MUSIC IN THE COLORED CONVENTIONS

WHY DID THEY SING?

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Art and Artifacts Division, The New York Public Library. “Prays’ Meetin'” The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1935 – 1943. 

Through music, Black people in the US expressed sorrow, resistance, joy, and dreams for the future. Through their songs, enslaved people reinterpreted biblical stories and departed from whites’ teachings about Christianity, thus building a religious community of their own. Afro-protestantism emerged as a significant feature of Black culture. Amiri Baraka asserts that the influence of Black religious practices “permeates” all of Black culture, music particularly, and that this influence can be seen in both secular and spiritual music [1]. Colored Conventions, bringing together Black people from all over the US, served to fortify and cement Black musical traditions. 

While Afro-protestantism nurtured Black music and churches provided a physical space for Black people to gather, the music sung during the Conventions was not solely religious in nature as previous chapters have shown. Lawrence Levine calls for a reconsideration of Black music in the antebellum period so we may appreciate its diversity. Nineteenth-century Black music was not entirely religious. Music was a means to express and claim their dreams, individuality, and identity [2]. Convention proceedings reflect the varied roles music played in the lives of free and enslaved people. This section explores these roles. 

References

[1] Baraka, Imamu Amiri. ” The Phenomenon of Soul in African American Music.” The Music: Reflections on Jazz and Blues. New York, NY:  Morrow, 1987, pp. 332. Retrieved from: Black Thought and Culture. (p. 270)

[2] “African American Music as Resistance,” Lawrence W. Levine. from. Burnim, Mellonee V, and Portia K. Maultsby. African American Music: An Introduction. 2015. (p. 587-588).