Big Blog 1-African American Spirituals

 History

To start off, I wanted to define what a Spiritual is. A Spiritual is a type of religious folk song that is most closely associated with the enslaved African American people in the south. It is a mixture of work songs, and plantation songs that grew into the blues and Gospel. Work songs and Field Holler, plantation songs, combined sub-Saharan African cultural heritage along with the experiences of being held in bondage of slavery. 

Now, Spirituals started around the 18th century, up until the abolishment of slavery in the 1860's but it is still around today as a more modern style of music with instruments and having been produced. During slavery, slaves would meet in "Praise houses" and have outdoor meetings called "Bush meetings" or "Camp meetings" where they sang, chanted, danced, and entered ecstatic trances. Women, men, and children would all gather and sing together instead of their music being held as gender specific. These spirituals gave slaves them the of privilege "Voice of the Unwritten Self". This is an authentic voice of enslaved African Americans who were denied the ability to write and persevered their thoughts in a physical way. Many people believe that these songs were just a way to communicate, including the plantation owners, though this was true, there was more to it than a secret code. Since many slaves could not write, they had to remember things through song. One of the biggest topics they sang about was the Bible. They were very interested in the Bible and in Biblical stories so they would retell them in song. This was also a way they taught their children, as Spirituals were passed down from generation to generation. Today, we still hear some of these songs and may have never know they are Spirituals. A very popular song that was sung is "Go Down, Moses". 

Go Down, Moses

Some other songs that were, in fact, code songs, were used to communicate with other slaves. They would sing in ways to tell them if they were planning to escape and go towards the Underground Railroad or even to tell each other if they were not going, all in secret so the plantation owner would not know what they were talking about. These types of songs are called Protest Songs and a popular one is "Steal Away to Jesus". 

Steal Away to Jesus

Musical Structure

Spirituals are call and response songs, mostly because of the communication aspect. They would kind of sing and talk at the same time for clarity within their words. Due to the lack of instruments, they would often use their bodies as instruments. They would clap and stomp to make a beat they could all sing along to. 

Artistic Expression of the Praise House

Types of Spirituals

Some types of Spirituals include Sorrow songs, Jubilees, and Protest songs. Sorrow songs are slower, intense, and melancholic (meaning a feeling of sadness, or affected with severe depression). These types of songs are where we get some of the Blues. It describes the struggles within slavery as a slave and identifying the suffering of Jesus Christ. An example of Sorrow song is "Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child". For me personally, I have heard this song before, but I never knew it was a Spiritual. The next type of songs are Jubilees. They are songs that are fast, rhythmic, and syncopated (meaning they displaced the beats or accents in the songs so that strong beats can become weak and vice versa.). Some examples of Jubilees are "Rocky My Soul" and "Fare Ye Well". Finally, to recap on Protest songs, they are songs that were sung with codes in them to communicate with one another. 

Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child

Fisk Jubilee Singers

Around the 1870's, A group of students that attended Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee were invited into a new school group by their music professor, George L. White. This was the rebirth of African American Spirituals. Professor White took the student on tour to earn money for their school. They would sing Jubilees in small town at first and would get backlash due to the "untraditional" songs they would sing. When the students started to become hopeless and exhausted, Mr. White gave them not only hope and encouragement but also their name, The Jubilee Singer. They sang all over bring light to the Spirituals, while raising money to help their school. They also encouraged other black colleges to from their own touring groups. They became very popular even though their start was hard and probably scary for them. 

Fisk Jubilee Singer

Fisk Jubilee Singers- 1870's

Sources

African American Spirituals. Web..Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/ihas.200197495/>. Accessed 28 Oct. 2023.

Bell, Karen Cook. “Literacy, History, and African American Spirituals.” AAIHS, 24 Dec. 2018, www.aaihs.org/literacy-history-and-african-american-spirituals/.

Ansdiscog. “The Negro Spiritual.” THE SPIRITUALS DATABASE, 13 June 2023, spirituals-database.com/the-negro-spiritual/.

 “Our History.” Fisk Jubilee Singers, 14 Sept. 2022, fiskjubileesingers.org/about-the-singers/our-history/.