Beacon February 2016

THE GRACE BEACON “IN THE HEART OF THE COMMUNITY, SEEKING EVER TO REACH THE COMMUNITY’S HEART” Vol. MMXVI Issue No. 2 February, 2016 Published by Grace Baptist Church of Germantown 25 West Johnson Street Philadelphia, PA 19144-1909 Dr. Quintin L. Robertson, Interim Pastor Deacon Tyrone L. Beach, Sr., Chair of Diaconate Spotlight on Black History! Get On Board and of captivity called slavery. The Underground Railroad, a secret great orator, Frederick Douglass way to the North. “Moses” may Tell Your Story was one of the first African have referred to the renowned American writers to discuss code conductor, Harriet Tubman who (Part 2) words in spiritual texts that could led her people “out of Egypt” Spirituals are songs that be used as secret messages. into the “Promised Land.” The were created by African Some spirituals narrated Bible spirituals told stories of freedom Americans who lived in the stories in which the ancient using words or phrases like the southern states during the period heroes were analogous to the ones listed below with their people who played roles in the double entendre. Code Word Religious Meaning Secret Meaning Get on board become saved prepare to leave slavery Glory heaven freedom Home heaven the North, freedom I ain’t got long I’m ready to die I’m ready to leave slavery Jesus Jesus freedom Midnight special death comes at night escapees leaving at midnight No extras unsaved sinners no extra escapees Steal away death comes quietly run away Train group of saved souls group of escapees The following spiritual could obligated to tell the story of your take a drink using a dipper that announce an escape plan, give life in bondage, your escape, and was carved out of a gourd. The the time and circumstances of the your ultimate freedom so that gourd or dipper was also used as trip up North, and inspire slaves these events could be a symbol of freedom; it was hung to join the freedom train. documented for use as over the doorways of safe houses This Train propaganda to further the known as stations along the This train is bound for glory, antislavery cause. During the Underground Railroad. this train, antebellum period (the time According to the collector of This train is bound for glory, before the Civil War), “telling this spiritual, H. B. Parks, the this train, stories” became a necessary conductor is an old man, a peg- This train is bound for glory, activity of the abolitionists as legged sailor whose trip with Get on board and tell your freedmen orally recounted their runaway fugitives began near story, life stories in retrospect and Mobile, Alabama. Before dawn, This train is bound for glory, this train. scores of fugitive slave narratives he would lead his freedom train were collected, written down, along the bend of the Tombigbee This train don’t pull no published and circulated in the River and follow his peg-legged extras, this train, North and South. print on the dead moss-covered This train don’t pull no Some spirituals were adapted, trees along the trail pointing extras, this train, that is, words were changed to fit North. When the river ended at This train don’t pull no different situations that could the divide, he and his freedom extras, arise. A collector remembers train picked up the Tennessee Don’t pull nothing but the hearing the spiritual “Follow the River on the other side and midnight special, This train don’t pull no Risen Lord,” a song that was followed it into Ohio. extras, this train. sung by itinerant evangelists at Follow the Drinking Gourd As the conductor led her revivals and camp meetings. When the sun comes back passengers on the Underground Follow the risen Lord, follow and the first quail calls, Railroad, it was important for the risen Lord, Follow the drinking gourd, anyone who was “on board” to The best thing that wise men For the old man is a-waiting “tell your story.” In the context say, for to carry you to freedom, of the praise meeting, the Follow the risen Lord. Follow the drinking gourd religious connotation of “telling The freedom version of the your story” meant testifying song is known today as a Now the river bend will about the trials and tribulations in spiritual with a coded message, make a mighty good road, one’s life and thanking the “Follow the Drinking Gourd,” Dead trees will show you the Almighty for giving one the which refers to the path that one way, guidance to overcome obstacles could take to the North by And the left foot, peg foot and the opportunity to unload following the Big Dipper. The traveling on one’s burdens. “Telling your text mirrors the West African Follow the drinking gourd. story” meant inspiring others to tradition of fashioning eating and follow in your footsteps, for most drinking utensils out of calabash Now the river ends between storytellers or testifiers were