Book Excerpt – On My Journey Now: Looking At African-American History Through The Spirituals
On My Journey Now: Looking At African-American History Through The Spirituals
by Nikki Giovanni
Publication Date: Sep 08, 2009
List Price: $8.99
Format: Paperback, 128 pages
Classification: Nonfiction
Target Age Group: Middle Grade
ISBN13: 9780763643805
Imprint: Candlewick Press
Publisher: Candlewick Press
Parent Company: Candlewick Press
Read a Description of On My Journey Now: Looking At African-American History Through The Spirituals
Copyright © 2009 Candlewick Press/Nikki Giovanni No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission from the publisher or author. The format of this excerpt has been modified for presentation here.
America was looking for very, very, very cheap labor, because
they wanted workers who were even cheaper than indentured
servants. The Africans were taken from their homes, their
villages, their cities. They were chained and lined up, and
people who could not keep up were thrown to the side. So many
people dying changed the patterns of the predators, especially
the hyenas, the buzzards, the scavengers. The animals came in
closer to the coast, following their prey.
They rowed these people out to the sailboats that were going to
take them to America. When they put people on ships - and it was
deliberate - they separated family groups so they could not
speak to each other, so they could not plot. So the slavers had
these people on their hands who they had to keep
healthy-looking, or else they weren’t going to get anything for
them. Sometimes they had to force them to eat, because some of
them would go on hunger strikes. They were packed head to toe in
the ship. Anything that came out of the next person fell on you.
So the sailors had to bring you up and pour water on you to more
or less wash you. It’s not a wash, but it does what it is
supposed to do; it gets off all the dirt and mess that is
covering you.
We know from the diaries of slave captains that if they brought
the Africans up the first or second day, they would jump
overboard because the people could just look back and see home.
And, having seen it, having recognized that this was not really
going to be a good idea at all, and having struggled, they would
want to go back. There is something I’m always laughing about:
the myth that Africans don’t swim, which is crazy. When swimming
pools were segregated, that made it harder for African Americans
to learn to swim. But of course Africans could swim; many lived
near the Atlantic Ocean, and they would swim. In some cases when
they jumped overboard, they were shot in the back and wounded
and they died, and in other cases they made it. Most ended up in
the belly of a shark. The sharks, too, changed their patterns.
They began to follow the ships west, feeding on the bodies of
the dead or dying Africans.
So the slavers waited, got to that fourth and fifth day, and
then there was a calm among the Africans, and they talked about
that. There was a calm because they could look out, and although
they couldn’t see the land, they could see the heat coming off
the land. They could see that shimmer, and it’s the most
fantastic thing to travel to Africa by boat, because you see the
heat before you see the land.
And so, by that sixth or seventh day, or maybe around the eighth
day, they could no longer see the land or the heat, and so there
is going to be a restlessness, because people are beginning to
feel lost, because now they’re thinking, "Well, this is farther
out." So now we have the Africans in a position of not really
being able to see anything familiar. But of course they followed
the clouds, and we do know that clouds above land are different
from clouds over water, so they could see that land had to be
that way. And so we’re going to have a serious problem somewhere
around the tenth day. And those who study this - I’m just a
poet, but the people who study slavery - say that those ships’
captains knew that this was going to be the day that, I don’t
want to say all hell is going to break loose, but the day they
really have to tighten up, because now the people realize they
will not know how to get home.
Fare you well, fare you well, fare you well, everybody.
Fare you well, fare you well, whenever I do get a-home.
What those captured people had - which is why I so admire those
people - was a tone, a voice, a moan. They made a decision,
because they had to decide: Do we shut ourselves down, or do we
continue forward? Now, they ultimately are going to sing a lot
of songs; they’re going to sing a song that says,
Done made my vow to the Lord,
And I never will turn back.
I will go,
I shall go,
To see what the end will be.
Done opened my mouth to the Lord,
And I never will turn back.
I will go,
I shall go,
To see what the end will be.
So, it’s a fabulous thing. But there is also a much sadder song
that says,
I told Jesus it would be all right if He changed my name,
I told Jesus it would be all right if He changed my name,
I told Jesus it would be all right if He changed my name.
And He told me that I would go hungry if He changed my name,
And He told me that I would go hungry if He changed my name,
And He told me that I would go hungry if He changed my name.
The Africans are trying to decide, do we continue forward to see
what the end will be, or not? Do we agree to change our names,
or not? And frankly speaking, I always think it was a woman who
started the singing, because I think women do that. Somewhere in
the belly of that ship, a woman started in humming, because she
couldn’t call out and speak to others - there were too many
different languages. But she could hum, and that hum, that moan
was picked up and went all over the ship and became a single
voice. We’ve heard it in groups like the Moses Hogan Chorale;
you hear the voices of all of those people becoming one voice,
and it’s a moan. But that moan says, "We will find a way; we
will continue."