As a child growing up in the Bahamas, Rudolph Cleare often sang songs that came out of the slave era. Some were sorrowful, some had inspiring messages, and others had lyrics that described the ...

African American spirituals are songs that originated during the time of slavery in the United States. They were a way for enslaved people to express their emotions, hopes, and faith. These songs ...

One of the largest and most significant forms of American folksongs, the Negro spiritual, has a long history in America, but how do these religious songs relate to the music heard in the Black church ...

OAKLAND — The lone, somber notes of India Cooke’s violin echoed against the walls of Lisser Hall on Sunday, telling a story that had been passed down in her family for three generations. “This was the ...

Presents Negro spirituals, sung in pure form as they were a century ago on St. Simon's Island off the coast of Georgia. Introduces each song with explanatory titles and then several women sing them ...

In the North Carolina sharecropper’s shanty where Glenn Settle grew up, his mother used to sing the old Negro spirituals to him. Between songs, she told him: “If white and colored folks just got to ...

Historian Bill Doggett reflects on the influence of Black women on American music, from the earliest recorded spirituals to today. The poignancy of the opening words of the Negro Spiritual belie a ...

I’ve talked about many spirituals in these articles that reflect the harsh conditions experienced by the enslaved. Many of the slave songs contain language that commented on their harsh treatment or ...

BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) - They are songs that tell stories of suffering, faith, and hope, but this part of American history ...

Allen, William Francis, Charles Pickard Ware, and Lucy McKim Garrison, eds., Slave Songs of the United States. NY: dover Publications, Inc., 1955. Reprint of the 1867 ...

The lucky ones learned spirituals as children, from grandmothers whose own grandparents may have been slaves. Not only did they memorize “Wade in the Water,” but they heard how fleeing slaves trudged ...