Rev Left Radio - Songs of Slavery and Emancipation

Episode Date: July 27, 2022

Mat Callahan joins the show to discuss his recent project "Songs of Slavery and Emancipation" - a book, an album, and a documentary - wherein he and his team searched for, found, and recreated both old slave resistance songs as well as old abolitionist songs. In this interview, Mat discusses this project and the songs and history behind it as we sprinkle in songs from the album throughout. Watch the Documentary here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmytdAYr-s0&ab_channel=ArtinHistoryandPolitics Check out the Book: https://www.upress.state.ms.us/Books/S/Songs-of-Slavery-and-Emancipation Songs featured (in order of appearance): Song of the "Aliened American" performed by Sacred Harp singers from Western Massachusets The Negro's Complaint performed by Berea Songs of Slavery and Emancipation Ensemble Recognition March of the Independance of Hayti performed by Dr. Kathy Bullock piano, Chereokee Griffiths flute, Dr. James Dreiling trumpet Nat Turner The African Hymn A Song for Freedom performed by Berea Songs of Slavery and Emanciation Ensemble Hymn of Freedom Agonizing, Cruel Slavery Days performed by Alden "Max" Smith Children, We All Shall Be Free Support Rev Left Radio: https://www.patreon.com/RevLeftRadio

My country, tis of thee, our land of slavery in thee we roam. Long have our change been born, long has our greed, born, our flesh has long been torn in from our bones. The white man rules a day he bears despotic sway for all the land. He wills the tyrant's fraud, fearless of man or God, and at his envious mud, we fall or stand. we longer bleed, is there no one to plea the black man's cause?

Does justice must demand that we shall weigh the brand? and raise not voice nor hand against such laws. No, no, the time has come when we must not be done, we must await. We now eight million strong must strike sweet freedom song And leaves ourselves are wrong Our chains must break

Hello everybody and welcome back to Rev Left Radio. On today's episode, I have on the show Matt Callahan, who spearheaded the project Songs of Slavery and Emancipation. This is a book, a full album, and a documentary. And the book itself has an introduction by Robin Niji Kelly, which I found very fascinating. This is simultaneous revolutionary history, slave revolts, rebellions, abolitionism, as well as amusing. history of enslaved peoples and of abolitionists more broadly. So this is a very fascinating dive into both the worlds of music and American history and is just a powerful recreation of many songs that were almost or totally lost to modern day people. And so kind of resurrecting some

of these songs, recreating them the documentary itself shows the process by which they would go about recreating this music. And it's just a fascinating, fascinating. project. And throughout this conversation, we will drop in various songs. We'll nowhere near getting to all of the songs on this album, but we'll be putting some of the songs throughout this entire interview so you can get a sense of just how powerful some of this music is. And hopefully some of you will be inspired to watch the documentary, get the book, and get the album yourself. So without further ado, here is my conversation with Matt Callahan about his project, Songs of Slavery and Emancipation.

Enjoy. My name is Matt Callahan, and I'm a musician and an author, and I'm the person responsible for, along with many others, for Songs of Slavery and Emancipation. Absolutely, and it's an honor to have you on. I think this is a really interesting project, Songs of Slavery and Emancipation. It's not only a book, it's also an album and, I believe, a documentary. Is that correct? That is correct. So sort of a three-pronged project, and it's really, really fascinating. happy to have you on to talk about it. And so I guess the first question I have for you is just can you kind of tell our audience

about this project, why you decided to do it, and sort of what you aim to accomplish with it? Well, briefly, I discovered this song in a pamphlet, in an antiquarian bookshop in San Francisco that was unlike any other song attributed to slaves or to you know, the African-American experience, certainly it was unlike any in terms of its lyrical content. It was explicitly revolutionary, and it was purported to have been written in 1813. So that raised some questions.

And I began researching to see if there were, in fact, other songs of this kind. And we can discuss this more as the interview goes on, but to get to the second part of what you need to accomplish with it, It was after a couple of years of research that it became clear that there were indeed more songs of this kind and that they had been largely buried or omitted, if you want to be polite about it, from the record and of, you know, both African American music and broadly speaking American music. And it was important from my point of view to make the link between music and history. because the songs, this kind of song, was clearly related to the also buried history of Negro Slaverbolts. In fact, the name of the pamphlet that I discovered was Negro Slavervults in the United States, 1526 to 1860. And this pamphlet had been actually published in 1939.

