The Drum Heard ‘Round the World: How Rhythm, Song, and Dance Helped Form an African-American Identity
In Central and West Africa, drums served as the rhythmic foundation for emotional expression of all kinds. West African djembe and dundun drums varied depending on geographical area, but the drum and its cultural significance was a unifying factor between the many cultures, ethnic groups, and languages present in the area. During the trans-Atlantic slave […]
The Ring Shout: A Ritual of Religious Unity
Slaves had no way of verbal communication, so they turned to musical tactics. The use of drums, vocal sounds, and call-and-response (I.e., cries, moans, and slurs) were their means of communication. With the use of these different demonstrations, they were able to bring these styles into the Ring Shout as a form of a religious […]
Negro spirituals and their remnants within the modern black population. By:Rebekah Glover and Trinity Seegars
The History of negro spirituals Negro spirituals proliferated in the last few decades of the eighteenth century, leading up to abolishing legalized slavery in the 1860s. A type of music that emerged during slavery, it embodied the slave population’s unique expression of Christian religious values and ideals. This music was said to have been ” […]
The Black Church
The Black Church The Difference Between Spirituals and Gospels Although Negro Spirituals and Gospel songs both are about freedom they have a few differences. Negro Spirituals are from the 19th century and Gospel songs began in the 20th century. Spirituals were religious folk songs by slaves that allowed them to speak on freedom when they […]
Negro Spirituals: The Invisible Church
During Slavery, African Americans were banned from meeting up for worship and church services without the supervision from whites. Because they were not allowed to hold their own services legally, they found ways to worship in secret, in defiance of the laws placed against them. The laws that prohibited them from gathering together without the […]
Spirituals: The Invisible Church
What was The Invisible Church? The Invisible Church’s were various sites of worship that enslaved African Americans would visit so they could worship God how they wanted without the supervision of a White Person. Enslaved Blacks would often sneak into the woods and go far into the Swamps In these “Invisible Churches” people would be […]
The Beginning of The Black Church
THE INVISIBLE CHURCH During the Great Awakening, which was during the 1700s, when many slaves converted to Christianity. Most of them had witnessed white church services but did not agree with how they saw white people worshiping and felt they could not express the way they liked to worship either. During slavery in the United […]
