Historical review of the American Civil Rights movement and the role Negro Spirituals played within the movement

1. Presented by Randye Jones
December 4, 2015

2. Negro spirituals are songs created by the Africans who were captured and brought to the United
States to be sold into slavery. This stolen race was deprived of their languages, families, and
cultures; yet, their masters could not take away their music.
Over the years, these slaves and their descendants adopted Christianity, the religion of their
masters. They re-shaped it into a deeply personal way of dealing with the oppression of their
enslavement. Their songs, which were to become known as spirituals, reflected the slaves’ need
to express their new faith.
Spirituals were created extemporaneously and were passed orally from person to person. These
folksongs were improvised as suited the singers. There is record of approximately 6,000
spirituals or sorrow songs; however, the oral tradition of the slaves’ ancestors—and the
prohibition against slaves learning to read or write—meant that the actual number of songs is
unknown.
Some of the best known spirituals include:
“Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless
Child,” “Nobody Knows The Trouble I've
Seen”, “Steal Away,” “Swing Low, Sweet
Chariot,” “Go Down, Moses,” “He’s Got
the Whole World in His Hand,” “Every
Time I Feel the Spirit,” “Let Us Break
Bread Together on Our Knees,” and
“Wade in the Water.”
The songs were also used to
communicate with one another without the
knowledge of their masters. This was
particularly the case when a slave was
planning to escape bondage and to seek
freedom via the Underground Railroad.

3. Northern states, beginning with Mass (1783), began outlawing slavery, leading to the ban
on importing slaves to US in 1809
In the years leading up to the American Civil War, there were slave rebellions (N. Turner,
1831). Abolitionists actively advocated for the cessation of the institution of slavery.
They helped slaves escape from captivity using the Underground Railroad.
Legislative actions and court decisions such as Fugitive Slave Act and Missouri
Compromise (1850), Dred Scott Decision and Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854) reflect
growing animosity between slave and free states
The election of Abraham Lincoln as president in 1860 proved to be the
decisive event leading South Carolina and other southern states to
secede from the Union and was primary cause of the Civil War
With the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and the conclusion of the
American Civil War in 1865, most former slaves distanced themselves
from the music of their captivity. The spiritual seemed destined to be
relegated to mention in slave narratives and to a handful of historical
accounts by whites who had attempted to notate the songs they
heard.

4. While Burleigh, Hall Johnson and their contemporaries were actively composing art
song and choral settings of spirituals, it was not until the 1930’s that a concerted effort
was made to preserve this part of American culture in its original form. Following the
lead of Fisk University, Southern University, and Prairie View State College, the Federal
Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) worked with various state
programs to record the first-hand recollections of the survivors of slavery. These slave
narratives included stories about the role of music in their lives and songs delivered by
those who had sung these folksongs in that bygone era.
Over the years, the spiritual has given birth to a number of other American music styles,
including Blues, Jazz and gospel.
The performance of spirituals was given a rebirth when a group of students
from newly founded Fisk University of Nashville, Tennessee, began to tour in an
effort to raise money for the financially strapped school. The Fisk Jubilee
Singers not only carried spirituals to parts of the United States that had
previously never heard Negro folksongs, the musically trained chorus
performed before royalty during their tours of Europe in the 1870’s.
In 1916, Burleigh published the song, “Deep
River,” for voice and piano. By that point in
his career, he had written a few vocal and
instrumental works based on the plantation
melodies he had learned as a child. However,
his setting of "Deep River" is considered to be
the first work of its kind to be written in art
song form specifically for performance by a
trained singer.

5. Resentment by White Southerners of the efforts to end of their “particular
institution” led to creation of hate groups like the KKK and the institution of
Jim Crow laws designed specifically to limit access to Blacks.
Various individual events focus attention to treatment of Blacks--including
the creation of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters in 1925, Marian
Anderson performing at Lincoln Memorial in 1939, Jackie Robinson
integrating baseball in 1947, the murder of Emmett Till, and the 1954
Supreme Court decision “Brown v. Board of Education” which declared
that “separate but equal” education was unconstitutional

6. Bus boycotts, sit-ins, marches
began, bringing together
supporters from Northern and
Southern parts of the United
States and calling forth leaders
from the Black community,
especially from its churches and
schools

7. MLK is believed to be the first to use a familiar sacred
song as source material for protest song during
Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955-6. Changed “Give Me
that Old Time Religion” to reflect nature of struggle and
determination to move on to victory. The verses state
King’s philosophy of nonviolent protest, love, brotherhood
and the desire for freedom.
We are moving on to vict’ry (3X)
With hope and dignity.
We shall all stand together (3X)
Till every one is free.
We know love is the watchword (3X)
For peace and liberty.
Black and white, all are brothers (3X)
To live in harmony.
We are moving on to vict’ry (3X)
With hope and dignity.

