Arkansas Chant

The devil is a rider
In slouch hat and boots
Gun by his side
Bull whip in his hand.

The devil is a rider;
The rider is a devil
Riding his buck stallion
Over the land.

The poor-white and nigger sinners
Are low-down in the valley.
The rider is a devil
And there’s hell to pay.

The devil is a rider,
God may be the owner,
But he’s rich and forgetful,
And far away.

Arkansas Chant by Sterling A. Brown
Music by Cornelius Eady
Arrangement by Rough Magic
Concetta Abbate, violin
Emma Alabaster, upright bass
Cornelius Eady, lead vocals
Leo Ferguson, drums, percussion. prepared piano
Robin Messing, vocals
Charlie Rauh, guitar

Recorded, mixed & produced by Leo Ferguson

“Bill Traylor…was about twelve years a slave, from his birth, in Dallas County, Alabama, in 1853 or so, until Union cavalry swept through the cotton plantation where he was owned, in 1865. Sixty-four years later, in 1939, homeless on the streets of Montgomery, he became an extraordinary artist, making magnetically beautiful, dramatic, and utterly original drawings on found scraps of cardboard.

“Charles Shannon—a painter and the leader of New South, a progressive group of young white artists in Montgomery—noticed and befriended Traylor in 1939, providing him with money and materials and collecting most of the roughly twelve hundred works of his that survive. New South mounted a Traylor show in 1940. Nothing sold. The support ended amid the disruptions of wartime in 1942. All of Traylor’s subsequent art is lost. He died in 1949 in Montgomery, and was buried in a pauper’s grave. — Peter Schejeldahl, The New Yorker

Bill Traylor was survived by at least fifteen children and today his art is featured in the collections of the The Museum of Modern Art, the Smithsonian, and scores of other museums and private collections.

Mose

Mose is black and evil
And damns his luck
Driving Mister Schwartz’s
Big coal truck.

He’s got no gal,
He’s got no jack,
No fancy silk shirts
For his back.

But summer evenings,
Hard Luck Mose
Goes in for all
The fun he knows.

On the corner kerb
With a sad quartette
His tenor peals
Like a clarinet

O hit it Moses
Sing att thing
But Mose’s mind
Goes wandering —

And to the stars
Over the town
Floats, from a good man
Way, way down —

A soft song, filled
With a misery
Older than Mose
Will ever be.

Mose by Sterling A. Brown
Music by Cornelius Eady
Arrangement by Rough Magic
Concetta Abbate, violin
Emma Alabaster, upright bass & vocals
Cornelius Eady, acoustic guitar, lead vocals
Leo Ferguson, drums
Robin Messing, vocals
Charlie Rauh, guitar

Recorded & mixed by Leo Ferguson

William Henry Johnson was born March 18, 1901, in Florence, South Carolina, to Henry Johnson and Alice Smoot. He attended the first public school in Florence, the all-black Wilson School on Athens Street. Johnson practiced drawing by copying the comic strips in the newspapers, and considered a career as a newspaper cartoonist.

He moved from Florence, South Carolina, to New York City at the age of 17. Working a variety of jobs, he saved enough money to pay for classes at the prestigious National Academy of Design and at the Cape Cod School of Art in Provincetown, Massachusetts, paying for his tuition, food and lodging in Cape Cod by working as a general handyman at the school.

Johnson spent time in Europe and worked with the WPA during the Great Depression. While rendering the Jacobia Hotel (above) in South Carolina he was nearly arrested for standing in the street and painting.

In 1956, all of his paintings were almost destroyed because he could not afford the storage fees he owed. However the work — over 1000 paintings and drawings — was rescued and stored by a foundation, and eventually acquired by the Smithsonian. Johnson died in 1970.

William H. Johnson's work continues to tell the story of Black life in America — his painting, Moon Over Harlem, could easily be a scene of police violence in the era of Black Lives Matter.

