Ballad of the Seven Songs

A Poem for Emancipation Day

Seven letters,
Seven songs.
The seven letters
F-R-E-E-D-O-M
Spell Freedom.
The seven songs
Capture segments of its history
In terins of black America.

Seven songs,
Seven names:
Cudjoe
Sojourner Truth
Harriet Tubman
Frederick Douglass
Booker T. Washington
Dr. Carver
Jackie
Seven men and women
From unrecorded slavery to recorded free:

For Emancipation Day
Seven songs,
Seven men,
Seven letters
That spell Freedom.

It was an easy name to give a slave
So they called him Cudjoe.
There were four million Cudjoes
Before Emancipation came.

What did it mean to be a slave?
That you could not choose your own son’s name,
Nor your own son’s father or mother,
Nor your own son’s home, or work, or way of life,
(Nor indeed could you choose your own)
Nor choose to have or not have a son.
No part of life or self
Belonged to Cudjoe—slave.

To Cudjoe—slave—
Only a dream belonged.
Seven letters spelled the dream:
F-R-E-E-D-O-M
Freedom!
But in the cane fields, in the rice fields,
In the bondage of the cotton,
In the deep dark of the captive heart
Sometimes Freedom seemed so far away,
Farther away than the farthenmost star,

So far, so far—
That only over Jordan was there a dream
Called Freedom.
Cudjoe’s song was:
Deep river,
My home is over Jordan.
Deep river, Lord,
I want to cross over into camp ground.
O, don’t you want to go to that gospel feast,
That promised land where all is peace?..
Deep river, Lord,
I want to cross over into camp ground.

Death was a deep river,
And only over Jordan, Freedom.
Oh, night! Oh, moon! Oh, stars!
Oh, stars that guide lone sailing boats
Across the great dark sea,
Star, guide thou me!

Star! Star! Star!
North Star! North.
I cannot catch my breath
For fear of that one star
And that one word:
Star—Free Freedom—North Star!
Where is the road that leads me to that star?
Ah, ha! The road?
Dogs guard that road,
Patrollers guard that road,
Bloodhounds with dripping muzzles
Guard that road!
Gun, lash, and noose
Guard that road!

Freedom was not a word:
Freedom was the dark swamp crossed,
And death defied,
Fear laid aside,
And a song that whispered, crooned,
And while it whispered cried:

Oh, Freedom!
Freedom over me!
Before I’d be a slave,
I’d be buried in my grave
And go home to my Lord
And be free!

Harriet Tubman—slave.
She wanted to be free.
She’d heard of that word with seven letters.
She could not read the word,
Nor spell the word,
But she smelled the word,
Tasted the word,
On the North wind heard the word.
And she saw it in a star.

Before I’d be a slave,
I’d be buried in my grave
And go home to my Lord
And be free!

Sojourner Truth—slave.
She wanted to be free.
Her sons and daughters sold away,
Still she wanted to be free.
She said:
I look up at de stars,
My chillun look up at de stars.
They don’t know where I be
And I don’t know where they be.
God said, Sojourner, go free!
Go free! Free! Freedom! Free!

Before I’d be a slave
I’d be buried in my grave….

Before Emancipation thousands of slaves
Made their way to freedom—
Through swamp and brier, over field and hill,
By dark of night, prayer-guided, star-guided,
Guided by that human will that makes men love
A word called Freedom—
And the deep river was not Jordan, but the Ohio,
Home was not heaven, but the North.
North! North Star! North!

Frederick Douglass called his paper
“The North Star.”

Douglass had made his way to freedom.
Sojourner Truth made her way to freedom.
Harriet Tubman made her way to freedom;
Then she went back into slavery land,
And back again, and back again, and again, again,
Each time bringing a band of slave
(Who once were slaves, now slaves no more)
To freedom!
Before the Civil War,
Long before ’61,
Before Emancipation,
Freedorn had begun!

Go down, Moses,
Way down in Egypt land
Tell old Pharaoh
To let my people go!

Linking arms for freedom
With the one-time slaves,
With Douglass, Harriet, Sojourner,
Were Whittier, Garrison, Lovejoy, Lowell—
Great Americans who believed in all men being free.
And thousands more—white, too, but not so famous—
Dared arrest and scorn and persecution
That black men might be free:
The stations of the underground railroad to freedom
Became many—
And the North Star found a million friends.
And of that time a book was born, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”
And a spirit was born, John Brown.
And a song was born:

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword….

And a war was born:

John Brown’s body lies
A-mouldering in the grave—
But his soul goes marching on!

And a voice to set the nation right:

With malice toward none,
With charity for all….

Lincoln…

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,

Abraham…

With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me;

Lincoln…

As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,

Abraham…

While God is marching on.

Lincoln…

In giving freedom to the slave
we assure freedom to the free….

Abraham…

No man is good enough to govern another
man without that other’s consent.

Lincoln…

I do ordain… thenceforward and forever free.

But the fields still needed planting,
The cane still needed cutting,
The cotton still needed picking,
The old mule still needed a hand to guide the plow:

De cotton needs pickin’
So bad, so bad, so bad!
De cotton needs pickin’ so bad!
Gonna glean all over this field!

And on the river boats the song:

Roll dat bale, boy!
Roll dat bale!…

Up the river to Memphis, Cairo, St. Louis,
Work and song, work and song-stevedores, foundry men, Brick layers, builders, makers, section hands, railroad shakers:

There ain’t no hammer
In this mountain
Rings like mine, boys,
Rings like mine!

Freedom is a mighty word,
But not an easy word.
You have to hold hard to freedom.
And as somebody said,
Maybe you have to win it all over again every generation. There are no color lines in freedom.
But not all the “free” are free.
Still it’s a long step from Cudjoe—slave,
From Harriet Tubman—slave,
Sojourner Truth—slave
Frederick Douglass—slave
Who had to run away to freedom—
It’s a long step to Booker T. Washington
Building Tuskegee,
To Dr. W. E. B. Du Bois building a culture for America.
It’s a long step from Cudjoe—slave
Hoeing cotton—
To George Washington Carver—once slave—
Giving his discoveries in agricultural chemistry to the world.
It’s a long song from:

Before I’d be a slave
I’d be buried in my grave. . . .

To Dorothy Maynor singing, “Depuis le jour.”
It’s a long step from Cudjoe—slave—
To Jackie Robinson hitting a homer.

Yet to some Freedom is still
Only a part of a word:
Some of the letters are missing.
Yet it’s enough of a word
To lay hands on and hope,
It’s enough of a word
To be a universal star—
Not just a North Star anymore:

Thenceforward and forever—free!

Oh, Freedom!
Freedom over me!
Before I’d be a slave
I’d be buried in my grave
And go home to my Lord
And be free!