John Brown’s Body in the 21st Century

I’ve been working on a long poem that attempts to connect America’s original sin, its ending and re-emergence in new forms, to the pathologies we live with today, including the systemic racism that remains in place and the creation of whiteness as an identity designed to reinforce historical and systemic differences. Whiteness often is a stand-in for American, with “non-whites” — who at various times have included African Americans, African and Caribbean immigrants, Latinos, Muslims, Jews, Greeks, Italians, Poles and other Eastern Europeans, and even the Irish — being somehow less American

In the United States, whiteness has been a fungible concept — sort of an invitation-only category that is employed when political and economic hierarchies are threatened. (I am basing this idea on the writings of people like Nell Irvin Painter, Grace Elizabeth Hale and Eric L. Goldstein and others who have studied the concept of whiteness.)

While reading and writing for the project, I was listening to some Civil War-era music and the John Brown-Michael Brown rhyme hit me. That caused me to rewrite the first verse of “John Brown’s Body,” the spiritual cum march, for our times. I’m sharing it here.

JOHN BROWN’S BODY IN THE 21ST CENTURY

Old John Brown’s body lies moldering in the grave,
While weep the sons of bondage whom he ventured all to save;
But tho he lost his life while struggling for the slave,
His soul is marching on.

Glory, Glory Hallelujah
Glory, Glory Hallelujah
Glory, Glory Hallelujah
His soul is marching on.

Michael Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the sun
His mother weeps in disbelief, he died by a copper’s gun
Lost his life but not his soul, because he wouldn’t run
His memory marches on.

Glory, Glory Hallelujah
Glory, Glory Hallelujah
Glory, Glory Hallelujah
His memory marches on.

Lincoln ended slavery to help him win the war
The black man now had rights and who could ask for more
But freedom was a falsehood, as Jim Crow had shut the door
Our sin keeps marching on

Jim Crow was a hero to too many in the South,
A system of oppression meant to keep the negro down
Up North we were no better, saying “keep those niggers out”
Our sin keeps marching on.

Glory, Glory Hallelujah
Glory, Glory Hallelujah
Glory, Glory Hallelujah
Our sin keeps marching on.

Martin called for justice and was felled by sniper shot
Malcolm met his ending as he fought the racist rot
Both of them had tried in vain to rewrite the novel’s plot
Our sin keeps marching on

Evers, Chaney, Goodman, Schwerner, Till and Rev. Lee
Jimmie Jackson, Herbert Lee and Rev. Jimmie Reebe
Cpl. Roman Duckworth killed while he was home on leave
Our sin keeps marching on

Glory, Glory Hallelujah
Glory, Glory Hallelujah
Glory, Glory Hallelujah
Our sin keeps marching on.

In Birmingham, four young girls died in a church bomb blast,
Then a little while later, another young black kid was cast
From this life by a racist’s bullet and into the eternal past
Our sin keeps marching on

In Cleveland decades later young Tamir Rice was slain
By a copper’s bullet in a park in which he went to play
For black kids in America it was just another day
Our sin keeps marching on

Glory, Glory Hallelujah
Glory, Glory Hallelujah
Glory, Glory Hallelujah
Our sin keeps marching on.

Trayvon Martin shot to death when he was just a teen
Followed by George Zimmerman, a man he’d never seen
Who saw a threat in Trayvon and the color of his skin
Our sin keeps marching on

Walter Scott’s another who was killed by a copper’s gun
They chased him and they shot him in the back as he did run
A taser planted on his body to hide just what they’d done
Our sin keeps marching on

Glory, Glory Hallelujah
Glory, Glory Hallelujah
Glory, Glory Hallelujah
Our sin keeps marching on.

Eric Garner choked by cops on streets of Staten Isle
Sandra Bland was hanged in Texas as she waited for a trial
Black bodies shot and broken and tossed upon a pile
Our sin keeps marching on

The sin is not just slavery, or hate or greed or war
It’s carried in our DNA from East to Western shore
Race hate’s an infection and we’re rotten to the core
Our sin keeps marching on

Glory, Glory Hallelujah
Glory, Glory Hallelujah
Glory, Glory Hallelujah
Our sin keeps marching on.

Old John Brown’s body lies moldering in the grave,
While weep the sons of bondage whom he ventured all to save;
But tho he lost his life while struggling for the slave,
His soul is marching on.

Glory, Glory Hallelujah
Glory, Glory Hallelujah
Glory, Glory Hallelujah
His soul is marching on.

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