“I am a black woman the music of my song some sweet arpeggio of tears is
written in a minor key and I can be heard humming in the night,
Can be heard humming in the night.”
Mari Evans
“Sing Us One Of The Songs Of Zion!”
If there was ever a Biblical song written about the trauma of slavery, it would be Psalm 137. This poetic gem focuses on the traumatic experience of exile for the captive Isrealites in Babylon. Suffering, grief, regret, guilt, shame, and disbelief are the burdening thoughts of a prideful people who suffered defeat and religious destruction when Judah’s capital city, Jerusalem fell at the hands of the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar in 597 BCE. The Jewish people who were captured and taken from Judah ended up in Babylon from 597 BCE and 538 BCE. In October 539 BCE, when the Persian king Cyrus the Great overthrew Babylon, he sent the remaining exiles back to Jerusalem to rebuild their city and temple. The irony for me is that on the banks of the Tigris–Euphrates river system is where the Bible sets the scene of the deep lament of the immigrant Jews found in Psalm 137. Their “tormentors” asked them to sing in their work and through their grief. Their mournful laments begin in verses 1-4;
“By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion. There on the poplars we hang our harps, for there our captors asked us for songs, our tormentors demanded songs of joy; they said, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!” How can we sing the songs of the Lord while in a foreign land?”
Bobbi R. Baugh in his painting How Can We Sing In a Strange Land?, captures these sentiments and the relationship with the plight of immigrants today.
“How can we sing the Lord’s Song in a strange land?” They were bereft. They had left behind their home and, they believed, their God. This intense longing for home is woven into the story and history of the Jewish people. And yet, it is not a unique story. It is universal—and, therefore, all the more powerful. At times, the scattered self that lives in the new place does not even feel like oneself. Contemporary immigrants also give voice to their lament: “How can we sing in a strange land?”
We Sang And Will Sing
Harriet Jacobs died on March 7, 1897 but through her words, she sang songs of captivity and freedom. Millions of Jewish women have died but before they did, they sang songs of deliverance. Of the more than 15 million slaves who died in the Trans-Atlantic Middle Passage and through the lifespan of slavery, black women are counted in that number with men and children. They too sang songs of redemption and freedom. Black women, post emancipation, our great great, great, great, great, grandmothers, mothers, aunts, nannies, and sisters before they died, sang through tears and prayers, the songs of the Civil Rights movement. The voice of living activist Calypso Rose or Linda McCartha Monica Sandy-Lewis, echoes the demand for the addressing of social issues such as racism and sexism by singing the “conscience of a woman.” She sings Psalm 137 as a prayer to God from His sunkissed daughters.
We Black women sing through and above our challenges, continuing the story of our resiliency. We sing in the darkness and marvel at how God’s voice in our songs becomes the light piercing breaking the venom of oppression. We sing in our various seasons of experiences. We sing, harmonizing aloud the combined lyrics of pain with the undeniable power of our God. We “make a noise” because Yaweh did not send our foremothers into slavery alone. He went into exile with them. Our pain is His pain. Our song is His song. Because of His great Love and covenant with us, He went in slavery with us. And today, despite the dangers we face in America, Praise God, we can shout with a thankful noise because He is still with us in this modern-day reimagination of slavery and oppression.
Our pain is His pain. Our song is His song.
God’s presence is the answered prayer for the resilience and strength of the Black woman. Dr. Zelma W. Henriques, professor in the Department of Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice Administration at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, C.U.N.Y., in the journal Women and Criminal Justice Volume: 7, states a line from the testimony about Black women’s strength.
“Despite the obstacles they confront, African- American women remain a stabilizing force for their families, their communities, and society.”
My plea and prayer is for God to continue to preserve our legacy, sustain our homes, save our children, save our families, and give us a song to sing! Praying with thanksgiving because God answers prayers!
“May the LORD our God be with us as He was with our ancestors; may He never leave us nor forsake us” 1 Kings 8:5.
Continue to Explore:
- Amazon.com: Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself
- Historical Context: Facts about the Slave Trade and Slavery | Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
- Slavery and the “American Way of War,” 1607–1861 | Comparative Studies in Society and History | Cambridge Core
- 2015: “Women and Slavery” | United Nations.
- Facts and figures: Ending violence against women
- Black Women in the U.S. Murdered Six Times More Often Than White Women
- Violence Against Black Women – Many Types, Far-reaching Effects – IWPR
- My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass: Chapter 6
- Timeline of Ancient Israelite Religion(2000-539 BCE)
- Herodotus on Cyrus’ capture of Babylon – Livius.
- How Can We Sing In a Strange Land? | SAQA – Studio Art Quilt Associates
- Excluded from National Leadership, Black Women Were the Backbone of the Civil Rights Movement
- Calypso Rose – Blake Zidell & Associates
- Malcolm X Stood Up for Black Women When Few Others Would | by Feminista Jones | ZORA
- African-American Women: The Oppressive Intersection of Gender, Race and Class | Office of Justice Programs