So we're not talking about some recent discovery that nobody knew about. This is actually, you know, you might say knowledge that was available and accessible for a long, long time. And so for me, it was a question of bringing out the music on the one hand so that people could actually hear what people, enslaved people had been singing and composing themselves, as well as. as its connection to the actual history of slave rebellion. And so that was, that's what, that's what we aim to accomplish. Yeah, very interesting. So there's a whole process of finding the music, trying to find the, you know, the original music, and then recreating the music. Is that right?

And can you talk about that process a little bit? Yeah. I mean, in some cases, there was, when I started uncovering some of these songs, in some cases there was tablature because they were collected by, you know, a person or song collector, whatever. And for example, Thomas Higginson, who was an abolitionist and the leader of the 54th black colored infantry unit. and he actually collected some of these songs during the Civil War because he overheard his troops singing them and he was sensitive enough and acute enough an observer to actually write a lot of these things down

including apparently the melodies. I don't know whether he wrote the melodies down or he got somebody else to, it doesn't matter. We used the melodies that he actually had preserved. In other cases, there was a reference to a particular hymn. For example, I found a song The Negro's Complaint, which was composed by a fugitive slave who became a preacher, a minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia in 1820, and went on to actually write apparently quite a few songs, although I could only find the one.

but he put it to the old hundred, which is an old Protestant hymn. It's one of the most famous Protestant hymns, which had been written by Isaac Watts a couple hundred years before, but was obviously a song that served the purpose of the lyrics, which were composed by this fugitive slave Thomas Cooper. above, view of all mankind with equal love, why dost thou hide thy faiths from slaves, confine thy faith to save thy faith to save,

the days when stolen brought from Africa Transported to America Like the

Like the would meet with market soul. To stand the heat and feel the pain, It's exposed to stormy snow and rain To work all day and have the night And rise before the morning line Although our skin be black as jet, Our heavy frizzed and noses flat,

Shall we for that no freedom has? until we find it in the grave. At their decree that need goes lost, but wicked then behead. effort curves, nor ever enjoy our lives, nor'er enjoy our life's night name. But ever dread the glowing shame. When will Jehovah hear Christ?

When will the sons of freedom rise? When will for us a motion? stand and free us from the fair old land. There are other examples of that kind, but it's interesting to say that it took me two and find the song that the project started with. In other words, I found this song, which was

just a verse and a refrain in the chorus in this pamphlet Negro Slaver of the United States, but it wasn't the whole song. It didn't say what the music was, and I wasn't even sure it was authentic.

So, you know, trying to authenticate it, you know, that took me two and a half years. And then by the time I was able to actually authenticate it, the information that was given by the people who had actually written this song down was that it was to the music of Hale Columbia, which was the American National Anthem in 1813. Remember the War of 1812 was going on at this time, and these particular slaves were actually gathering to plan an insurrection. and the insurrection itself was inspired by the offer by the British that anyone who rebelled against their masters could join the British and be free. And Hail Columbia, you know, is a song.

So I managed to find the connection when you actually put the lyrics together with the original Hail Columbia, you realize that these people had used this song, which obviously was in wide circulation during a war. and in a sense turned it into a parody you know a parody of this national anthem which was declaring freedom and liberty for America

while enslaving its you know a big percentage of the population and so that's just to give you an idea of where you know where some of these songs lay where some of the music was and so forth

yeah that's absolutely fascinating and I'm wondering as well some of the and you touched on in the little bit there, but, you know, some of the difficulties you ran into putting this entire project together. I mean, there's the whole process of finding, authenticating, recreating these songs, you're doing the documentary as well as the book. Overall, does anything stand out as being like an obstacle you really had to overcome to get this project off the ground? Well, I think there were a couple of obstacles, which in some ways might seem obvious.

In hindsight, they're obvious. They weren't at the time. One of them is that the, you might call it the disbelief within academia itself, you know, and that there's the initial process was inquiring of folklorists and song collectors and what have you about this. Because I, to be honest, I thought that I was just going to find, you know, it all laid out for me. I had no idea that at the very beginning that these songs were so hard to locate. And I, you know, again, one of the obstacles was just that other people, you know, trained academics, whatever, had not done it and didn't believe it was, you know, these things existed. Another, of course, was simply the resources. And it was only through the work of, you know, a number of other people that we were able to raise the money to actually cover the costs of travel and investigation and so on and so forth.

