La Traversée du Fleuve

For ten long years, this man has made me happy. For ten long years, this man has made me forget - and that's a gift from above. I never thought anybody could give me so much love, even without trying, without appearing to make any effort, without raising no dust about it.

J'ai perdu la tête. Les récoltes n'avaient rien donné. J'ai vendu mes enfants. Je me souviens. Je les ai conduits (deux garçons et une fille) le long des sentiers difficiles et nous sommes arrivés là où les marécages sont peuplés de crabes et de mouettes.

For two hundred and fifty years I have listened. To the haunting voices. Singing: Mercy, Mercy Me. (The Ecology.) Insisting: Man, I ain't got no quarrel with them Vietcong. Declaring: Brothers and Friends. I am Toussaint L'Ouverture, my name is perhaps known to you. Listened to: Papa Doc. Baby Doc. Listened to voices hoping for: Freedom. Democracy. Singing: Baby, baby. Where did our love go? Samba. Calypso. Jazz. Jazz. Sketches of Spain in Harlem. In a Parisian bookstore a voice murmurs the words. Nobody Knows My Name. I have listened to the voices that cried: I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have listened to the sounds of an African carnival in Trinidad. In Rio. In New Orleans. On the far bank of the river, a drum continues to be beaten. A many-tongued chorus continues to swell. And I hope that amongst these survivors' voices I might occasionally hear those of my own children.

Never again would she stand on an auction block. (Never.) Never again would she be renamed. (Never.) Never again would she belong to anybody. (No sir, never.)

Pregnant women get extra concentrated orange juice. An extra pint of milk a day. An extra half-ration of meat a week. An extra egg (up to three a week). Free cod-liver oil. Free chocolate-covered vitamin tablets. And a baby.