Juneteenth 2023! :)

Hello everyone – 

Today, in honor of Juneteenth National Independence Day, I’m sharing some poetry by George Moses Horton, the first published African-American poet in the American South, along with a copy of the Emancipation Proclamation by President Lincoln, and the lyrics to “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” the African-American national anthem (which is also a popular hymn in many denominations). This Juneteenth marks the 158^th anniversary of the liberation of the last enslaved persons in the American South – truly, a jubilee celebration to be remembered throughout the ages.

 

“On Liberty and Slavery”

By George Moses Horton (1798-1867)

Editor’s Note: This poem was first published in 1829, while the author was still enslaved in North Carolina.

 

Alas! and am I born for this,

To wear this slavish chain?

Deprived of all created bliss,

Through hardship, toil and pain!

 

How long have I in bondage lain,

And languished to be free!

Alas! and must I still complain—

Deprived of liberty.

 

Oh, Heaven! and is there no relief

This side the silent grave—

To soothe the pain—to quell the grief

And anguish of a slave?

 

Come Liberty, thou cheerful sound,

Roll through my ravished ears!

Come, let my grief in joys be drowned,

And drive away my fears.

 

Say unto foul oppression, Cease:

Ye tyrants rage no more,

And let the joyful trump of peace,

Now bid the vassal soar.

 

Soar on the pinions of that dove

Which long has cooed for thee,

And breathed her notes from Afric’s grove,

The sound of Liberty.

 

Oh, Liberty! thou golden prize,

So often sought by blood—

We crave thy sacred sun to rise,

The gift of nature’s God!

 

Bid Slavery hide her haggard face,

And barbarism fly:

I scorn to see the sad disgrace

In which enslaved I lie.

 

Dear Liberty! upon thy breast,

I languish to respire;

And like the Swan unto her nest,

I’d like to thy smiles retire.

 

Oh, blest asylum—heavenly balm!

Unto thy boughs I flee—

And in thy shades the storm shall calm,

With songs of Liberty!

 

Transcript of the Emancipation Proclamation

By President Abraham Lincoln

January 1, 1863

                Whereas, on the twenty-second day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, a proclamation was issued by the President of the United States, containing, among other things, the following, to wit:

                "That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.

                "That the Executive will, on the first day of January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States and parts of States, if any, in which the people thereof, respectively, shall then be in rebellion against the United States; and the fact that any State, or the people thereof, shall on that day be, in good faith, represented in the Congress of the United States by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such State shall have participated, shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such State, and the people thereof, are not then in rebellion against the United States."

                Now, therefore I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as Commander-in-Chief, of the Army and Navy of the United States in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority and government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion, do, on this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and in accordance with my purpose so to do publicly proclaimed for the full period of one hundred days, from the day first above mentioned, order and designate as the States and parts of States wherein the people thereof respectively, are this day in rebellion against the United States, the following, to wit:

                Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, (except the Parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James Ascension, Assumption, Terrebonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the City of New Orleans) Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia, (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkley, Accomack, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Ann, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth[)], and which excepted parts, are for the present, left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.

                And by virtue of the power, and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free; and that the Executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons.

                And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defense; and I recommend to them that, in all cases when allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages.

                And I further declare and make known, that such persons of suitable condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service.

                And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God.

                In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

                Done at the City of Washington, this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States of America the eighty-seventh.

By the President: ABRAHAM LINCOLN

WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.

 

Lift Every Voice and Sing (1900)

By James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938)

Editor’s Note: This poem (later set to music) was originally composed for a celebration of Abraham Lincoln’s birthday in 1900.

 

1. Lift every voice and sing

Till earth and heaven ring,

Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;

Let our rejoicing rise

High as the listening skies,

Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.

Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,

Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us,

Facing the rising sun of our new day begun

Let us march on till victory is won.

 

2. Stony the road we trod,

Bitter the chastening rod,

Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;

Yet with a steady beat,

Have not our weary feet

Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?

We have come over a way that with tears has been watered,

We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,

Out from the gloomy past,

Till now we stand at last

Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.

 

3. God of our weary years,

God of our silent tears,

Thou who hast brought us thus far on the way;

Thou who hast by Thy might

Led us into the light,

Keep us forever in the path, we pray.

Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,

Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;

Shadowed beneath Thy hand,

May we forever stand.

True to our God,

True to our native land.

 

President Joe Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act into law on June 17, 2021. (Photo Credit: The White House – Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons)

Until next time – let freedom ring! 😊

 

Rob