Out of the many intriguing topics in Jon Cruz’s Culture on the Margins: The Black Spiritual and the Rise of American Cultural Interpretation, the one I found most interesting was his discussion of “disengaged engagement” introduced in chapter one. Cruz explained that in the decades following the abolition of slavery, sympathetic audiences (who were often college educated, upper class, and white) began listening to spirituals sung by black choirs. Those in the audience were never comfortable truly understanding the messages these spirituals contained, messages of daily hardship borne by those who lived and worked on plantations. These abolitionists patronized events where spirituals were sung and appreciated their aesthetic beauty, all the while ignoring the social and political circumstances from which these “slave songs” arose. Cruz notes a rift between two actions: 1) listening to this music for its aesthetic beauty, and 2) understanding the struggle inherent in these spirituals. He argues that this rift continues today.
A few months ago, I heard a story on NPR about the Fisk University Jubilee Singers. The audio report briefly documented the legacy of this all-Black singing group, who are most well known for singing the spirituals that arose from the days of slavery. The group has been in existence for over 150 years, and is an interesting case study to highlight many of the sentiments found in Cruz’s book (Cruz briefly mentions the Fisk singers throughout his text, but I will go into a little more detail). A link to the audio and transcript is below:
This news segment mentions that, as the Jubilee singers began touring the northern United States and eventually the world, there were qualms about them performing traditional ‘Negro spirituals.’ On the one hand, the choir’s first director (and anthropologist) John Work II believed that this group’s performances would not only raise money for Fisk University, but would allow for a dissemination of Black culture in arenas where it had previously been ignored. On the other hand, some prominent figures at the time worried that the performance of spirituals were simply a cruel reminder of slavery, that the audiences would not respond to the spiritually and emotionally laden sentiments of these songs. Work II, though, recognized the need to sing these songs to a broader audience, and the group became internationally renowned.
I find the story of the Fisk Jubilee Singers interesting, because it does not exactly parallel the cultural appropriation or commodification that Cruz discusses in his book. There are certainly echoes of it in this case; when listening to the NPR story, one could recognize that Work II’s role may share a few similarities with John Lomax’s (whom we discussed last week). In addition, the Fisk Jubilee Singers have recently performed with various artists like Neil Young and Faith Hill, potentially hinting towards the appropriation of these traditional spirituals. Yet, the Fisk Jubilee Singers offer a more complex case, probably stemming from the fact that this group was associated with a University, thus shielding it from the idealized ‘folk’ narrative of which many Black choirs were ascribed.
What I found especially interesting regarding the Fisk Jubilee Singers is an aspect of the racial narrative not totally explored in Cruz’s book. When researching the choir group, I found a promo of a documentary about the choir’s trip to Ghana in 2005. The link is below:
In this video, the current choir director discusses how important it is for the college student singers to visit Ghana, to experience the link between two cultures separated by an ocean, to understand the true roots of the spirituals they sing. Shortly after his eloquent narrative, the documentary promo shows the Fisk Jubilee Singers staring out the bus as they drive through Ghana’s capital, Accra. The camera focuses on several women walking through the streets carrying baskets on their heads, as the students from Fisk show surprise and wonder at how the women do such things. What I found most compelling about this segment was how much these young students had to learn about the very same culture the Fisk students 150 years ago were apprehensive to display.
A cultural rift exists between white and black Americans, exemplified by the tension inherent in performances of traditional spirituals by groups like the Jubilee Singers. This divide was certainly amplified by the ways Black culture was portrayed, and later appropriated and commercialized, by white individuals (with various motives). As this rift formed in the days after slavery leading up to the present, there formed another one, a spatio-temporal rift for individuals trying to portray their own culture. This, I think, is a trend that Cruz would see as a symptom of the appropriation of Black spirituals throughout time. I think, though, that it is also an important place to start correcting these symptoms. Everyone should be able to listen a song, and everyone should be able to learn about who one is, where one comes from, and what the song really means.
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