An Activist's Will

Labor activist and balladeer Joe Hill (1879–1915) penned “The Preacher and the Slave”—perhaps the most popular antireligious song ever written—which introduced the phrase “pie in the sky”:

Work and pray, live on hay,
You will eat pie in the sky, by-and-by. (It’s a lie.)

Facing execution after a Utah trial now considered a gross miscarriage of justice, Hill applied a similar wit to the drafting of his will:

My will is easy to decide
For there is nothing to divide.
. . .
My body?—Oh.—If I could choose,
I would to ashes it reduce
And let the merry breezes blow
My dust to where some flowers grow.
Perhaps some fading flower then
Would come to life and bloom again.
This is my last and final will:
Good luck to all of you, Joe Hill.
—Eds.

E-mail this article to a friend

Our Current Issue

The transnational secular humanist magazine

Subscribe to FREE INQUIRY

Renew your FREE INQUIRY subscription

Donate to the Council

Stay informed about conferences, news, and advocacy efforts! Join the Council for Secular Humanism’s E-Mail List