Nina Simone “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free” (1967)

W.E.B. DuBois and the Problem of the Twentieth Century

William Edward Burghardt Du BoisW. E. B. Du Boisb. 1868, Great Barrington, MAd. 1963, Accra, Ghana

“The problem of the 20th century is the problem of the color line, the question as to how far the differences of race…are going to be made, hereafter, the basis of denying to over half the world the right of sharing to their utmost ability the opportunities and privileges of modern civilization.”

--W.E.B. DuBois, “To the Nations of the World,” Pan-African Conference, London, July 1900)

DuBois:• Attended Pan-African Conf., 1900

“Problem of the 20th century is the problem of the color line”

• Taught at Atlanta University 1899-1914 HBCU= historically black college & univ.• Co-founded Niagara Movement, 1905 • Co-founded National Assn for the

Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) founded 1910Crisis founding editor, 1910-1934

Social context, c. 1903

• Reconstruction 1865-1877• Homer Plessy v. Judge John Ferguson U.S. Supreme Court, 1896, legalizes

segregation separate but equal “The Nadir” 1896-1910 Period of racial

terror--lynching, convict lease system,everyday inequality and humiliation of “Jim Crow”

• Lack of education• Lack of voting rights• Prejudice of white Americans• “Red stain of bastardy”• Black leaders who don’t advocate for

full citizenship rights

• Booker T. Washington (1856-1915)• Founded Tuskeegee Institute in Alabama in

1881• Industrial education• “Atlanta Compromise” 1895 expresses an accommodationist position

(vs. integrationist politics of DuBois)• “Cast down your buckets where you are”

• “In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress.”

--Booker T. Washington, 1895

work within the system of segregation

The veil [caul: membrane]Second sightCondition of Double-consciousness Seeking “true self-consciousness”Negro vs. American (binary)Negro American (a possible identity?)

Dialectic--process of change in thought or in the universe where a higher level of knowledge (truth) and existence (unity) is reached by the necessary opposition of contradictionsGeorg Willhelm Fredrich Hegel (1770-1831)

The Dialectical Process:a thought -- its opposite = unity resulting

from their interaction

thesis – antithesis = synthesis

Negro -- American = Negro American

Johann Gottfried von Herder (1744-1803)

volksgeist--spirit of the people

Folk culture is essential to the formation of a nation’s identity.

• First Africans brought to the colonies in 1619. For their first 100 or so years here, slaves were not Christianized.

• Not until the Great Awakening, the spiritual revival that swept the colonies starting in 1740 (1740-1800), did any significant number of slaves convert to Christianity.

• Many slaveholders did not allow any religious services for their slaves. Slaves held religious meetings in secret. Scholars now refer to the religious community of slaves outside of the formal church as “the Invisible Church.” These secret meetings were held late at night or at sunrise on Sundays.

• Song was an important part of these religious services. The congregation would sing psalms or hymns from memory.

• “Lining out”—when a person who could read would read out lines of text for the congregation to repeat in song.

• In 1819, first written account of the existence of a distinctive form of religious music among the slave population instead of adhering to the standard hymnal:

“ singing ‘poor, bald, flat, disjointed hymns’ and…singing the same verse over and over again with all their might 30 or 40 times, to the utter discredit of all sober Christianity.”

• The term “spiritual” (vs. hymn) to refer to these songs seemed to be common by the 1860s. No one is sure exactly when spiritual was first used to refer to religious songs of blacks.

• Over time, African Americans developed a repertoire of religious songs away from the surveillance and influence of whites—in independent churches, segregated meetings, and “invisible churches.” Songs for worship service, for funerals, and to accompany “the ring shout.”

Ring Shout: Significantly different from European American forms of worship because participants would move their bodies while singing. All participants stood, walking in a counter clockwise circle, hardly lifting feet from floor, clapping hands. Repeated over and over, turning words into a chant.

About “Remember Me”: “That song always lets you know that God always will remember you. That’s a real heart-warmin’ song…When you say, ‘Oh Lord, do remember me.’ that’s just like you’re praying. You always feel like, when you sing that song, the Lord is looking after you.”—Mrs. Janie Hunter (1966), John’s Island, South Carolina

“See God’s Ark A-Moving”Moving Star Hall Singers, recorded at a sea island folk festival on John’s Island, South Carolina, recorded c. 1965

Been in the Storm So Long: Spirituals, Folk Tales and Children’s Games from John’s Island, South Carolina (Smithsonian Folkways 1990)

Characteristics of the Ring Shout

• high degree of repetition, • continuation of the songs for indefinite,

sometimes lengthy periods, • variations of tempo in different contexts,• robust timbre, and • highly embellished melodic lines with an

abundance of slides from one note to the next (melisma).

George L. White (1838-1895)Teacher, treasurer, and choir director at

Fisk Free Colored School

Fisk Free Colored School founded in Nashville, TN in 1866.

Named for Gen. Clinton B. Fisk. He gave space to the school in the Union Army Barracks.

First students ranged in age from 7-70 years of age

Fisk Jubilee SingersNashville, TN 1867- present

“The Colored Christian Singers” -->“The Fisk Jubilee Singers”

•9 men and women, most of whom were ex-slaves. •Begin touring in 1871•Concert Spirituals, Arranged Spirituals

Jubilee was the year of rest to be observed by the Israelites every 50h year; during this time, slaves were to be set free, lost property was to be restored to former owners, and lands were to be left untilled. (Book of Leviticus, Chapter 25)

They toured in the US from Ohio through Penn and up the eastern seaboard to New Jersey, Mass, Vermont, Main, NH, WDC, Maine, Conn., New York. In part, the tour followed the path of the Underground Railroad

Within seven years, they raised $150,000. The money went to the construction of the first permanent building on Fisk’s campus, Jubilee Hall.

An early example of the way music provides economic and cultural capital for African Americans.

Steal away, steal away, steal away to JesusSteal away, steal away homeI ain't got long to stay here

My Lord, He calls meHe calls me by the thunderThe trumpet sounds within-a my soulI ain't got long to stay here

Green trees are bendingPo' sinner stand a-tremblingThe trumpet sounds within-a my soulI ain't got long to stay here