Go Tell It on the Mountain

The congregation sings a hymn as the perspective switches to Elizabeth. She remembers how her life changed in the aftermath of her mother’s death when she was just eight years old. Elizabeth was taken to Maryland to live with her aunt, meaning that she was forced to lose contact with her father. Elizabeth resented her aunt for cutting her father out of her life, as well as her aunt’s austere personality. Her aunt would constantly tell Elizabeth that she should be more grateful. The more defensive or proud Elizabeth became, the more her aunt would tell her to be grateful. Elizabeth was told by her aunt that God would punish her for her pride.

Elizabeth met a grocery store clerk named Richard in 1919. They quickly fell in love and, when Richard planned to move north to New York, Elizabeth asked him to take her with him. She wanted to escape the American South. She did not tell her aunt about Richard. Instead, she told her aunt that she would move to Harlem to live with a relative as she hoped that the northern state’s more progressive views toward African Americans would give her more opportunities. Elizabeth and Richard moved to New York and found jobs in the same hotel. While in New York, Elizabeth realized that her behavior was not as closely guarded as it was in Maryland. She lived with Richard, even though he was not religious, and she worried about the fate of his soul. For a short time, Elizabeth and Richard were happy even though the opportunities in the north were not quite as bountiful as was promised.

In the current day, Elizabeth has endured Gabriel’s insistence that she regrets her past. On the contrary, she knows that she will never regret the time she spent with Richard. However, she does regret that she did not immediately tell Richard when she became pregnant. At the time, she worried that telling him might seem like she was pressuring him into marriage or adding to his worries.

Richard was the victim of police racism. One night while waiting on a station platform, a group of African American men ran up to him. Richard did not know the men, nor did he know that they had just committed a robbery. However, the police would not listen to him when the men were arrested. They assumed Richard was part of the gang; they beat him, imprisoned him, and even took him to trial. Richard was eventually found innocent, but the incident had a profound effect on him. He died by suicide on the night that he was released. Elizabeth was left alone, pregnant, and afraid.

At the church, Elizabeth listens to the sound of the congregation singing. She thinks about John—Richard’s son—and wonders whether he has given himself up to God. She reflects on religion and pain, wondering whether she should have given John up for adoption rather than believing Gabriel’s assurance “that he would love her nameless son as though he were his own flesh” (103). Gabriel has supported John, she knows, but has never truly loved him.

Elizabeth met Florence when they were both working as cleaners in an office on Wall Street, six months after John’s birth. Though they were not the same age, they quickly became friends. Elizabeth, posing as a widow, confessed the truth about John’s father to Florence and felt a great relief. Florence introduced Elizabeth to her recently widowed brother Gabriel, who had traveled north after Deborah’s death. Gabriel rekindled Elizabeth’s faith in God and promised to support and guide her in difficult times. He promised to raise John as though he were John’s real father. Elizabeth allowed herself to have hope for the future once again.

During the service, Elizabeth remembers the day that she gave birth to John. She suffered through a long and painful labor, but her pain was forgotten the moment she heard her son cry for the first time. She hears a similar cry in the church, and she is jolted back to the present. John has dropped to his knees on the threshing floor of the church. He seems overwhelmed by the power of God.