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Gospel Music

The Unyielding Spirit

The Journal of Negro History. (by Association for the Study of Negro Life and Histor...)
Religious folk-songs of the Southern neg... (by Odum, Howard Washington)
Religious folk-songs of the Southern neg... (by Odum, Howard Washington)
Progress of a Race, Or, The Remarkable A... (by Henry F. Kletzing)
The Negro and the Nation (by Harrison, Hubert H)

Many favorite classic and modern songs retain the experience inherent in gospel music. The rapturous call and response, the inspiring rhythms, even the style and mode of dress are all indebted to the joyous music emanating from church doors.

Gospel music was borne from slavery traditions. The Journal of Negro History explains that it was used as a coping mechanism invented by a people whose language and identity were stolen. The triangular trade dehumanized Africans as chattel in exchange for sugar, textiles, manufactured goods, and rum. Generations later, African-Americans knew no home nor fate other than that of the United States. In Religious Folk Songs of the Southern Negroes, Howard Odum states that spirituals are, at their base, a lament to God (and fellow slaves) about the cruel hardships endured over a lifetime of indignity. They understood too well the function and necessity of reprieve.

What followed and continues to follow generations later has directly impacted a diverse set of musical genres. Soul music, rock and roll, rhythm and blues, and hip-hop all connect to the idea of expression, freedom, and improvisation as detailed in Henry F. Klezling’s The Progress of a Race. Today, artists and their audiences assume the respective roles of preacher and congregation.

Gospel music also permeates in the socio-political realm. Diction and cadences are tailored to suit specific congregations. But the styles of their deliberately speeches are inextricably linked to the exciting music that envelops the space.

Gospel music is set to the tune of hope; it arises from an unyielding spirit tested repeatedly during slavery, America’s Reconstruction period, and throughout the Jim Crow era. Hubert H. Harrison’s The Negro and the Nation chronicles these radical changes and how they were reflected by African-Americans. Years later, the intensely spiritual music has left its mark. From the heralded March on Washington, ripe with the soulful call and response chants and rhythms, to popular music with roots in same tradition, the gospel music permeates all genres of American music.

By Logan Williams