By: Darrell & Darnell St. Romain
Singing Negro Spirituals (referred to as Spirituals as well) during the liturgy can help foster a new sonic prayer for the congregation. A sonic prayer that includes the hopes, dreams, and laments, of enslaved Africans, not from another country, but who were enslaved in this Nation. God is a God of the marginalized. Enslaved Africans believed in a far greater Nation, the Kingdom of God, that “Great camp meeting in the Promised Land!” Most spirituals, as Sister Thea Bowman, F.S.P.A., Ph. D notes, “comes from a people who share and claim a common history, common experience, common oppression, common values, hopes, dreams, and visions.”1
Negro Spirituals are folk songs and expressions. The enslaved African community created these songs of life. Life in Negro Spirituals will be the focus of this project.
History
In 1619, twenty Africans arrived at Jamestown, Virginia. According to surviving documents these were the first Africans to arrive in North America. However, the Transatlantic Slave trade began in 1510 with Spain and Portugal bringing an estimated 367,000 Africans to the Americas in the 1500s. Around 12 million men, women, and children had been captured and shipped from Africa to a life of enslavement by 1860.
The creation and development of the Negro Spiritual was by no accident. It was born out of necessity, so that the enslaved Africans might adjust and acclimate to the conditions and hardships of the New World. These folk songs are rooted in African traditional life and Protestant Christianity. They communicate how the enslaved sought after freedom, and reveal images of physical and spiritual landscapes, and a unique interpretation of American history.
Through the creation of Negro Spirituals, enslaved Africans were able to preserve elements of African Spirituality, retain tones and harmonies that communicated their existence in an alien land, and provide a rhythm to cope with the sufferings of bondage and captivity.
While there is ample research available on the origins of Spirituals, including a debate over the derivation of some texts, few definitive answers have been given. Some Spirituals clearly share a common vocabulary with Methodist and Baptist hymns, that does not detract from their fundamental difference in meaning and use of language. Melvin Dixon suggests that language and particularly Negro Spirituals, helped the enslaved Africans create a culture, environments, journeys, and ultimately art was created. While singing, the singer creates an aural space around him, a space that is simultaneously communal and individual. Listeners, participating usually in a call and response structure, are part of the creation and composition of the song. Language and Song come together to create a new geography; a geography where the wicked will cease from troubling, and the weary will be at rest.
In the 1860s Negro Spirituals began to be collected, written down, and published; this sparked a greater interest in this musical repertoire. The 1870s saw the rise of the Fisk Jubilee Singers, a chorus consisting of former enslaved Africans from Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. Embarking on an international choral tour, the Fisk Jubilee Singers gained fame and promoted Negro Spirituals and brought these Songs of Life to an international audience. The concerts gave rise to the concert hall tradition of performing Negro Spirituals. Noted arrangers of the Concertized Spiritual includes: R. Nathaniel Dett, Jester Hairston, Brazeal Dennard, Wendell Whalum, Roland Carter, and Moses Hogan. Composers began to arrange Spirituals for the solo voice. Henry T. Burleigh arranged widely performed piano-voice arrangements of Spirituals in the early twentieth century for classical singers.
Today, according to the Library of Congress in its article titled “African American Spirituals, we know of more than six thousand Spirituals, although some exist only in fragments—many Spirituals have been lost forever. These Songs of Life were formed organically. There is no author, no composer, no date, no exact provenance, nothing written down, no Urtext edition. Negro Spirituals come from the community by the community, they are a part of the Spirit of Life.
Selected Themes found in Negro Spirituals
Spirituals tell stories, present narratives from the bible, and bring life into a world of oppression. The life of the enslaved Africans was multifaceted and thus the themes are shaped to represent this wide range of viewpoints. There is more to know about Spirituals than coded messages and songs of protest. One can trace cycles and seasons of life of the enslaved Africans through the Negro Spiritual.
For Christians baptism is the acknowledgement of life in Christ. Spirituals may refer to water imagery and baptism. In stanzas 3, 4, and 5 of Cert’nly Lord the questions are asked: “Have you been converted?” “Have you been to the water?” and “Have you been baptized?” the collective response is “Cert’nly Lord!” Take Me to the Water and Wade in the Water are other Spirituals that take on the theme of water and baptism.
Movement and journeying from one plantation to another or from one state to another is a frequent subject. Also, a journey from bondage into freedom with a life without physical hardships (whether on earth or an eternal reward in heaven) and encouragement during difficult times are expressed in Spirituals. Walk Together, Children is a song of hope and expectancy of the “great camp meeting in the promised land.” I Want Jesus to Walk with Me is a plea for Jesus to be present in this daily walk especially during trials and troubles.
Freedom of religious expression was important too. Great precautions were taken to plan secret prayer meetings “in de wilderness.” These meetings allowed enslaved Africans to worship freely with singing, shouting, and dancing and it provided them strength for the harsh endurances they may face. Spirituals like Woke Up Dis Mornin’, Glory, Glory, Hallelujah, I’ve Got Peace Like a River, and Over My Head we sung at these meetings.
Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection are themes represented in numerous Spirituals. Spirituals associated with Jesus’ death are Were You There? and He Never Said a Mumblin’ Word. ‘Twas on One Sunday Morning and He ‘Rose captures Jesus’ resurrection. The birth of Christ is also the subject of a few Spirituals for example, Here’s a Pretty Little Baby, Behold the Star, and Rise up, Shepherd, and Follow.
Freedom, Freedom, Freedom! Of all the themes present in Negro Spirituals, Freedom receives the most attention. The title of this article is No More Auction Block for Me. Being sold at any moment, separation from family and children, viewed as property and not humanity, lashes from the driver, and the fact that many had been sold away are addressed in this piece. The institution of Slavery is directly addressed, unlike the other Spirituals mentioned above. If there is no more auction block, it means that one is free, or the institution of slavery is abolished, or that life has reached the ultimate freedom, namely Heaven. Heaven the place “where nobody can put me out!”
Footnotes:
1 Bowman, Sister Thea. “The Gift of African American Sacred Song” in the Preface to Lead Me, Guide Me, 1987.