In her book Blues Legacies and Black Feminism, Angela Davis noted that negro spirituals served as a tool for collective expression and collective desire. They were also, she noted, a way to preserve “cultural memory.”
Preserving Cultural Memory
One way in which the tradition of negro spirituals was preserved was through Jubilee Singers.
The following seven audio clips are voices from formerly enslaved people speaking about experiences of creating and/or engaging in song and music making. These clips are from the Library of Congress digital Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers’ Project. This project entailed collecting first hand accounts about slavery. According to LOC the narratives were collected between 1936-1938 as “part of the Federal Writers’ Project (FWP) of the Works Progress Administration, later renamed Work Projects Administration (WPA).”
Citation: Unidentified Female Interviewer, Lewis, R. E., Williams, A., Jessie, M. & Saylor, M. (1937) Interview With Unidentified Former Slaves from Virginia, Petersburg, Virginia, Ca. 1937 to 1940. Petersburg, Virginia. [Pdf] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/afc1948015_afs08301b/.
Link to transcript:
Citation: Lomax, J. A., Lomax, R. T. & McCrea, B. (1940) Interview with Uncle Billy McCrea, Jasper, Texas,part 1 of 2. Jasper, Texas. [Pdf] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/afc1940003_afs03974a/.
Link to transcript:
Citation: Lomax, A., Sturz, E. L., Johnson, G., Jones, L. W., Johnson, C. S. & Work, J. W. (1941) Interview with George Johnson, Mound Bayou, Mississippi, Septemberpart 2 of 6. Mound Bayou, Mississippi. [Pdf] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/afc1941002_afs04777b/.
Link to Transcript:
Citation: Lomax, A., Sturz, E. L., Johnson, G., Jones, L. W., Johnson, C. S. & Work, J. W. (1941) Interview with George Johnson, Mound Bayou, Mississippi, Septemberpart 4 of 6. Mound Bayou, Mississippi. [Pdf] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/afc1941002_afs04778b/.
Link to Transcript:
Citation: Lomax, A., Sturz, E. L., Johnson, G., Jones, L. W., Johnson, C. S. & Work, J. W. (1941) Interview with George Johnson, Mound Bayou, Mississippi, Septemberpart 6 of 6. Mound Bayou, Mississippi. [Pdf] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/afc1941002_afs04779b/.
Link to Transcript:
Citation: Norwood, H. & Hughes, F. (1949) Interview with Fountain Hughes, Baltimore, Maryland. Baltimore, Maryland, November , 6. [Pdf] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/afc1950037_afs09990a/.
Link to Transcript:
Citation: Faulk, J. H. & Smith, H. (1941) Interview with Aunt Harriet Smith, Hempstead, Texas,part 3 of 4. Hempstead, Texas. [Pdf] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/afc1941016_afs05500a/.
Link to Transcript:
Creative Expression(s) of Black Experience(s)
We Wear the Mask by Paul Laurence Dunbar
With freedom came the desire to find place in a hostile society that did not want to make space for free Black peoples. The emergence of respectability as a way to accepted was internalized by many Black people. Many experienced a (hyper)awareness of their Blackness and how it was perceived, which speaks to the twoness that Dubois named. Black people have long known what it is to wear the mask… hiding in white sight.
We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.
Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.
Poem first published in 1896 and speaks to the experience(s) of Black Americans after the Civil War
In conversation with Dunbar’s poem, Maya Angelou offers a response… a continuation… In her rendition of We Wear the Mask, Angelou extends on the experience that Dunbar wrote about… an experience that is deeply known and recognizable to Black people. Maya Angelou underscores that what is seen is not inherently indicative of what is.
Black and The Blues
Of course, the story and experiences of Black people(s) is not monolithic. Music is an expression that holds “multiple affective registers” (Michelle Fine, Personal Communication, 2020). The Blues was a genre that gave voice to multiple experiences. Angela Davis noted that Blues became a space where individual expressions and desires were expressed underscoring a shift from negro spirituals (a form that held collective expressions and desires). In these expressions, Black women expressed sexual desires and challenged heteronormative assumptions. In this way, music making became a source of freedom finding.
Music and Mourning- Billie Holiday Sings Strange Fruit (1959)
Over 3,400 Black people were lynched in the United States. These brutal murders often took place in front of celebratory crowds of white people. The murder of Black people was deemed as entertainment, with images from these heinous acts being used for postcards.For Black people, the threat of death was ever present. The weight of the pain, grief and rage…immeasurable. Music was often a holder of this weight.
Musical Healing in the Black Church
The Black Church has been a space for community, healing and ritual practice(s). Music ministries are often fully embodied, performative, and invoke call and response. Gospel music often holds within it multiple affective experiences, allowing for weighted expression, release, faith and hope to exist at once.
Aretha Franklin Sings Amazing Grace (1972)
Friendly Temple Choir singing Every Mountain
John Lewis on the Need for Music During the Civil Rights Movement and Now (starts at 5:50)
The social-cultural backdrop has at once shifted and remained the same. There has been both growth and setback in the fight for justice. At every moment of movement, music has been at the center.
Black Pain
Speaking to Hurt(s) Through Hip Hop
Hip Hop, which draws both praise and critique, was born in the Bronx. Sounds that live in the experiences of those pushed to the margins were given amplified voice through this genre. While critics have focused on male dominance, violence, drugs and misogyny that exists within the genre, the expression of deep grief, pain and trauma has largely been left out of those analyses. Many hip hop lyrics that speak through misogyny also sit in the belly of vulnerability.
Black Anger
Black women have had to contend with racist tropes such as the mammy, sapphire, jezebel, welfare queen and the Angry one. Black women’s anger is at once misunderstood, misread, criminalized and rebuked. Yet, Black people’s have much to be angry about.
Theatre as Ritual and Healing Space
What to Send up When it Goes Down
In the 1950s, Billie Holiday (and others) sang about Black bodies hanging from trees. In the 2000s Black artists are using the arts to mourn the Black bodies gunned down by the police (and white supremacist vigilantes) on the streets.