Civil War Song in Black and White: Print and the Representation of the Spirituals (original) (raw)

Looking Back is Moving Forward: The Legacy of Negro Spirituals in the Civil Rights Movement

International Journal of English Language, Literature in Humanities, 2016

The following article explores the historical and cultural evolution of Negro Spirituals as they were revised for use in the American Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. Examining the Spirituals, "Wade in the Water" and "Oh, Freedom," this essay seeks to prove that while the legacy of slavery imbued in the Negro Spiritual did serve the purpose of reminding America of its unjust past, these songs took on new meaning in the Civil Rights Era and were put to use as a medium for communication, a salve for spiritual degradation, and above all else, a stepping stone off of which the movement intended to leap into a brighter future of equality for all. This essay challenges the claim that Negro Spirituals were too entrenched in the historical atrocities of the past to offer a revitalized message for the purposes of the CRM.

"I, too, Hear American Singing": Secular Songs in the Civil Rights Movement

No documentary or book about the Civil Rights Era would be complete without reference to the power of Freedom Songs such as “We Shall Overcome,” or “Eyes on the Prize.” Scholarly and popular attention alike has focused on songs from sacred sources. Yet the Freedom Song repertory includes many secular songs such as folk and work songs, as well as new texts written for blues, R&B and soul tunes. Often more suited to concert performance than congregational singing in mass meetings, many secular song texts focus on recruiting new members by exposing inequitable treatment of blacks in mainstream America, and shaming listeners into actively resisting segregation rather than being cowardly “Uncle Toms.” In this study I focus on one such Freedom Song -- “Get Your Rights Back,” a re-working of the Ray Charles hit song “Hit the Road Jack.” Using original recordings from the 1960s, I demonstrate how the activists modified the text to fit their needs, while still retaining the performing style and narrative arc of the Ray Charles song. The intertextual interplay between the two songs highlights how activists were not only protesting oppression, but also perpetuating stereotypes about African-American women and the relationship between the sexes. Close reading of secular Freedom Songs reveals not only similarities to their sacred counterparts, but also new directions in understanding performance spaces and textual rhetoric not usually associated with the Civil Rights Movement.

The Spirituals in the African American Poetry Tradition

The spirituals—the verses created by enslaved African Americans on Southern plantations—are rarely categorized as lyric poetry, and often overlooked as foundational sources of the African American poetry tradition. Yet their influence on modern and contemporary African American poetry is pervasive, which calls for a reexamination of their place in African American poetry, and of the scope of the African American poetry canon itself. Based on the pattern of allusions and citations of spirituals, this fresh focus also offers an opportunity to recognize that the poems created by enslaved African Americans are more diverse and formally innovative than is often recognized. As a result, the origins of African American poetry are shown to be rooted in a body of diasporic texts that is integrally connected to methods and motives associated with avant-garde practice. In 1882, the African American Rev. Marshall W. Taylor, D.D. wrote prophetically of the spirituals, " Their influence is not done. " (Taylor 4) The spirituals, created and performed by anonymous enslaved African Americans, are essential to the foundation of the African American poetry tradition. The spirituals are among the most original artistic products created in America. Combining African survivals with the experiences of enslavement in the American South, the spirituals very likely date to the early seventeenth century as oral texts, but were not transcribed until the early nineteenth century. This brilliant body of sung verse, encompassing some 6,000 or more examples, has not been fully credited for its influence on American or African American literature and culture, or its rightful place in the lyric poetry tradition. It is a common practice for African American poetry of the last hundred years to cite and allude to spirituals, but these foundational poems are rarely considered as an integral part of the canon. Many modern and contemporary African American poems are infused with phrases, forms, themes, techniques, and rhetorical strategies of the spirituals. Through greater awareness of the spirituals' presence, function, and influence, readers can better understand both the continuities and progressions in African American poetry, including its most innovative manifestations. This pattern of marginalizing the spirituals as lyric art and a major source of textual appropriations also shows how an exclusionary and ideological canon has developed that misrepresents and limits the scope of African American poetry. This essay is intended to provide a brief introduction to a vast topic in hopes of inspiring further research and exploration. Since they first were discussed in print by musicologists, critics, scholars, clergy, slavers, seafarers, and other auditors, there has been curiosity and debate about the messages and creators of these unique songs, and what to call them. Eileen Southern explains that they were originally called " hymns, " but it quickly became clear that they differed significantly from conventional Protestant church music. (Southern 180) Reflecting the dilemma of how to describe these unusual lyrics, Slave Songs of the United States, one of the earliest compilations, uses the term " slave songs " in its title and " sperichils " in its introduction. (ii) As I have discussed in Slave Songs and the Birth of African American Poetry, nineteenth century abolitionists commonly portrayed the enslaved African Americans as free of any malice or resentment about their status, and solely concerned with Christian patience and piety. By popularizing the term " spirituals, " abolitionists reinforced the message that the enslaved people were innocent and compliant, and former slaves, after Emancipation, would bear no anger and pose no threat towards their former oppressors. (Ramey 110-11) But the word " spirituals " fails to reflect the critique and mockery in these

