The Moonlit Road - All God's Chillun Had Wings

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He worked those poor folks so hard, it was inhuman. He'd have them working from sun up to sundown. Now he wasn't just working the strong ones, no siree, he worked the men, women and children equally as hard. That man was meaner than a stirpped snake. Whenever they would get to the end of a row of cotton they would try to take a rest, but Ole Massa Jessup had an overseer who was equally as mean as he was.

He would ride to the end of the row and if he saw one of the slaves slow down he'd pull out that big old black whip and snap it in front of them to insure that they didn't even think about stopping to take even a moments rest. Nobody wanted to catch the wrath of that ol' whip, so they just kept on going. Now the human body can only take so much, and there were more occasions than not where the poor slaves would drop from sheer exhaustion.

Cotton field

There was this one young girl who had just given birth to her first child. I can't rightly remember her African name, but folks just called her Mimi. You would think that Ole' Massa Jessup would give the girl time to recover from childbirth; but no, he had that girl right back out in the field the next day. So there she was trying to tend to her baby as well as do her chores in the field. Well, that baby started to cry, as all babies do, and that overseer hollered "shut that thing up a'fore I come over there and beat the both of you."

Well, Mimi tried, best she could, to stop the crying. But she was a new mother, she didn't know what to do. That baby kept crying and sure enough, the next thing she knew, that old black whip was slicing through her back. She fell to the ground, baby still strapped to her hip. But she got up as quick as she could so as not to get hit again. She managed to stagger to an old man who ! was working a few feet in front of her. She whispered something to him and he immediately shook his head as if to say "no." She went on back to her place in the row and started back to picking. The hot sun beaming down on that poor child, and the fact that she still hadn't regained all of her strength back from giving birth, that child's knees buckled and she fell once again. And that old overseer laid that whip on her quicker than you could imagine.

This time she didn't even take the time to whisper to the old man, she just called out, "Is it time yet father, is it time yet?" That old man's vice sounded as if it were coming from the sky, the ground, and even from the thicket of trees that stood just beyond the cotton field. "Yes, daughter, yes indeed, now is the time!!"

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