Slavery By Shirley Marley Song Analysis Essay

This song has such potent lyrics and no instrumentation whatsoever; which intensifies the meaning even more. It is sung during the episode of the KKK; a historical American Hate group. During the

No matter the struggle, fight through it. In Source B, the song states, “Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us, Sing a song full of hope that the present has brought us; Facing the rising sun of our new day begun, Let us march on till victory is won.” The author encourages listeners to “march on” despite the problems that they have faced. The fight takes a mindset of determination. This mindset is present in Source E. The author states, “When we started our propaganda toward this end several of the so-called intellectual Negroes who have been bamboozling the race for over half a century said the we were crazy, that the Negro peoples of the western world... could not live in Africa.” People told them that they were not going to be able to do it. But they did it anyway. This is what human nature is in times of change such as these. The will to fight for what you

By telling us this it shows us that the slaves were taught to not feel, and that there was no other way for them to live life. Everyone can relate to the fact that in the moment of a certain situation it might not seem too bad, but when you look back on it you really see how bad it really was, this is what Frederick Douglass was experiencing. By explaining how he felt while hearing the songs, it makes the reader feel the unknowing nature that all of the slaves had and it makes us see the injustice in the situation.

Douglass corrects white reader’s misconceptions about the slave’s assumed happiness by illustrating the song’s true meaning through his personal experience “within the circle.” Douglass is astounded that northerners believed they were singing songs out of happiness; he says, “I have often been astonished, since I came to the north, to find persons who could speak of the singing, among slaves, as evidence of their contentment and happiness. It is impossible to conceive of a greater mistake” (26). Douglass explains that the songs create a common experience among all slaves. Therefore, those outside the circle are ignorant to believe that their songs are out of happiness or contempt. In actuality, “slaves sing most when they are the most unhappy. The songs of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart; and he is relieved by them, only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears” (26). Douglass makes it clear that slaves are actually evident on a sub-conscious level of deep unhappiness. The singing is a coping mechanism, per say, to the aching hearts. The songs are not a pastime

Under the line, "I've been a victim" the speaker says, "The Belgians cut off my hands in the Congo. / They lynch me still in Mississippi." These lines demonstrate that obviously the speaker is symbolic of the black race, and is not just one person. However, the author wrote them as if it were one person and that proves to be very effective, especially in this stanza. The use of the first person voice allows the author to illustrate suffering in a very personal way, while simultaneously making the statement that each person carries with them the suffering, if not the experience, of past generations.

The lyrics are also notions of white supremacy and the consciousness of that idea that the white community is actively isolating black people to steal their identities and cultures by the overbearing obsession to their culture. In this case, “stay woke” is a signifier that black communities need to be aware that their racial identity is being consumed by the constant attempts to racially stereotype.

The songs of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart; and he is relieved by them, only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears” (Douglass 12). Music was a way for slaves to release their anger and sorrow in hope to find relief of their oppression. During this time in history, slaves possessed little to no rights so one of their only ways to express their beliefs was through songs. Josephine Wright states that “enslaved African Americans turned to song […] to tell their histories, record experiences, articulate aspirations for justice, vent anger, and protest the institution of slavery (414). Out of fear, slaves could not openly protest against the way they were treated.

The context and setting of this rap is American in the 1970’s. Historically, this period came after the Civil Rights Movement, during the start of the Nixon era. The Vietnam War was dividing the nation’s population into anti-war protestors and those that supported the war effort. It was an era of recession and continued change for minorities. One of the issues was enforced racial integration after the Civil Rights Movement, which many institutions had still not complied with. The struggle to find equality even after the movement was something African Americans at the time had to deal with. The support for the black power movement was one of many results of this struggle. The media and press largely did not report on the alienation that was still present. This was an inspiration for Scott-Heron and this song in particular.

When delving into the song and trying to grasp the meaning, it can be understood that the author really desires to be free and go back home to where he belongs and desires. The author or writer of the song does not like the idea of slavery, nor does he like being a slave himself, his perspective on the topic shows that he is not happy about the current situation and no one should because of how cruel slavery is. The author also uses certain rhetorical strategies, one of them being metaphors. They can be used to explain his sadness and other feelings he has about the topic of slavery. An example of this is,

All society hears is the history of slavery and the pain that began with racism, rape and mistreatment of African-Americans. Lines 29 through 43 describe that with African-American history there is hope for success:

The storyteller is in a situation where African Americans are thought to a lower standard than the whites of America as there is the "white world's damnation" when the African Americans at last got approach rights like the Whites. In spite of the fact that African Americans now have parallel rights, they are still given indications of dangers by the whites who don't need break even with rights, yet the storyteller expresses that he would not twist an inch of be toyed with as he will continue pushing ahead, " I won't towy with nor twist an inch" (McKay Line 1). His intention not at all like in "The Man He Killed" is extremely sure all through the entire ballad, as his primary rationale is his scorn of being looked downward on and that regardless of what number of deterrents he gets from the whites and he will continue pushing ahead regardless. On the off chance that it were not for his searched out disdain and his dim interests than he would be just a skeleton twisting under the will of isolation, "My being would be a skeleton, a shell, if this dim Passion that fills my each state of mind, and makes my paradise in the white world's damnation" (McKay Lines 5-10). His paradise is a spot where African Americans have rise to rights which so happens to be the inverse of a white man's damnation as his paradise lives in their hellfire. Surrounding he looks, as much as he adores the city that he is in, he really want to notice that there is a white fog implying that white individuals have had an impact on everything around him, I see the might city through a fog" (McKay Line 11). This demonstrates the storyteller that in spite of the fact that he is attempting to push ahead he is still in a position where he is looked

Following up along the lines of justice and injustice situations is the suffering in Black America and how we are fighting a war that may not be a winnable war like something that is consecutive and may not be able to win especially after the injustice killings being done to the black people around America. With the song, Lamar points at the fact that black people will never win this war and all we can do is fight and work hard for the money that we sorely deserve and need. Black Americans have been fighting the freedom war that was a literal Civil War in the 19th century. Then in the 20th century with Jim Crow laws, it became freedom fighting in the context of prejudice and racism. Now, in the 21st century, racism often takes a more covert

Redemption song is a song written by Bob Marley in the 1979, just before He succumbed to cancer in the 1980. It is an art well structured to pass a message of freedom to the Black Americans. The black Americans found themselves in the west due to the cross Atlantic trade which took place in the 18th century. Cross Atlantic trade involved slave trade. As found in the first stanza of this song, ‘the old pirates sold I to the merchant’s ship’. The west being a foreign land in which their existence was due to slave trade, they faced oppression from their masters and had no freedom. According to the International Society for Theoretical Psychology Conference (1999), freedom is highly prized in humans and people would

My interpretation might be wrong. I reread the poet’s background and the poem again, and I got the new interpretation that the poem is about the black slavery

Kendrick’s song expresses the continued struggle faced by African Americans in modern society. The first couple lines of his song truly display how he feels about the mistreatment of African Americans: