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THE TIES THAT BIND: GOSPEL MUSIC, POPULAR MUSIC,
AND RACE IN AMERICA, 1875-1940
A thesis submitted
To Kent State University in partial
Fulfillment of the requirements for the
Degree of Master of Arts
by
Daniel J. Young
August 2021
© Copyright
All rights reserved
Except for previously published materials
Thesis written by
Daniel J. Young
B. A., Saint Vincent College, 2019
M. A., Kent State University, 2021
Approved by
Dr. Kenneth Bindas, Advisor
Dr. Kevin Adams, Chair, Department of History
Dr. Mandy Munro-Stasiuk, Dean, College of Arts and Sciences
iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iv
INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v
CHAPTERS
I. “A Better Home:” Racialized Imagery of Heaven in Gospel Music . . . . . . . . . . . 1
II. “A Friend Above:” Theological Themes in White and Black Gospel Music . . . .29
III. “When You Go to Heaven:” Racialized Religious Imagery in Popular Song . . . . 58
CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
iv
Acknowledgements
First off, I would like to thank my advisor, Dr. Kenneth Bindas, without whom this
project would not have been possible. Dr. Bindas first referred me to gospel music as a topic of
study. Additionally, his feedback throughout the process of researching and writing has been
indispensable. In addition to referring me to gospel, as well as keeping me on track when the
temptation to dive into various tangentially related topics proved very strong, Dr. Bindas was
very helpful in framing my thinking about gospel, not just as religious music but also as it was
tied to the socioeconomic context of the time and elements of modernism especially.
Next, I would like to thank the other members of my committee, Dr Elaine Frantz and Dr.
Elizabeth Smith-Pryor. Dr. Elaine Frantz helped me refine my thought about gospel as religious
music, and also helped me stay on track with completing the thesis. And I would like to thank
Dr. Elizabeth Smith-Pryor for helping me think about gospel scholarship, as well as referring me
to a number of sources about both gospel and race issues more generally. Without their help, this
project would certainly not be what it is.
Finally, I would like to thank my parents, Brian and Margie Young, whose support,
particularly as I worked from home during the COVID shutdown, made this project both
possible and bearable. The pandemic shaped many aspects of this project, since the bulk of it was
written at that time, and from home, which posed its own challenges. My parents both allowed
me time to work on it and helped out with the difficulties posed by working from home. Without
them this project would likely never have come to fruition as it is.
v
Introduction
In 1996 Charles Johnson had been a southern gospel singer for just over a decade. A
veteran of the successful black gospel quartet The Nightingales, he had jumped over to southern
(i.e., white) gospel in the 1980s, cultivating a sound that mixed the influences of black gospel
music with the countryish sound of southern gospel. That year, in an interview with historian
James R. Goff, Jr., who was studying southern gospel, he elaborated his views on gospel and
race: “Gospel don’t have no color to it. . . Now how am I going to put a tag on the gospel of God
– God’s gospel? It don’t have no color.”1 He may have been reflecting the perceptions of a
variety of listeners and musicians at the time. But this statement glosses over the long and
complex history of gospel music. Gospel music was (and remains, for that matter) racialized to a
large degree. White and black gospel sprang from mostly different roots, and while the share
some similar religious heritage, they developed a style and message that reinforced, albeit subtly
at times, their distinction. Through the different performance styles and the different
understandings composers and listeners brought to gospel, gospel helped reinforce racial identity
and experience, even if the distinctions between them were subtle enough that white listeners and
church congregations used black gospel, and vice versa. Through gospel’s message and other
associations, it is possible to see the articulation of racial identity as well as implicit rejections of
racism and affirmations of it. Race, in short, is an issue without which gospel cannot properly be
1 Quoted in James R. Goff Jr., Close Harmony: A History of Southern Gospel (Chapel Hill: The University of North
Carolina Press, 2002), 199-200.
vi
understood, and it can tell us much about race and racism in nineteenth- and twentieth-century
America.
Racial division is a fact in modern-day gospel music, and in truth has been a fact for
much of gospel’s existence, but gospel has neither completely reinforced division nor fostered
racial unity to a meaningful degree. White and black gospel employed many of the same images
and terms, so even the differing understanding did not mean that white gospel songs were
incomprehensible or even not meaningful to black listeners, and vice versa. Rather, some of
gospel’s power lay in the ability of listeners to apply it to their own circumstances. It was not
necessarily consciously ambiguous, so much as it was able to transcend its origins despite the
intentions behind many of the songs. It is perhaps easiest to think of white and black gospel as
two streams, stemming from a common source but also having their own distinct tributaries as
well as smaller streams connecting them farther downstream. This belabored geological analogy
is useful for framing gospel in terms of interaction, for precious little space has been devoted to
it. Gospel is an enthusiast’s genre, and while a number of popular and scholarly treatments exist,
there appears to be a certain scholarly reticence about addressing gospel in a meaningful way, an
unfortunate oversight or omission that is doubly obvious for white gospel, although it applies to
black gospel as well, particularly in the years after about 1950. The wide religious listenership of
gospel may have something to do with the general scholarly hesitancy to engage with it,
particularly its connection to the more fundamentalist and dynamic white and black churches. As
Douglas Harrison argues, it is an unfortunate tendency of scholars studying gospel to find the
essentially foreign milieu difficult to navigate sympathetically, with the result being a kind of
“intellectual tourism” at worst or a failure to fully understand the music’s function and
vii
significance.2 This is a perceptive, albeit heavy-handed, critique. The scholarship on gospel is in
truth quite sporadic, not including popular histories and treatments, and a survey suggests there is
plenty of work to be done on both black and white gospel music.
Before proceeding farther, it is necessary to provide some definition of gospel music.
Defining gospel music has proven difficult for scholars, mostly because there is so much
variation in the musical style and lyrical message of gospel. This musical variation owes to the
large number of outside musical influences both strains of gospel absorbed. However, one thing
defines both black and white gospel music: a Christian religious message that somehow
expresses “good news,” the meaning of the word gospel. White gospel developed as religious
revival music. The melodies of white gospel songs are popular in nature, and not tied to any
specific style.3 Vocal harmony, particularly within the quartet, developed as a defining
characteristic of white gospel during the early twentieth century.4 White gospel also tends to
have a broadly appealing religious message that can be fit to the listeners’ experience and
beliefs.5 Black gospel is slightly better defined, owing to the fact that it apparently absorbed
fewer outside influences than white gospel did.6 Until the 1960s, black gospel used a simple
harmonic structure with basic major and minor chords.7 Syncopation and dynamic rhythm are
also an important musical characteristic of black gospel, and the performance employs
improvisation and audience participation.8 For black gospel’s message, Lawrence Levine
2 Douglas Harrison, Then Sings My Soul: The Culture of Southern Gospel Music, (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois
Press, 2012), 2. 3 James R. Goff Jr., “The Rise of Southern Gospel Music,” Church History 67, no. 4 (Dec., 1998), 724-725. 4 Douglas Harrison, “Why Southern Gospel Music Matters,” Religion and American Culture: A Journal of
Interpretation 18, no. 1 (Winter 2008): 51. See also Goff Jr., Close Harmony, 64-143 on quartets. 5 Harrison, “Why Southern Gospel Music Matters,” 52. 6 Ibid, 32-33. Goff Jr., Close Harmony, 5 and 20. 7 Horace Clarence Boyer, “Gospel Music,” Music Educators Journal 64, no. 9 (May, 1978): 34-43. 8 Boyer, “Gospel Music,” 35. Pearl Williams-Jones, “Afro-American Gospel Music: A Crystallization of the Black
Aesthetic.” Ethnomusicology 19, no. 3 (Sep., 1975): 378-382.
viii
emphasizes the significance placed on Jesus and the acceptance of injustice in the world
encouraged by black gospel.9 In this study, I will employ the terms “black gospel” and “white
gospel” to distinguish between the two forms. White gospel is known nowadays, and often has
been known retrospectively, as “southern gospel,” a term not coined until the 1970s, and by its
nature somewhat exclusionary, since black gospel is also inherently southern, but is generally
only ever referred to as black gospel.
As a result of the disparity in characteristics, listeners can distinguish white and black
gospel. While she was writing about jazz in the 1950s and 1960s, Ingrid Monson provided a
framework that can also be applied to gospel. Jazz, she argued, was racially coded, with some
sounds and styles being thought of as inherently white or black, with some overlap and the
possibility of crossover by whites or blacks, as well as cross-generational cross-racial
influence.10 Gospel is much the same way in its distinction, and in the fact that there was some
stylistic overlap and influence between white and back gospel. Through their racial coding, as
well as the differences in their message, black and white gospel served to foment division
between blacks and whites, and encourage identification within that group, but there was also a
certain unity fomented by the common origins of black and white gospel.
The scholarship on gospel music has been sporadic up to this point. Douglas Harrison
said that southern gospel is difficult for scholars to deal with because it has its own community,
and to some extent that is true. Evangelical Christianity undoubtedly could prove difficult, even
stressful, to navigate for an outsider, and it is worth noting that Harrison himself grew up as a
9 Lawrence W. Levine, Black Culture and Black Consciousness: Afro-American Folk Thought from Slavery to
Freedom (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), 176-177. 10 Ingrid Monson, Freedom Sounds: Civil Rights Call Out to Jazz and Africa, (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2007), 66-84.
ix
preacher’s son and is a lifelong fan of southern gospel.11 However, the scholarly push to reckon
with southern, that is, white gospel is less than thirty years old. James Goff, Jr., a historian,
published Close Harmony, a comprehensive look at the history of southern gospel from its roots
up through and beyond its heyday in the mid-twentieth century. The history places a heavy focus
on the institutional and musical performance aspects of southern gospel, namely the performers
themselves. Michael Graves and David Fillingim, religious scholars, published More Than
Precious Memories, an anthology work examining various aspects of southern gospel’s message,
including the lyrics, perceptions among listeners, and some performance practices.12 And
Douglas Harrison attempted, with his own monograph Then Sings My Soul: The Culture of
Southern Gospel Music, to take a comprehensive look at southern gospel’s cultural function,
arguing that it outwardly encourages evangelical orthodoxy but can accommodate a range of
queer (in both the common and broader senses) identities within its listenership. None of the
scholars make any comprehensive, or even really token, effort to deal with race. Goff makes a
few idle comments, and Harrison briefly examines similarities and differences of the forms, but
beyond Harrison’s identification of the name “southern gospel” as serving to reinforce racial
division, none of them account for race issues within gospel’s performance or message.
