“You’re walking down life’s road, society’s foot is on your throat, every which way you turn you can’t get from under that foot. And you reach a fork in the road and you can either lie down and die, or insist upon your life.”
On her 1963 March on Washington Freedom Trilogy -- "O Freedom," "Come and Go with Me to That Land," and "I'm on My Way" -- in a 2007 video conversation/performance with The New York Times:
Interviewer: Where do these songs come from?
Odetta: My voice.
Interviewer: And where does that come from?
Odetta: Slavery.
O freedom
O freedom
O freedom over me
And before I’d be a slave
I’d be buried in my grave
And go home to my Lord and be free
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