Excerpt from Thomas Johnson slave narrative

Thomas Johnson was born as a slave in Virginia. After slavery was ended in 1865, he became a minister and traveled to Africa and England to convert others to Christianity. In this excerpt he describes the risk that slaves had to take to meet in prayer groups and sing hymns and spirituals. Johnson mentions the Jubilee Singers, a group of black musicians who performed spirituals in concerts around America and Europe after the Civil War.

From Thomas L. Johnson (Thomas Lewis), b. 1836? Twenty-Eight Years a Slave, or The Story of My Life in Three Continents. Bournemouth, Eng.: W. Mate & Sons, 1909.

Courtesy of Documenting the American South / UNC Libraries.

After my conversion I would often “Steal away to Jesus” with other slaves, to some quiet place for prayer, over the stable, or in the kitchen when the master and mistress were away, though we knew that if we were discovered we should be locked up for the night, and that the next morning we should receive from five to nine or even thirty lashes for unlawfully assembling together. Over five slaves in such a gathering, though they had passes, constituted an unlawful assembly. At night no slave was allowed to be out without a pass from his master. We used to have such a good time at these meetings. No wonder the Jubilee Singers sang with such deep feeling when those of them who were once slaves remembered the meetings of this kind at which they sang and prayed almost in a whisper for fear of being heard. How appropriate to sing softly and quietly: —

Steal away,
Steal away,
Steal away to Jesus;
Steal away,
Steal away home;
I ain’t got long to stay here.