And, of course, this is an important point to make, which is that it's not just my work. It's like I had the support and the encouragement of many people I met along the way who were not only helping financially, but also in terms of leads and suggestions and where things might be buried or where a song might, you know, where a song book might exist and so on and so forth. yeah and i think that comes through in in all aspects of this project it's almost impossible for for one single person to do all of this and make all this happen and so in the book and in the documentary it's very clear this was very much a team effort um and something you mentioned in the i think it was in the preface of the book itself is some common misconceptions about you know these so-called slave songs or you know negro spirituals as they were called um and and you know you go to some lengths in the text to kind of turn over some of these misconceptions. Can you talk about

what those misconceptions are and what the reality is about these songs? Well, first of all, I think there is a misconception fundamental to the project, which is that the slaves did not rebel. That basic attitude that essentially the slave system going all the way back to 15, was maintained with, you might say, the docility or the acceptance of the slaves, and it's simply not true. So that's a misconception that has to be thoroughly exposed. The fact that, you know, music, which obviously everybody knows played a very important role in the life of African American people, whether slave or free in the country, in

in the United States, led me to the simple question, look, wouldn't there be some expression, if there were indeed revolts, if there were indeed rebellions, wouldn't there be songs about them? I mean, after all, you have the legacy of Irish rebel songs or Mexican caritos about the revolution there. In fact, throughout the world, you have a legacy of rebellions and the fight against depression that is commemorated in song. Why would there not be songs like this? So, in fact, there are, which is, you know, part of the, part of the purpose of this project.

But the misconception that there wouldn't be or that somehow we don't have any, therefore they don't exist, is, you know, I would say it was the main misconception to combat. Another, though, which this is also very important, is that the slave system, was some sort of monolithic simple thing. You got a bunch of people working in the field doing backbreaking labor, and that's it. But in fact, actually, by the early 19th century, you already had a very large number of free black people, some of whom were born free, were never slaves.

Others had been freed either by their own labor, and they could buy their freedom, or were manumitted by their master, for one reason or another. And this population also exerted an influence on, particularly on the abolitionist movement. And, you know, we're in many cases campaigning and fighting against slavery. And also the fact that even in musical terms,

one of the songs that I discovered was an instrumental called the Recognition March for the Independence of Hate. And this was written by a man by the name of Francis Johnson, who was actually born free and was a leading band leader so popular in the United States that he was actually asked by the U.S. government to perform at the 1824 celebration of Lafayette's triumphal return to the United States. And so you, you know, and the march that he produced is, is, you know, what I would consider more or less a contemporary march with European instruments. In fact, Johnson himself was a virtuoso, a Kent bugle player, which is something like a French horn, it's an or a cornet. It's not exactly a bugle because it's got valves. It's not exactly a trumpet, but, you know, it's in that vein. And he was apparently renowned for being a great virtuoso.

Anyway, so this march commemorating Haiti, which is, you know, the site of the only successful slave revolt and a country at that point. We're talking 1820 when that must have been published. And it's a piece of sheet music. We're going to be able to be. I'm going to be. I'm going to

I'm going to I'm . I'm going to I'm going to I'm I'm I'm

and I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm and I'm

I'll see. I'm not the time. I'm Aux I'm my

I'm See, that I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm

I don't know I'm gonnae'n't know I'm gonna'n't I'm I'm gonna'n't I'm gonna'n't and I'ma'n't

I don't know I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to I'm I'm I'm and

I'm I'm I'm and I'm and and uh...

and and and the i'm and the uh... a

and uh... So these are things that completely contradict the image of slavery as a system, black music in terms of it just being field hollers or work songs, although of course they those exist and are an important component. the Negro spiritual in a particular form that we've come to know through many thousands gone or go down Moses or steal away and so on and so forth. That was the full extent of African American music. And in fact, it was much broader than that, much earlier than that. Absolutely.

