50 Best Country Songs About Slavery
Country Songs on the History of Slavery
There’s a strange weight in the way certain tracks linger. Not the kind of weight that crushes, but the kind that makes you sit still and notice what’s under the surface. Some country songs lean into the raw memory of history, pulling from voices that carried sorrow and grit long before microphones existed. Others trace echoes instead of literal detail, circling pain, endurance, and uneasy truths in a way that still lands heavy. They don’t smooth anything out, and they aren’t meant to.
It’s messy ground because music has always blended stories across genres. You’ll hear lines that sit closer to folk tradition than modern country, and sometimes the thread comes from pop, rock, country, and R&B songs that all circle the same history from different angles. A few tracks might not be directly tied to slavery itself, but the mood, the images, and the shadows inside them fit that larger frame. It’s that overlap that makes these songs stick, not because they resolve anything, but because they hold a sound that remembers.
These are not songs to breeze through on a playlist while cooking dinner. They hang in the air, forcing quiet in a way that can feel uncomfortable or grounding depending on how you hear them. Some take the form of a story passed down, others sound like confessions set to steel strings, and a few rage in ways that country rarely allows. What links them together is the refusal to pretend the past was clean. With that in mind, here are the best country songs on slavery.
Top 10 Slavery Country Songs
1. 'Deliver the Goods' by The Almanac Singers
2. 'Go Down Moses' by The Golden Gate Quartet
3. 'Swing Low, Sweet Chariot' by Johnny Cash
4. 'Wade in the Water' by Ella Jenkins
5. 'Oh, Freedom' by Odetta
6. 'I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free' by Nina Simone
7. 'A Change Is Gonna Come' by Sam Cooke
8. 'Freedom Highway' by The Staple Singers
9. 'Strange Fruit' by Billie Holiday
10. 'The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down' by The Band
Slavery and Freedom Songs #11 to 20
11. 'Black Like Me' by Mickey Guyton
12. 'Mississippi Goddam' by Nina Simone
13. 'Redemption Song' by Bob Marley
14. 'Glory' by Common and John Legend
15. 'This Is America' by Childish Gambino
16. 'Living for the City' by Stevie Wonder
17. 'Stolen Souls from Africa' by Mike Seeger
18. 'If That Ain't Country' by David Allan Coe
19. 'Wagon Wheel' by Old Crow Medicine Show
20. 'The Little Old Log Cabin in the Lane' by Fiddlin' John Carson
Historical Country Music #21 to 30
21. 'Southern Man' by Neil Young
22. 'The Battle of New Orleans' by Johnny Horton
23. 'The Legend of Bonnie and Clyde' by Merle Haggard
24. 'Ragged Old Flag' by Johnny Cash
25. 'My America' by Danny Gokey
26. 'Oh Atlanta' by Allison Moorer
27. 'The South' by The Cadillac Three
28. 'Alabama' by John Coltrane
29. 'Roll, Jordan, Roll' by Alabama Sacred Harp Convention
30. 'Trouble in Mind' by Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson
Songs About The American South #31 to 40
31. 'The River' by Garth Brooks
32. 'Where the Green Grass Grows' by Tim McGraw
33. 'Born on the Bayou' by Creedence Clearwater Revival
34. 'Louisiana Man' by Doug Kershaw
35. 'God Bless the USA' by Lee Greenwood
36. 'Dixie' by Daniel Decatur Emmett
37. 'American Saturday Night' by Brad Paisley
38. 'Take Me Home, Country Roads' by John Denver
39. 'Chicken Fried' by Zac Brown Band
40. 'My Home is in the Delta' by Muddy Waters
Songs about American Heritage #41 to 50
41. 'This Land Is Your Land' by Woody Guthrie
42. 'The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll' by Bob Dylan
43. 'Ain't I Right' by Marty Robbins
44. 'The Ghost of Columbus' by Tracy Chapman
45. 'America' by Tracy Chapman
46. 'None of Us Are Free' by Solomon Burke
47. 'Say It Loud I'm Black and I'm Proud' by James Brown
48. 'We Shall Overcome' by Pete Seeger
49. 'I'm a Slave' by Robert Johnson
50. 'Wildwood Flower' by The Carter Family
© 2025 Carson McQueen