gourds. Each African American two hills, revered as orators and leaders by family on a southern plantation Follow the drinking gourd, members of their spiritual had a well from which they drew And there’s another river on communities. The secret water. Once the water had been the other side, meaning of the code words, “tell collected in a bucket, it was left Follow the drinking gourd. your story,” meant that once you on a table where family members reached freedom, you were and even visiting friends could 2 The civil rights era “hallelujah motif” throughout the some African Americans prefer revitalized spirituals as folk second movement of his “Afro to forget the spirituals in favor of songs because they were used American Symphony.” evangelical songs that speak to spontaneously with calls and More recently, Darin Atwater, contemporary issues, others look responses suitable for group conductor of the Soulful participation. The functional Symphony, has arranged to Africa for the authentic music context of the songs was spirituals for choir and orchestra of African Americans. But recreated as the demonstrators in an innovative anthem entitled, forgetting the spirituals is akin to sang for the purposes of “Song in a Strange Land.” negating one’s heritage and inspiring, telling stories, and Following the precedent set unlearning the lessons of the providing outlets for emotional by contralto Marian Anderson, past. The spirituals, born in expressions during times of who sang spirituals on Easter slavery, reared in freedom, and protest. Because of their special Sunday in 1939 as part of her qualities, spirituals have been repertoire to an estimated aged in ancestral memory have incorporated into many seventy-five thousand people at reached maturity as American art Protestant denominational the Lincoln Memorial, opera songs with universal hymnals and have been singers such as Kathleen Battle implications. They speak to performed as part of the standard and Jessye Norman continue to humankind about the divine and liturgical repertoire in mesmerize audiences with worldly experiences of human synagogues and churches. renditions of well-known life. For the African American Unlike their secular spirituals. No choral program can listener, the sound of spirituals counterparts, the blues, which be said to be “musically correct” have remained essentially in the without a spiritual, whether sung can serve as an awakening, for in oral tradition, spirituals, by a soloist, an ensemble, a the traditional re-creation of originally folksongs are now chorus a cappella fashion, or a these songs, we celebrate the considered part of a “fine arts” choir with piano or orchestral voices of our ancestors in tradition. They have been accompaniment. captivity and in freedom. It is arranged by noted African Today, spirituals have been through their music that we are American musicians such as N. altered by young composers and renewed. Ballanta-Taylor, Hall Johnson, incorporated with new texts and John Work, Jester Hairston and musical motifs into African Written by Dr. Gloria Davis Margaret Bonds. Composer Goode (reprinted from Jump Up Harry T. Burleigh acquainted his American expressions such as professor, the Czechoslovakian religious rap and gospel. While and Say by Linda Goss) composer, Antonin Dvorak with the spiritual genre, which Dvorak used for thematic motives in the second movement of his “Symphony No. 9 in E Minor, From the New World.” The African American composer, Nathaniel Dett incorporated spiritual melodic materials in his choral compositions. The dean of African American composers, William Grant Still captured a syncopated theme in his use of a 3 February Greetings as we face the challenges of today. after a former slave from Virginia From Our Interim Pastor As we see racism practiced on the who purchased his freedom, national scene it is important that migrated to Liberia and was one of “Dark am I, yet lovely, … Do not we teach our children the the first black American stare at me because I am dark, importance of our history. missionaries, as well as the first because I am darkened by the sun. My Actually, it is important that each American Baptist missionary, to mother's sons were angry with me and generation learns and shares the Africa. He established its first made me take care of the vineyards; history of our people. Who knew church, Providence Baptist Church my own vineyard I have neglected. as our fore-parents were shackled in Monrovia, and founded schools Song of Solomon 1:5a - 6 NIV in slave ships and carried over the for natives, and helped lead the Black History Month this year Atlantic Ocean to be auctioned on colony. is very significant in light of slave blocks in the new land that In closing, I reference two current events.

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