Spirituals Awakening

So, I’ve been AWOL since Utah. I’ll start with a brief explanation / excuse for my absence, but I don’t want to dwell because I have something better to talk about as my re-entry, re-awakening post. The spirituals.

To get right to the (first, but less important) point: I spent my free time during the last month totally changing my study. I’ve mentioned before that I’ve been suffering from a bad case of cabin fever, and I finally realized that a large part of the problem was my study. First, the room is sort of small and doesn’t get much light. And then there was the issue of my desk. Because of its size and configuration, I sat with my back to the window. For someone who loves the outdoors, this is not a good thing. And with the desk filling a sizeable chunk of the middle of the room, I felt like I was trapped in a tiny corral made of heavy oak, facing the darkness and mumbling to myself. 

So I decided to change my furniture, which turned out to be a major undertaking. And that, it turns out, consumed my time, my energy, and apparently my mind for several weeks. But it paid off. I ended up with a glass desk that seems to take up no space compared to the old oak one, and its configuration has me facing the window. I believe the days of sitting in a corral with my back to the window are over. And I am ready to resume my rambling blogging ways.

Then, lo and behold, just as this mega-project wound down, the inspiration for my “re-awakening” blog came in the form of a conference my partner and I attended this past weekend.

The Spirituals Project is a non-profit organization founded in 1998 by a psychology professor (with a fabulous tenor voice) at the University of Denver, Dr. Arthur Jones. Over the years, the initially small program has grown in size and scope and now has an expansive mission: “the preservation and revitalization of the music and teachings (including especially the social justice teachings) of the songs commonly known as ‘spirituals,’ created and first sung by enslaved African women and men in America in the 18th and 19th centuries.” I first learned about the Spirituals Project from my partner, who had interviewed Art Jones as part of a documentary she made on heterosexual allies who took a stand against Amendment 2. She recommended Jones’ book, Wade in the Water: The Wisdom of the Spirituals, but I let it slide from my reading list. Later, I heard the Spirituals Project choir perform, and I was reminded again that I really wanted to learn more—both about the spirituals as a musical genre and about the “wisdom” they carry. Again, I let it slip.

And then, several months ago, we learned about (and quickly signed up for) this multi-day conference on the spirituals. The promise of several days’ immersion in learning about the spirituals sounded wonderful. And it was. The weekend was full of workshops and performances, so I'll just mention a few highlights:

The first night opened with a performance by Sankofa, a small ensemble of the Spirituals Project choir. It closed with a poem sung/read by the Spirituals Project’s poet in residence, Dee Galloway. The poem, “They Slice the Air,” was a moving elegy to the spirituals and all they have meant over the centuries. Click here for a (shaky, amateur, but authentic) video of Dee Galloway performing the poem at the conference. A few lines:

As they spill from the holds of the ships …

Onto the shores of this new world

They are called to bear the burdens

To bear the lash

To bear witness

To the squalling birth of this new world …

And as they bear the burdens and bear the lash

This strong new nation bears witness …

They witness with the songs carried with them in the holds.

And again the songs shift and change

To become the sorrow songs

The sorrow songs that slice the air.

Later in the conference, Dr. Vincent Harding, an educator and a long-time leader and “encourager” of the Freedom movement (the term he prefers to the “civil rights movement”) led a remarkable workshop on the role of the spirituals in the Freedom movement. He opened the session by talking about how the spirituals, sung by generation after generation after generation of people, always share in the same energy—the wisdom, the strength, and the yearning of generations before, back to “the ancestors” who first sang them. With that framework, he then invited us to sing along, to join in the generations-long community of people who have used these songs to gain strength, to give testimony, to carry coded messages, to ease sorrow. "Wade in the water," "Woke up this morning with my mind stayed on freedom," "Ain't gonna let nobody turn me around." 

And with that framing, I found myself experiencing songs that I’ve often heard and sung before in a whole new way. I understood more deeply the power this music has carried across the years, the layers of meaning and passion it bore for people who were enslaved, yet sang "ain't no harm to keep your mind stayed on freedom." And I felt on a new level how it must have energized and sustained folks as they left community meetings in the churches in the 1960s South to face dogs, truncheons, fire hoses, and jail—or worse. When we all stood to sing “We Shall Overcome,” crossing arms to hold hands, as is the tradition with this song, I doubt there was a dry eye in the room. Most of these folks have probably sung this song scores of times before. But in this setting, with Dr. Harding’s guidance, I, at least, sang it with a new level of consciousness.  

The last event of the conference featured a talk and poetry reading—including a poem written for the conference—by Nikki Giovani, a brilliant and wonderfully irreverent poet and activist. And then the conference closed, fittingly, with music by members of the Spirituals Project choir. I left feeling re-awakened.

I realize it has been nearly two decades since my partner first talked to me about Art Jones’ book. I’ve decided not to let it slide from my list again. I’ve asked to borrow her copy to take along for reading material during breaks in my astrophysics course in New York next week.

Stay tuned for more on the wisdom of the spirituals per Dr. Art Jones and on the origins of the universe per Dr. Michelle Thaller.