An Underground Railroad Choir Tour: Songs of Slavery

Historian Mat Callahan and Dr. Kathy Bullock of Berea College recover songs that called for freedom and insurrection, from a South Carolina revolt to Gabriel’s Rebellion

Enslaved people in the United States wrote songs of resistance, rebellion, and freedom, and for generations those songs were left out of the history of American music. In this John Brown Project program, Mat Callahan, historian, musician, filmmaker, and author of Songs of Slavery and Emancipation (University Press of Mississippi, 2022), and Dr. Kathy Bullock, Professor Emerita of Music at Berea College, present recovered slave songs and abolitionist songs as primary sources.

Callahan describes how Herbert Aptheker’s 1939 pamphlet Negro Slave Revolts in the United States, 1526-1860 led him to “Hymn of Freedom,” a song enslaved people in South Carolina composed in 1813 while planning an insurrection, set to “Hail Columbia.” He explains why folklorists treated such songs as an anomaly and how they were effectively erased.

Bullock introduces performances spanning hymns, spirituals, and dance tunes, including Rev. Thomas Cooper’s “The Negro’s Complaint” (1820), “My Father, How Long?”, which landed enslaved singers in Georgetown, South Carolina, in jail, the Civil War satire “Year of Jubilo,” and “Uncle Gabriel,” a tribute to the leader of Gabriel’s Rebellion of 1800. John Brown Project founder Daniel Morrison opens the program and explains why these songs are central to the documentary series Pushing the Rock.

Video transcript:

Performance: “Agonizing, Cruel Slavery Days” (0:18)

Welcome from the John Brown Project (3:51)

Daniel Morrison: “Cruel Slavery Days.” From what I understand, that song was written during Reconstruction, looking back, and the rest of tonight’s program was written before Reconstruction, during the time of enslavement, looking at the present and the future.

My name is Dan Morrison. I’m the founder of the John Brown Project. We’re putting this event on in partnership with Dr. Kathy, Mat, and all the other folks. I really appreciate everybody coming. Usually I come up with these harebrained schemes, and that’s how the John Brown Project was launched. I had a COVID community art project scheme, and it worked. It was a great song that we turned into a great music video that we turned into a great film that won awards and was featured at Black history film festivals. So I want to thank everybody for putting up with my harebrained schemes.

Specifically, a couple of members of the John Brown Project board are in the audience tonight, one of whom you’ve already met and one of whom you haven’t. Reverend Angaza Mwando is one. Johanna DeZurik is another. Thank you for helping me launch this thing.

Thanking sponsors and partners (5:13)

There are a few important sponsors tonight as well. Connecticut Humanities helped us with a grant to put this program on, and part of the grant was to record it so that people who couldn’t be here can watch it on YouTube for the rest of eternity. It’ll be there as long as YouTube’s there. So I want to thank Connecticut Humanities.

The Torrington Historical Society has been a great partner in crime of ours for a long time, and it’s always been good trouble. We’re not doing bad crimes. It’s more like parking tickets.

Wisdom House came in right at the end, when I was sitting there panicking. How was I going to get 14 choir singers to fit sleeping on my couch? It’s a big couch, but it’s not that big. I sent them a note in desperation asking whether there was any way we could get low-cost or no-cost lodging. Deborah Kelly was really excited to be part of it, and she said, “Well, they’re going to need breakfast, aren’t they?” I said, “Yeah, they probably will. They’re people, and we all eat breakfast.” She said, “We’ve got them. We’ve got the beds and the breakfast.” About 10 minutes after I got off the phone with her, she emailed me: “Well, they’re going to need dinner too, aren’t they?” I said, “Yep, they probably eat dinner also.” So I want to thank Wisdom House for really making this possible: Gail and Mark, and Deborah, who’s not here, and Connecticut Humanities. Thank you, everybody.

Tiny abolitionist films and Pushing the Rock (7:02)

Another harebrained scheme: I had a short film that came out of the community art project, and we launched something called the Tiny Abolitionist Film Festival. How many people here went? A couple. There you probably met Mat Callahan, who showed his tiny film. Tiny in length, not in meaning. You also met Dr. Kathy, who was on screen for much of Mat’s film. We’ll meet both of them later.

