Uploaded June 2020 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago

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Filmed at the David Ruggles Center for Underground Railroad History, May 20, 2018. Originally published in 1852, this version comes from the retrospective collection The Emancipation Sidecar, 1874.


Song of the “Aliened American.”
(Joshua McCarter Simpson-The Emancipation Car pp. 17-18) Tune: America/My Country ’tis of Thee)

My country, ’tis of thee,
Dark land of Slavery,
In thee we groan,
Long have our chains been worn—
Long has our grief been borne—
Our flesh has long been torn,
E’en from our bones.

The white man rules the day—
He bears despotic sway,
O’er all the land.
He wields the Tyrant’s rod,
Fearless of man or God,
And at his impious nod,
We “fall or stand.”

O! shall we longer bleed?
Is there no one to plead
The black man’s cause?
Does justice thus demand
That we shall wear the brand,
And raise not voice nor hand
Against such laws?

No! no! the time has come,
When we must not be dumb,
We must awake.
We now “Eight Millions Strong,”
Must strike sweet freedom’s song
And lease ourselves, our wrong—
Our chains must break.