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African American Slave Song

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Slave songs are an especially important resource for studying the "lived experience" of slavery. As one of the only emotional and spiritual outlets available to slaves, these songs contain the hopes and dreams, frustrations and fears, of generations of African Americans. In this lesson, you will work together in groups to decipher the songs and analyze what they reveal about the deeper thoughts and feelings of enslaved Americans. You will then write your own songs -- of protest, mourning, etc. -- to experience the empowering and sustaining effect that this form of creative expression can have. This lesson concludes with a class discussion on the significance of music and coded language in the slave community. We will work on deciphering the first song together as a class. After that, you will work in groups of three or four to analyze the following songs and answer the corresponding questions. Be prepared to discuss your conclusions with your classmates. …show more content…

While working as an itinerant carpenter and handyman, he often spent his winters in the South, traveling from plantation to plantation and teaching slaves this song. Unfortunately, we know nothing more about the mysterious Peg Leg Joe. When the sun comes back and the first quail

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