Yeah. And that's one of the things I really appreciate about this project broadly is the overturning of some of those simplistic narratives and those, you know, stubborn, Conceptions. Now, you just mentioned the Haitian Revolution. I kind of want to dig a little deeper on that, because in your book you mentioned songs about heroes, and you mentioned that there were these songs about the Haitian Revolution. Can you talk about this and especially how, you know, and so far as you know this, slaves in America found out about the Haitian Revolution and engaged with the reality of the Haitian Revolution were inspired by it, etc. Can you just

talk a little bit more about that? Yeah, well, when the Haitian Revolution broke out, I mean, it was actually not one particular event, but it actually took place over a few years. And once the slave owners were actually overthrown, many of them fled to the United States. And in some cases, actually brought their slaves with them. But many of them came to Louisiana because it had been a French colony and, you know, they were French speakers. and it's also on the Caribbean, obviously it's, you know, you can imagine people getting on boats and fleeing to New Orleans. But the word spread far in many different ways. I mean, first of all, it was a, you know, a major event, these revolutionary upsurges in a relatively neighboring country.

And on the other hand, you had a lot of slaves themselves who were employed on, in coastal, shipping. So they were involved as stevedores on the docks. They were involved as sailors and other forms of labor that would put them in direct contact with anybody coming into a port like New Orleans. And then the word would spread just by word of mouth, the grapevine, and so on. Not to mention the fact that by the early 19th century, there were quite a few literate slaves. They were, this is another interesting thing about the course of slavery, because at, at an earlier stage, particularly around the time of the revolution, the American

revolution, there were slave owners who thought that they, it was their Christian duty to at least allow slaves to learn how to read and to, in order to read the Bible. That ended, that practice ended pretty abruptly in 1831 after the Nat Turner Rebellion. that's a whole other discussion. But the fact is that there were quite a few slaves who could read. And by that, I mean, they read the newspaper and they saw what was happening and they heard what was happening and they would spread the word amongst their own kin, clan, you know, tribe, whatever you want to name, you know, their communities that were scattered throughout

the South. And of course, the other side of it is that, as I said, there were free black people in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, and places like this, who would have heard about it anyway as just a question of, you know, this is the news, this is what's happening. Right. And then you just mentioned the Nat Turner Rebellion, and that's one of the, you know, songs, or multiple songs, perhaps, about Nat Turner. Can you just, can you talk about that rebellion a little bit and just how much of an effect

that had? You can't keep the world from moving around, nor Nat Turner. from gaining ground. Gaining ground, yeah. You can't keep the world from mover and round. No, that turner from gaining ground. You might be richer green and drive you cold and for steam.

But you can't keep the world from moving around. mover and round Nor that Turner from gaining ground You can keep the world from mover and ground No Matt Turner from gaining ground You might be reader and write a tune and wiser than all Solomon the Jews. You can't keep the world from moving round,

no now turner from gaining ground. You can't keep the world from moving around. No, now turner from gaining ground. No, not turner from gaining ground. name in what he sees ashore and got to cannon can shoot a mile or more you can't keep the world from moving around nor that turner from gaining ground you can't keep the world from moving around no that turner from ganged ground

you might be a carol from carol time arriving idol for your late creation oh you can keep the world from moving around no not turn up from gaining ground You can keep the world from moving round, no Matt Turner from getting around. You can't keep the world from moving around. No matter turner from getting around. Nat Turner's Rebellion is probably the single most famous rebellion.

I think that, you know, the impact it had was to terrify the slave owners throughout the South. It was, it took place in Virginia in 1831. Nat Turner himself was a somewhat of a prophet or, you know, he spoke in prophetic terms, religious terms, about his goal, which was clearly to free the slaves and slavery, he was himself inspired at least indirectly by the preaching that was going on from, again, the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and in particular a preacher from there named Shadrach Bassett, who was preaching in that area and actually wrote another song, meaning of, but that area, meaning that part of Virginia,

and wrote another song, which we include to call the African hymn. We shall not always leap and groan, and where these slay the shames of woe, there's a better day that's coming, come and go alone. with me. Good Lord, all which shall slavery cease, and these four souls enjoy their peace. Good Lord, great the power. Come and go along with me.

