The Leadership and Empowerment Institute, Inc.

We sang it in my church. It inspired and encouraged us in times where encouragement and inspiration were hard to come by for an embattled people.  There is a story behind the song. During the time of slavery, the house slaves were required to cook, prepare, and serve the large feasts and banquets for their masters, their masters' neighbors, and friends. These were grand times for slave owners. The pre-civil war years were very prosperous. Their slaves worked hard and were very productive. Cotton rice and tobacco were plentiful and profitable. The landed gentry became very wealthy from the sweat and toil of their slaves. The days of mint juleps under magnolias, lavishly dressed southern gentlemen and ladies, great social gatherings and lovely leisurely summer evenings with good old southern hospitality among the "lily White" were in high order.

And the slaves witnessed their masters living large, so to speak, and living large at their (the slaves) expense…welcoming neighbors to sit at the table and partake of the bounty from their chattel.

But they lived in the most deprived conditions. Slave huts were no more than boxes designed to keep a roof over their heads to protect them from bad weather. They were provided only the barest necessities to keep bodies in good working condition. They were seen as the half-human, not worthy of dignity and respect.

But these humble and gentle people knew that injustice would not continue forever. They knew of their inherent right to reap the benefit of the fruits from their labor. And they kept their hopes and dreams alive through their music and their songs, and their relationships with one another and their intellect. They knew deep within themselves the truth of the words from the Christian tradition. Those who are humble and downtrodden will be lifted up. They knew the truth of the words that Dr. King uttered some one hundred years later and truth of the old gospel song, Sitting at the Welcome Table.