Hollenweger, W. The songs of the blacks. From Hollenweger, W. (1974). Pentecost between black and white, pp. 22-24. Belfast, Ireland: Christian Journals Ltd.

OVERVIEW

ORIGIN AND FUNCTION OF NEGRO SPIRITUALS

The author, Professor of Missions at the University of Birmingham, England, provides the following summary of various conflicting and overlapping opinions:

• The spiritual has been seen as a misinterpreted hymn of the white church. (G.P. Jackson)
• The spiritual should be seen as a ‘confession of faith’ of the black church. (S. Lauchli and Th. Lehmann)
• The spiritual is the "clearest exponent of the Negro’s real self." (H.W. Odum)
• The spiritual can be interpreted as an oral document of events in the history of the American Negro. (M.M. Fisher)
• The spiritual was a protest against social injustice. (J. Lovell)
• The spiritual was an adaptation of African songs. (H.E. Krehbiel and Du Bois)
• Spirituals were songs originating in the white revival movement. (B.T. Washington)
• Spirituals were the musical creations of black bards like "singing Johnson" and "Ma White." (J.W. Johnson)
• Spirituals represent a blending of American and European melodies with African rhythm. (E.M. von Horbostel).

INFLUENCE: MUSICAL PRODUCTS OF SPIRITUALS

Hollenweger says that though their history may be somewhat obscure, their effects upon music trends are clear. They produced or had a profound influence on

• Different styles of jazz, including the Blues.
• Music in white Pentecostal churches—taking black style and changing and adapting to white style.
• Spontaneous gospel music arising from Pentecostal and some black Baptists churches.
• Attempts to adapt spirituals to European and American traditional church music.

Debate has risen in regards to this fourth category. Is it ever appropriate to use the spiritual in a non-Black church service?

MEMORY OF BLACK PAST

Hardly controversial is the fact that spirituals in some way ensure the memory of an oral African American culture. James Cone, in "Black Spirituals: A Theological Interpretation," Theology Today, 29(1), April 1972, pp. 54-69 [see also his The Spirituals and The Blues, 1972], says of Negro spirituals:

The divine liberation of the oppressed from slavery is the central theological concept in the black spirituals. These songs show that black slaves did not believe that human servitude was reconcilable with their African past and their knowledge of the…gospel. They did not believe that God created Africans to be the slaves of Europeans. Accordingly they sang of a God who was involved in their history—their history—making right what whites have made wrong...And if ‘de God dat lived in Moses’ time is jes’ de same today’, then God will vindicate the suffering of the righteous blacks and punish the unrighteous whites for their wrongdoings.

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION

1. How have you enjoyed spirituals, if you have, and how much have you understood their nature and origin?
2. Which of the eight explanations of the origins of spirituals seems most adequate to you?
3. Do you think Cone goes too far in his interpretation of Negro spirituals?
4. Do you think that "Follow the Drinking Gourd" might have meant following the Little Dipper and North Star to freedom, or that "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" could have had anything to do with the underground railroad?
5. What do you see as the place of these spirituals in black churches today? In white churches or places of worship?
6. Where do we go from here? Is there need for greater knowledge and instruction about music and experiences of African Americans? Is there still work to be done in the relationships of blacks and whites?

IMPLICATIONS

• Music is one of the great influences in a young person’s life, and should be a universal means of communication among us all. Our musical tastes, just like the spectrum of our relationships, need to be stretched. We are enriched when our appreciation of our own and other cultures includes an interest in the music of others and times past.
• The sentimentalizing of spirituals merely for the purpose musical variety would seem to do injustice to this powerful musical tradition.
• One of the many functions of music is a prophetic one; it would seem that spirituals both comforted and challenged its original singers. It is too bad that those who should have been confronted by powerful messages took so long to notice and understand.

Dean Borgman cCYS