Simple Songs of Freedom by Randall E. Auxier This is an illustration from the “slave narrative” (some people don’t like that label) of Solomon Northup. He was a free black from Saratoga Springs, NY, kidnapped in Washington D.C. in 1841 and sold into slavery in Louisiana. He barely avoided becoming strange fruit, when he refused…

Silent as the Grave by Randall E. Auxier The first information I read said this was the Antietam battlefield, in a slave state after all, but not one in rebellion, so not subject to the Emancipation Proclamation, and hiring the freedmen to do this work. Maryland self-emancipated before the war ended. The workers were (it…

From a Metaphysical, Supernatural, Universal Point of View by Randall E. Auxier I want to believe. Yeah, right, me, Mulder, and Pollyanna. But if you look closely at this piece of sheet music, you’ll see the scruples. “The First Successful Blues Published” and “The Most Widely Known Ragtime Composition.” The first claim is surely true,…

A Left Hand Warmed Up in Hell by Randall E. Auxier Mark Twain complained to a friend that to write what he was really thinking would fill a library and he’d need a “pen warmed up in hell.” But compared to the mischief made by Scott Joplin‘s left hand, well, there’s no comparison. Here we…