Go Down, Moses | West African Influences
In this essay, the author discusses West African influences and multiple levels of meaning in African- American spirituals.
Folk song is the voice of a people, of a community. It tells of the sorrows, triumphs, and yearnings— not of the individual but of the collective. Folk songs are attributed not to a single composer or poet, but to a nation, a tribe or a race. This helps to explain the power and the beauty, as well as the miracle, of the African-American spiritual. In the introduction to The Books of American Negro Spirituals, the poet James Weldon Johnson marvels at the creation of this powerful music: “These people came from various localities in Africa. They did not speak the same language....
[The entire page is 1721 words long]
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