It’s My Charge To Keep (Honoring Arthur Slater) 

From the Album Here I Stand: Elder’s Wisdom; Children’s Song (Smithsonian Folkways)

My name is Arthur Slater
From Clarke County Alabama
Born on March 24th, 1929

We lived on what we could raise
In lower Alabama
Farming logs, paper wood
Chickens, mules and cows

It’s my charge to keep

We plowed it, hoed it, picked it
Scratched it raw in Alabama
Peanuts, cotton, black-eyed peas
Fifty cents a day

The blacks went here
The whites went there
Here in Alabama
Clarke County Training School
Is where I had to go

It’s my charge to keep

Barefoot in the briar stickers
Cut in Alabama
In hand me down uniforms
Boy could we play ball

Now, today, it makes me proud
To be in Alabama
Black and white kids on the field
In brand new uniforms

It’s my charge to keep

My name is Arthur Slater
From Clarke County Alabama

Words & Music by Larry Long
Copyright Larry Long Publishing 1994 | BMI

*Lyrics written with Ms. Ethel T. Leslie’s 3rd Grade Class Coffeeville, Alabama

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