Remember me, I'm the woman you nailed to a tree
after the twilight died.
Carrie, you be still now.
Don't make no noise.
Mama will protect you from all the
shouting and screaming and bidding
that's going on right now.
Hold on, hold on to mama.
Won't be long now.
They didn't have they lunch and something else
will happen to make the fear-- to take
the fear out of your bones and the sweat off in your eyelids
and drain them to the sweet winds for the birds to eat.
Something will happen.
Happens that I be a slave woman.
Maybe that makes me property not a human
being like all you who come to buy me.
See if I'm sturdy, can hold ground,
can withstand the elements, bear fruit when the seed is
in me sing like the Lord--
like the Lord's land.
Sing for my supper when the seasons come.
Get death, give death a mortgage on my bones.
No, don't come near me.
Stay away.
I'm not viable yet.
I'm a bit unleavened.
Still Carrie, be still child, don't cry.
Don't let them see you cry honey,
there's a victor in there.
Keep the tears inward.
How do they say?
Hold on to my apron tight if you want.
Hold hard while we crush the evil pushing
its way through that crowd of shoppers yelling before us
and standing there mocking us with money and all the changes
in the temple.
But they all look good, don't they?
Nice coats and trousers, bright shoes, sturdy heads.
Ever seen a finer looking people than that?
Evil be pretty sometimes, don't it?
Money look good even if it be for your soul.
Souls can't be bought.
I won't be of much use to anybody who
buys me without my Carrie here.
I'd be crippled needing crutches.
Who's going to pay for them?
Or will I have to work the fields limping
about with my mind catching butterflies
when I should be picking cotton because my soul be amputated
when you bought me without my Carrie for a few dollars
cheaper?
No, don't.
I beg you, don't touch me.
Stay back, I can't leave this block in holocaust.
That's it, Carrie.
Hang tight.
My, your forehead be hot.
Fever coming on I suspect and your mother's fever gone cold
making it more dangerous when to be exposed to the elements that
gather up around her now.
This early bright morning spoiled
and festering in the mouths of all these happy buyers who
need the disease of your mama's wrath
so they can recover from their own dying.
Dying today if I be sold without my Carrie, I promise you that.
Look on us before you lay your money down.
What we cost?
$2,500 be good price, buy what you breed.
Masters, owners, buyers, fathers, sons,
take vengeance on your dollar.
God help me, I be his maid servant.
I be his witness to this sale of woman flesh
in the 28th year of my delivery.
Carrie.
Look.
Wipe your eyes child.
See they finished the bidding.
Money be paid, we is together.
God heard my halting words through the ears
of these deafened people, you and me
from this strange pulpit.
Look lively child, we be sold but we ain't bought.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]