Wilson County Negro Library, Negro History Week,
February 10, 1949
Hughes' third stop in Wilson, NC was the Wilson County Negro Library, which arranged Hughes' trip. The librarian here, Elizabeth Jenkins, organized a fundraiser out of Hughes' Darden performance to fund the library's bookmobile project (see picture to the right). After visiting Darden High School, Hughes was invited to the Wilson County Negro Library to attend a Negro History Week exhibit put on by Jenkins.
Documents: (Double Click Image to View)
FREEDOM'S PLOW
These stanzas focus more on the Black races' ideas of freedom. Here, Hughes writes about John Brown's slave revolt, the African American spiritual "Keep Your Hand on the Plow," and he also includes the quotes from Lincoln and Douglass on the abolitionists' version of freedom alongside Jefferson's Revolutionary version of freedom. This shows that if America can come from a time as dark as slavery using founding American principles, then they can also come out from Segregation and the hardships of WWII using it.
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He was a colored man who had been a slave
But had run away to freedom.
And the slaves knew
What Frederick Douglass said was true.
With John Brown at Harper’s Ferry, Negroes died.
John Brown was hung.
Before the Civil War, days were dark,
And nobody knew for sure
When freedom would triumph
'Or if it would,' thought some.
But others new it had to triumph.
In those dark days of slavery,
Guarding in their hearts the seed of freedom,
The slaves made up a song:
Keep Your Hand On The Plow!
Hold On!
That song meant just what it said: Hold On!
Freedom will come!
Keep Your Hand On The Plow!
Hold On!
Out of war it came, bloody and terrible!
But it came!
Some there were, as always,
Who doubted that the war would end right,
That the slaves would be free,
Or that the union would stand,
But now we know how it all came out.
Out of the darkest days for people and a nation,
We know now how it came out.
There was light when the battle clouds rolled away.
There was a great wooded land,
And men united as a nation.
America is a dream.
The poet says it was promises.
The people say it is promises-that will come true.
The people do not always say things out loud,
Nor write them down on paper.
The people often hold
Great thoughts in their deepest hearts
And sometimes only blunderingly express them,
Haltingly and stumblingly say them,
And faultily put them into practice.
The people do not always understand each other.
But there is, somewhere there,
Always the trying to understand,
And the trying to say,
'You are a man.
Together we are building our land.'
America!
Land created in common,
Dream nourished in common,
Keep your hand on the plow!
Hold on!
If the house is not yet finished,
Don’t be discouraged, builder!
If the fight is not yet won,
Don’t be weary, soldier!
The plan and the pattern is here,
Woven from the beginning
Into the warp and woof of America:
ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL.
NO MAN IS GOOD ENOUGH
TO GOVERN ANOTHER MAN WITHOUT
HIS CONSENT.
BETTER DIE FREE,
THAN TO LIVE SLAVES.