Oh, come the Africans be wise. We'll join the armies in the skies. Real blue winds, Satan's kingdom. Come and go along with me. he bit his army sound again they will ruin satan's kingdom come and go along with me I will pursue my journey's end For Jesus Christ is still my friend Oh, may this friend go with me Come and go along with me

Go sound a jubilee And it's clear that Bassett was banned or thrown out of the area because of this preaching. And it's clear this preaching, which included a song, African hymn, was, you know, gathering steam amongst the slaves. And Nat Turner was the, you might say, the catalyst or the leader who was able to actually galvanize a big enough number of people and organize them to actually have an uprising. And, of course, it was put down, as we know, it was repressed. But its significance was greater because at that particular juncture, 1831, the slave system or the, you might say, the opinion amongst slave owners was we have to repress this absolutely. And that's when you start to see some of the, you know, the forbidding of singing, forbidding of reading of reading, of reading, of reading. learning to read, the monitoring of church gatherings and some of the worst examples of oppression that, you know, people do know about.

That is better known as a result of, you know, recent scholarship and even movies, you know, that have talked about this. But what's lesser known and what's so significant is that there were many rebellions of that kind before and after. And so, you know, this is another thing that, that, that, you know, is so important to keep in mind that the actual slave system in many ways had to develop the way it did with all of the brutality and all of the really horrible techniques because the slaves were rebelling and would not accept their confinement and their oppression. And so the dynamic that's built into this, you know, this whole dynamic of oppression and resistance of attempts made to organize. And then from that you have the fugitives, the 100,000 slaves who left on the underground railroad between 1830 in the Civil War. Imagine how many more had fled before that because, you know, this is why there were these fugitive slave acts, for example, 1850, one of the events that actually precipitated the Civil War was when the, the fugitive slave act of 1850 was passed, making everyone in the North, including free black people, essentially the deputies of the slave system, that you were supposed to, You were legally required to turn in a fugitive slave. You were in violation of federal law if you did not turn in a fugitive slave.

And this is the real story of what was happening with the Underground Railroad, which itself was an outgrowth of slave rebellion and resistance and so on. And this leads to the other part, which we haven't mentioned before, which is why it was so important for me once the project was clearly going to be a project, They'd found enough slave songs. This is why it became so important to bring in the whole abolitionist movement. And the abolitionist songs were much easier to find because they were actually public. In other words, they were published in songbooks and in sheet music that were disseminated widely

because they were using the songs to organize resistance in the north and even to some extent in the South. And so, you know, there was more a question of pulling out representative samples, both for musical reasons as well as lyrical reasons, and show how the abolitionist movement itself also did not fit certain misconceptions. In other words, it's a very common misconception, which I think is still prevalent in the United States, that the abolitionists were essentially a bunch of bourgeois do-gooters who, you know, had no contact with slavery, and just, you know, it didn't, it didn't conform to their ideal of, you know, a nice life or something like that. And so their agitation caused the civil war, which was an unnecessary conflict. Well, that couldn't be further from the truth, because first of all, the bulk of the abolitionist movement were, in fact, working people. And second of all, there were many abolitionists, including songwriters who were free black people or fugitive slaves.

So you had this multi-ethnic movement, which eventually became strong enough to join in the struggle against slavery and the civil war and so on and so forth. and eventually win. But this was a really powerful mass movement, which included a very large percentage of the public in general in the North. Come on, ye, bum and part and near, let's put a song in Mass and see. It is a song for how for race,

with them trampled with his grace. My old Master tells me, oh, this is a land of freedom. Let's look about him, see this is so, just as Master tells me, oh. He tells us of that glorious one, I think his name is Washington. How he defied it fight for liberty to save a creeper's like some tea. My old Master tells me, oh, this is a land of freedom. Let's look about him save his soul, just as Massa tells me, oh. And then he tells us that there was a constitution with this clothes that all may equal

or create, how often had we heard it stated? My old master tells me, he says a land of freedom on. Let's look about in seat his soul, just as Massa tells me, oh. When now we look about and see that we poor blacks are not so free. We're whipped and thrashed about white fools and have no chance at common school. Still my old master tells me, oh, this is a land of freedom. Let's look at our body steepness all, just as Massa tells me, oh. They take our whines

insult and mock and sell our children of no blah They joke as if we say a word And say that bigger's shan't be heard Still my old master tells me Oh this is a land of freedom Let's look about it simply so Just as master tells me oh

