Listen to a curated playlist of TN's spirituals and hymns, choirs, composers and quartets that heralded the sounds of faith and freedom.
gospel
TN Gospel History
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The roots of Gospel music are in its name. From the time African Americans were brought over to America by the cruelty of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, spiritual songs were being sung and prayers lifted up for deliverance.
The earliest allies in the abolitionist cause were religiously-rooted, too. The first protest against slavery was recorded in 1688 in a Germantown Quaker Petition.
Sadly it would take nearly two hundred more years for slavery to be legally abolished, but along the long road
In 1800, the Great Awakening revivals began to sweep across Tennessee, beginning with the Red River Revival camp meeting, which spanned Middle Tennessee. In the true spirit of the Gospel, written accounts noted that people of all races, enslaved and free, were welcomed to worship together. The message of the meetings emphasized spiritual equality before God, enabling many African Americans to participate by speaking and sharing their faith. The egalitarian spirit of this movement empowered Black worshippers, and many enslaved
music became a source of strength and a way to share the vision of freedom.
African Americans adopted Christianity as their religion. They began to base songs on the Old Testament Exodus accounts as a metaphor for their plight of slavery and hope of freedom. By the 1830s, the first African American Baptist Church would be opened in Nashville and the first African American hymnal published. Meanwhile, individuals were starting to organize to take a stand for what they believed in as the American Anti-Slavery Society was formed and the Civil War began. Cities in Tennessee, like Nashville and Memphis that are right off the Mississippi and Cumberland Rivers, became prime touring spots for show tours carried by steamboats. People in the city got to hear music that exposed them to whole new experiences and ways of thinking. Some of these include the offensive forms of minstrelsy. But others...
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