... Although it was composed well before World War I, the freedom song version done here was written by civil rights activist Alice Wine in 1956. Wine graduated from one of the first voter education school on John's Island, South Carolina, a project that helped initiate the Southern civil rights movement ... The Biblical basis for the original lyric, "keep your hand on the plow," is Luke 9:62 in which Jesus says, "No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God," and 1 Corinthians 9:10 where St. Paul writes, "For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope" ... Like "Oh Mary Don't You Weep," "Eyes on the Prize" uses many "floating verses," that are found in other gospel songs and spirituals. Thus, the song ranges across the Bible, Old Testament and New. The unique part of the song's lyric is its reference to Paul and Silas, who were imprisoned in Phillipi in 49 A.D. for casting a demon out of an enslaved fortune teller, thus robbing her owner ... http://frankenschulz.de/bruce/seeger-sessions.html
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