Auction Blocks and Courthouse Steps

For several weeks now I have had various words and tunes in my head that parallel auction blocks and sale of Black-owned farms on courthouse steps.  Not that these two situations are entirely analogous, but that they do have some curious and demeaning parallels.  "No More Auction Block" by Robeson, Odetta, and Dylan is the standard. At the end of the day, I may just add some lyrics to that haunting tune.

In the midst of doing some research on auction blocks, I came across the book, Bullwhip Days: The Slaves Remember. You can read a review here. It is not a warm-hearted read, but it is a "I need to know and respect and remember" read.  One remembrance that especially moved my heart and fits into the conversation about lyrics and tunes is one by James Martin.  Here he is in his own words:

The slaves are put in stalls like the pens they use for cattle--a man and his wife with a child on each arm.  And there's a curtain, sometimes just a sheet over the front of the stall, so the bidders can't see the "stock" too soon. The overseer's standin' just outside with a big blacksnake ship and a pepperbox pistol in his belt. Across the square a little piece, there's a big platform with steps leadin' up to it.

Then, they pulls up the curtain, and the bidders is crowdin' around. Them in back can't see, so the overseer drives the slaves out to the platform, and he tells the ages of the slaves and what they can do. They have white gloves there, and one of the bidders takes a pair of gloves and rubs his fingers over a man's teeth, and he says to the overseer, "You call this buck twenty years old? Why there's cup worms in his teeth. He's forty years old, if he's a day." So they knock this buck down for a thousand dollars.  They calls the men "bucks" and the women "wenches."

When the slaves is on the platform--what they calls the "block"--the overseer yells, "Tom or Jason, show the bidders how you walk." Then, the slaves step across the platform, and the biddin' starts.

At these slave auctions, the overseer yells, "Say, you bucks and wenches, get in your hole. Come out here." Then, he makes 'em hop, he makes 'em trot, he makes 'em jump. "How much," he yells, "for this buck? A thousand? Eleven hundred? Twelve hundred dollars?" Then, the bidders makes offers accordin' to size and build.----page 291.

These images must not be denied nor forgotten.