The Official Newsletter of Christian History & Biography Magazine
Saturday, May 31, 2008
He Still Wid Us—Jesus
The musical theology of spirituals.
Yolanda Y. Smith
Militant abolitionist Thomas W. Higginson was the commander of the First South Carolina Volunteers, the first Union regiment made up of freed slaves. In his camps, his soldiers would break out into song, which Higginson wrote down and published in the Atlantic Monthly.
Finish this article from the Christian History & Biography website.
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 Sojourner Truth
Abolitionist and women's rights advocate
"The Lord has made me a sign unto this nation, an' I go round a'testifyin' an' showin' on 'em their sins agin my people."
At a gathering of prominent clergymen and abolitionists at the home of Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, Stowe was informed that Sojourner Truth was downstairs and wanted to meet her.
Read more about Sojourner Truth.
More from Christian History & Biography below.
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 Constantinople: Capital of Byzantium
Jonathan Harris delicately captures Constantinople's
golden age, weaving the spiritual together with the
political, the mythical with the actual.
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 Great Teachers of the Bible
This series from ChristianBibleStudies.com brings you the wisdom of today's top Christian teachers. Get Jill Briscoe's ideas on Christian living, John Piper's views on the nature of God, and more.
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 Ready-to-Download Bible Studies and Courses
If you're looking to learn more about Christianity's past and connect it with Scripture, ChristianBibleStudies.com offers dozens of Bible studies and complete courses created for personal use or for your small group or Sunday school class. |
June 1, 1843:
Isabella Baumfree, having received a vision of God telling her to "travel up an' down the land showin' the people their sins an' bein' a sign unto them," leaves New York and changes her name to Sojourner Truth. She became one of the most famous abolitionists and women's rights lecturers in American history
(see Issue 62: Bound for Canaan).
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After the Civil War, spirituals experienced a temporary challenge. Free blacks wanted to forget the songs as a relic of a horrific past. The African-American middle class was attempting to embrace European culture and hymnody. And few whites had even heard spirituals. But thanks to the Fisk Jubilee Singers, who brought the form into the larger popular culture, spirituals were saved. Today, the words to more than 6,000 spirituals remain, according to the Library of Congress, but some exist only in fragments.
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From "There is a Holy City," one of Sojourner Truth's favorite hymns
"And what shall be my journey,
How long I'll stay below,
Or what shall be my trials,
Are not for me to know.
In every day of trouble
I'll raise my thoughts on high,
I'll think of that bright temple
And crowns above the sky."
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The Biblical Canon: Its Origin, Transmission, and Authority
