Video: African-American Spirituals of the Civil War
A demonstration of African American spirituals from the Civil War era, performed by the Howard University Chorale and Baltimore City College High School Choir for the Library of Congress.
Spirituals are a form of worship music developed by African Americans in the United States. The songs combine elements of African musical traditions, such as call-and-response singing, with Christian themes to produce a unique, beautiful, and highly influential genre. Once a covert part of worship among enslaved people, and sometimes a hidden call for freedom, spirituals blossomed in churches and concert halls during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
In The Souls of Black Folk (1903), W.E.B. Du Bois writes of spirituals, or sorrow songs, concluding:
“Through all the sorrow of the Sorrow Songs there breathes a hope—a faith in the ultimate justice of things. The minor cadences of despair change often to triumph and calm confidence. Sometimes it is faith in life, sometimes a faith in death, sometimes assurance of boundless justice in some fair world beyond. But whichever it is, the meaning is always clear: that sometime, somewhere, men will judge men by their souls and not by their skins. Is such a hope justified? Do the Sorrow Songs sing true?”
In this video, the Howard University Chorale and Baltimore City College High School Choir showcase spirituals from the Civil War era for the Library of Congress.
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