Harriet Ann Jacobs (February 11, 1813 – March 7, 1897) was an African-American writer who escaped from slavery and became an abolitionist speaker and reformer.
Jacobs’ single work, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, published in 1861 under the pseudonym Linda Brent, was one of the first autobiographical narratives about the struggle for freedom by female slaves and an account of the sexual harassment and abuse they endured.
AND SOMETIMES I HEAR THIS SONG IN MY HEAD
Harriet Jacobs
we have always heard music
found ways to smooth back the edges
of madness
stretched our voices
to the slap of oar against water
heard blues in the snap of cotton breaking
from stem
we always been a music
people
sometimes lost in a jungle of tears
but we keep finding our way back
to that
clearing
at the center
of our selves
where the trees still talk to us
and our tongues keep remembering the rhythm
of the words we forgot
swaying on the backs of buses
and in hot kitchens
crooning
in poolhalls and shared bathrooms
yeah/we carving a heartspace
and staring down the darkness some call our future
and they saying it be just dope and more dope
and no hope
and they don’t even see we all the time
standing in the middle of trees
and steady singing
you can’t
you can’t
you can’t
touch this