Scholarship of black gospel has likewise neglected the racialized aspects of gospel.
Anthony Heilbut, the foremost expert on black gospel (despite being a Jewish atheist) bears
mentioning for his in-depth studies of the general world of black gospel performance, but his
work contains relatively little deeper analysis of gospel, either its message or cultural function.13
11 Harrison, Then Sings My Soul, 160. 12 Michael P. Graves and David Fillingim, eds., More Than Precious Memories: The Rhetoric of Southern Gospel
Music, (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2004). 13 Anthony Heilbut, The Gospel Sound: Good News and Bad Times, 25th Anniversary Edition, Kindle Edition, (New
York: Limelight Editions, 1997).
x
Still, it provides a useful insider’s look at black gospel. Lawrence Levine’s seminal 1977
monograph Black Culture and Black Consciousness, a survey of black folk culture in the years
after the abolition of slavery, looked at gospel in terms of its relation to black racial
consciousness.14 Michael Harris did extensive work on the black gospel composer Thomas
Andrew Dorsey’s life, and did an excellent job situating Dorsey within the framework of black
religion as well as black music.15 Bernice Johnson Reagon has written on black gospel as well,
situating it within the context of the Great Migration and black oral culture, much like Levine.16
And Jerma Jackson has used black gospel to examine religion, gender, and even race, but the
latter only to a limited extent, largely building off of Levine’s work and showing how gospel tied
to black religious and musical experience.17 While the treatment of black gospel has appealed
more explicitly to ideas of race, it has not attempted to situate black gospel alongside white
gospel or compare the two in any meaningful way. The only work to do so was Bill Malone and
David Stricklin’s Southern Music/American Music, which contains information about both forms
of gospel, and charts some mutual influence.18 However, it does not devote any substantial space
to gospel, making it more of an interlude than anything else in the book.
As can be seen from this admittedly brief survey, scholars have not tried to study black
and white gospel together in any meaningful way. This thesis is an attempt to begin to address
that gap in the current scholarship. This will use a comparative approach to look at the message
14 Levine, Black Culture and Black Consciousness, especially 174-189. 15 Michael Harris, The Rise of Gospel Blues: The Music of Thomas Andrew Dorsey in the Urban Church (Oxford
and New York: University of Oxford Press, 1992). 16 Bernice Johnson Reagon, “Twentieth-Century Gospel: As the People Moved They Sang a New Song,” in If You
Don’t Go, Don’t Hinder Me: The African-American Sacred Song Tradition (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press,
2001), 12-41. 17 Jerma A Jackson, Singing in my Soul: Black Gospel Music in a Secular Age (Chapel Hill: The University of North
Carolina Press, 2004). 18 Bill C. Malone and David Stricklin, Southern Music/American Music, Revised Edition, (Lexington, KY: The
University Press of Kentucky, 2003).
xi
of gospel music from 1875 up to 1940 for its racialized coding. Much of the imagery used in
black and white gospel was outwardly similar, but there were substantial differences in the way it
was understood, to say nothing of the occasional differences in the imagery itself. Just like the
performance of gospel is racially coded, so too the lyrics of gospel express and speak to the
specific religious but also social, cultural, and economic concerns of their audience. Gospel,
black or white, cannot be understood outside its wider context, and the music’s message reflects
the concerns of its listeners. Gospel song was intimately tied to group identity, as other scholars
identified, but it also helped solidify division, something they have mostly failed to explore.
This study will be primarily concerned with analyzing gospel’s message, and how that
related to the broader social and religious issues of the time. The study begins in 1875, which is
generally identified as the first use of the term “gospel” to describe a specific style of song. The
cut-off date of 1940 presents a slightly arbitrary but convenient place because of the trajectories
of the development of black and white gospel music. Black gospel reached widespread
acceptance among the mainline churches by about 1940, and white gospel exploded into true
commercial popularity around that time. There are dangers to any periodization, but this
represents a useful one. Similarly, the main sources used will be songs, gospel songs but also
popular songs that use the same imagery as gospel. The gospel songs are drawn from a variety of
sources, including lyric transcriptions for some of the oldest songs and a variety of hymnbooks,
as well as some songs quoted in the work done by other scholars on gospel. The main hymnbook
I used is Gospel Pearls, the first published black gospel hymnbook, which contains a variety of
songs by well-known black and white composers. Insofar as it was widely circulated, and not
exclusively among black audiences, it is a useful source. I have also drawn on the published
hymnals of Charles Albert Tindley, the first well-known black gospel composer. For white
xii
gospel, in addition to the songs published in Gospel Pearls and miscellaneous ones I was able to
locate, I have drawn on the Musical Million, a gospel magazine published by the Kieffer-
Ruebush Company, the leading gospel publisher of the late nineteenth century. The magazine ran
from 1879 to 1917 and included two songs with every issue. Since it had the clout to publish
songs by the leading gospel composers of the day, including one of the company’s founders,
Aldine S. Kieffer, it is an invaluable source of gospel music.
In analyzing the lyrics of gospel music, the theory of language and dialogue articulated
by Mikhail Bakhtin provides a helpful framework for capturing the subtleties of gospel’s
message. Bakhtin argued that language is subject to centrifugal (i.e. dispersing) and centripetal
(unifying) forces. The fixed meaning of language works centripetally, but because language can
have personal meaning to its author and various kinds of dialectical meaning, the centripetal
forces acting within language ensure a maximum rather than a minimum of mutual
understanding. Language is “not. . . a system of abstract grammatical categories, but rather. . .
conceived as ideologically saturated. . . a world view.”19 Language, Bakhtin argues, can only
fully be understood within dialogue, not in its own right. Any word that refers to an object does
so in relation to that object, to the subject speaking or writing the word, and a whole complex
system of beliefs, opinions, and related words. “The living utterance, having taken meaning and
shape at a particular historical moment in a socially specific environment, cannot fail to brush up
against thousands of living dialogic threads, woven by socio-ideological consciousness around
the given object of an utterance. . .”20 Bakhtin argues that there is a maximum rather than a
minimum of mutual comprehensibility within dialogue. In short, the centrifugal influences
19 Mikhail Bakhtin, “Discourse in the Novel,” in The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays by M. M. Bakhtin, ed.
Michael Holquist, tr. Carly Emerson and Michael Holquist, (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1981), 271. 20 Ibid, 276-277.
xiii
ensure that no one can completely and totally understand what someone else means because of
the balance between fixed and personalized meaning.21 This is critical to understanding the
messages within black and white gospel.
The first chapter examines the imagery of heaven in both black and white gospel songs.
The physical imagery used to describe heaven was similar in black and white gospel, but the
associations that heaven held were different. While both tended to describe heaven as a place
with streets of gold, and often as a shore beyond a sea or across a river, and to refer to loved ones
waiting in heaven, even that imagery could be understood differently by its listeners. References
to a river, for example, may have meant different things to a white and a black listener.
Meanwhile, how one got to heaven was different in black and white gospel songs. White gospel
tended to point to the difficulties of living in the world, but place a heavy focus on heaven as the
true home of the believer. To some extent, it devalued the present in favor of the believer’s
future salvation, but it also tended to present salvation as something basically assured to the
listener. Black gospel was more ambiguous, tending to highlight more the difficulties that would
be faced on the way to heaven. Black gospel also tended to present heaven less as something
assured. In this dichotomy, the differing experiences of black and white Americans could be seen
on display. Even where white southerners lived in appalling conditions they had hope for a better
future, that their suffering was meaningless in the face of assured salvation. It was, in short, an
expression of white privilege. The black emphasis on suffering and hardship, along with
salvation that might or might not be assured, was a basic expression of black lived experience.
Blacks had to work for salvation just like everything else.
21 Ibid.
xiv
Chapter 2 looks at other themes present in black and white gospel, and their relation to
both the black and white religious experience and socioeconomic status. Black and white
theology and religious practice necessarily inform gospel music just as living conditions did,
which becomes evident through the lives of the composers as well as the messages presented in
song. The themes of grace, love, and duty all appear in both black and white gospel songs, and
they demonstrate some of the fundamental similarities and differences between the two forms.
White and black gospel strategically deploy two separate conceptions of God’s grace, one of
love and salvation, and one more of assistance and strength. Again, even where either conception
is used, white gospel tends to display more assurance than black gospel that God will aid and
support the believer.
Chapter 3 examines gospel themes reflected in popular music, drawn from Tin Pan Alley
songs, blues lyrics, and folk and hillbilly song lyrics. The themes that gospel employed,
particularly heaven, duty, and grace, made themselves felt in the various popular forms that
existed alongside gospel in the black and white communities. There was some musical overlap
among the different forms, particularly blues and black gospel, and I argue that the relationship
between them, and between blues and religion more generally, was complex but significant,
more so than has often been recognized. In many respects, the inclusion of gospel themes in
other songs speaks not just to the ubiquity of religion in American life (although it does), but to
gospel’s reaction to modernity, and its musical and social connections to other trends within
American life. Gospel was a key form of identity expression.
There is naturally more work to be done on gospel. My study concludes around 1940, but
the heyday of black and white gospel arguably fell after that time. As such, it examines the
significance of gospel and its messaging, but is not intended to be comprehensive. There is much
xv
to be done yet on the history of black and white gospel after 1940, including examining its
increasing connections to popular music in more detail. My study raises some of these issues, but
it is not primarily concerned with them. There is a lot still to be analyzed about gospel, even
within the period under consideration here, and this study is only the beginning of an attempt to
rectify that lack of attention. Instead, we must content ourselves with adding somewhat to the
knowledge of gospel’s racialized aspects. Gospel was an important way of expressing racial
consciousness and identity through its conceptions of religious ideas. As such, it is not important
only for its religion or even its broader implications, but because it meant, and continues to mean
different but important things to different people, both within and outside of their groups. Gospel
can have many meanings, and this study serves to unpack one dimension of it.
