholic world — those portions of the world whose 'faith' was supposedly promulgated and protected by the bishop of Rome — it was frequently demanded by law that even slaves had some rights. In particular, spouses were not to be sold separately and very young children were not to be separated from their mothers. How consistently such requirements were practices is not a matter that this author is competent to judge. However, it is still important that even in the post-Civil War United States, the issue of slavery was separated from the issue of race in Roman Catholic New Orleans to the extent that two different slaveholders of African origin individually owned more than 60 slaves.

As the European settlers established their footholds and enclaves into the "New World", they brought their customs as well. Our U.S. history books usually tell us that there were 'indentured' servants who came to the new colonies and — within a few years  — redeemed their financial freedom and become part of the general 'free' populations. Beginning in 1619, slaves were introduced as property and — in spite of a few exceptions due to generous masters or successful escapes  — remained so along with their progeny for the next two and a half centuries. This reconstruction, however, is filled with a number of half truths. To begin with, in the European Colonies of the 16th and early 17th Century, the Lord of the Manor or Plantation Owner was normally both the chief executive and the judge of the manor or plantation — and he meted out punishments, fines, whipping, and brandings from which there were normally no legal or effective redress. He also had sexual 'privileges '  — the Lord of some French manors had the first opportunity for intercourse for young serf women ('Droit du seigneur"). Hangings and executions, perhaps, might not be administered so freely. But whether they were termed servants or slaves, those on plantations and, to a lesser extent, those bound to other forms of 'service' were bound to their masters and mistresses. Furthermore, there were also a goodly number of interactions between the slaves and servants including marriages as well as the usually medley of friendships, affairs, and betrayals which always occur among all classes and castes of any human society. Finally, it seems abundantly clear that a significant fraction of slaves were able to 'earn' their freedom in ways that eventually became almost impossible once southern U.S. slavery rigidified into the ante-bellum South of the 1800's. The history books are also strangely silent about the various small communities of former slaves, servants, owners and other vagabonds that formed and sometimes still exist in hamlets in mountainous western Virginia/West Virginia.

"Long summer days make a white man crazy; Long summer days;
Long summer days make a slave run away, Sir; Long summer days."

Into this late medieval medley of masters and mistresses, freemen, maids, servants and slaves, several events occurred which transformed the fabric of the Southern United States. One, as servants and slaves disappeared and escaped into neighboring colonies and Indian lands, southern plantation owners their economic allies realized that it was much easier to find an absent 'slave' of African origin than an absent 'bound servant' of European origin. They then began to reinterpret the physical features of the enslaved or runaway Africans as features of inferior 'beings' of a natural inferior order. Greed and guilt compounded natural interest as children from natural attraction, affairs of various sorts, and ubiquitous rape produced new American-born Afro-European progeny who were sold by fathers, vengeful wives, and relatives. This morally impossible state of affairs was eventually legally justified and theologically rationalized by what this author believes to be the beginning of a true original sin into the history of what was eventually to become the United State. It was written and preached that sexual congress between the 'black race' and 'white race' was immoral. A simple lie — the colors of humans vary into a near continuum that varies from fair Scandinavian and Northern European tints thru mild and modern tints of tan and browns of Southern Europe, Arabia and North Africa to the dark ("Black") Nubians and Ethiopians, and reverts back again to the brown hues of the Kalahari Bushmen of South Africa and its neighborhoods. I forgo here the additional tinctual variations of the Chinese, Indian Subcontinent, Pacific Islanders, Australian, native Americans etc. This lie — not really very different from those who today deny climate change —  was compounded by a protestant 'innovation'. In clear contradiction to Anglo-Saxon common law which identified children by their paternity, these legal and theological apologists of slavery introduced one of the purist instances of moral manure produced by humankind into the notion that any identifiable African Ancestry marked one as 'colored' — effectively 'black' — with the inherent dignity of a cow or a stallion (i.e., chattel).  [In actual fact, various states introduced various notions of what constituted legal 'negritude' (1/16; 1/32 or less of African 'blood' as the notion is — like any lie — unworkable at its root).]

This intolerable doctrine of legitimate human chattel — enforced by law and custom — eventually led to a great Civil War because it is in conflict with the best of both our religious and political traditions (The Hebrew prophet Amos queried, "Are you ['Israelites'] not like the Ethiopians to me, The Lord?"). And also, because we humans are never able — as far as I can see — to actually exterminate most genuine ills and evils of our epochs — its shadows are still found today in such problems as the incredibly difficult problem of convincing a unanimous jury of U.S. citizens that a human being who wears a badge can be guilty of murder of an unarmed Afroamerican who is absolutely innocent of any criminal behavior. So, I conclude by saying that the words "Many thousands gone" remind most of us that institutions such as slavery — especially U.S. chattel slavery — have not only claimed millions of lives, but their residues still claim 'thousands' today.

Of course, each of us who study and think about these events must process it as the person we are. In the United States, others may think of the Holocaust or of the European wrenching of the land from the Native American people. And, I also note that the history of history sometimes turns very quickly and sometimes very slowly. I would imagine that all of us have slave ancestors. There are pockets of slavery even as I write and even as you read. These three songs invite and even compel us to see slavery as part of our history. As long as a single person is a slave, none of us is truly free. There is and, apparently, has never been in any nearly complete sense a free people, a free culture, a free nation, or a free world. To be sure, we do see instances of movements for and toward freedom. We also see individuals and groups (usually small) who are more clearly headed towards freedom than the great majority of us. And, finally, it is true that groups, cultures, nations, and movements embody important constituents of freedom or aspirational elements of freedom‚ even if imperfectly. But freedom is not and never has been a possession of any individual, group, culture, or nation. It does not belong to you, brothers and/or sisters.  It does not belong to you — any more than it belongs or ever belonged to me or anyone that I have ever known and loved.

