Oh, Freedom

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Oh, Freedom is a post Civil War African American freedom song, often associated with Odetta, who recorded it as part of the Spiritual Trilogy, on her "Odetta Sings Ballads and Blues", and Joan Baez, who performed the song at the 1963 March on Washington, and has since performed the song live numerous times throughout the years, both during her concerts and at other events. The song predates these events by at least three decades for it was recorded in 1931 by the E. R. Nance Family with Clarence Dooley as "Sweet Freedom."

Some versions of the fourth verse contain the line "No more tommin'," where the word tommin is a derogatory term denoting some black men's extreme submissiveness towards a white person or white people. The word seems to have been derived from Harriet Beecher Stowe's fictitious character Uncle Tom in Uncle Tom's Cabin. These words are not part in the traditional verses, but a later addition, itself part of folk tradition in the USA, in which extra verses are added to traditional songs to highlight different personal feelings, agendas, or lyrical invention.