1
I. “A Better Home:” Racialized Imagery of Heaven in Gospel Music
One of the most significant aspects of black and white gospel music is their message.
Black and southern gospel had largely similar messages. Gospel means “good news,” and in
many cases this holds true with black and white gospel. Their audiences were receptive to good
news, as there was often little else for them, be they poor northern or southern blacks, or poor
whites. Thomas Andrew Dorsey said of gospel that “it’s good news to the world. . .”22 White
gospel was much the same. According to white gospel singer/composer Charles Alexander,
gospel likewise was built on its ability to reach and inspire its audience: “I have never discovered
any kind of songs that touch the hearts of people. . . and brighten their homes like. . . gospel
songs.”23 But the form that his good news took could be considerably different between black
and white gospel. In lyrics as well as sound, gospel music could be racially coded, since it spoke
to the experience of the listener. Through the imagery they employed of heaven, white and black
gospel spoke in generally similar terms, but they understood the concepts of salvation and their
differing relationships to life on earth.
Gospel music is fundamentally built on the experiences of the listeners, both religiously
and in terms of everyday life. To a large, though not exclusive extent, both white and black
gospel were the music of the lower classes. Gospel came out of the dynamic worship practices of
evangelical religion. The dynamic practices of slave worship are inextricably tied to the major
characteristics of black gospel, particularly the call and response format of the songs. The call-
22 Thomas A. Dorsey, interview by Robert L. Taylor, Thomas A. Dorsey Father of Black Gospel Music, 18. 23 Charles M. Alexander, “Power of the Gospel Hymn,” Musical Million 39, no. 7, (July, 1908): 206.
2
and-response was common in black worship in the nineteenth century, particularly slave church
services. White observers disparaged the practices of black worship, but the survival of more
dynamic practices strongly influenced black gospel.24 In Chicago in the 1930s, the survival and
acceptance of these older practices allowed gospel to gain a foothold and rise, over the course of
the decade, to national prominence.25 The black gospel music that preceded Dorsey’s efforts can
be understood in a similar context: the greatest early black gospel composer, Charles Albert
Tindley, was a free black born to a slave and a free woman in Maryland, and self-taught in
reading and music.26 Scholars have not made much of Tindley’s denominational heritage, but
Tindley did not come from the most participatory traditions of black Christianity, the ones that
trace their heritage to clandestine meetings by slaves that featured performance of spirituals, a
custom and performance style that was itself influenced by African religious practice.27 Tindley
himself would have been from a slightly more staid tradition, without the heavy emotionalism
that characterized Baptist and Pentecostal churches. Still, neither would Tindley’s church have
been from a tradition as rigid as many of the mainline white denominations that black churches
had been imitating since the abolition slavery. Gospel rose out of and thrived in the most
emotional and participatory forms of worship, but it was hardly confined to those churches and
denominations.
24 See Jerma Jackson, Singing in my Soul: Black Gospel Music in a Secular Age, (Chapel Hill: The University of
North Carolina Press, 2004), 13-26. 25 Michael Harris, The Rise of Gospel Blues: The Music of Thomas Andrew Dorsey in the Urban Church (Oxford
and New York: University of Oxford Press, 1992), 91-150. 26 Horace Clarence Boyer, “Charles Albert Tindley: Progenitor of African American Gospel Music,” in We’ll
Understand it Better By and By: Pioneering African American Gospel Composers, ed. Bernice Johnson Reagon,
(Washington: The Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992), 54-56 and Bernice Johnson Reagon, “Searching for
Tindley,” in We’ll Understand it Better By and By: Pioneering African American Gospel Composers, ed. Bernice
Johnson Reagon, (Washington: The Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992), 38-43. 27 Leon Litwack, Been in the Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery, (New York: Vintage Books, 1979), 24, 458-
462, and Lawrence W. Levine, Black Culture and Black Consciousness: Afro-American Folk Thought from Slavery
to Freedom (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), 55-80.
3
White gospel, in its earliest form, was essentially revival music. Waves of revivalism
swept across the nation numerous times in the nineteenth century, and the postwar revivals were
the latest of that series.28 Starting in the 1870s, composers like Ira Sankey, who served as song
leader for the famous revivalist preacher Dwight Moody, pioneered a style that was simple and
emotionally appealing, one that would sound old-fashioned to a modern listener but was simpler
than the older hymn styles, and had a noticeable popular influence.29 While less noticeable than
black gospel, white gospel too had its roots in the emotionalist strain of American Christianity.
And revivalism also represents the shared heritage of black and white gospel music: while
religion served at least as much to reinforce segregation and racial separation and hierarchy as it
did to break down racial barriers, revivals were a place that racial barriers often did break down.
Blacks and whites participated in the same revivals, and often participated together, mingling
freely in a time when that was rapidly becoming unacceptable.30 Hence, the same musical and
lyrical tradition informed both early white and black gospel music and lyrics. While white music
built less off of a participatory tradition and more simply on the emotional appeal of religion, the
two strains of gospel shared some common influences, although they were by no means the
same, and overlap should not be understood as sameness even where roots are concerned. White
gospel absorbed other influences by the turn of the century, especially a quartet performance
style that characterized much of what is now known as southern gospel, a term not coined until
the 1970s but applied retroactively to the broader musical tradition by James R. Goff, Jr., the
most thorough historical scholar of white gospel.31 Musically, white gospel had its religious and
28 Grant Wacker, Religion in Nineteenth-Century America, in Religion in American Life: A Short History, by Jon
Butler, Grant Wacker, and Randall Ballmer, 2nd edition, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 171-184. 29 Wacker, Religion in Nineteenth-Century America, 182-83 and 277-278. James R. Goff Jr., Close Harmony: A
History of Southern Gospel (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2002), 25. 30 Goff Jr., Close Harmony, 19-20. 31 Goff, Close Harmony and James R. Goff Jr., “The Rise of Southern Gospel Music,” Church History 67, no. 4
(Dec., 1998), 722-744.
4
secular roots just as black gospel did, although it changed more as time progressed, absorbing
other influences to become something distinct, where black gospel was always something
distinct, at least to its listeners.
However, while it is important to understand the religious and musical roots of black and
white gospel, neither can be understood outside of the lives of those to whom the music appealed
most, not just their religious lives but the socioeconomic conditions in which they lived. Those
conditions framed their way of seeing the world, and could not help but make themselves felt in
both the lyrics of gospel music and the way that the listeners would interpret those lyrics. The
lyrics would be racially interpreted, but the most fundamental part of gospel music, both black
and white, was the fact that it was a basic form of mass music. The wide audience for gospel
music was one from the lower socioeconomic class, one that was accustomed to hardship and
difficulty, people who enjoyed music when they often had little else and also had little hope of
making things better for themselves within their lives. Gospel, therefore, can be understood in
one sense as offering the promise of better things to come for its listeners, who certainly did not
have much to hope for by way of improvement to their daily lives. The music itself was also
appealing. Among poor white southerners, not to mention blacks, music was a principal form of
entertainment, and every kind of music was valued: popular was performed along with
traditional folk forms and religious music for entertainment.32
This phenomenon is best demonstrated by the intimate connection between white gospel
and shape note music. Shape note music refers, in technical terms, to a form of music notation
wherein a note is printed on the staff, as in usual music, but also assigns a specific shape to each
scale degree. In other words, each note in an octave had a designated shape for the note. Shape
32 See, for example, Patrick Huber, Linthead Stomp: The Creation of Country Music in the Piedmont South, (Chapel
Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 2008), xiii-xvii, 14-24.
5
notation does not designate a specific style, as anything printed in shape notation can also be
printed in standard notation, but it is often understood to refer also to a style of church music, the
older style associated with eighteenth and nineteenth-century hymn singing. This style and the
concurrent use of shape notation for it was developed in New England but caught on mostly
among rural southern churches, the kind that had poor whites comprising their congregations.33
The advent of popular white gospel, in a recognizable musical form that moved beyond the
simple popular-style hymns of Ira Sankey and his ilk, was inextricably tied in with, and
ultimately supplanted, shape note publishing. The same companies that published church music
in shape notation were the ones who began publishing the quartet-style white gospel music, and
promoting its performance by sponsoring quartets, something that both expanded on the
popularity of quartets at the time and served, quite conveniently, to promote the music that the
companies were publishing.34 Certainly not all the composers of white gospel were from a lower-
class background, nor were the performers, but the intended audience for white gospel music was
clear.
A look at the lives of some of the most notable composers of white and black gospel
likewise sheds some light on the importance of socioeconomic considerations in the
understanding of gospel. Particularly, black gospel is notable for being, while derived from
southern roots, music of the Great Migration. The Great Migration was a massive outflux of
southerners, black and white, from the South. The term Great Migration usually refers to black
Americans specifically: millions moved up north, to the northeast, Midwest, and to a lesser
extent the West Coast, California. James N. Gregory termed the whole migration the “southern
33 On shape notation and its definition, see David Crawford, “Gospel Songs in Court: From Rural Music to Urban
Industry in the 1950s,” Popular Culture 11, no. 3 (Winter, 1977): 551-567. See also Goff Jr., Close Harmony, 24-93
for a history of shape notes and shape note publishing. 34 Goff Jr., Close Harmony, 62-143.