The John Brown Project doesn’t just produce tiny abolitionist film festivals. We produce tiny abolitionist films. As Conrad told you, that’s one of the things we’re doing tonight. We’re shooting. I know it’s tempting, when you see people staring into video cameras, to sneak up behind them and tickle them, but please don’t. It’s fun, but it’ll mess up the shot, and we need the shot.

So you’re all going to be in a movie. The film is part of a trilogy we’re working on called Pushing the Rock. There’s a big poster in the back that explains the three parts. We will have the first part done before Halloween so we can end the year strong, and then the next two parts for Black History Month and Juneteenth.

Songs as primary sources (8:30)

One of the things I really love about what we’re hearing tonight, and what I’ve decided to make a big part of these films, is using music from history as primary source information. We dig for newspapers. We dig for personal letters. I think a lot of times we overlook the songs written by the people who were living through those times. They really give you an idea of what the landscape was like.

With that, I’m going to introduce my old friend, my new friend, Mat Callahan. We’re kind of old friends; we’re both pretty old. Mat’s the one who dug all these songs up, and then he recruited Kathy to help him turn them into the album our singers are performing from tonight. I’m going to get out of the way, Mat, because you probably have smarter stuff to say than me.

Where “Agonizing, Cruel Slavery Days” came from (9:29)

Mat Callahan: Thank you, Dan. Much appreciated, and thank you to all the people who helped put this program together. I’m going to give a few context-setting notes.

First, I want to mention “Agonizing, Cruel Slavery Days” and where I found it. It was a recording in the Library of Congress, sung by Elijah Cox, a 93-year-old man who was born free. He was not enslaved. But he worked with a group of formerly enslaved people at Fort Concho, Texas, and he reported to the Federal Writers’ Project in 1933 that this was among the most popular songs of those formerly enslaved people. They composed it and sang it around the campfire after work on a regular basis. It’s a perfect example of their reflection on, and attitude toward, slavery.

A 1939 pamphlet and the first slave revolt (10:41)

The project began with the discovery of a pamphlet published in 1939. Keep that date in mind, because it tells you that more than 100 years ago this information was available. The title was Negro Slave Revolts in the United States, 1526-1860. The title alone caught my attention, and the date even more, because most of us familiar with the history of slavery in North America date it to 1619. In fact, 1526 marks not only the first colony that imported Africans to North America but also the first slave revolt. From that point on, there were more than 200 documented... I guess I have to yell.

An explicitly revolutionary song from 1813 (11:52)

In this pamphlet was not only this fascinating history but the lyric to a song. It caught my eye as I was standing in an old bookstore. This lyric was different from any other I had heard, and I grew up surrounded by the Negro spirituals: “Go Down Moses,” “Many Thousands Gone,” “Steal Away,” the whole pantheon of great songs we’re familiar with. This was an explicitly revolutionary lyric. There was no coded speech. It was not religious. It was a demand for freedom, in fact a demand for insurrection. The song had been composed by enslaved people preparing an insurrection in South Carolina in 1813.

It took me two and a half years to find the rest of the song and the music it was sung to. You’re going to hear it later today, so you’ll know immediately what I’m talking about.

Rethinking African American music (12:56)

That piqued my interest. If there were other songs like this, if this was not a unique composition, then we would have to rethink African American music in this country. We would have to rethink the whole history of music in the United States. If there were other songs like this, explicitly revolutionary, calling for freedom, calling for justice, and prophesying what would become the Civil War, then they belong to our musical heritage.

At first I was told by folklorists that I wouldn’t find any songs like this, that it was an anomaly. But historians pointed out that in the printed record there were poems and written songs, let’s call them poems because they were only written down, that clearly opposed slavery and called on people to unite and fight back against the slave system. Eventually I found several predecessors, people who had collected some of these songs back in the 1920s and a little later, but their work had been marginalized. These songs had effectively been erased.

Bringing the songs back to life with Berea College (14:33)

In gathering this material, I realized it was a body of work that needed to be heard again, not only lying on the page of a book. It’s important that it’s in the book, and the book documents the authenticity of these songs, because I had to verify them. I knew I would be attacked by those who say this is not real, or not authentic. But as a musician, I felt it was vitally important that these songs be sung again, so people could hear the power of the music and the text as it was sung then.

