Singing through Struggle

Music, Worship, and Identity in Postemancipation Black Churches

Carolynne Hitter Brown

• Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
• Year: 2025
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9781496856357
• Subtopic: African American History
• Index: History

Singing through Struggle: Music, Worship, and Identity in Postemancipation Black Churches offers an innovative look at the vital role music and worship played in nurturing Black citizenship and identity during the Reconstruction era. In such border cities as Baltimore, Washington, DC, and Philadelphia, the church was where newly emancipated migrants and members of the free Black community merged identities, priorities, and experiences through a process of cultural negotiation. Music, as a sign of Black achievement and as a genuine expression of identity, produced both bastions and battlegrounds in the fight for democracy.

The music of Black churchgoers, singing together in sanctuaries as well as in homes, schools, and outdoors, expressed resistance to uplift ideologies within and to white supremacy without. Even while using hymns and music of the European sacred tradition, members infused the songs they chose with new meanings relevant to their evolving concerns and situations. Drawing on fresh archival sources, Singing through Struggle sheds light on the unexplored gap in the study of African American religious music between slavery and the Great Migration, demonstrating the continuous stream of Black creativity and dignity that existed in religious music making between gospel music and the spirituals.

This close-up investigation of three Black congregations draws out previously forgotten stories of men and women who understood church music as key to shaping a collective purpose and civic identity. Their stories demonstrate how faith, music, and ritual gave the Black community means for exploring a deeply complex and ever-changing reality.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Contents
• Introduction
• Chapter One: Remembering, Remaking, Retelling: Black Religious Music and Reconstruction
• Chapter Two: Stabilizing Structures and Spontaneous Song: The Case of Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, Baltimore
• Chapter Three: Education, Empowerment, and Essential Music in the First Freedom Schools: The Case of Zoar Methodist Episcopal Church, Philadelphia
• Chapter Four: Finding Freedom and Performing Power: The Case of St. Luke’s Protestant Episcopal Church, Washington, DC
• Afterword
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• About the Author