African American Spiritual Historical Resources
The Popularity of Early Recordings of the Fisk Jubilee Quartet
Hall Johnson and the Emergence of Larger Mixed Professional Vocal Ensembles
Dawson and the Emergence of Large Mixed Choirs in the Historical Black Colleges
W.E.B.DuBois on the Spiritual, from "The Souls of Black Folk" (1903)
The Underground Railroad in Bucks County
Lourin Plant Article on Racial Barriers in Classical Vocal Music
Links to additional background on the Spirituals
Eileen Guenther - In Their Own Words: Slave Life and the Power of Spirituals, Morningstar Music Publishers, 2016.
Felicia Raphael Marie Barber - A New Perspective for the Use of Dialect in African American Spirituals, Rowman & Littlefield, 2021.
The Spirituals Database - A searchable database of sound recordings of concert Negro Spirituals for solo voice - An Art of the Negro Spiritual Project
Joe Horowitz blog about the Brevard Project: Orchestras, American roots, and appropriation
A 2021 analysis piece by Rick Pidcock for baptistnews.com on cultural appropriation and the Spirituals, including interviews with Rollo Dilworth and Anton Armstrong:
“Is there a balm in singing the spirituals, and if so, who should sing them?”
Kaitlyn Greenidge in the New York Times: Black Spirituals as Poetry and Resistance (March 5, 2021)
A 2019 New York Times piece by Brent Staples presenting an excellent overview, with illustrations, of the history of Blackface imagery in the United States and the persistence of widespread ignorance of this history:
Brent Staples: 'How Blackface feeds White Supremacy'
On Being's Krista Tippett interviews the singer Joe Carter about the origins and meaning of the Spirituals:
On Being: 'The Spirituals with Joe Carter'
A new excavation in Maryland reveals insights into the orgins of "Ezekiel saw de wheel":
Ezekiel's Wheel Ties African Spiritual Traditions to Christianity
A perceptive essay by cultural critic A. O. Scott in the September 29, 2013 issue of the New York Times:
‘Conversation About Race’ Has Not Brought Cultural Consensus
Excellent interactive web sites from PBS:
Slavery and the Making of America (PBS)
An important book about what replaced Jim Crow, by scholar Michelle Alexander:
The New Jim Crow - Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
A discussion with the director, lead actors, and a historian about the new film, 12 Years a Slave:
An Essentially American Narrative
Preview in the New York Times of a new book documenting the previously hidden close relationship between the Ivy League universities and slavery:
Ebony and Ivy by Craig Steven Wilder
A radio biography of the composer Florence Beatrice Price:
The PBS documentary The Musical legacy of Roland Hayes