timothy welbeck - up from slavery lyrics
verse 1
we were ga, yoruba, ashanti, igbo/akan, oroma, fante, edo/baka, urhobo/ this much we know/but europe was lurking to abscond with our heroes/and with oppression’s bonding, we became negro/at the dawn of an era of unconscious/a beautiful people to fondly behold/torn asunder, thrown into dungeons and sheepfolds/this long road to march stolen by oligarchs/we thought our souls were lost thrown in boats going oceans apart/courage would well up inside of our swollen hearts/our weary cries filled the skies going up to god/whipped and chained, sold on auction blocks/toiling long days growing old cotton crop/women raped, children doomed to this awful lot/at night we cried, “my god won’t it stop”
chorus (1)
we survived the capture, strolled the long march/lived through the middle p-ssage, could grow that old crop/we survived, made it through all of the racist schemes/and for their bravery, we came up from slavery/we’re alive because they survived all of the racist schemes (we came)/and for their bravery, we came up from slavery (up)
verse 2
the slave went free, spent a moment in the sun/baked in its heat, came to the place he had begun/like a raisin in the sun whose expectations had become/evaporated like the sour grapes he had drunk/emanc-p-tion had been publicly proclaimed/but each man was facing struggles that would go unchanged/it would know more names but go on the same/those controlled by chains were those who would go on hanged/a nation that said it abhorred its shameful past/would relegate blacks to a subordinate racial caste/the thirteenth amendment which was certain to end it/would prohibit it, but also permit it/so the system grows, jim crow took on slavery’s semblance/as the original, each law took on slavery’s image/it was the way’s intended/slavery has never ended/it just found new ways to be reinvented
chorus (2)
we survived reconstruction, broke the slave codes/learned to share crops, we strove with jim crow/we survived, made it through all of the racist schemes/and for their bravery, we came up from slavery/we’re alive because they survived through all of the racist schemes (we came)/and for their bravery, we came up from slavery (up)
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