Yeah a truly multiracial mass movement Often rooted in the working class And spearheaded by either fugitive slaves or free black folks and this idea that it was just this, yeah, as you said, this liberal white group of do-gooders is really erasing the bulk of what that movement was and who underpinned it. And so I really appreciate that. And I wanted to talk a little bit about the repression as well because even outside of a big event like Nat Turner Rebellion, there had to be instances where this music was being played and the music itself was a threat. And so there

There's attempts to repress it just broadly before, during and after even an event like the Nat Turner Rebellion. Can you kind of talk about that repression and the reason why slave owners felt the need to repress this music as they came across it? Yeah, well, I just want to say two quick things about it. One is that I think it's fairly well known. I think a lot of people are aware of the fact that drumming, for example, was forbidden. not only in the United States but in parts of the Caribbean and so on because it was viewed drumming was viewed as a threat that somehow the drums, the drumming of slaves was a call to arms

and it's certainly fairly well known that a lot of the Negro spirituals that we do know or that we had heard were coded speech such as famous songs like Follow the Drinking Gorge which is obviously about the Underground Railroad. So, you know, I think people are aware that there was some repression and banning of songs. But I don't think people are aware of the fact that this was systematic and followed very definite patterns. And in particular, the pattern of what transpired after the Naturnal Rebellion. And I don't want to read something, which I quoted in the book,

an abolitionist, a great abolitionist named Lydia Maria Child, did an interview with a formerly enslaved woman named Charity Bowery, who was born at Pembroke, North Carolina in 1774, and Child asked Bowery about the reaction following the Nat Turner insurrection of 1831, and Bowery said, the brightest and best men were killed in Nat's time. Such ones are always suspected. All the colored folks were afraid to pray in the time of the old prophet Nat. There was no law about it, but the whites reported it round among themselves that if a note was heard, we should have some dreadful punishment. And after that, the low whites would fall upon any slaves they heard praying or singing a hymn

and often killed them before their masters or mistresses could get to them. And then she gave an excerpt of a song, There's a better day of coming. There's a better day of coming. Oh, glory, hallelujah. And with an arch expression, she looked up as she concluded and said, they wouldn't let us sing that. They wouldn't let us sing that.

They thought we was going to rise because we sang, better days are coming. So that's an example, testimony of an actual person who went through this process of exactly how powerful, the songs were and why they had to be repressed. Yeah. Wow. That is incredibly powerful stuff. What song or handful of songs stood out or resonated most with you personally? I'm just kind of interested in if any stood out for you individually as being particularly

impactful. It's very hard to say. I mean, I have to always go back to the first one. We call it the hymn of freedom. In fact, it was called that by the people who actually transcribed it, the Negro hymn of freedom, but hail Columbia, you know, I mean, that was the National Anthem, because it's just so, you know, it's so powerful, it's so striking. And then to know the story that this was actually a parody of sorts, you know, a mockery of the hypocrisy and the false claims of the American government and the, you know, this thing that we're still living with, you know, we're still living with this idea that this is a democracy

and that, you know, it's the land of the freedom and the home of the brave and all this stuff. And the fact that these songs called that out. Hell, hail, hell, ye are a freak clan, hell ye oppressed, ye Afrik ban. Who tall and sweat, in slavery bound, who told and sweat, enslave rebound, and when your health and strength are gone are left to hunger and to moan. Let independence be your aim, ever mindful what is worth, pledge your bodies for the prize, Pound them even to the skies.

Burn United, let us be resolved on death for liberty. As a band of patron's joy, Peace and plenty we shall find. Look to health with many trust, And swear by him that's always just, That no wife fall with impious hand, That no wife fall with the impious hand Shall slave your wives and daughters more,

All of them of ever to deal. Beyond with valour fervmental, their hopes are fixed on heaven and you, that truth and justice will prevail, and every scheme of bond it fell. Firm, united, let us be, resolve the death or death or liberty, As a band of patron's joy, Peace and plenty we shall find. Arise, Arise, shake off your chains, Your cause is just so hen ordained, To you shall freedom be proclaimed, To you shall freedom be proclaimed.

