Monday Music: An African-American Music Tradition

This week, Not Dark Yet will be featuring insights into our shared American history as we commemorate the 400th anniversary of slavery in America. Sadly, even after the Civil War officially ended slavery, the U.S. prison system managed to continue the slave tradition well into the 20th Century. Prison work songs are examples of how a people working in bondage and under duress gained strength in holding onto musical traditions from their African homelands.

The YouTube site states that this was "recorded with outside's work conditions in Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman in 1947."

Recorded over 60 years ago at Parchman Farm "these songs belong to the musical tradition which Africans brought to the New World, but they are also as American as the Mississippi River."
- Alan Lomax