Spirituals in The District?
Motivational Music
Hope in God
As a way to feel closer to God, enslaved Africans created the Negro Spiritual, which gave them encouragement and helped them cope with a life devoted to hard work and dehumanizing treatment. Due to the harsh conditions and abuse that African Slaves suffered, having a source of motivation was essential to their emotional well-being and work ethic (White 6).Being a harsh reality of forced labor and being viewed as nothing more than property that could be sold or even thrown away and forgotten, slaves found little hope in worldly things, so they found their encouragement through their God. One of the Oldest Spirituals, God’s Gonna Set this World on Fire, explains that “God's gonna set this world on fire one of these days” and that they are going to “drink and never get thirsty one of these days”. These lyrics show that enslaved Africans expect God to set the troubled World on fire and destroy all the terrible things that it entails, and when this happens, they can trust that God will provide for their needs in ways that this Earth never will.
Lori White, a college professor at Southern Methodist University, claims that she listened to, quoted, and sang Negro Spirituals to motivate herself to continue working with college students (3). Often, she found herself getting discouraged by the laziness of her students, and needed a source of motivation to help her understand that she would be rewarded at the end of the day for all of her hard work when trying to cope with her stubborn students. Understanding that White was able to use the Spirituals as a source of motivation just like that slaves generations ago did, shows this music’s lasting effects. Not only are they influential enough to travel from race to race, but also they are traveling from generation to generation.
The design of the new wing will have many different staircases going to multiple levels; this will be symbloic to the ascent to Heaven that the slaves hoped for.
Clip Art, From wix
Clip Art, From wix
The Negro Spiritual has influenced every culture and generation. spreading from race to race as seen in the performance above. The Negro Spiritual Wing of the African American History Museum is for every race and background.