Rise Up Singing
Freedom
p. 64
First Line: 
Woke up this morning with my mind stayed on freedom

Artist & Tune

Composed by: 
Rev. Robert Wesby
Robert Zellner

Reference

Genre: 
composed folk US
Culture: 
African-American

About the Song

Print source: 
We Shall Overcome!: Songs of the Southern Freedom Movement (Oak, 1963). Also in Irwin Silber, This Singing Land, and Wanda Willson Whitman, Songs That Changed the World (Crown, 1969), p.16 [as "With My Mind Set on Freedom"]

According to Wikipedia Rev, Wesby was from Aurora IL and wrote the famous freedom song "Woke Up This Morning" while imprisoned in Mississippi during the Freedom Rides in 1961. The song was an adaptation of an older gospel song "Woke up this morning with my mind, stayed on Jesus."

Some sources credit the song to a Rev. Osby rather than Wesby.

 

Wikipedia Entry
Mudcat
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