“The songs of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart.” In History class in high school, I was always taught that slaves sung as a way to come together and get through a brutal day’s work. The songs were a sign of communal strength, a sign that the slaves would let their hearts suffer while the rest of their bodies did. Yet, Douglass says the opposite. He claims that the songs of the slave exhibit the releasing of sorrow from the soul, that their true feelings and identities are portrayed in the songs. I began to understand this ideology even more after watching the Beyonce “Formation” video. Beyonce’s lyrics chronicling her own upbringing and how they have not left her current identity struck a chord with me. She had not forgotten where she came from, and lives with a purpose of remembering her roots. Douglass, like Beyonce, lives with the memory of his past and will not forget those struggles. Similar to the way people may misconstrue the identity of Beyonce as solely a rich, successful woman, they could do the same for Douglass, misrepresenting him as a freed slave who is just happy to be free and moves on with no difficulty.
