PEOPLE GET READY by Esther Nelson

I recently attended an event in Salem, Virginia, put on by The Salem Choral Society titled “People Get Ready,” directed by S. Reed Carter IV.   This popular group has sung on numerous occasions locally as well as performing at Carnegie Hall in New York City and the National Cathedral in Washington D.C.  The choir (11 men and ~45 women) sang fourteen selections.  The song arresting my attention was “People Get Ready.” 

From Wikipedia:  “‘People Get Ready’ is a 1965 single by the Impressions, the group’s best-known hit, reaching number three on the Billboard R&B chart.  The gospel-influenced track was a Curtis Mayfield (1942–1999), American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and record producer.  This particular composition displayed [his] growing sense of social and political awareness…. In 2021, Rolling Stone named this song the 122^nd greatest song of all time.  Martin Luther King Jr. named the song the unofficial anthem of the Civil Rights Movement and often used the song to get people marching or to calm and comfort them.”

These are the lyrics:

People get ready
There’s a train a comin’
You don’t need no baggage
You just get on board 
All you need is faith
To hear the diesels hummin’
You don’t need no ticket
You just thank the Lord

So people get ready
There’s a train to Jordan
Picking up passengers
Coast to coast
Faith is the key
Open the doors and board them
There’s hope for all
Among those loved the most

There ain’t no room
For the hopeless sinner
Who would hurt all mankind
Just to save his own
Have pity on those whose
Chances grow thinner
There’s no hiding place
Against the Kingdom’s throne

So people get ready
There’s a train a comin’
You don’t need no baggage
You just get on board
All you need is faith
To hear the diesels hummin’
Don’t need no ticket
You just thank the Lord

The following rendition of “People Get Ready” is sung by Shirley Murdock (b. 1957), an American R&B singer-songwriter:

This song roots itself in the African-American community.  On the surface, it carries a simple message about Christian belief in an afterlife.  The symbolism, though, is complex holding multiple layers of earthly meaning. 

The train, of course, is a metaphor for forward motion.  Getting from one place to another.  African-American music links liberation to images of movement—highways, marching, trains, and also the biblical exodus.  The African-American Church is steeped in biblical story.  Many understand the world through a particular biblical lens.  Jordan is a place beyond the indignities of second- and third-class citizenship—a place where justice and freedom thrives.

“You don’t need no baggage/you just get on board/all you need is faith.”  This is a gospel song that delivers good news.  In 1965, the Civil Rights Movement was in full swing.  Suppressing Black voters, marginalization, segregated schools and neighborhoods equaled a lack of justice and freedom. 

“Faith is the key” as the train moves from “coast to coast” picking up passengers, demonstrating the inclusive universality of the journey.  Faith, as I see it, is the confidence we have in the decency of our fellow humans.  That’s a sticking point.  Are there some of us unconcerned about others’ suffering?  I think so.  Do we not understand what is at stake?  Some of us seem unable to see past our own desires.  Fundamentalist, evangelical theologians attribute those desires to God’s will.  They teach, often brainwash, their followers.

“People Get Ready” speaks about the unrepentant sin of slavery in America, the systemic racism that followed, and the promise of deliverance.  “There ain’t no room/For the hopeless sinner/Who would hurt all mankind/Just to save his own.”  The “hopeless sinners,” are White lawmakers who oppose(d) the Voting Rights Act, White Klansmen murdering civil rights activists, and White police who beat Black people kneeling in prayer.  Yet, at the same time, the song admonishes us to “Have pity on those whose/Chances grow thinner/There’s no hiding place/Against the Kingdom’s throne.”  The spirit of mercy, forgiveness, and victory shine through.

One need not be actively involved with the horror of White Klansmen and lawmakers who continue to oppress through harassment, deportation, and terrorism to be guilty of being this “hopeless sinner.” Being willfully ignorant—“If it doesn’t affect me, it’s not my problem”—is just as deadly.  When any sentient being (animals, plants, the Earth itself) suffers, we all suffer.  Why do some of us think we can live apart from it all—independent of what happens to our planet and human family?  In truth, we cannot.  All of nature (including humanity) is interconnected.  

Beneath the simplicity of this song is a call to freedom and justice for an oppressed people as well as a call to humanity to do better.  It recounts the past while anticipating the future. 

Today, we live in a period of resurgent White supremacy.  Social progress remains fragile.  Yet, the song encourages us to hope (keep working) while preparing for a brighter day—something I find difficult to do.  We have seen oppression and marginalization of individuals and groups over and over again. 

So, this is the thing—some of us give up on finding freedom and justice in this earthly sphere.  We long for total destruction of this “evil world” so things can then be made right. Is that what propelled Trump into office?  The hope that he would tear everything down (he’s doing a great job) and somehow things would be made new? That narrative also has biblical roots. Many evangelicals believe the world is so evil that only God can make “a new heaven and new earth.” So they pillage the earth and rape its inhabitants.  I reject this.

I have “faith” that it’s up to us to work towards equity in the here and now—not passively await the “sweet by and by.”  We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.  We are the ones to bring freedom and justice to our world. Liberation does not come from an external source.