“Help Us Lay This Burden Down”

I just can’t think of a better way to celebrate the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day than with this:

Odetta Rests

From NYT:

Rosa Parks, the woman who started the boycott of segregated buses in Montgomery, Ala., was once asked which songs meant the most to her. She replied, “All of the songs Odetta sings.”

Odetta sang at the march on Washington, a pivotal event in the civil rights movement, in August 1963. Her song that day was “O Freedom,” dating to slavery days: “O freedom, O freedom, O freedom over me, And before I’d be a slave, I’d be buried in my grave, And go home to my Lord and be free.”

Read the whole thing here

“The Midnight Special”