First Unitarian Universalist Church “We Are A Welcoming Congregation!” 2434 East Battlefield, Springfield, Missouri  65804-3980 phone: 417-883-3922     fax: 417-883-7680 e-mail: springfield@springfieldunitarians.org

Make a Joyful Noise: African American Spirituals
presented at the 1st Unitarian Universalist Church of Springfield by Nancy McShane

This short history of the African-American spiritual was adapted from an article, entitled “Slave Songs Transcend Sorrow” by Ken Curtis, which was published in 2003 in Glimpses, a full-color Sunday school bulletin published by the Christian History Institute.

Let’s take ourselves back, two hundred years or more, to the beginnings of black history on this continent. Let’s imagine ourselves looking in on a scene that was often repeated at night in the plantation-filled South. Singly, or by twos, the black slaves slipped into the torch-lit forest grove. What they were doing was illegal. They could be whipped for it. But they had to sing, had to sing without restraint, had to pour out to God their souls’ deepest prayers, longings and complaints, regardless of consequences. With bodies swaying and eyes half-closed, they sang, lifting to heaven their anguish and triumph.

Oh, bye an’ bye, bye an’ bye
I’m goin’ to lay down my heavy load...
I’m troubled, I’m troubled,
I’m troubled in mind
If Jesus don’t help me
I surely will die…  

Simple the words may have been, but they expressed spiritual aspirations and sorrows as deep as any found in Christendom. What is more, they were expressed with rhythms of utmost sophistication and melodies plaintive, haunting, or oddly original. The composers of these melodies are unknown, making them a genuine American folk music. Because the songs became an oral tradition, the words varied from region to region when song leaders found it necessary to ad-lib lines they had forgotten. Although they had an unsophisticated beginning, W.E.B Du Bois called the spiritual “the slave’s one articulate message to the world.” 

The blacks who stepped in chains from the slave ships were a musical people, used to expressing religious ideas in song. Sold into hard work, poverty and oppression in America, they turned to songs for solace, singing on every possible occasion in rhythms that had been long familiar to their race. They sang while picking cotton or shucking corn, sang on the chain gang, sang in prison, sang in church—when allowed to attend.

If the slaves had to judge Christianity only by their white masters, few might have become Christians. They were well aware of the shortcomings of their owners, whose faith was often merely a Sunday profession, ignored during the harsh week. Hypocrisy found pointed comment in Spirituals.

Everybody talkin’ about
Heaven ain’t goin’ there...

But just as the gospel had appealed in the first century to the poor and to slaves, so it appealed to Africans similarly situated. The sufferings of Christ and of the ancient Jews drew black folk to Christianity. Moses delivering his people from Egyptian bondage, Joseph sold as a slave by his own brothers, Daniel flung by a tyrant into a lion’s den—these timeless stories were the agents that evoked a response of faith from the slave community, faith which found utterance in song.

Go down Moses,
’Way down in Egypt land
Tell ol’ Pharaoh
To let my people go.

Little wonder, then, that of all the slave songs, it is the Spirituals, expressing the deepest religious emotions of souls touched by God, which yet kindles a flame in our hearts. Spirituals are recognized as some of the world’s most authentic spiritual utterances since David penned the Psalms. “Hymns more genuine than these have never been sung since the psalmists of Israel relieved their burdened hearts and expressed their exaltation,” wrote Edith A. Talbot. “Nor will they die, because they spring like these from hearts on fire with a sense of the reality of spiritual truths.”

These Spirituals gave the slaves an identity which appearances seemed to belie: that of a people chosen by the Lord. Just as the Lord fought for Moses and the Israelites, just as he toppled Goliath before David, just as he appeared to Jacob on the ladder, so would he work in their lives. And if they were not delivered while yet living in this world, why, there remained freedom in the heavenly Canaan. Their songs summarized these beliefs, expressing in broken words the genuine spiritual realities of a world unseen, the world of Christian virtues: forgiveness, hope, faith, love, endurance, eternal life, holiness. James Weldon Johnson noted this and commented, “The Negro took complete refuge in Christianity, and the Spirituals were literally forged of sorrow in the heat of religious fervor. They exhibited, moreover, a reversion to the simple principles of primitive, communal Christianity.”

No wonder blacks, however weary after a hard day’s work, risked the cruel anger of masters to steal into the woods at night and improvise music for hours. The whole group could participate; repetitive choruses and antiphonal responses between leader and people characterized Spirituals. And while many of the songs were mournful, others were filled with joy. While that emotion may seem unlikely to us today, Frederick Douglass, a prominent escaped slave, wrote of his captivity: “We were at times remarkably buoyant, singing hymns and making joyous exclamations, almost as triumphant in their tone as if we had already reached a land of freedom and safety.”

The world at large first heard Spirituals in the 1870s, shortly after the Civil War emancipated America’s blacks. The Fisk Jubilee Singers, a group of ex-slaves, toured the United States and Britain with orchestral renditions. Many listeners were amazed at the vitality of what they heard. Western music soon showed the influence. Spirituals, which had rescued faithful black Christians from “sinkin’ down,” now added vitality to the musical idioms of the world.

The ninth symphony of Antonin Dvorak, a favorite with many concert-goers, employed Spiritual melodies. “Here in the music you have neglected, even despised, is something spontaneous, sincere, and different, native to your country,” he said. “Why not use it?” In his rapt appreciation, he pronounced them “the most striking and appealing melodies that have ever been found on this side of the Atlantic.” Why, he wondered in astonishment, did Americans strive so hard to intimate European music while they ignored this rich vein of song that was distinctly their own?

Today’s gospel music is directly descended from Spirituals. Renowned jazz musician Thomas A. Dorsey (not to be confused with the band leader Tommy Dorsey), a former blues man turned gospel song writer was an early promoter of the genre. His famous gospel hymn is, “Precious Lord, Take My Hand,” which has been translated into more than 50 languages.

 

Last update: 05 May 2005
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