That led me to approach Berea College. Berea was supportive, and they put me in touch with Professor Kathy Bullock, who was the key to organizing the presentation of this music. I had the texts and the songs, but I didn’t have the singers or the organization to bring them back to life.

With that, I’d like to bring Professor Kathy Bullock up to join me. This collaboration was so important, and we’ll discuss more about it after we hear some of the music.

“They wouldn’t let us sing that” (16:30)

I do want to say one last thing. If anyone needs to be convinced of the substance of these songs and why they were erased, we only need to refer to the formerly enslaved people themselves. Lydia Maria Child, an abolitionist who wrote books and was devoted to the abolition of slavery, interviewed many formerly enslaved people shortly after the Civil War. In one of these interviews, she asked an elderly woman named Charity Bowers to recount some of her experiences and sing a song. Charity Bowers sang a song that ended, “There’s a better day a-coming. There’s a better day a-coming.” Then, with a very arch expression, she looked up 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.”

Professor Kathy Bullock.

“The Negro’s Complaint” (17:48)

Dr. Kathy Bullock: “The Negro’s Complaint.” The words to this song were written by Reverend Thomas Cooper back in 1820. He was formerly enslaved, made his escape to Philadelphia, and began writing songs about freedom. Listen to the words he put to a song that may be very familiar to you.

Performance: “The Negro’s Complaint” (18:30)

Old tunes, new words (21:31)

This collection includes songs of many different genres. We just heard a hymn set to “Old Hundredth.” People fighting against slavery and for freedom took many familiar tunes and changed the words to make them work.

This next selection is in the category of the spiritual. It comes from around the time the Civil War was breaking out. There were two very similar songs, and Mat, in his research, combined them into one piece. The first part says, “My father, how long before we done suffering here?” The second part says, “And it won’t be long. And it won’t be long.” The final verse says, “We’ll fight for liberty.”

Know that when Black people enslaved in Georgetown, South Carolina, sang these words, they were put in jail. We sing them today celebrating that final move to freedom and the courage it took for them to do what they did, so we can be here today.

Performance: “My Father, How Long?” (22:54)

“Hymn of Freedom” and the 1813 insurrection (25:34)

It always takes me a minute after that one.

The next song is “Hymn of Freedom.” This was one of the first, if not the first, songs Mat found in his years of recovering these songs. The tune was “Hail Columbia,” and in 1813 it was the US national anthem. Did you know that? What Black people at the time did was take this tune and change the words. They were planning an insurrection.

By the way, insurrections and revolts happened all the time during the entire period of slavery. For hundreds of years, folks didn’t just sit around saying, “Oh well, I guess this is how it’s going to be.” We usually only hear about the most recent and most famous. This one did not come to fruition as an insurrection, but in their planning they took the words of the national hymn of the time and changed them, and we call it “Hymn of Freedom.”

Performance: “Hymn of Freedom” (27:04)

“Year of Jubilo” and taking back the minstrel songs (29:58)

The next two selections are dance tunes. At the time, the term “minstrel songs” was applied to many of these dance tunes. That was when white people, men in particular, would use burnt cork to blacken their faces and ridicule Black people in comedy acts. It was a precursor to Tin Pan Alley and other later musical forms in the United States. But the songs were authentic songs out of the Black community, and in these two songs Black folks decided to take back their songs.

This one is called “The Year of Jubilo.” It’s from the Civil War, and it’s a satire. The Black folks on the plantation are watching their white enslaver run away because the Yankees are coming. Within the laughter and the dance, there’s a subversive message being shared. It’s sung in dialect.

Performance: “Year of Jubilo” (31:33)

“Uncle Gabriel” and the rebellion of 1800 (34:22)

This second song, also sung as a dance tune, was called “Uncle Gabriel, the Negro General.” The story is about Gabriel Prosser. He was an enslaved man, but he was brilliant and highly respected in his community, and he put together one of the largest insurrections. This was in 1800, not long after the Revolutionary War. I was just testing y’all.

He pulled together a thousand people for this rebellion. It did not fully work, because one of his people ratted him out, and he ended up dying. But he never gave up the names of the Black and white people who had helped build this insurrection. This song is written in his honor and tells the story of Uncle Gabriel.

We need you to help us with this part. Okay, that was good. I’ll tell you when to come in. You ready?

Performance: “Uncle Gabriel” (35:51)