Raise your arms and bear your breast. Almighty God will do the rest. Love the clarion of warlike blast. Call every negro from his task. Rest escort from Barcroft's hand and drive each tyrant from the land. Fern United, let us be resolved on death or liberty. As a band of Patron's joy, I mean, as far as far as other favors, I mean, I love them all.

I think they're all beautiful in different ways, poetically in some cases, musically and others. I have to mention that some of the abolitionist songs are really powerful, even though musically speaking they're almost all built on existing hymns you understand what i mean in other words they're not the music was not what was composed the music already existed but the lyrics were brought to music that already existed because uh in the case of the abolitionist songs it made it easy for people to join in singing do you see what i mean yeah so i'm not trying to evade your question but it's really hard for me to pick a favorite, you know, amongst so many powerful, powerful pieces. I mean, when I found agonizing cruel slavery days, for example, which we started the album with, because

it's a look back, you know, it was a song that was composed after slavery was over, but obviously was very popular amongst formerly enslaved people. You know, that also, that was just so stirring to me to hear this song of and imagine that you know these people who'd just come out of this horrible experience and we're sitting around thinking about it you know reminiscing if you want to call it would sing this this song agonizing cruel slavery days you know and putting the lie to the idea that somehow they just go along with it you know and accepted it yeah wow I am thinking today, bough times passed away when they tied me up in bondage long ago. In old Virginia state is where we separate, and it fills my heart with misery,

and woe They took away my boy Lord he wants his mother's joy A baby from the cradle him were raised Then they put us far apart And it broke the old men old man's heart in those

agonizing cruel slavery days though they'll never come again let us give our praise to him who looks down

where the little children play Every night and every morn We'll pray for them that's gone In those agonizing cruel slavery days At night when all is dark We hear that watchdog bar and we'll listen to the murmurs on the wind.

It seemed to say to me, you people, you must be free, for the happy times are coming, Lord we pray. will steal on that dear old cabin floor and in the shadows

I'll find those passed away and for them will weep and known for our souls would not our own in those agonize

in cruel slavery days. I'm very old and feeble now and my hair is turning gray. I have traveled

all the roughest kind of roads. Through all the toils and solos I have reached the underlest. Now I'm resting by the wayside with my load. Forget now and forgive has always been my guide. For that's what the golden scripture says.

But my memory will turn around Back to when I was tied down In those agonizing cruel slavery days Though they'll never come again Let us give our praise to him who looks gone where his little

children play every night and every morning I pray for them that's gone in those cruel agonize in slaves

Slavery day One question I really have And this is sort of getting towards the end of our interview And, you know, listeners will have the experience of listening to this music throughout our conversation. But I'm really interested in the impact that, you know, these songs ended up having on American music culture more broadly. We know, you know, that some of them,

the classic genres of American music can be traced back to black artists and black music, you know, like rock and roll. You talk about Elvis Presley, obviously hip-hop is this global phenomenon. So in what ways did these slave and abolitionist songs impact American music culture going forward? Well, one of the surprising ways is actually the way they have not, in a sense. And that is that there were groups, for example, the Hutchinson family singers who were among the most popular groups in America at the time, but were abolitionists, have been completely erased and forgotten. Other examples of that kind have to do with, for example, shape note singing, which is a very, you know, American form of music. and it is practiced by literally thousands of people today as a community activity,

but it's forgotten as a form of American culture that was broadly influential and in fact was linked in many cases to the abolitionist movement. I think in the more positive side, I don't think that the it's not as though there were specific slave songs that then in turn influenced, you know, American culture directly. But I do think that the fact that there were many different kinds of music being performed by black people, whether they were slaves or free, is something that needs to be further explored. So, for example, James Monroe Trotter, who was a slave, but became during the Civil War, or actually rose to the height of lieutenant, I believe.

He was an officer in the Union Army and went on to collect, wrote sort of a book of collected biographies of numerous black musicians, some of whom had been slaves, some of whom were free and so on and so forth. And he goes, you know, when you look at this book, which was published in 1878, you realize that already, even before the Civil War, there were a, wide variety of highly skilled musicians who, you know, who either were, had been slaves or became free through their, you know, their birth or where they were located. But they were, it was certainly not confined to what, you know, you might say stereotypically is, you know, field hollers, work

songs, and so on. And I think that that it's more what we don't know that the influences are. If you, if you get my drift. In other words, the answer to the question is actually all these influences that were coming out of this period are yet to be really fully explored. Yeah, one thing we definitely know is that all throughout American history and even pre-American history, there's this use of music, particularly by oppressed people, black people, throughout the entirety of the entire American history. And this is, we've had entire episodes, for example, on Nina Simone, on Billy Holiday, you know, music like strange fruit coming out of the lynchings during the Jim Crow era.

