Black song: the forge and the flame : the story of how the Afro-American spiritual was hammered out

I. The forge : Is there an Afro-American spiritual?

What is song?

What is folklore? : Folk music: definitions ; Applications of definitions to the so-called negro spiritual : As to religion ; As to music

What are the number and range of the spirituals?

How does imitation work in folk song and literature?

How much of Africa? : Basic topics and procedure ; The African folk ; Music in the African tradition : Motive in African music ; Methods of musical expression ; Chief characteristics of African song ; Impact of African expression in music ; Use of mask and symbol in African music ; Other forms of African expression related to music ; Present cultivation of traditional arts in Africa ; African folk and African musical aptitude. African musical transfers to South America and the West Indies ; African musical transfers to the United States of America

What part had religion in the spiritual tradition?

How much of white America

What about the camp meeting and black song?

What about the blend of African and American elements?

What are the chief arguments for white-to-Negro spirituals?

Where is the preponderance of the evidence?

The answer to the first big question is "yes" : Freedom as a passion in the Afro-American spiritual ; The slave sang of this earth.

II. The slave sings free : Basic characteristics of a folk song : Nature of the folk community out of which a folk song grows ; Necessity and use of mask and symbol ; Quality and purpose of the song ; Character of the actual creators of the song ; Specific elements of literature in the song ; Relationship to dance and instrument

The Afro-American spiritual as folk song : The Afro-American blend in the spiritual folk community : Youth and resiliency ; Sensitivity to surroundings ; Recognition of religious hypocrisy ; Recognition of legal hypocrisy ; Skills and talents ; Occupational singing ; Education ; The fugitive and insurrectionary spirit ; Religious attitude ; Summary of folk community. Necessity and use of mask and symbol ; The qualities and purposes of the spiritual ; The character of the spiritual's creators ; Basic elements as literature ; Relationship to dance and instrument

The search for meanings in the spiritual

Radical change in the existing order of things : Sense of change: evolutionary and revolutionary ; Deliverance through power and association with power ; Goals and coming great events

The agencies and models of transformation : Objects as devices ; Occupations ; Biblical characters, places, and fulfillments ; The magical world of nature ; Personality change

The methods of transformation : Sense of family and community ; Creative expression and education ; Development through character and right living ; Appreciation of things going wrong and of riddles in the world ; Prevailing attitudes : Jesus ; Satan ; Death and life ; Love and hate ; Heaven and hell ; War and peace ; Violence and nonviolence ; Patience ; Transitoriness

Outcome of the poetic experience : A sense of well-being ; Fortitude ; Commitment to freedom and democracy ; Awareness of a just universe ; Determination to struggle, resist, and hold fast.

Heav'n :The natural goal, end, and reward of the sanctified ; The place for the full expression of the people ; Up where Jesus lives ; The place of the union of friends and relatives ; Home ; The place for the good after judgment ; The place of salvation (free land) ; The new Jerusalem ; "There" ; Something to fight for ; The place of genuine and permanent rest ; God's capital, the place of His throne ; The place of endless Sundays (Sabbaths) ; The uncrowded place, the place for the resolving of differences, the place of the Lord's viewing station, the place of complete peace

Literary characteristics in the body of spirituals

The poetry of the spiritual and its relevancy for now

III. The flame : Some preliminary considerations ; Earliest evidences of the spiritual ; Development of the spiritual as a world phenomenon : Development through touring choral groups ; Development through churches and other community congregations ; Development through musical artists : William F. Allen ; George Leonard White ; Roland Hayes ; Marian Anderson ; Paul Robeson ; Harry Thacker Burleigh ; Antonin Dvorak ; Frederick Delius ; Samuel Coleridge-Taylor ; R. Nathaniel Dett ; William Levi Dawson ; Hall Johnson ; J. Rosamund Johnson ; Clarence Cameron White ; Frederick J. Work, John Wesley Work II, and John W. Work III ; William Grant Still ; Mahalia Jackson ; Harry Belafonte ; Jester Hairston ; Leontyne Price ; Other artists and performers ; Other composers motivated by spirituals. Forms influenced by the spiritual : Adaptations ; Minstrel songs ; Jazz ; Blues ; Ragtime ; Country music ; Popular songs ; Neospirituals ; Ring-game songs ; Spiritual burlesques ; Swing ; Gospel songs ; Other spiritual adaptations ; Soul music. Development through publications : Collections and introductions ; Interpretations ; A jury of interpreters ; Special individual interpretations : Frederick Douglass ; Booker T. Washington ; Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson.

W.E.B. Du Bois ; Mark Twain ; Carl Van Vechten ; H.L. Mencken ; James Weldon Johnson ; Alain Locke ; Sterling Brown ; Miles Mark Fisher ; Howard Thurman ; John A. and Alan Lomax ; LeRoi Jones. Poets and the spiritual ; Fiction writers and the spiritual ; Dramatists and the spiritual ; Motion pictures and the spiritual ; Radio and the spiritual ; Television and the spiritual ; Records and the spiritual. Civil rights expression and the spiritual ; The spiritual and other folk songs in America and elsewhere ; The spiritual and art ; The spiritual and the folk community ; The spiritual and the Catholics ; The spiritual and Jewish philosophy ; The Afro-American spiritual in foreign lands : Africa ; Australia ; Austria ; Belgium ; Canada ; Czechoslovakia ; Denmark ; England ; Finland ; France ; Germany ; Hungary ; India ; Ireland ; Italy ; iechtenstein ; The Netherlands ; Norway ; Poland ; Scotland ; Soviet Union ; Spain ; Sweden ; Switzerland ; Western hemisphere ; Yugoslavia

The flame burns brightly.