Black American History in Ballad, Song and Prose

Performed by Langston Hughes, Ossie Davis, Jean Brannon, W.E.B. DuBois, and Pete Seeger, this collection of spoken word, oral history, speech and song represents a comprehensive sociopolitical history of black America. Beginning with America’s rediscovery in 1492 and Columbus’s supposedly black pilot, Pedro Alonso Niño, the collection covers the colonial period, the slave experience, the Civil war, notable African-American women, nineteenth-century black intellectuals, the Jim Crow years and the struggle for civil rights, ending with the late Martin Luther King Jr.

Track Listing

101	Blacks with the Spanish Explorers Langston Hughes	02:07
102	Black Valor Jean Brannon	03:11
103	Black Sailors Jean Brannon	01:37
104	Black Archives Jean Brannon	01:50
105	Ballad of Benjamin Banneker Frederick Douglass Kirkpatrick, Pete Seeger	02:44
106	African Chants / Oh Freedom Langston Hughes, Leon Bibb	05:35
107	Go Down Moses / John Brown's Body / Legacy Clark Morgan, Hermes Nye, Langston Hughes, Ossie Davis	03:42
108	Election of Lincoln / Lincoln and Libery Hermes Nye, Ossie Davis	02:04
109	Secession of the South / Bonnie Blue Flag Hermes Nye, Ossie Davis	02:34
110	Civil War Ossie Davis	02:50
111	Emancipation Proclamation Ossie Davis	01:35
112	Negro Troops Ossie Davis	01:49
113	In Charleston Jail / Douglass Meets Lincoln Hermes Nye, Ossie Davis	04:51
114	Death of Lincoln / Freedom and Equality Ossie Davis	04:21
115	Old Rebel / 14th and 15th Amendments Hermes Nye, Ossie Davis	05:05
116	Ballad of Sojourner Truth Frederick Douglass Kirkpatrick, Pete Seeger	04:00
117	Ballad of Harriet Tubman Frederick Douglass Kirkpatrick, Pete Seeger	02:50
118	Francis Watkins Harper Susan Kempler, Doreen Rappaport	02:29
119	Ida B. Wells Barnett Dorothy Washington	02:13
120	Eleanor Holmes Norton Eleanor H. Norton	03:49
121	Shirley Chisholm Shirley Chisholm	02:59
122	Ballad of Frederick Douglass Frederick Douglass Kirkpatrick, Pete Seeger	03:49
123	Booker T Washington / George Washington Carver Langston Hughes	05:42
124	Let's Move It / W.E.B. DuBois Frederic Ramsey, Jr., W.E.B. DuBois	03:48
125	If We Must Die Claude McKay	01:35
126	Ballad of the Deacons Frederick Douglass Kirkpatrick, Pete Seeger	05:42
127	The Negro Voter / The State of Arkansas Martin Luther King, Jr., Pete Seeger	01:54
128	President Kennedy's Press Conference John F. Kennedy	01:07
129	Rev. Ralph Abernathy Ralph Abernathy	02:17
130	Martin Luther King / Ballad of Dr. King / We Shall Overcome Martin Luther King, Jr., Pete Seeger, Frederick Douglass Kirkpatrick	13:41