6
diaspora” because, while their proportion of the southern population was lower, more whites
than blacks migrated from the South to the North and West over the same period.35
Charles Albert Tindley and Thomas Andrew Dorsey, the two best-known black gospel
composers, demonstrate this very well. Tindley was born around 1856 (there are a couple other
dates given as well) to free black parents of probable slave provenance in Maryland. Tindley was
never a slave himself but almost certainly worked at hard labor as a teenager.36 He taught himself
how to read using the Bible and got involved in church activities early on. He became a preacher
and by about 1900 had settled in Philadelphia, where his church eventually grew to several
thousand members. Tindley’s congregation largely mirrored his own background: many of the
members of the church were former slaves or at least had direct ties to slavery. They were also,
to a large extent, poor, although there was certainly some variation in the socioeconomic status
of Tindley’s congregation.37 Analysis of Tindley’s appeal as both a preacher and a gospel
composer are often tied to the limited education of his congregation and his ability to play to it:
his ability to mix the mundane and profound in his preaching in such a way as to make complex
ideas comprehensible, and his similar treatment of biblical and theological ideas in his songs,
often referring to things in terms of events people would understand.38 Tindley, born in a border
state and living among mostly poor blacks in the north, provides a somewhat unlikely starting
point for a music that has essentially southern roots.
Thomas Andrew Dorsey, in contrast to Tindley, demonstrates perfectly the dynamics of
the Great Migration. Born in 1899, he grew up as a preacher’s son in Villa Rica, Georgia, Dorsey
35 James N. Gregory, The Southern Diaspora: How the Great Migrations of Black and White Southerners
Transformed America, (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2005), 11-19 for numbers of
southerners leaving the South and living elsewhere. 36 Johnson Reagon, “Searching for Tindley,” 39-40. 37 Boyer, “Charles Albert Tindley,” 56-63 38 Ibid, 61-63 and Johnson Reagon, “Searching for Tindley,” 40-52.
7
had an early exposure to religion and the forms of black religious music, the old spirituals as well
as the shape note songs, which his mother performed.39 When the family fell on hard times with
the difficulty of maintaining any kind of agricultural support, they moved to Atlanta, with a
commensurate decline in socioeconomic status, something that was imprinted on the young
Dorsey’s mind. In Atlanta, Dorsey became a talented blues pianist, honing his skills playing in
clubs and bordellos. Before he was 20 Dorsey had moved from Atlanta to Chicago in search of
work, and over the next 10-odd years Dorsey, with difficulty, maintained his blues career
through highs and lows, including stylistic reimaginations of himself and two detours into gospel
music, one in 1921 and one around 1928, both of which were short-lived.40 By the 1930s, Dorsey
had devoted himself full-time to gospel, and managed to make inroads among the mainstream
protestant black churches in Chicago, which unlike the storefront churches that catered to
southern migrants used to the emotionalist, participatory worship of the southern black churches
had adopted a staid style of worship in imitation of mainline white churches.41 Dorsey’s title
“Father of Black Gospel” may not be deserved, given the achievements of Tindley and some
other composers before Dorsey, but his background and experiences make him a stereotypical
child of the Great Migration. Dorsey’s principal contribution was to help make the essentially
lower-class gospel style acceptable among more mainstream black churches and denominations.
The social forces that pushed Dorsey to Chicago and that he circumvented and tapped into to
popularize gospel demonstrate just how gospel is southern music without being bound to the
South.
39 Harris, The Rise of Gospel Blues, 18-22 and Michael W. Harris, “Conflict and Resolution in the Life of Thomas
Andrew Dorsey,” in We’ll Understand it Better By and By: Pioneering African American Gospel Composers, ed.
Bernice Johnson Reagon, (Washington: The Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992), 166-169. 40 Harris, The Rise of Gospel Blues, 68-69, 74-76 and 96-97, and Harris, “Conflict and Resolution in the Life of
Thomas Andrew Dorsey,” 170-182. 41 Harris, The Rise of Gospel Blues, 91-150 and Jackson, Singing in my Soul, 8-26.
8
Albert Brumley, the most successful white gospel composer, demonstrates more the mass
aspects of gospel music. Brumley was, in vernacular, a country boy. Born in 1905 in Indian
Territory, eventually part of Oklahoma, Brumley grew up on a farm with his parents. He did take
an early interest in music, particularly singing, and was a noted bass singer in eastern Oklahoma
during his teenage years. Brumley, with some difficulty, managed to get himself enrolled in a
singing school, and soon took an interest in composing as well as singing. His music was never
overly intricate or complex, but his lyrics were notable for their popular appeal and particularly
their referential qualities, which invoked the life he grew up with and the kind of people living
that life.42 Brumley’s music was always lyrically suited to the interests and needs of rural
southerners, which undoubtedly explains his wide appeal. Brumley himself was quite aware of
the components of his own success. As he stated in an interview, “I’m just a hillbilly. I had a
pretty good understanding of rural people and I saw trials and tribulations they faced and I think
that gave me the insight on what kind of songs these people wanted to hear.”43
The experiences of Dorsey, Tindley, Brumley, and others, as well as the broader social
situation of the audience for gospel, would undoubtedly influence how they heard and
understood gospel’s message. Even where similar language was used, the two traditions built on
the differing worldviews and experiences of their listeners. Heaven is, predictably, one of the
most common themes in gospel music, and it, perhaps more than any other theme, demonstrates
the inherent importance of both the socioeconomic situation and the racialized experiences of its
listeners. White and black gospel lyricists/composers could describe heaven’s appearance in
42 For Brumley’s early life, see Goff Jr., Close Harmony, 93-98 and Donald Kevin Kehrberg, “ʻI’ll Fly Away’: The
Music and Career of Albert E. Brumley.” PhD diss., University of Kentucky, 2010, 39-92, accessed February 9,
2020, https://uknowledge.uky.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1053&context=gradschool_diss. 43 Joe Boyle, “Hard-to-Find Community Is Home to Famous Ozarks Music Writer,” [unknown Missouri newspaper
clipping], [c. 1972], AEBS, quoted in Kehrberg, “ʻI’ll Fly Away,’” 112-113.
9
similar terms, but the associations it held were pronouncedly different. Heaven, and particularly
how one got there and what it represented when compared to the world, quickly ate up Bakhtin’s
maximum of mutual comprehensibility. Heaven looked similar to white and black audiences, but
just what it meant, what it signified, was different.
Fanny Crosby’s “Some Sweet Day, By and By,” published in 1912, employs fairly
conventional imagery of heaven: it is a “summer land,” past a “golden strand” where there is the
“tree of life so fair” (most likely a reference to either the Garden of Eden or the New Jerusalem
in the Book of Revelations), and a “crystal river’s bank,” where there are “loved ones watching.”
The world is notable only for an oblique reference in the final verse: “When the mists and clouds
have flown. . .” refers to the end of the difficulties of life on earth.44 Storms, shadows, and clouds
remained common images to describe life on earth. The imagery of heaven that Crosby
employed is interesting in its portrayal of heaven as a land more than a city, although she was by
no means the only one to do so. Albert Brumley, the most successful white gospel composer,
describes heaven as “that land so fair” in his “I Can Hear Them Singing Over There,” which also
refers to the people in heaven.45 Charles Albert Tindley refers to heaven extensively in his songs,
and describes it as follows:
There is a world where pleasure reigns,
No mourning soul will roam its plains
And to that land of peace and glory
I want to go, some day.46
44 Fanny Crosby and W. H. Doane, “Some Sweet Day, By and By,” (F. T. Doane, 1912), in Gospel Pearls, ed. Willa
A. Townsend et al, (Nashville: Sunday School Publishing Board, National Baptist Convention, U.S.A., 1921), No.
31, accessed February 18, 2020, USC Digital Library Gospel Music History Archive. 45 Albert Brumley, “I Can Hear Them Singing Over There,” (Hartford Music Company, 1904), in Kehrberg, “‘I’ll
Fly Away,’” 59. 46 C. A. Tindley, arr. F. A. Clark, “Some Day,” (C. A. Tindley, 1906), in Soul Echoes No. 2: A Collection of Songs
For Religious Meetings, ed. Bishop J. S. Caldwell et al, .(Philadelphia: Soul Echoes Publishing Company, 1909),
No. 27.
10
The imagery of heaven as a land is a common one, though there are other images that are
employed. The idea of a land has no direct biblical provenance, beyond a certain association with
the Promised Land of Israel, a connection that had a certain significance where blacks were
concerned. Given the number of people that a Christian would believe could be found in heaven,
however, it makes sense to imagine heaven as a land vast enough to accommodate a numberless
throng, as described in the Book of Revelation.
The image of heaven as a golden strand, or having one, is more interesting. Fanny Crosby
is not the only one to make reference to a golden strand. James Rowe employed imagery more
similar to Crosby’s in order to describe heaven.47 In “Promise To Meet Me There,” published in
1918, Rowe likewise described a river and a shore: “With our Pilot we shall cross the mystic
River, To a fairer, brighter shore.”48 The image of heaven as a shore also appears in the work of
Albert E. Brumley, whose song “I Can Hear Them Singing Over There” refers to heaven as
“over yonder on that happy shore (bright shore) where the sun shines on and on.” Both Brumley
and Charles Albert Tindley make some reference to heaven having a strand, and the term shore is
also invoked in a couple songs.49 The provenance of this idea of a shore is less clear, suggesting
perhaps a subtle reference to Greek and other myths where the land of the dead is reached by
crossing a river. Certainly, with a river or sea still able to serve as a barrier, the significance of
such an image is easy to understand, even if the exact meaning of it in terms of Christian thought
47 James Rowe and W. A. Stern, “Promise to Meet Me There,” (The Trio Music Company, 1918), in Gospel Pearls,
No. 85. James D. Vaughan, “My Loved Ones Are Waiting For Me,” (James D. Vaughan, 1904), in Gospel Pearls,
No. 68. 48 James Rowe and T. B. Mosley, “When Our Story Has Been Told,” (T. B. Mosley), in Gospel Pearls, No. 136. 49 C. A. Tindley, arr. F. A. Clark, “The Storm is Passing Over,” (C. A. Tindley, 1906), in Soul Echoes No. 2, no. 4,
C. A. Tindley, arr. William D. Smith, “Consolation,” (C. A. Tindley, 1909), in Soul Echoes No. 2, no. 7, Albert E.
Brumley, “I’ll Meet You By The River,” (Stamps-Baxter Music & Ptg. Co., 1942), in Kehrberg, “‘I’ll Fly Away,’”
147, and Albert E. Brumley, “I’ll Fly Away,” (Hartford, AR: Hartford Music Co., 1933), in Kehrberg, “‘I’ll Fly
Away,’” 174.
