The Cross and the Lynching Tree

by James H. Cone

Although church people, like the blues people, could not escape trouble, they sang “trouble don’t last always.” The final word about black life is not death on a lynching tree but redemption in the cross—a miraculously transformed life found in the God of the gallows. This faith empowered blacks to wrestle with trouble as Jacob wrestled with his divine opponent till daybreak, refusing to let go until he was “blessed” with meaning and purpose. “Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince has thou power with God and with men, and hath prevailed” (Gen 32:28 KJV). The spirituals “Wrestling Jacob,” “We Are Climbing Jacob’s Ladder,” and “Wake Up, Jacob” are black people expressing their solidarity with Jacob and his struggle for a new identity. Their identification with Jacob stretches back deep into slavery. In his book Army Life in a Black Regiment (1869), Thomas Wentworth Higginson, called “Wrestling Jacob” “one of the wildest and most striking” of the spirituals he heard during the Civil War. O wrestlin’ Jacob, Jacob, day ’s a-breakin’; I will not let thee go! O wrestlin’ Jacob, Jacob, day ’s a-breakin’; He will not let me go! O, I hold my brudder wid a tremblin’ hand; I would not let him go! I hold my sister wid a tremblin’ hand; I would not let her go! O, Jacob do hang from a tremblin’ limb, He would not let him go! O, Jacob do hang from a tremblin’ limb; De Lord will bless my soul. O, wrestlin’ Jacob, Jacob . . . .[44]