{"id":149,"date":"2015-12-09T04:40:40","date_gmt":"2015-12-09T09:40:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/srd4\/?page_id=149"},"modified":"2015-12-19T13:59:22","modified_gmt":"2015-12-19T18:59:22","slug":"aint-gonna-let-nobody-turn-me-around","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/srd4\/aint-gonna-let-nobody-turn-me-around\/","title":{"rendered":"3. The Spirituals"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>3. The Spirituals [Ain&#8217;t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around\/ Oh Freedom!] &#8211; The choir members consider the significance of singing such powerful songs and reflect on what they might mean for them in their own lives. They also answer questions about the changing role of gospel music within and outside of the black community.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"When We Praise Pt. 3: The Spirituals\" width=\"584\" height=\"329\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/XUC_qA5A8v0?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think we\u2019re definitely in a different time. We don\u2019t sing the \u201cOh Freedom\u201d or the Negro spirituals as much because we\u2019re not in that time period per se. I feel like gospel music now is meant to sustain your faith and it\u2019s meant to also help recruit and evangelize, where as gospel music in the past was meant to get people through a hard time&#8230;.It\u2019s a part of black history, it was created by blacks\u2026so you know, I can\u2019t speak for all white people but I feel like a white person can listen to the same gospel song that a black person is listening to and take the lyrics and the words at face value and be like \u201cOh it\u2019s a catchy tune\u201d but they don\u2019t really understand the gravity of the words, whereas a black person may appreciate it more because the art is just so purely rooted in what a black person\u2019s history has come from. So I don\u2019t think\u2014like for instance, there were some songs performed by gospel choir where it was a struggle because the choir is generally mixed, which is great, but at the same time you had\u2014I noticed that the African-American or black students in the group, they would sing the song with all their might and their power but the non-blacks in the group, they didn\u2019t necessarily convey the passion and emotion behind the words. It seems like just words to them, while an African American student will actually feel the words.&#8221;<br \/>\n-&#8220;A&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Gospel music was a way for African-Americans to tell their story and exemplify their struggle. For example, during slavery times we had the negro spirituals, it was a way for them to send messages to each other and also away to let others know \u201cHey, I know what you\u2019re going through.\u201d And throughout history, gospel music is supposed to spread the good news of Jesus Christ so I feel like in that aspect as well, it\u2019s always portrayed the message&#8230;not as many people are as \u201cspiritual and religious\u201d as they were in the past but gospel music is consistent. We might have all these trends here and there, you might have these music artists but gospel music is the one thing that\u2019s going to be there, it\u2019s like your foundation, you may not think about it but you know when you\u2019re down and out, it\u2019s that one thing you can go to. So I think it\u2019s still in the black community like that&#8230;I also feel it is a way for people who are not black to understand the struggle of people who are black and it\u2019s also a way for them to hear the message of Jesus Christ.&#8221;- &#8220;O&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;&#8230;And if someone were able to hear a jazz voice or a Negro spiritual or Rosetta Thorpe singing on the radio about an experience that you shared, that\u2019s kind of letting people across the nation know that you had similar experiences. It somehow united black people across the nation and forged a sense of community. There\u2019s also the black church. For so long that was the only thing black people had onto themselves, a place where they were able to share each other\u2019s presence in that community without being monitored or segregated so that\u2019s a big deal, I think&#8230;In the United States\u2026[gospel] kind of does this thing where it reminds people of their morality or it reminds them of the church that their grandmother grew up in\u2026but when I think about black people today in America there are so many people who\u2019ve never set foot in a church, never heard a gospel lyric&#8230;So it does do that thing where it reminds people of their childhood, it uplifts them\u2026I wish it had more of an impact. I think it has less of an impact now than it did before\u2014like entertainment with a reminder of things passed.&#8221; -&#8220;W&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think it\u2019s just been a really big integral part of a lot of people\u2019s upbringing, like upbringing throughout generations. With our concert, it was Gospel Through The Times, before gospel used to be like simple Negro spirituals\u2026it was a means of communication while still showing your faith in God. I feel like that\u2019s carried out throughout the black community. You know maybe not as intensely as trying to escape from slavery but I think it\u2019s still a big part of how we keep our faith in the face of adversity and everything you have to go through in America with being black&#8230;&#8221; -&#8220;Q&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>3. The Spirituals [Ain&#8217;t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around\/ Oh Freedom!] &#8211; The choir members consider the significance of singing such powerful songs and reflect on what they might mean for them in their own lives. They also answer &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/srd4\/aint-gonna-let-nobody-turn-me-around\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1151,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-149","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/srd4\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/srd4\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/srd4\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/srd4\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1151"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/srd4\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/srd4\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":193,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/srd4\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/149\/revisions\/193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/srd4\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}