11
is not. That is, however, not to say that the idea of a shore was entirely devoid of meaning, and
there the racial aspects of gospel first become apparent.
The fact that the image of heaven as a shore has no direct biblical precedent does not
mean that the image itself was meaningless. In fact, to black listeners especially, the idea of a
river and shore would have had a special significance, diminished perhaps by some time and
distance but still present. A white listener might draw the connection without understanding the
deeper meaning it held for black listeners. A shore must border a body of water, and this is, in
various gospel songs, either a river or a sea. Various songs mention heaven as being near or
containing either a river or a sea. In addition to Rowe, Tindley describes hearing the “happy
shouts of saints beyond the river.”50 Fanny Crosby variously invokes the images of both a river
and a sea: in the song “After the Mist and Shadow” heaven is “over the silent river;” in “Near the
Cross” it is described as “the golden strand, just beyond the river;” and in “Some Sweet Day, By
and By,” heaven is “At the crystal river’s bank. . .”51 In Crosby’s “Beautiful Eden Bells,”
meanwhile, the sound of bells carry from heaven “over the waves of a crystal sea.”52 Notably,
the image of heaven having a sea is absent from the black gospel songs surveyed here.
However, the significance of the river cannot be understood purely in terms of heaven as
such. The association between heaven and Canaan, the land God promised to the Hebrews
(which later became known as Israel) and the crossing of the River Jordan to reach the promised
land would not have been lost on many of the listeners. Tindley made the connection relatively
explicit, describing heaven as “a land of promise” in his song “After a While.”53 Tindley also
50 C. A. Tindley, “Consolation,” (1909), in Soul Echoes 2. 51 Fanny J. Crosby and Kate J. Preston, “After the Mist and Shadow,” (1893), Fanny J. Crosby and W. H. Doane,
“At the Cross,” in Gospel Pearls, no. 14, and Fanny J. Crosby and W.H. Doane, “Some Sweet Day, By and By,”
(W. H. Doane, 1912), in Gospel Pearls, no. 31. 52 Fanny J. Crosby and James Black, “Beautiful Eden Bells,” (1898). 53 C. A. Tindley, “After a While,” (C. A. Tindley, 1903), in Soul Echoes No. 2, no. 39.
12
explicitly called Heaven “The Promis’d Land” in his song famous song “We’ll Understand it
Better By and By.”54 Some of the white gospel composers made the connection even more
explicit, describing heaven as Canaan Land and confirming that the river so often mentioned was
understood to be the Jordan. In C. Austin Miles’ “The Upper Garden,” Heaven is “Just Beyond
the River Jordan,” and Brumley describes heaven as the Promised Land by asserting that “O yes,
I’m bound for the land of Canaan.”55 The significance of this, however, meaningful though it
may have been to whites, would have been doubly so, and racially coded, for black listeners.
Heaven as the Promised Land makes considerable symbolic sense: Christians generally believe
that they are God’s chosen people, the elect, just as the Hebrews/Israelites are in the Old
Testament. Therefore, just as God promised the land of milk and honey, Canaan, to the Hebrews,
the land of heaven is promised to Christians. White listeners would have understood that
connection well enough. However, the tradition of black music would have given the idea of the
promised land a whole other meaning.
Black spirituals, important forerunners to gospel songs, were known for their earthly as
well as religious symbolism. In the era of slavery, spirituals referring to the Promised Land were
not only referring to the biblical Canaan and the promise of heaven, but to the North in a more
literal sense.56 The Northern states represented a promise of freedom, where life would be better,
where blacks, even when they were the subjects of terrible racial discrimination, could at least be
free in the most basic sense. Even if white gospel songs evoked the connection between heaven
and Canaan more explicitly, the use of the symbolism would have had a special meaning to black
54 C. A. Tindley, “We’ll Understand It Better By and By,” (C. A. Tindley, 1905), in Soul Echoes No. 2, no. 30. 55 C. Austin Miles, “In the Upper Garden,” (Mall-Mack Music Co., 1900) in Gospel Pearls, no. 89, and Albert E.
Brumley, “Where the Soul Will Never Die,” (Hartford, AR: Hartford Music Co., 1929), in Kehrberg, “‘I’ll Fly
Away,’” 171-172. 56 Levine, Black Culture and Black Consciousness, 17-55, and Litwack, Been in the Storm So Long, 23-27.
13
listeners, one that white listeners, even if they had grasped the significance of the Promised Land
metaphor during the time of slavery, would not have been likely to consider. Time and distance
from slavery, as well as the Great Migration making residence in the North a reality for so many
southern blacks, undoubtedly diminished the power of this image somewhat. Most black gospel
songs were published after the turn of the Twentieth Century, which put at least 35 years
between them and Emancipation, although the failure of Reconstruction almost certainly gave
the idea of the northern Promised Land renewed urgency.57 And in different ways, the
significance of the image of the Promised Land could not have been lost on either Tindley or
Thomas Dorsey. Tindley was himself the descendant of slaves, and moved from Maryland to
Philadelphia to begin his ministry. Dorsey, while having no such direct connection to slavery,
had made his own way north to seek his success as a blues musician before he turned, ultimately,
to gospel music. The image of heaven as the land beyond the river, therefore, represented to
black listeners an implicit promise of equality or at least improvement. Where blacks were
poorer on average and inferior by custom and law, this was an incredibly appealing message.
However, black writings from the early twentieth century would also have suggested a
few other meanings for the sea and/or river referred to in gospel songs. The sea specifically
would have suggested the idea of the Middle Passage to listeners, as well as the movement to
return to Africa. Well into the twentieth century, some blacks were making efforts to return to
Africa rather than stay in the American South or move North. In short, crossing the sea would
have suggested that the African listener was, in a sense, going home, symbolically returning to
Africa and a place where he/she belonged. African (American) sailors were also able to attain a
57 For what the failure of Reconstruction in the South felt like for blacks, see Kidada E. Williams, They Left Great
Marks on Me: African American Testimonies of Racial Violence from Emancipation to World War I, (New York:
New York University Press, 2012), 17-54.
14
larger degree of equality than they could anywhere else, as Maren E. Loveland points out.58
Rivers could in fact conjure up the same image: some African American writers referred to the
Nile as the symbolic gateway to Africa, and crossing a river, especially if it was not referred to
specifically as the Jordan, would have called up this image as well. Langston Hughes invoked
the Nile and the Mississippi together in one of his poems, and it is worth noting that many,
probably most African Americans did not support the idea of returning to Africa, but the imagery
would have been present nonetheless.59 In short, as Loveland argues, water was tied to African
American spirituality in different forms, and would have recalled aspects of African identity that
would not have been apparent to white listeners not familiar with African American writings.60
Significant though it may have been, the image of heaven as a land, beyond a river or
not, was not the only image employed, and the other main image of heaven had overtones that
were symbolic but not nearly as overtly racial. James Rowe, one of the better-known white
gospel lyricists, invoked some more conventional images of heaven, “the walls are all of jasper,
the streets are of gold” in “Promise To Meet Me There,” 1918.61 This image of gold, of
brightness, is a common one for heaven. Tindley described it in exactly the same terms in “The
Pilgrim’s Song:” “They tell me its walls are of jasper, the streets are paved with pure gold. . .”62
Elsewhere heaven is described in even more unequivocal terms not as a land but as a city: the
same song by Tindley, in the next line, mentions that heaven is a city, albeit one still out of sight
from on earth. In his song “I’ll Find The Way Home,” Brumley describes heaven as “that city of
58 Maren E. Loveland, “The Fluid Pastoral: African American Spiritual Waterways in the Urban Landscapes of
Harlem Renaissance Poetry,” Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism 11, no. 1 (Winter 2018), 65 on both Middle
Passage and racial equality for sailors. 59 On Hughes, see Loveland, 66-67. 60 Ibid, 63-69. 61 James Rowe and W. A. Stern, “Promise To Meet Me There,” (The Trio Music Co., 1916), in Gospel Pearls, no.
85. 62 C. A. Tindley, “The Pilgrim’s Song,” (C. A. Tindley, 1901), in Soul Echoes No. 2, no. 40.
15
gold.”63 In a different song he combines the imagery of heaven as a city with the river crossing
symbolizing death or the transition over to heaven. Other authors describe heaven as a city as
well. James D. Vaughan mentioned the “pearly white gate” in “My Loved Ones Are Waiting For
Me.”64 Elsewhere heaven is described in similar terms. James Rowe talks of the “gates of gold”
and the “palace of the King” in “When Our Story Has Been Told.”65 Elsewhere heaven is
described explicitly as a city. Albert Brumley describes waiting by the side of the river and
“longing for the enchanted city so pure” in “Life is Uncertain and Death is Sure,” and in his “I’ll
Find the Way Home” heaven is “that city of gold.”66 Tindley tended to focus more on the image
of heaven as a land rather than a city, but he nonetheless described heaven as “the city” “way
over yonder” in “The Pilgrim’s Song.”67
Heaven, therefore, was clearly conceived of as a richly-designed and appointed city,
either in a larger land or instead of it. This has direct precedent in the Bible: the image of heaven
as a city draws heavily on the Book of Revelations, the last book of the New Testament, which is
full of symbolic and often inscrutable images, which describe the end times. In Revelations, after
the final battle in which the Earth is destroyed and God triumphs over the forces of the devil, all
the faithful, a numberless crowd, are brought to live in the city of New Jerusalem, which does
not need a sun or moon because Jesus himself illuminates it. The image of heaven as a city
therefore harkens directly back to the Bible, and the gold and jasper serve to convey the
impression that heaven is bright, both literally and metaphorically, being in the direct presence of
God. In that case, it is no wonder that both black and white gospel composers describe heaven in
63 Albert E. Brumley, “I’ll Find The Way Home,” (Stamps-Baxter Music Company, 1941), in Kehrberg, “‘I’ll Fly
Away,’”124. 64 James D. Vaughan, “My Loved Ones Are Waiting for Me,” (James D. Vaughan, 1904), in Gospel Pearls, 68. 65 James Rowe and T. B. Mosley, “When Our Story Has Been Told,” (T. B. Mosley), in Gospel Pearls, 136. 66 Albert E. Brumley, “Where the Soul Will Never Die,” (Hartford Music Company, 1929) Kehrberg, “‘I’ll Fly
Away,’” 171-172 and Albert E. Brumley, “I’ll Find the Way Home.” 67 Tindley, “The Pilgrim’s Song.”
