In an extraordinary book and CD package, the talented, charismatic author of Lest We Forget chronicles the harsh realities of slavery and brilliantly brings to life the spirit of a people determined to be free. A vibrant legacy of the past and an expression of hope for the future, African-American songs and spirituals formed an oral history during the perilous era of slavery. Illustrated with photographs, drawings, and reproductions of original documents, No Man Can Hinder Me traces the spiritual from its arrival in America to its importance as a mode of secret communication, to its role after Emancipation. Celebrated author and lecturer Velma Maia Thomas not only tells the story of these songs, she presents more than a dozen glorious examples-many of them never-before-recorded arrangements-on a CD specially created for this book. With performances by Thomas and other well-known vocalists, including members of the Morehouse College Glee Club as well some of Atlanta's foremost gospel singers, the CD evokes a sense of community and the dream of earthly and spiritual freedom that sustained African-Americans through the ordeal of slavery.
Titled after the refrain of an old spiritual, "No Man Can Hinder Me:" Black Troops in the Union Armies During the American Civil War chronicles African American participation in the Civil War from their earliest enlistment efforts through veterans' experiences in the postwar years. Military specifics (including: selection of officers, pay, health, weaponry, treatment of prisoners) are examined within the broader political contexts of citizenship and emancipation to illuminate the social and historical milieu in which these men served. Hunter frames his essay within the combat experience of the black division, serving with the Army of the Potomac, that participated in the Battle of the Crater at the end of July 1864.
Originally published in 1867, this book is a collection of songs of African-American slaves. A few of the songs were written after the emancipation, but all were inspired by slavery. The wild, sad strains tell, as the sufferers themselves could, of crushed hopes, keen sorrow, and a dull, daily misery, which covered them as hopelessly as the fog from the rice swamps. On the other hand, the words breathe a trusting faith in the life after, to which their eyes seem constantly turned.
Beloved spirituals include such lasting favorites as All God's Children Got Shoes, Balm in Gilead, Deep River, Down by the Riverside, Ezekiel Saw the Wheel, Gimme That Ol'-Time Religion, He's Got the Whole World in His Hand, Roll, Jordan, Roll, Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child, Steal Away to Jesus, Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, This Train, Wade in the Water, We Are Climbing Jacob's Ladder, Were You There When They Crucified My Lord? and many more. Excellent for sing-alongs, community programs, church functions, and other events.
Twindom is an imaginary community, outside of Nashville, where twins, separated (often by evil forces) are reunited. Most of the residents of Twindom have found each other through the Twindom website. However, some, driven by the circumstances of their existence, must travel through, and be rescued from, the Valley of Despair. Dr. Timothy Franklin and his twin brother, Thomas, a paramedic, usually make the rescues. They are spending Tim's sabbatical together in Twindom, before Tom enters medical school. The first person the Franklin twins rescued, Bob, discovers he has a twin brother when his adopted parents go through a divorce. Bob runs away shortly thereafter to keep from murdering his adopted mother. She was extremely cruel and tried to destroy his artistic bent. He finds himself in Twindom. Six years earlier Donald Brown, an African-American, saw his twin brother, Ronald, kidnapped in broad daylight. Now, a junior in high school, Donald, a trained runner, has developed a severe panic disorder and frequent breaks with reality, in response to the kidnapping. Donald goes off his medication for several days and makes the journey through the Valley of Despair (usually a two or three day trip) in 18 hours. Evil forces separate Margaret Elain Smith from her twin sister and younger brother, after their parents die in a plane crash. Her kidnapers carry her off to an abusive foster home. She escapes after three months. The Franklin twins sedate and bring Margaret Elain into the safety of Twindom. She arrives in Twindom with anorexia, the result of the abuse. Meanwhile, Bill Davis arrives from San Francisco and reunites with Bob. Bill Davis arrives with the Johnson diaries. These will unlock the mystery of the Johnson twins, whose statue stands at the center of the Garden of Hope. Indeed, the development and actions of the Johnson twins are central to this novel. On their sixteenth birthday, March 3, 1840, Levi and Eli Johnson first share with each other their conviction that slavery is wrong, as they walk in the woods behind the Johnson Plantation. Knowing they must take every precaution to keep their thoughts and feelings about slavery secret, especially from their father, Levi suggests they communicate on this subject only in writing. The Johnson twins were nineteen, when they attended their first Quaker meeting. The Quaker spirit was much more in tune with the