I Couldn't Hear Nobody Pray
1943
Black-and-white lithograph
13” x 10” plate
The deep contemplative faith expressed through this set of spirituals underlines the incredible power of religious belief during times of enslavement and latter day racial oppression.
In this lithograph, we witness the soldier’s dedication to his role as a radio operator, even at the moment when he knows he is destined to die alone in a South Pacific battlefield. The soldier is shown at his station, locked solemnly in prayer. He kneels at the radio, abandoned, isolated, outnumbered, and without hope.
Again, the artist’s notes reveal a great deal. After lamenting the soldier’s ancestors, who were kidnapped from jungles centuries before to benefit the slave trade, this young man is ironically returned to the jungle to die for his country. This particular spiritual is intended to express the fundamental and inevitable loneliness of war. This clearly illustrates the soldier’s calm bravery in the ultimate moment of his life—its ending.
The artist handles the gravity of this theme with a great deal of admiration, writing: “If all people were really praying for the fine things that this man expects of prayer, there would be no forces of evil descending and there would be no wars anymore.”