16
such terms, and that there is little in the way of racial over- or undertones in such descriptions.
But the description of heaven as a city also incorporates imagery that goes back to gospel’s roots
as a form of mass worship music, and has appeal to both white and black listeners, regardless of
issues of race, although the idea may have been understood racially as well.
One of the odder bits about heaven, in black and white gospel alike, is the imagery of
heaven having mansions, some specifically prepared for the faithful and some simply present
within the songs in which they appear. Black and white composers alike made use of the image
of mansions. While referencing heaven, a Tindley song says “I look away to mansions fair, /And
often wish that I was there.”68 Some of the white gospel lyricists make use of the device of
houses or mansions in their songs as well. James Rowe’s “Promise to Meet Me There” mentions
that Jesus “is preparing a mansion for me,” which can only mean in heaven.69 And Albert
Brumley, in “Life is Uncertain and Death is Sure,” describes how the faithful will come to rest
“In that beautiful city, In pearly white mansions so safe and secure.”70 Even Fanny Crosby, who
had a typically devotional tone, offers “Praise to our Redeemer” “That prepares for us a mansion.
. . above.”71 Clearly, the idea of heavenly mansions had some traction among both black and
white gospel composers, an idea that is further borne out by Scott Tucker, who remarks on the
prominence of the presence of mansions in the lexicon of southern gospel, emphasizing that
“The picture of living in a mansion by streets of gold reinforces the theme of inherited wealth.”72
The mansion, then, serves as a sort of symbol of spiritual wealth: the theme that spiritual wealth
68 C. A. Tindley, “I’m Going There,” (C. A. Tindley, 1907), in Soul Echoes No. 2, no. 44. 69 Rowe and Stern, “Promise To Meet Me There.” 70 Albert E. Brumley, “Life is Uncertain and Death is Sure,” (E. M. Bartlett, 1931), in Kehrberg, “‘I’ll Fly Away,’”
123. 71 Fanny J. Crosby and John Sweney, “At the Breaking of the Day,” (1891). 72 Scott Tucker, “Looking for a City: The Rhetorical Vision of Heaven in Southern Gospel Music,” in More Than
“Precious Memories”: The Rhetoric of Southern Gospel Music, Michael P. Graves and David Fillingim, eds.,
(Mercer University Press: Macon, GA, 2004), 30.
17
in the form of righteousness far outweighs any material wealth derives directly from the New
Testament. However, Tucker also mentions that the idea of not having to worry about money or
wealth would be an appealing one to listeners.73 This is an interesting point but needs to be
elaborated more. Since many of the listeners of both white and black gospel music would have
been relatively poor, the idea of a mansion would have been fascinating and appealing. It was a
promise that ultimately the misfortunes of life on earth would be remedied in heaven. The
promise of salvation made a person rich in a symbolic sense, and gospel lyrics’ references to
mansions in heaven therefore give a more concrete form to the riches. It also offered a promise
of escape from the conditions in which people lived at the time: a listener might be poor now, but
in heaven everyone was rich and lived in a mansion. This would have been doubly appealing to
black listeners simply since blacks, from a socioeconomic standpoint, were even worse off than
most whites. To be fair, however, it must be noted that poor southern whites often lived in
conditions little or no better than their black counterparts. The idea of a mansion may have
recalled discrimination to black listeners, but it would likely have evoked similarly bitter
remembrances among whites.
However, a racialized understanding of the presence of mansions in heaven could also
have been present, since plantation houses were generally mansions. The mansion, as Guy
Cardwell argues, served mixed functions as an image in literature. The mansion house was the
prototypical symbol of the plantation, slave-owning South. Various portrayals of it in literature
in the nineteenth and twentieth century focused alternately on idealized images of it and the
empty heart of antebellum Southern culture as well as the South’s decadence before and
73 Ibid, 30-31.
18
especially after the Civil War.74 A mansion, then, was something that both served as a symbol of
wealth and a symbol of what had been lost. As a symbol of Southern life in general, it probably
evoked mixed feelings, but as a symbol of wealth would have been something desirable to white
listeners. It also would have recalled the idea of a well-ordered racial hierarchy where blacks
knew their place as utterly subservient and inferior to whites. Cardwell mentions portrayals of
happy black slaves at plantations, with slave residences usually being an afterthought in their
descriptions.75 To southern whites, then, a mansion would have symbolized the restoration of a
racial hierarchy, something that so many southern men and women dreamed of, and many
worked towards (the KKK, for example). The bittersweet nature of the lost South would be
mitigated by the restoration of its conditions in heaven.
For blacks, the mansion was an even more ambivalent symbol. Obviously, as a symbol of
the slaveholding South, the mere idea of blacks inhabiting mansions showed an overturning of
the racial status quo wherein blacks were still subordinate to whites. This would tie into the idea
of liberation that was common in black spirituals, many of which were written in specific
response to the conditions of slavery.76 However, to black listeners the mansion would have
symbolized both the slave system, an object of hate, and privilege. The luckiest (if one could go
so far as to call them that), most favored slaves were allowed in to houses rather than made to
stay in slave quarters. In his own writings about his time as a slave, Frederick Douglass
expressed this dual conception of the plantation house, the master’s residence. He recalled being
impressed by the grandeur of the house and its furnishings, and enjoying having access to the
74 Guy Cardwell, “The Plantation House: An Analogical Image,” The Southern Literary Journal 2, no. 1 (Fall,
1969), 5-21. 75 Ibid, 9-21 works slavery into the other themes described in relation to plantation houses. 76 On liberation in spirituals, see James H. Cone, The Spirituals and the Blues, Kindle Edition, (Maryknoll, NY:
Orbis Books, 1972), especially Chapters 3, 4, and 5.
19
facilities, even as he felt guilty about doing so.77 Where the mansion was a symbol of the lost
South to whites, it was also a symbol of that to blacks, but suggested neither decay nor a past that
engendered nostalgia. Instead, it suggested the best that could be hoped for in a bad situation as
well as that situation (i.e. slavery) itself. So for black listeners, getting into a mansion in heaven
would be both a subversion of racial norms and a reward for doing well. The racial status quo
would be subverted through the black ownership of a mansion, and the reward aspect would have
evoked associations with the plantation and slave economy, both recalling and subverting it. In
short, blacks could live as well as slaveholders had in heaven.
Thomas Dorsey invokes yet another of heaven, this time as a valley, in his iconic song
“There’ll Be Peace In The Valley,” published in 1939. In the valley Dorsey describes, which is
ambiguously associated with heaven and/or the new earth that will be created after the end of the
world,
There the flow’rs will be blooming and the grass will be green
And the skies will be clear and serene
The sun ever shines giving one endless beam
And no clouds there will ever be seen.78
Although the association with heaven is not quite as clear cut, use of biblical imagery in the next
verse, especially the well-known image of the lion lying down with the lamb, suggests a clear
connection. The valley, it is worth noting, is not a biblical image so much as Dorsey’s own: a
valley he rode through in a train suggested the idea to him.79 Like the images above, Dorsey’s
evokes one of light, brightness, like Crosby’s golden strand and Rowe and Brumley’s bright(er)
77 Referred to in Robin Meredith Preston-McGee, “Bitter-Sweet Home: The Pastoral Ideal in African-American
Literature, from Douglass to Wright,” PhD diss., University of Southern Mississippi, 2011, 41-42, accessed June 15,
2021, Bitter-Sweet Home: The Pastoral Ideal in African-American Literature, from Douglass to Wright (usm.edu). 78 Thomas A. Dorsey, “There’ll Be Peace In The Valley For Me: As Sung by Mahalia Jackson, National Gospel
Singer, Chicago Ill.,” (1939). 79 Taylor, Thomas Dorsey: Father of Black Gospel Music, 16.
20
shores. This could also be a subversion of the image of a valley as dangerous: the valley of the
shadow of death is a notable image drawn from the Bible.
Also notable is the idea of reunion with loved ones in heaven. It already appeared in
“Some Sweet Day, By and By.” The idea is one that also appears in cowboy songs, and was
shown by Kenneth Bindas to relate to the nostalgia engendered by the changing, urbanizing
modern world.80 Two songs in the 1921 collection Gospel Pearls, one by white composer James
D. Vaughan and one by Thomas Dorsey, are very similar in the terms they use.81 James
Vaughan’s “My Loved Ones Are Waiting For Me” (1904) refers to different people related to the
song’s speaker or singer: the “dear loving mother,” the “brothers” and the “kindred” will be
reunited with the singer in heaven. Dorsey’s “If I Don’t Get There,” published in 1920, refers to
loved ones in heaven in remarkably similar terms: “dear loving mother,” “sister and brothers,”
and “kind kindreds” all wait in heaven, hoping for their reunion with the singer. The difference
in the way the two songs are framed, however, speaks to broader differences in understanding
between black and white gospel. In Vaughan’s song, it is never taken as anything other than fact
that the singer will go to heaven: “I’m glad I shall cross the dark rolling tide,” and the idea of
laboring for Jesus until “sounds the sweet message ‘Come home!’” never leaves any room for
doubt.82 Dorsey’s song, on the other hand, invokes much more imagery of a struggle: the title
refers to the fact that all who are already in heaven will “be disappointed if I don’t get there.”
While there is no doubt that the relatives and others are in heaven, there is still some doubt that
the singer will reach heaven; or if doubt is too strong a term, it is at least not a foregone
conclusion. The use of “if” by Dorsey rather than Vaughan’s “shall” is telling in that regard.