Riverbank Blues

A man git his feet set in a sticky mudbank,
A man git dis yellow water in his blood,
No need for hopin', no need for doin',
Muddy streams keep him fixed for good.

Little Muddy, Big Muddy, Moreau and Osage,
Little Mary's, Big Mary's, Cedar Creek,
Flood deir muddy water roundabout a man's roots,
Keep him soaked and stranded and git him weak.

Lazy sun shinin' on a little cabin,
Lazy moon glistenin' over river trees;
Ole river whisperin', lappin' 'gainst de long roots:
"Plenty of rest and peace in these . . ."

Big mules, black loam, apple and peach trees,
But seems lak de river washes us down
Past de rich farms, away from de fat lands,
Dumps us in some ornery riverbank town.

Went down to the river, sot me down an' listened,
Heard de water talkin' quiet, quiet lak an' slow:
"Ain' no need fo' hurry, take yo' time, take yo' time . . ."

Heard it sayin' — "Baby, hyeahs de way life go . . ."

Dat is what it tole me as I watched it slowly rollin',
But somp'n way inside me rared up an' say,
"Better be movin' . . . better be travelin' . . .
Riverbank'll git you ef you stay . . ."

Towns are sinkin' deeper, deeper in de riverbank,
Takin' on de ways of deir sulky Ole Man—
Takin' on his creepy ways, takin' on his evil ways,
"Bes' git way, a long way . . . whiles you can.

“Man got his
sea too lak de Mississippi

Ain't got so long for a whole lot longer way,
Man better move some, better not git rooted
Muddy water fool you, ef you stay . . .

Riverbank Blues by Sterling A. Brown
Read by Rowan Ricardo Phillips

Clementine Hunter was a self-taught Black folk artist from the Cane River region of Louisiana, who lived and worked on Melrose Plantation. Born in late December 1886 or early January 1887 into a Louisiana Creole family at Hidden Hill Plantation near Cloutierville, in Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, she started working as a farm laborer at an early age and never learned to read or write.

As a field hand and cook at Melrose Plantation, which was was both a working plantation farm and an artists' colony, Hunter started painting using supplies discarded by visiting artists. In her fifties, after the death of her husband, she began selling her paintings; on the outside of the cabin where she lived was a sign that read: "Clementine Hunter, Artist. 25 cents to Look."

Her early work depicted the South of her childhood, painted from memory. Later in life, when Parkinson's disease limited the precision of her hands, she developed a more impressionistic style.

Clementine Hunter was wildly creative throughout her life. She created murals, quilts and tapestries, and released a cookbook filled with the Creole recipes that she learned from her family and illustrated with her artwork; she created thousands of paintings, which, by the end of her life in 1988, sold for thousands of dollars.

An inspiration to multiple generations of Black artists and activists, she is also the subject of the opera Zinnias: the Life of Clementine Hunter, written by legendary musicians Toshi Reagon & Bernice Johnson Reagon, acclaimed author Jacqueline Woodson (and directed by Robert Wilson).

Southern Cop

Let us forgive Ty Kendricks.
The place was Darktown. He was young.
His nerves were jittery. The day was hot.
The Negro ran out of the alley.
And so he shot.

Let us understand Ty Kendricks.
The Negro must have been dangerous,
Because he ran;
And here was a rookie with a chance
To prove himself a man.

Let us condone Ty Kendricks
If we cannot decorate.
When he found what the Negro was running for,
It was too late;
And all we can say for the Negro is
It was unfortunate.

Let us pity Ty Kendricks.
He has been through enough,
Standing there, his big gun smoking,
Rabbit-scared, alone,
Having to hear the wenches wail
And the dying Negro moan.

Southern Cop by Sterling A. Brown
Music by Cornelius Eady
Arrangement by Rough Magic
Emma Alabaster, electric bass
Cornelius Eady, lead vocal
Leo Ferguson, drums & keyboards
Robin Messing, vocals
Charlie Rauh, guitar

Recorded, mixed & produced by Leo Ferguson

Haint (for Sandra Bland) by Cornelius Eady

I got this ache in my heart
The state of Texas is my host
I got this hole in my soul
The State of Texas made me a ghost

And my ghost howls
Woe

Now I’m a wandering spirit
My body swings in my cell
When they cut this poor gal down
Who’ll know how I got here?

