June 19, 2021
Songs for the People
Composed by Onome
Text by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper was born free in 1825, a time when slavery was rife throughout the United States. She used her relative privilege to advocate for the oppressed as an abolitionist, suffragette, educator, and prolific writer of poems, essays, and short stories. Her piece, Songs for the People, speaks to the power of music to bring us all together across all walks of life.
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If you are not already familiar with the newest official U.S. holiday, Juneteenth, it commemorates the last official date of slavery. It was on June 19, 1867 that the last enslaved people were informed of their freedom in Galveston, Texas, two years after the Emancipation Proclamation.
A few things jump out at me about these details. One, it’s remarkable how exponentially quicker information travels today vs the 1800s when their “internet” consisted of Union troops on horseback delivering the message.
I also recognize the bittersweet nature of this holiday, given the magnitude of trauma inflicted on millions of people across generations through the institution of chattel slavery, and the courage of all the people who fought it every step of the way.
Lastly, in history class I had often heard the warning to not judge yesteryear’s people by today’s standards. Against that backdrop, I have always been intrigued by people who seem to be ahead of their time, that is, their narrative doesn’t appear to fit the most enduring frame of their particular cultural zeitgeist.
Frances E.W. Harper is a prime example of this, as a woman who was born free in a time when the majority of women of African descent in America were born into slavery. She was also born into a family of bibliophiles in a time when it was illegal for enslaved people (who were almost always Black) to read, and she was born to two Black parents in a time where typically only a mixed-race child born of one white parent would have had access to the level of privilege that Harper was born into.
Her life serves as an important reminder that the grand narrative of U.S. slavery is a tapestry of a million nuanced stories. There were always free black people, there were numerous enslaved people who fought back and won, or died trying. There were always Americans of European descent who recognized the moral turpitude of slavery and were vocal against it, and so on. There are certain standards, I’d even say spiritual laws, that seem to endure through time and space, and Harper’s poem Songs for the People captures the essence of that, namely, the unifying force of music.
I’m humbled and grateful to be able to collaborate across the ages with a phenomenal woman born almost 200 years ago, and I am honored to share my original music setting of Songs for the People here with you all on this momentous day!
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Onome is a vocalist, creativity catalyst, facilitator and interdisciplinary artist of Urhobo heritage in the Niger Delta. She incorporates improvisation into her practice as a tool to expand consciousness, creativity, and personal development. Through her audience-interactive performances, workshops and sound installations, Onome embodies joy, enchantment, and infinite possibility. She is a partner artist at Carnegie Hall as a core member of the vocal improvisation ensemble, Moving Star.
She has performed at hundreds of venues nationally, recorded soundscapes for podcasts, and created vocal film scores. She received her MFA in Performance Studies at Pratt Institute. She is the artistic director for Lush Tongue, a vocal improvisation project where sound, creativity, self-discovery, connection, and joy converge through singing—via sound healing sessions, workshops, vocal coaching, retreats, and concerts. She leads Soul Incites, a women’s self-development community. She got her start in spoken word poetry and opera via Nuyorican Poets Cafe and New York University, and now facilitates community vocal immersions at concert halls, conferences, galleries, museums, schools, cultural centers, shelters, prisons, parks, churches, online, wherever voices gather.