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about

Union song by John L Handcox, arrangement by Avery Book
Handcox was an African American song-leader and organizer with the Southern Tenant Farmers Union, a union of poor white, black and indigenous sharecroppers, tenant farmers and farm laborers in the 1930s.

lyrics

There are mean things happening in this land (2x)
But the union's going on, and the union's growing strong
There are mean things happening in this land.

-On the 18th day of May the union called a strike
But the planters and the bosses throwed the people out of their shacks

-The planters throwed the people off the land, where many years they had spent
And in the cold hard winter they had to live in tents

-The planters throwed the people out, without a bite to eat
They cursed them and kicked them and some with axe handles beat

-The people got tired of working, and that from sun to sun
But the planters forced them to work at the point of the gun

Alternate third lines of choruses:
...Too much cotton in our sacks so we have nothing on our backs...
...Groceries on the shelves, but we have none for ourselves...
...The rich man boasts and brags while the poor man goes in rags...
...Oh, the farmer cannot eat, 'cause he's raised too much wheat...

(There'll be good things...)
...When the workers take a stand and unite in a solid band...

credits

from Village Harmony Midwest Teen Camp 2016, released March 7, 2017

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Village Harmony Camp Sessions Marshfield, Vermont

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