Throughout the history of slavery in the Americas, music carried messages of survival, rebellion, and solidarity. Enslaved people composed songs that were far more than lamentsthey were calls for liberty and revolution, celebrating heroes like Gabriel Prosser and Nat Turner and the triumph of the Haitian Revolution.
Alongside these songs, fugitive and free Black people and white abolitionist allies created and circulated songs that fueled the abolitionist movement. Sung in meetings, printed in songbooks, and passed hand to hand, these works stirred action and sustained courage well into the Civil War.
A Songbook of Slavery and Emancipation brings together these longhidden voices. Mat Callahan and Kathy Bullock present sheet music for recently unearthed slave songs and abolitionist songssome dating as far back as 1784to make them available to chorus leaders, music teachers, church and community groups, and individual singers and musicians inspired by these powerful songs. Included in the book is a brief history of the project, background material on each song, and explanatory notes regarding the different styles of singing presented.
This collection stands as both history and testimony: a living archive of music that called for the end of slavery, the emancipation of African Americans, and a future built on equality and human dignity. These songs do not simply mourn oppression; they demand resistance, freedom, and justice.
Introduction
Performance Practice
The Music
Slave Songs
1. Agonizing, Cruel Slavery Days
2. Hymn of Freedom
3. Uncle Gabriel, the Negro General
4. The Negros Complaint
5. Recognition March of the Independance of Hayti
6. The African Hymn
7. Nat Turner
8. Well Soon Be Free / My Father, How Long?
9. March On
10. Children, We All Shall Be Free
11. Ol Massa He Come Dancing Out
12. The Year of Jubalo, Year of Jubilo, and Kingdom Coming
13. The Enlisted Soldiers (The Negro Battle Hymn)
Abolitionist Songs
1. Song of the Aliened American
2. A Song of Freedom
3. Stole and Sold from Africa
4. Right On
5. Flight of the Bondman
6. The Underground Railroad
7. To the White People of America
8. Liberty
9. Band of Thieves
10. The True Spirit
11. Come Join the Abolitionists
12. The Voice of Six Hundred Thousand Nominally Free
13. Were Coming! Were Coming!
14. Womans Rights
15. What Mean Ye?
Song Sources
Index of Songs
Mat Callahan is author or editor of five books, including The Explosion of Deferred Dreams: Musical Renaissance and Social Revolution in San Francisco, 19651975 and A Critical Guide to Intellectual Property. His recent projects include the republication of Songs of Freedom: The James Connolly Songbook; the recording and publication of Working-Class Heroes: A History of Struggle in Song; and Songs of Slavery and Emancipation, an audio recording, film, and book, the latter published by University Press of Mississippi. Find more information about the author at http://www.matcallahan.com.
Kathy Bullock is professor emerita of music at Berea College. She currently teaches, performs, and conducts workshops and other programs on African American music throughout the United States, Europe, and Africa.