The Word of God Made Song: the Cultural Impact of the African American Spiritual

Od folkloru k world music: Hudba a Slovo, 2022

The paper focuses on several of the most well-known spirituals (Sing Low, Sweet Chariot; Go Down Moses; Down by the Riverside) and looks at how the words of the Bible and the sermons of preachers inspired the lyrics of these songs. The words of the spirituals, inspired in particular by the Biblical stories of the enslavement of the Israelites in Egypt, liberation and the reaching of the Promised Land, mirrored the plight of African Americans not only during slavery, but during the Reconstruction era and up to the time of the Civil Rights movement. The Fisk Jubilee Singers were pioneers in introducing the genre, not only to the rest of the United States, but also to the world.

Reading through the Lens of Music: African-American Literature and Music

European Journal of Language and Literature, 2018

Harlem Renaissance is a significant time when African-American writers took pride in their artistic traditions. In order to create an authentic image for themselves, they created remarkable standards in their literature and art. A new tradition, which changed the well-established boundaries of literary creativity, was gaining full recognition among African-American writers. A new tradition, which changed the well-established boundaries of literary creativity, was gaining full recognition among African-American writers. These two genres had a huge impact in the times when the US was creating a cultural hybridity while the reconstruction of the mainstream meant an "open war" to classics. This paper will try to describe the extent to which Jazz and Blues aesthetics influenced into the African-American literature and how it was manifested in characters, structures, and themes that African-American writers promoted into their literary work.

The Theology of the Lyric Tradition in African American Spirituals

Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 70:2, 347-363, 2002

Abstract Typically, spirituals have been viewed as religious folksongs, whose literary complexity and theological importance have been appreciated insufficiently, especially as these relate to one another. Spirituals are not generally categorized as lyric poetry in spite of the fact that poetry has historically been used for theological purposes. Their cultural and artistic worth is appreciated most fully by demonstrating the close integration of their literary and theological significance. By using the tools of cognitive science, cultural studies, religious studies, and literary theory, the spirituals are shown to achieve a high level of conceptual freedom and spiritual self-determination as a liberating response to the linguistic, physical, religious, intellectual, and social constraints of the slave poets' lives. By focusing in depth as an example on the metaphorical structure of the spiritual 'Oh Mary, Don't You Weep, Don't You Moan', it becomes clear that the spirituals should be classified as a type of sacred lyric poetry that was instrumental in developing and revealing the formation of African American Christianity.

Hold On Just a Little While Longer: Spirituals in the Civil Rights Movement

While the African American spiritual was born in the fields and praise houses by enslaved African Americans, it was used just as powerfully during the Civil Rights Movement. This was due to three unique characteristics: its accessibility, its adaptability, and its lineage. In this paper, I show how these aspects make the African American spiritual integral to the Civil Rights Movement.

Slave Songs and the Birth of African American Poetry

2010

In this insightful and provocative volume, Lauri Ramey reveals spirituals and slave songs to be a crucial element in American literature. This book shows slave songs' intrinsic value as lyric poetry, sheds light on their roots and originality, and draws new conclusions on this art form that is rarely studied as part of the lyric poetry canon. This book restores the slaves' songs to their rightful place in American literature as lyric poetry and a touchstone of the American cultural imagination.

The Oral Tradition as Index: The Leitmotif of Music in the African-American Literary Imagination

2018

The oral tradition forms part of the aesthetic pillars of African-American literature and the study of its presence in African-American literary works deserves more attention. This article shows how African-American creative artists have used their oral tradition, more specifically music, as an index to construct narrative contents, structure and decorate them, thus conferring them beauty, originality and complexity. It focuses on the deployment of the Jazz, the Blues and the slave secular and civil war songs in texts by Langston Hughes, Margaret Walker and Toni Morrison.

"Which Side Are You On?": Secular Music in the Civil Rights Movement

Integrationist spirituals have long been the focus of scholarship on Civil Rights music, but there are many secular Freedom Songs that draw on labor, folk, and popular tunes. A close reading of five versions of “Which Side Are You On?”—a labor song adapted for the struggle—reveals melodic, performance, and textual variations which mirror changes in the Movement from a unified social force to fragmented groups struggling with ideological, class, and racial divisions. The confrontational lyrics and soloistic style of many secular Freedom Songs challenge the traditional narrative of music as a source of religious comfort and solidarity among activists.