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NEGRO FOLK RHYMES |
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* JACK AND DINAH WANT FREEDOM
Ole Aunt Dinah, she's jes lak me.
She wuk so hard dat she want to be free.
But, ycu know, Aunt Dinah's gittin' sorter ole;
An' she's feared to go to Canada, caze it's so col'.
Dar wus ole Uncle Jack, he want to git free. He find de way Norf by de moss on de tree. He cross dat t river a-noatin' in a tub. Dem :f Patterollers give 'im a mighty close rub.
Dar is ole Uncle Billy, he's a mighty good Nigger. He tote all de news to Mosser a little bigger. When you tells Uncle Billy, you wants free fer a
f ac' ; De nex' day de hide drap off'n yo' back.
* The writer wishes to give explanation as to why the rhyme "Jack and Dinah Want Freedom" appears under
the Section of Psycho-composite Rhymes as set forth in
"The Study------" of our volume. The Negroes repeating
this rhyme did not always give the names Jack, Dinah, and Billy, as we here record them, but at their pleasure put in the individual name of the Negro in their surroundings whom the stanza being repeated might represent. Thus this little rhyme was the scientific dividing, on the part of the Negroes themselves, of the members of their race into three general classes with respect to the matter of Freedom.
fThe Ohio River.
t White guards who caught and kept slaves at the master's home.
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