And my ghost howls
Woe

Maybe I died by my own hand
Maybe I died by hands unknown
Maybe I was dead
The moment I talked back
Maybe I was dead
‘fore I was born

And my ghost howls
Woe

Damn the cop
Who damned my black skin
Damn the judge
Who agreed with him
My name’s Sandra Bland
I should be alive
Sass back in Texas
You commit “suicide”

And my ghost howls
Woe.

Sharecroppers

When they rode up at first dark and called his name,
He came out like a man from his little shack
He saw his landlord, and he saw the sheriff,
And some well-armed riff-raff in the pack. When they fired questions about the meeting,
He stood like a man gone deaf and dumb,
But when the leaders left their saddles,
He knew then that his time had come.
In the light of the lanterns the long cuts fell,
And his wife's weak moans and the children's wails
Mixed with the sobs he could not hold.
But he wouldn't tell, he would not tell.
The Union was his friend, and he was Union,
And there was nothing a man could say.
So they trussed him up with stout ploughlines,
Hitched up a mule, dragged him far away

Into the dark woods that tell no tales,
Where he kept his secrets as well as they.

He would not give away the place,
Nor who they were, neither white nor black,
Nor tell what his brothers were about.
They lashed him, and they clubbed his head;
One time he parted his bloody lips
Out of great pain and greater pride,
One time, to laugh in his landlord's face;
Then his landlord shot him in the side.
He toppled, and the blood gushed out.
But he didn't mumble ever a word,
And cursing, they left him there for dead.
He lay waiting quiet, until he heard
The growls and the mutters dwindle away;
"Didn't tell a single thing," he said,
Then to the dark woods and the moon
He gave up one secret before he died:
"We gonna clean out dis brushwood round here soon,
Plant de white-oak and de black-oak side by side.”

Sharecroppers by Sterling A. Brown
Read by Rowan Ricardo Phillips

Born in 1955, Willie Cole grew up in Newark, New Jersey. His upbringing by both his mother and grandmother in the 1960s has had a lasting impact on his work, as his continued use of irons in his sculptures signifies the domestic role of African women during this time.

He attended the Boston University School of Fine Arts, received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the School of Visual Arts in New York in 1976, and continued his studies at the Art Students League of New York from 1976 to 1979. His fascination with African art developed as he continued his education at the School of Visual Arts in New York, where he studied the culture of the Yoruba society.

Cole is best known for assembling and transforming ordinary domestic and used objects such as irons, ironing boards, high-heeled shoes, hair dryers, bicycle parts, wooden matches, lawn jockeys, and other discarded appliances and hardware, into imaginative and powerful works of art and installations.

In 1989, Cole garnered attention in the art world with works using the steam iron as a motif. Cole imprinted iron scorch marks on a variety of media, showing not only their wide-ranging decorative potential but also to reference his Cole’s African-American heritage. He used the marks to suggest the transport and branding of slaves, the domestic role of black women, and ties to Ghanaian cloth design and Yoruba gods.

He lives and works in New Jersey.

According to Matthew Lessig,

"Sharecropper" was first published in 1939 in Get Organized: Stories and Poems about Trade Union People, one in a series of "literary pamphlets . . . written for members of trade union and other progressive organizations" put out by International Publishers, a New York publishing house affiliated with the Communist Party.

An Old Woman Remembers

The poem describes the 1906 Atlanta Massacre, in which at least two dozen Black people were murdered by white mobs, including the police and National Guard. In response to the crisis, the Georgia legislature passed a literacy test for voting, effectively disfranchising most blacks.