twins' own gentle spirit. Soon, they secretly embraced the Quaker religion and its teachings against slavery. This step gave the twins an inside track towards fulfilling their larger goal of helping to end slavery everywhere. In 1848, Jeremiah Johnson died leaving to his twins, 100 slaves. Levi and Eli promptly free their slaves, and transform the Johnson Plantation into a haven for escaping slaves. Following the Civil War, the Plantation became a unique orphanage where Black and White children grew up and were educated together. In the 1940's, the Johnson Plantation falls under the control of extreme racists who transform it into a slave state unto itself. As a first step, the new managers separate the youth and children and force the African-Americans into slavery. The process expands as those, who agree with the new stance of the Johnson Plantation kidnap and sell additional African-American youth and children to the Plantation. Kidnapers also deliver White children, especially orphans, to Johnson's Haven. The adults at the plantation school and Johnson's Haven carefully groom the White children to become the future overseers and managers. Kidnapers deliver Mary Ellen and Billy Joe Smith. However, the staff cannot mold the Smith children, the grandchildren of those who worked alongside Martin Luther King, to fit its expectations. Once Bob and Bill Davis expose the slave traffic, the days of the Johnson Plantation are numbered. However, even before the authorities reach the Johnson Plantation, the Franklin twins re
For over 200 years in African-American churches throughout the country, gospel and spiritual music have offered solace and been a source of celebration, leaving a mark not only on the Christian world, but on popular music as well. Ev'ry Time I Feel the Spirit contains the lyrics and music of 101 of the most widely known and cherished of these pieces, ranging from heartring spirituals sung during slave times (Steal Away; Swing Low, Sweet Chariot) to songs of unity from the civil rights movement and contemporary times (We Shall Overcome, I'll Fly Away). The book also presents a biography of each composer and the history of the evolution of each song, examining the role it played in enabling African-Americans to develop the strength to carry on in the face of adversity. An important historical document as well as an inspirational gift, the book captures the rich connections between song and experience as no other volume does.
In the spring of 1862, Lucy McKim, the nineteen-year-old daughter of a Philadelphia abolitionist Quaker family, traveled with her father to the Sea Islands of South Carolina to aid him in his efforts to organize humanitarian aid for thousands of newly freed slaves. During her stay she heard the singing of the slaves in their churches, as they rowed their boats from island to island, and as they worked and played. Already a skilled musician, she determined to preserve as much of the music as she could, quickly writing down words and melodies, some of them only fleeting improvisations. Upon her return to Philadelphia, she began composing musical settings for the songs and in the fall of 1862 published the first serious musical arrangements of slave songs. She also wrote about the musical characteristics of slave songs, and published, in a leading musical journal of the time, the first article to discuss what she had witnessed. In Songs of Sorrow: Lucy McKim Garrison and “Slave Songs of the United States,” renowned music scholar Samuel Charters tells McKim's personal story. Letters reveal the story of young women's lives during the harsh years of the war. At the same time that her arrangements of the songs were being published, a man with whom she had an unofficial “attachment” was killed in battle, and the war forced her to temporarily abandon her work. In 1865 she married Wendell Phillips Garrison, son of abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, and in the early months of their marriage she proposed that they turn to the collection of slave songs that had long been her dream. She and her husband—a founder and literary editor of the recently launched journal The Nation—enlisted the help of two associates who had also collected songs in the Sea Islands. Their book, Slave Songs of the United States, appeared in 1867. After a long illness, ultimately ending in paralysis, she died at the age of thirty-four in 1877. This book reclaims the story of a pioneer in ethnomusicology, one whose influential work affected the Fisk Jubilee Singers and many others.
This anthology brings together a wide variety of both well-known and more obscure writing from and about the Civil War, along with supplementary appendices to facilitate its use in courses. The selections include short fiction, poetry, public addresses, diary entries, song lyrics, and essays from such figures as Walt Whitman, Ambrose Bierce, Stephen Crane, and Louisa May Alcott, as well as Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Jefferson Davis, and Ulysses S. Grant. The writing not only includes those directly involved in the war, but also those writing about the war afterward, to include the perspective of historical memory. This collection makes a perfect addition to any course on Civil War history or literature as well as courses on popular memory.