80 Kenneth Bindas, Modernity and the Great Depression, 156-161. 81 Vaughan, “My Loved Ones Are Waiting For Me,” (James D. Vaughan, 1904), in Gospel Pearls, no. 68 and T. A.
Dorsey, “If I Don’t Get There,” (Thomas A. Dorsey, 1920), in Gospel Pearls, no. 117. 82 My emphasis.
21
Like everything else in black life, salvation is something to be fought for and earned rather than
simply received as a gift. Whites, on the other hand, did receive salvation as a simple gift via
faith in God if these implications are followed through to their conclusion.
This lack of certitude is reflected throughout much of Tindley’s work. In “Pilgrim’s
Journey,” the second verse enjoins the listener to have recourse to God in any kind of trouble.
When discouraged and forsaken,
Run to Him in pray’r,
Never has been one o’ertaken,
Who resorted there.83
This expresses a similar lack of certitude that salvation is guaranteed. Certainly the implication is
that there is no need to fear so long as one has a relationship with God, but the possibility of
failure, of being “o’ertaken” as a result of not having recourse to prayer, and therefore God in a
more general sense, is certainly admitted and perhaps even emphasized here. Similarly,
Tindley’s “Consolation” admits the possibility of failure for the Christian listeners: they are
surrounded by temptations, so “unless we pray with one accord, they surely will confound us.”84
Even if the rest of the song strikes a slightly more optimistic tone about the final outcome of the
Christian journey, the possibility of failure is one that Tindley’s lyrics admit and highlight.
There is generally no comparable admission of doubt in the possibility of salvation
expressed in white gospel songs: the expectation is unequivocal that at the end of his or her life,
the Christian will meet God and his or her loved ones in heaven. There is not really, even, a
possibility of failure so long as there is trust in God. Certainly that implies at least a little chance
of failure, but a concurrent emphasis on God’s love and mercy makes that appear nearly
impossible. In “Dwelling in Beulah Land,” the white gospel composer C. Austin Miles said that
83 C. A. Tindley, arr. William D. Smith, “Pilgrim Stranger,” (C. A. Tindley, 1909), in Soul Echoes No. 2, no. 1. 84 C. A. Tindley, arr. William D. Smith, “Consolation.”
22
nothing can “alarm me, I am safely shelter’d here, protected by God’s hand;” and later in the
same song:
Viewing here the works of God,
I sink in contemplation
Hearing now His blessed voice, I see the way He plann’d;
Dwelling in the Spirit, here I learn of full salvation. . .85
Here, then, there is no real possibility of failure: God has everything planned, and for the
Christian salvation can be achieved simply through a relationship with God. There is no hardship
or trial involved, no real chance of failure, at least not one acknowledged like in Tindley’s lyrics.
Other white gospel songs express a similar certitude: the lyrics of Albert Brumley’s “I’ll Find the
Way Home” state that “In the depths of God’s love I have anchored my soul, I’ll find the way
home to that city of gold.”86 Fanny Crosby expresses a similar certitude in “At the Breaking of
the Day”: “and we know that with the righteous We shall stand in bright array. . .” when time
ends and everyone is resurrected.87 White gospel, then, expressed certitude that salvation was at
hand, that so long as one kept faith there was no chance of faltering, whereas black gospel
admitted the possibility of both a struggle and failure. This speaks, subtly, to the racialized
experiences of blacks in America. Even whites who lived difficult lives did not suffer the kind of
casual and institutionalized discrimination that black Americans did. That simple distinction
manifests itself in gospel lyrics. Whites automatically had salvation so long as they kept faith,
while blacks acknowledged the need to struggle to be saved. Certainly this distinction is not
completely set, as many black gospel songs used the same language of certitude that white
gospel songs did, but none of the white gospel songs reviewed are so pointed as Dorsey’s “If I
85 C. Austin Miles, “Dwelling in Beulah Land,” (Mall-Mack Co., 1911), in Gospel Pearls, no. 43. 86 Brumley, “I’ll Find the Way Home.” 87 Fanny Crosby and John Sweney, “At the Breaking of the Day,” (1891).
23
Don’t Get There” in acknowledging the possibility of failure. White privilege, then, was implicit
in gospel lyrics even if the listeners would not necessarily have realized that it was present.
The white gospel music tends to focus on God’s grace, which was given “for ev’ry
trial.”88 That casual line in one of Crosby’s songs (“All the Way My Savior Leads,” 1903)
however, is about the most specific emphasis that the difficulty of being a Christian is
specifically alluded to in the white gospel songs. In other songs Crosby makes allusion to labors
and difficulties, but nothing is specific. In contrast, Tindley and Dorsey’s lyrics emphasize the
difficulty of following Jesus on Earth. Unlike the vagueness of allusions to worldly difficulties in
white gospel, in Tindley’s lyrics references abound to the difficulties of the present life, and the
resultant difficulty of following Jesus. Of following Jesus, Tindley’s song “Nothing Between,”
published in 1906, says “Tho’ it may cost me much tribulation, I am resolved, there’s nothing
between.”89 Living as a Christian, then, requires a cost, a theme that seems unique to black
gospel. Some of Tindley’s lyrics make that point even more obviously: the song “A Better
Home,” published in 1901, says “When I realized I had Found the Lord, I was so glad, For I
thought all my trials would be done; That my way would always be One continuous jubilee, But
I found out my trials had just begun.”90 The difficulties of life are never downplayed or
diminished in black gospel: one of Tindley’s favorite devices was to list the difficulties that
would be faced in life: sickness, old age, poverty, and pressure to live in a worldly fashion rather
than following a distinctly Christian lifestyle.91
88 Fanny J. Crosby and Robert Lowry, “All the Way My Savior Leads,” (Mary Lowrey, 1903), in Gospel Pearls,
No. 59. 89 C. A. Tindley, arr. F. A. Clark, “Nothing Between,” (C. A. Tindley, 1906), Gospel Pearls, No. 32. 90 C. A. Tindley, “A Better Home,” (C. A. Tindley, 1901), Gospel Pearls, No. 143. 91 See, for example, C. A. Tindley, arr. F. A. Clark, “Stand By Me,” (C. A. Tindley, 1905), in Soul Echoes No. 2, no.
2, C. A. Tindley, arr. F. A. Clark, “Nothing Between,” (C. A. Tindley, 1905), in Soul Echoes No. 2, no. 8, C. A.
Tindley, “A Better Home,” (C. A. Tindley, 1901), in Soul Echoes No. 2, no. 10, C. A. Tindley, arr. F. A. Clark,
“We’ll Understand it Better By and By,” (C. A. Tindley, 1905), in Soul Echoes No. 2, no. 30, and C. A. Tindley,
“After a While,” (C. A. Tindley, 1903), in Soul Echoes No. 2, no. 39.
24
This is not to say that white gospel does not refer to the difficulty of life on earth: it does,
and quite emphatically at that. Both black and white gospel use terms that make it understood
that life on earth is tempestuous, difficult, and unpleasant. The most common images invoked are
shadows and a stormy sea. The first makes a good deal of sense: the shadow of death is a direct
biblical image, and death is obviously not a concern once a person has reached heaven.
Similarly, it invokes a more primal contrast between darkness and light: heaven is a place of
light, illuminated and also joyful, where the Earth is, at best, a place that offers sorrow and
hardship alongside joy. The image of a stormy or storm-tossed sea, or even just storms, is an
interesting one. It could be an oblique biblical reference: Jesus was able to calm a storm in the
gospels, so direct union with Him in heaven at the end of life could make such an analogy.
Similarly, the idea of crossing a river or sea to get to heaven makes sense: heaven is where all is
calm and peaceful and bright, while a storm on the sea (or in general) is by definition dark and
violent. But where black gospel composers were willing to enumerate trials and describe the
literal forms that shadows and storms take in Christian lives, the white gospel lyricists are far
more likely not to do so, mentioning the shadows or storms in transition to peace in heaven but
not really elaborating.
Given this image of life on earth, heaven was seen as a place of rest, then, in both white
and black gospel. But the different emphasis meant its associations were understood differently.
In white gospel, heaven was a place where darkness was no more, where everything was perfect,
and where one could reunite with deceased loved ones and enjoy the glory of God. Black
conceptions, on the other hand, tended to especially emphasize peace, with Dorsey’s peace in the
valley and Tindley’s image of peace like a river. As Lawrence Levine argues, this probably
25
speaks to the difficulties of black experience in America in the earlier twentieth century.92 Even
northern blacks faced systematic discrimination, and in the face of a largely unchanging system,
the promise of peace, as specifically contrasted against the trials of life in the world, would have
been very appealing. Poor southern whites did not face quite the same problems as blacks, so
peace would have had a different association. As Levine summed it up, heaven was the place
where blacks would finally be treated fairly, whereas for whites it was simply the place for those
who believed in Christ. Even adaptation can be significant in such a case. Lucie Eddie Campbell
was the preeminent woman black gospel composer, and a contemporary of Tindley and Dorsey.
She was particularly notable for her social consciousness and activism in addition to her church
activities and Christian life. She adapted Psalm 23 into gospel song. Psalm 23 has a number of
fairly iconic images in it, including God spreading a banquet in sight of his favored one’s
enemies. The adaptation also incorporates Jesus watching over Christians “Tho’ the enemy
gather and foes may oppress.”93 This distinction was not entirely fast, however. While Albert
Brumley’s lyrics certainly do not go into the detail that Tindley does about the misfortunes it is
possible to suffer during life on earth, Brumley did mention the “sorrow” and difficulty of
earthly life.94 Nevertheless, whites would not have had to deal with “persecution,” a word which
only Charles Tindley invoked, in the same way that black Americans did. The maximum of
mutual comprehensibility was reached as a result of the listeners’ experiences. For white gospel
audiences, the main thing about the world was that it was a sort of waiting-room for heaven. For
black audiences, the world was a place of evil and inconvenience, and also where a person
92 Levine, Black Culture and Black Consciousness, 155-189. 93 Lucie Eddie Campbell, “The Lord Is My Shepherd,” (1921), in Gospel Pearls, no. 140. 94 Albert E. Brumley, “I’ll Meet You By The River,” (Stamps-Baxter Music & Printing Company, 1912), in Kevin
Donald Kehrberg, “ʻI’ll Fly Away’: The Music and Career of Albert E. Brumley,” (PhD diss., University of
Kentucky, 2010), 147, accessed February 9, 2020,
https://uknowledge.uky.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1053&context=gradschool_diss.