Her eyes were gentle, her voice was for soft singing
In the stiff-backed pew, or on the porch when evening
Comes slowly over Atlanta. But she remembered.
She said: “After they cleaned out the saloons and the dives
The drunks and the loafers, they thought that they had better
Clean out the rest of us. And it was awful.
They snatched men off of street-cars, beat up women.
Some of our men fought back and killed too. Still
It wasn’t their habit. And then the orders came
For the milishy, and the mob went home,
And dressed up in their soldiers’ uniforms,
And rushed back shooting just as wild as ever.
Some leaders told us to keep  faith in the law,
In the governor; some did not keep that faith,
Some never had it; he was white, too and the time
Was near election, and the rebs were mad.
He wasn’t stopping hornets with his head bare.
The white folks at the big houses, some of them
Kept all their servants home under protection
But that was all the trouble they could stand.
And some were put out when their cooks and yard-boys
Were thrown from cars and beaten, and came late or not at all.

And the police they helped the mob, and the milishy
They helped the police. And it got worse and worse.

“They broke into groceries, drugstores, barbershops,
It made no difference whether white or black.
They beat a lame bootblack until he died,
They cut an old man open with jackknives
The newspapers named us black brutes and mad dogs.
So they used a gun butt on the president
Of our seminary where a lot of folks
Had set up praying prayers the whole night through.

And then,” she said, “our folks got sick and tired
Of being chased and beaten and shot down.
All of a sudden, one day, they all got sick and tired
The servants they put down their mops and pans
And brooms and hoes and rakes and coachman whips,
Bad niggers stopped their drinking Dago red,
Good Negroes figured they had prayed enough,
All came back home–they had been too long away–
A lot of visitors had been looking for them.
They sat on their front stoops and in their yards,
Not talking much, but ready; their welcome ready:
Their shotguns oiled and loaded on their knees.

“And then
There wasn’t any riot anymore.”

An Old Woman Remembers by Sterling A. Brown
Read by Rowan Ricardo Phillips

Strong Men

They dragged you from the homeland,
They chained you in coffles,
They huddled you spoon-fashion in filthy hatches,
They sold you to give a few gentlemen ease.

They broke you in like oxen,
They scourged you,
They branded you,

They made your women breeders,
They swelled your numbers with bastards…
They taught you the religion they disgraced.

You sang:
Keep a-inchin’ along
Lak a po’ inch worm…

You sang:
By and Bye
I’m gonna lay down this heaby load…

You sang:
Walk togedder, chillen,
Dontcha git weary…
The strong men keep a-comin’ on
The strong men get stronger.

They point with pride to the roads you built for them,
They ride in comfort over the rails you laid for them.
They put hammers in your hands
And said — Drive so much before sundown.

You sang:
Ain’t no hammah
In dis lan’,
Strikes lak mine, bebby,
Stikes lak mine.

They copped you in their kitchens,
They penned you in their factories,
They gave you the jobs that they were too good for,
They tried to guarantee happiness to themselves
By shunting dirt and misery to you.…

You sang:
Me an’ muh baby gonna shine, shine
Me an’ muh baby gonna shine.
The strong men keep a-comin’ on
The strong men git stronger.…

They bought off some of your leaders
You stumbled, as blind men will.…
They coaxed you, unwontedly soft-voiced.…
You followed a way.
Then laughed as usual.

They heard the laugh and wondered;
Uncomfortable,
Unadmitting a deeper terror.…
The strong men keep a-comin’ on
Gittin’ stronger. . . .

What, from the slums
Where they have hemmed you
What, from the tiny huts
They could not keep from you –
What reaches them
Making them ill at ease, fearful?
Today they shout prohibition at you
“Thou shalt not this.”
“Thou shalt not that.”
“Reserved for whites only”
You laugh.

One thing they cannot prohibit —
The strong men . . . coming on
The strong’ men gittin’ stronger.
Strong men.…
Stronger.…

Strong Men by Sterling A. Brown
Read by Rowan Ricardo Phillips