On September 17 a specially built train will leave Washington to visit more that 300 cities. It will travel for one year, bearing the priceless documents of our American Heritage: the Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, a rough draft of the Constitution, the Emancipation Proclamation. It has been named Freedom Train–a name taken from the famous Negro slave spiritual which sang of rebellion against slavemasters. These symbols of American Democracy will travel East and West, North and South–there to be viewed by millions of American people.
It is unthinkable that so vital a project should have been clouded by questions of whether Negro Americans will be permitted to view these documents in the South on the same basis as all citizens. It is a shame beyond description to plan for an exhibition of the Emancipation Proclamation for “whites only” and “colored only.” Yet–despite the sponsorship of Freedom Train by a distinguished group of Americans–all of these un-American acts of discrimination against Negroes, these acts that sully rather than enoble our American Heritage seem destined to occur.
OUR WORLD is proud to present this poem about this train by Mr. Langston Hughes, written especially for us.
THE EDITORS
FREEDOM TRAIN by Langston Hughes
I read in the papers about the
Freedom Train.
I heard on the radio about the
Freedom Train.
I seen folks talkin’ about the
Freedom Train.
Lord, I been a-waitin’ for the
Freedom Train!
Down South in Dixie only train I see’s
Got a Jim Crow car set aside for me.
I hope there ain’t no Jim Crow on the Freedom Train,
No back door entrance to the Freedom Train,
No signs FOR COLORED on the Freedom Train,
No WHITE FOLKS ONLY on the Freedom Train.
I’m gonna check up on this
Freedom Train.
Who is the engineer on the Freedom Train?
Can a coal black man drive the Freedom Train?
Or am I still a porter on the Freedom Train?
Is there ballot boxes on the Freedom Train?
Do colored folks vote on the Freedom Train?
When it stops in Mississippi, will it be made plain
Everybody’s got a right to board the Freedom Train?
Somebody tell me about this
Freedom Train!
The Birmingham station’s marked COLORED and WHITE.
The white folks go left, The colored go right—
They even got a segregated lane.
Is that the way to get aboard the Freedom Train?
I got to know about this
Freedom Train!
If my children ask me, Daddy, please explain
Why there’s Jim Crow stations for the Freedom Train
What shall I tell my children?….You tell me—
cause freedom ain’t freedom when a man ain’t free.
But maybe they explains it on the
Freedom Train.
When that train goes steamin’ through South Caroline,
Will them Greenville lynchers pay it any mind?
Or will that twelve man jury what let ’em loose,
Turn their heads and spit tobacco juice?
Wonder will they spit on the
Freedom Train?
When my old mother in Atlanta, 83 and black,
Gets in line to see the Freedom,
Will some white man yell,
Get Back!
A Negro’s got not business on the Freedom Track!
Mister, I thought it were the
Freedom Train!
Her grandson’s name was Jimmy. He died at Anzio.
He died for real. It warn’t no show.
The freedom that they carryin’ on this Freedom Train,
Is it for real—or just a show again?
Jimmy wants to know about this
Freedom Train.
Will
his Freedom Train come zoomin’ down the track
Gleamin’ in the sunlight for white and black?
Not stoppin’ at no stations marked COLORED nor WHITE,
Just stoppin’ in the fields in the broad daylight,
Stoppin’ in the country in the wide open air,
Where there never was no Jim Crow signs nowhere,
No Welcomin’ Commmittees, nor politicians of note,
No Mayors and such for which colored can’t vote,
And nary a sign of a color line—
For the Freedom Train will be yours and mine!
Then maybe from their graves in Anzio,
The G.I.’s who fought will say, We wanted it so!
Black men and white men will say, Ain’t it fine?
At home they got a train that yours and mine!
Then I’ll shout, Glory for the
Freedom Train!
I’ll holler, Blow your whistle,
Freedom Train!
Thank God-A-Mighty! Here’s the
Freedom Train!
Get on board our Freedom Train!