8. Groups like SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) wrote adaptations for
mass meetings, marches, and other gatherings. Professional singers such as Mahalia
Jackson and Marian Anderson showed their support in the performance and recording of
spirituals and other “freedom songs.”
They began using spirituals because they were familiar to protestors, even
those from outside the South, and spirituals had served so well the need for
strength gathered from the whole
Like the spiritual of old, the words were changed on the spot to reflect the
mood or situation of the moment. One change was from personal references
(I, me) to group references (we, us) to further emphasize the sense of
community. Songs were accompanied most often by clapping hands,
tapping feet, or beating on whatever surface was available at the time.
Protest songs could generally be described as either group participation or
topical songs. Group participation songs, which included the call and
response songs that featured a leader who introduced a line of text, to which
the group responded with a “refrain”—was well suited to the large groups
gathered for marches, sit-ins, or meetings. Topical songs were
professionally composed songs written and performed by individuals as
commentary or protest.
Changed Lyrics
Refrain:
And before I’ll be a slave, I’ll be buried in my grave,
And go home to my Lord and be free.
V. No more segregation… over me;
V. No more dogs… biting me

9. “Sing for Freedom” organized in Atlanta May 1964. Intent to bring freedom
songs from different regions together. Song writers and organizers from
around the country attended to learn “freedom songs from different protest
areas for mass meetings, demonstrations, etc.”
Participants sang familiar folk songs with new verses added.
“There was that tremendous impact that only occurs when 50 or 60 song leaders bring
their voices and clapping together in thunderbolts of song for 20, 25 minutes, just on and
on and on. The Northern guests were out of breath, for they were not used to 20
minutes of letting your whole body explode into song.” P. 101
Yet, even here, using spirituals was not without its controversies. Some youths didn’t
share in the feeling that the old slave songs were appropriate for contemporary use, and
some of their elders still felt a stigma was attached to them.

10. Singer, scholar and activist Bernice Johnson Reagon talked about
the bus boycott meeting. She noted that the meeting closed with a
traditional spiritual, sung without changing the words. She stated:
Here were two songs, both a part of Black traditional sacred music
repertoire: One song, “Old Time Religion” was updated to articulate
on the immediate need of the Movement; and the second, “Nobody
Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen,” ending the session, was sun[g] in its
traditional form. On many occasions, the new moved from the old in
the midst of Movement activity. This evolutionary process was
possible because the structure of the traditional material enabled it to
function in contemporary settings. There was continuity with some
traditional lyrics being changed for statements of the moment.
These transformed songs were used in conjunction with older songs
to convey the message that the struggle of Blacks had a long history.
P.96
The spiritual faded in prominence has the nature of the Civil Rights
Movement changed. Groups like SNCC embraced the “Black
Power” philosophy, splintering members who had opposing views of
the direction of the Movement. The death of MLK in 1968 seemed
not only to mark the decline of the movement, but to signal the return
of the spiritual being sung as folksong to its century-long slumber in
the archive of America’s past.
Original Version
This little light of mine
I’m going let it shine (3x)
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.
Let it shine til Jesus comes…
Hide it under a bushel - NO! …
Changed Version
This little light of mine,
I’m going let it shine; (3x,)
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.
Deep down in the South…
We have a light of freedom…

11. “We Shall Overcome” had roots in the
gospel hymns “I’ll Be all Right” and “I’ll
Overcome Someday” by Charles Tindley.
Reagon traced its use as a protest song to a
1940’s union protest activities against a
tobacco production company in North
Carolina.
When the Student Non-Violent Co-Ordinating
Committee (SNCC) formed in 1961, “We
Shall Overcome” became their theme song,
its most powerful means of expression.
Author Jon Michael Spencer said, “Musically,
the freedom songs were the paradigm of
militancy; blacks were not just singing about
freedom but were systematically seeking it.”
(p. 104)

12. Presenter: Randye Jones
research@artofthenegrospiritual.com