And now hip hop, you know, created in the 70s and 80s and really taking off in the 90s becomes a global phenomenon that oppressed people around the world, like Palestinians, for example, use hip hop as a way of expressing, you know, their political disenfranchisement and oppression. So in that sense, there's this thread going all the way back, um, that. is really quite beautiful and this is this entire project that you did is you know a huge chunk of that and I really appreciate this not being lost to history and this entire project being able to to show us today what some of this music was and overturned misconceptions now I do want to ask because there's the there's the obviously there's the book there's the album which is beautiful and and comes with an entire pamphlet but there's also the documentary can you kind of talk about what you did in the documentary and how that adds to the overall project?

Yeah, well, first of all, the documentary was intended to be a, what you can call it, the making of, you know, how this process was actually accomplished, but it was also designed to be accessible to anyone and an easy introduction to the material without being kind of a cheap advertisement, you know, I mean, it required a lot of work in its own right, because it is a film and we wanted to show. It's not a music video. We weren't trying to do that, but we wanted to have some examples of the people singing.

And we wanted to have the participants actually speak on their own behalf about how the music affected them and what a significance was, you know, as a project. In other words, their own personal reflection upon that, but also their grasp of the impact this was going to have socially. And so that was the reason for the film. I do want to add one other thing. And this returns to where we started at the beginning. There were so many people involved.

And there were so many people who made such vital contributions that the film was also a way of honoring that and making it visible that this was a collective effort of 50, 60 people and several different institutions that not only gave us some money, but they gave us real moral support. And so that was another reason for the film was to give a fuller picture of what this is really about.

Yeah, I mean, it certainly accomplished that. For people that are interested and want to follow up on this, where can listeners find the album, the book, and the documentary? Well, first of all, you can go to Jalopi Records because they sell the combo pack. You know, the book is published by University Press of Mississippi, and of course, you can go to their website, and the Jalopi Records has a website as well. And the film is available on YouTube, just put in Songs of Slavery and Emancipation. We wanted it to be free and available to anyone.

So it's, you know, there's no price or whatever. Just share it. That's all we ask. So those are the, I think those are the easiest ways to get to this. Okay. And where can listeners find you and your other work online? Well, you can, we have a nonprofit organization called Art and History and Politics, which has a website and some of our other projects are there.

And of course, I've got my own website, Matt Callahan.com. You're welcome to come and visit that. And there's information of other music I've done over there. the years. Wonderful. Yeah, and I'll link to all of that in the show notes so listeners can find all of that as quickly and easily as possible. Thank you so much, Matt, not only for coming on and discussing this project, but for spearheading it and making it a real thing. I really was moved by my preparatory work and listening to the music and reading the book and watching the documentary, and it's really, really a treat. And I tell anybody that's listening,

definitely go check this stuff out. It will really expand your understanding of an entire epic, you know, of American history. And so I really appreciate the work you put in here. Thank you very much, Brett. Children we all shall be free. Children we all shall be free. Children we all shall be free. When the Lord shall appear.

Children we all shall be free. Children we all shall be free. All shall be free when the Lord shall appear. We won't know cowards in our bend that from their colors fly. We call for a valiant heart in men that are not afraid to die. Children, we... All shall be free. Children we.

All shall be free. Children we. All shall be free when the Lord shall be. We see the pilgrim as he lies with glory in his soul. To heaven he lifts his longing eyes and beads this world. Adieu, children we all shall be free. Children we all shall be free. Children we all shall be free when the Lord shall be.

Give yee to the sick, give sight to the blind and enable the cripple to walk. We who raise the dead from under the earth and give them permission to fire. Children we all shall be free. all shall be free all shall be free when the Lord shall operate all shall be free all shall be free

all shall be free when the Lord shall Opel up here Thank you.