They Say that Freedom is a Constant Struggle.

"They say that Freedom is a constant struggle; (Repeated 3 times)
Oh Lord, we must be free, we must be free, we must be free. (Chorus)

They say that Freedom is a constant jailing; (Repeated 3 times; Followed by Chorus)

They say that Freedom is a constant moaning; (Repeated 3 times; Followed by Chorus)

They say that Freedom is a constant singing; (Repeated 3 times; Followed by Chorus)
…
Final Verse:
"They say that Freedom is a constant struggle; (Repeated 3 times)
Oh Lord, we must be free, we must be free, we must be free…"


I first heard this song in early August or so, 1964 in a small Negro church in Gulfport, Mississippi at a gathering that was part of the Mississippi Summer of 1964. During those weeks I was mostly working with some young black children in nearby Biloxi. This was the year that a young black man from Mississippi (James Chaney) and two young white men from New York (Michael Schwerner, Andy Goodman) had been — just before midnite — had been turned over to a white mob just outside Philadelphia, Mississippi and murdered shortly thereafter. The murder of these three young men — punctuated as it were by the murder of the two young white men — brought more national attention to the entrenched segregation of the white South than many, many other previous murders including the murders of Emmet Till (1955), Medgar Evers (1963), and 5 politically active black men in SW Mississippi in early 1964 alone. Later, probably in 1965, I talked with a young white woman who had been another 'outsider' working with the news outreach component of the Mississippi Summer Project. She had — during the summer — had conversations and made inquiries related to a total of 10 corpses that had appeared during those times (several unidentified and most — if not all — negro ("black') males.

Speaking for myself alone:
For most of the next 7 years, I worked mostly in what were then known as "Negro" communities in New Orleans, Washington, Albany (GA), and Atlanta — at first as part of educational efforts allied with political efforts of what we called simply "The Movement" and, then, as the political movements within the Afroamerican movement became more consciously "black" I gradually gravitated to more explicitly educational activities as a teacher of very young children. I think that education — like religion — always has a political component at some level. Even if we accept — as I tend to do — that Jesus's kingdom was 'not of this world', I think it is clear because his message had political implications which caused the Roman occupiers and their religious allies to feel sufficiently threatened to execute Jesus of Nazareth.

In 1971 I went to Arizona and in 1974 I undertook a 4 year journey to Polynesia (2 years each in Hawaii and American Samoa). For me it seemed best to become a science teacher and, especially, during my Polynesian years, it seemed that it was healthier for me to get out of the concentrated interest in 'black-and-white' issues which had been such a big part of my young adulthood. Even if I was on the 'right side' of such ethnic-political struggles, it was better for me to interact with less polarizing communities and/or with less polarizing components of my political responsibilities. Still, with a front seat in South Florida of the Republican raw political grab of the White House in 2000, the trivializing of liberty in the plutocratic US Supreme Court's McConnell v. FEC (2010) decision, and the growing intensity of largely Republican efforts to shrink the electorate after the rise of the brass-knuckled and self-described "Tea Party" in 2012 I found myself involved in increasing political activity by underrepresented portions of the U.S. electorate. And, in December 2012 at the local Democratic party's monthly meeting after the reelection of Barack Obama, I felt moved to sing a verse of "They say that Freedom is a constant struggle."

As 2018 begins, a fierce [multi-faceted] worldwide struggle has begun in earnest over whether recent marvelous genetic discoveries and undreamed of informational-distributing technologies shall become the playthings of the entrenched rich-and-powerful or the common heritage of all humankind. In a much earlier epoch, Jesus of Nazareth is reported to have said that "I bring not peace, but a sword!" — and, it seems quite clear, he was not talking about holy wars carried out with metal swords and fire-containing catapults. And, while I am myself now entering the last shadows of my days on this planet and, with great difficulty tending mostly to local and personal affairs of the heart-and-family, it still strikes me as needful that the proper response for me to the first three songs is to publicly affirm that Freedom is indeed a constant struggle and that, indeed we shall someday — thank God, Almighty — be free at last!  Or, if it pleases you, Thank Allah or Truth or … or whatever Face of God or Truth or Meaning strikes you as true in your deepest core.

Other Titles: Amazing Grace, Goldmine in the Sky, Gospel Ship…
The songs which give inspiration to each of us are as varied as our own individual and communal lives… The strengths of these songs resides in their power to evoke currents within our conscious and unconscious which are not always accessible to words alone.

Other Topics: Responsibilities of the Powerful-&-Rich v. Responsibilities of the poor, the imprisoned, and the downtrodden…
This rather short communication does not directly address a number of very thorny problems related especially to race, justice, and power. I recently posted a few thoughts about James Baldwin ["James Baldwin was not just a Negro writer."]. Baldwin was very helpful to me during my years as a young man in the black community. And, as I work through some problematics of such issues, I hope to address them as well — including other issues raised by more recent authors.