Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Another song with a reportedly secret meaning is "Now Let Me Fly" [3] which references the biblical story of Ezekiel's Wheels. [4] The song talks mostly of a promised land. This song might have boosted the morale and spirit of the slaves, giving them hope that there was a place waiting that was better than where they were.
According to Ann Powers of NPR, it became a "primary example of slaves' claiming and subverting a Christian message to express their own needs and send their own messages". The River Jordan of the song became a coded message for escape, calling to mind the Mississippi or Ohio Rivers, both of which led to the slave-free northern United States ...
Songs such as "Steal Away to Jesus", "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot", "Wade in the Water" and the "Gospel Train" are songs with hidden codes, not only about having faith in God, but containing hidden messages for slaves to run away on their own, or with the Underground Railroad.
Slave Songs of the United States was a collection of African American music consisting of 136 songs. Published in 1867, it was the first, and most influential, [1] [2] collection of spirituals to be published. The collectors of the songs were Northern abolitionists William Francis Allen, Lucy McKim Garrison, and Charles Pickard Ware. [3]
The use of songs as a narrative and a tool to convey an important message continued into the 20th century with Black Americans using their voices to help their fight for freedom and equality.
Spirituals during slavery are called Slave Shout Songs. These shout songs are sung today by Gullah Geechee people and other African-Americans in churches and praise houses. During slavery, these slave shout songs were coded messages that spoke of escape from slavery on the Underground Railroad. The songs were sung by enslaved African-American ...
Many spirituals carried hidden messages or dual meanings. For instance, "Steal Away To Jesus" and "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" were outwardly spiritual songs but also signaled plans for escape or a yearning for freedom. Songs like these were shared orally, creating a cohesive cultural identity and fostering solidarity within enslaved communities. [1]
In Stitched from the Soul (1990), Gladys-Marie Fry asserted that quilts were used to communicate safe houses and other information about the Underground Railroad, which was a network through the United States and into Canada of "conductors", meeting places, and safe houses for the passage of African Americans out of slavery.