26
earned the right to go to heaven. While heaven looked the same, to the two audiences, the
associations that surround the idea are different.
David Fillingim, a former pastor and professor of religion and philosophy, describes
things in slightly different terms, but he approaches the same issue. Fillingim argues that white
gospel is a response to the liminality, the marginal or between-status life, experienced by poor
southern whites. Gospel presents a conception of home that refers to the present as a place that
people are “stuck in,” with heaven being a person’s real home. Black gospel, in contrast, draws
from black music which presents the same image without devaluing the present.95 With continual
ruminations on misfortune, including persecution, want of food or shelter, and especially disease
and old age, which appear as recurring images throughout his songs, Tindley’s lyrics present an
image of heaven as a home, but do not shy away from the present, particularly its misfortunes.
Likewise, the contrast between James Vaughan’s “My Loved Ones Are Waiting For Me” and
Dorsey’s “If I Don’t Get There” present different emphases. Vaughan’s lyrics focus entirely on
the future and heaven: when the singer arrives in heaven, and the loved ones who are currently
waiting. “If I Don’t Get There,” however, maintains a subtle emphasis on earth as well as
heaven: the singer still has to live his life well in order to get to heaven, and not disappoint his
loved ones.
But perhaps it is not quite that simple, as a look at two of the most famous gospel songs
demonstrates. One song is Albert Brumley’s most successful effort, his 1934 song “I’ll Fly
Away,” which is the most recorded white gospel song.96 The other is Thomas Dorsey’s most
successful work, “Precious Lord, Take My Hand.” “Precious Lord” is Dorsey’s best-known and
95 David Fillingim, “A Flight from Liminality: ‘Home’ in Country and Gospel Music,” Studies in Popular Culture
20, no. 1 (October 1997): 75-79. 96 Kehrberg, “ʻI’ll Fly Away,’” 175.
27
perhaps most personal work. With original lyrics set to Dorsey’s adaptation of an older, Anglo-
Protestant hymn tune, it was written not long after the death of his wife and recently born son in
1932.97 The lyrics reflect a personal plea for help as well as a certain love for God: “Precious
Lord, take my hand, Lead me on, help me stand; I am tired, I am weak, I am worn;” and both
verses end with the exhortation “Take my hand, precious Lord, lead me home.”98 In the song,
home is heaven. While the song calls attention, including in the second verse, to the importance
of life rather than death, the ending of “lead me home” puts a marked emphasis on heaven rather
than earth. Albert Brumley’s “I’ll Fly Away” is simultaneously similar and quite different from
“Precious Lord.” It draws on an old folk song, “The Prisoner’s Song,” using the prison as a
metaphor for earth and a flight out of the prison as the ascent to heaven: “I’ll fly away to a home
on God’s celestial shore.”99 Yet Brumley’s imagery, throughout two verses, lingers heavily on
earth. While it refers to it in typically dark language, likening the flight to a “bird from prison
bars flown” and making a reference to the shadows of this world, the song also manages to keep
its emphasis somewhat on the earth. That heaven is the singer’s home is true; and the imagery of
a prison rather forcefully drives home the idea of being stuck on earth until death. Dorsey’s
song, meanwhile, does slightly “devalue” the present by emphasizing heaven as home and
referring especially to the end of the singer’s life (Dorey was 33 or 34 when he wrote the song).
The dual understanding of home suggested by Fillingim, then, may have been present, but it was
also slightly more ambiguous than he suggests. Black gospel could emphasize heaven and gloss
97 Harris, The Rise of Gospel Blues, 220-254, and Jackson, Singing in my Soul, 54-55. 98 Thomas A. Dorsey, “Precious Lord, Take My Hand,” (Hill & Range Songs, Inc., 1938), in The Presbyterian
Hymnal: Hymns, Psalms, and Spiritual Songs (Louisville: KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1990), No. 404. 99 Albert E. Brumley, “I’ll Fly Away,” (Hartford Music Company, 1932), in Kehrberg, “ʻI’ll Fly Away,’” 174.
Kehrberg, “ʻI’ll Fly Away,’” 178.
28
the present almost as much as white gospel could, speaking to the experiences of the writer
specifically in addition to the black experience more generally.
Perhaps the reason that the maximum of mutual comprehensibility could come closer was
the fact that gospel was rooted somewhat in a shared tradition, and while the racial experiences
of blacks could not be understood by whites, the poor whites who comprised gospels main
audience still suffered. Perhaps the difference can be understood by looking at the issue in
different terms: through black gospel, blacks asserted agency in a way whites did not. This is not
to say white gospel was not a vehicle for agency, but black gospel was a way for blacks to push
back against white cultural repression and assert a unique identity. White gospel, even as a
reaction to the difficulties presented by a changing world, is not an exertion of agency in the
same way. Likewise, black salvation is something earned as much as given, through the
Christian’s own agency, while for whites salvation is something given by God and embraced.
Heaven may have looked essentially the same to white and black gospel listeners, but it was
understood differently, and so the image of heaven remained a vehicle of distinction. The unique
understanding the two groups brought to gospel, even when they listened to the same songs,
helped cement a group identity not immediately obvious to the other. Black and white gospel
may have overlapped, but they cemented group identity as well through the understandings that
their composers and listeners brought to them.
29
II. “A Friend Above:” Theological Themes in White and Black Gospel Music
Heaven is a prominent theme in white and black gospel, but it is by no means the only
one that appears. Other religious themes and concepts make their appearance in gospel, and can,
like heaven, reveal the racialized understanding that listeners brought to gospel, while also
illuminating different aspects of the religious backgrounds that gospel listeners hailed from,
which informed the songs’ themes but also the listeners’ engagement with the language used.
Both black and white gospel come out of an essentially dynamic religious and musical tradition,
and the themes and language used in gospel songs reflect that emotionalism, which undergirds
both the music and the message of gospel. At its core, gospel is not meant to be complicated.
Gospel music is instead a form of music designed to appeal to its listeners’ hearts, as opposed to
their heads. On one level, that divide between emotionalism and complexity would seem to
underpin an old duality from Catholic theology, reason and faith. It would even be reasonable to
expect black gospel to fall closer to the emotionalist side and white gospel to be, if not more
rational, at least more restrained in music and performance style and willing to deal with
complex themes.
As is usually the case, the reality is not so simple. Neither black nor white gospel tend to
use complex theological language or themes, but there are exceptions to that. And as Douglas
Harrison convincingly argues, the appeal of gospel’s message is not so much in the fact that it is
ambiguous enough to skate over theological issues as that it can be personalized by each listener,
who creates his or her own meaning for the song. As it is with theological issues, so it also is
30
with race. Both the complexity of themes and the personalized aspect of gospel would speak to
racial issues for their listeners, even if they were not raised overtly. Issues like grace, duty, and
love appear in white and black gospel, but they could serve not only to reference theology, but to
reference race as well. Without such issues, there could be no easy personalization on a different
scale than individually, although that is likely the predominant one. Gospel, then, cannot be
understood without its appeal to the personal experience of the listener, and race would quite
necessarily inform that on a basic level.
If, as I have already argued, gospel music can only fully be understood in terms of the
socioeconomic background of its listeners, it still is fundamentally a religious form of music, and
any understanding of gospel must also build on the religious context of its composition and
performance. Gospel, then, is not entirely but largely connected to the emotionalist strain of
Christianity within both black and white America, the dynamic worship of ex-slaves, religious
revivals after the Civil War, and the Holiness Movement that popularized and, more importantly,
made respectable dynamic worship for both blacks and whites. The emergence of gospel is tied
to this strain of emotionalism, and also to a couple varied traditions of Protestant Christianity.
Gospel is best understood in light of the more progressive and dynamic forms of American
Christianity, even if that does not present the whole picture of what gospel is or means. After all,
the very success of gospel has often been attributed to its ability to appeal to wide audiences,
across denominational and even racial lines (for example, Dorsey’s music commonly appeared in
white as well as black hymnals during the 1930s). If gospel’s appeal is to be engaged with, as
well as the ways its message both broadened its audience and reinforced racialized
understanding, such context needs to be taken into account. Gospel is, after all, religious music
even if it cannot be divorced from its social context.
31
The first use of the term “gospel” to refer to religious music probably occurred in 1875,
with a collection of songs published by revivalist preacher Dwight Moody and his song leader,
the composer Ira D. Sankey.100 This gospel music was a kind that emphasized a simple religious
message, one that was not theologically nuanced, and had music that was popular in style. While
worship music in the Puritan tradition was made to appeal to reason, this gospel was made to
appeal to the emotions.101 Moody and Sankey were part of an emotional style of worship that
swept in a wave across the American South in the late nineteenth century and prepared ground
for both white and black gospel music. The revival was rooted largely in the rise of
evangelicalism in the early nineteenth century. The Christian evangelical movement began in the
eighteenth century with the revivals of the First Great Awakening, and was characterized by the
message that God’s grace had reconciled the people to God in spite of their sins, a message
which was preached at revival meetings.102 Revivals were widespread after the Civil War, owing
mostly to Methodism and the surging popularity of Baptist churches.103 Evangelicalism does not
refer to any specific denomination, but it was associated especially with Presbyterian, Methodist,
and Baptist churches. The simple, and often sentimental message and stirring quality of the
music made the revivals and the early gospel music successful.104
These revivals were not only open to whites: black Americans were able to attend the
great revivals of the later nineteenth century as well, sometimes to the chagrin of observers. Even
100 James R. Goff Jr., Close Harmony, 25. 101 Grant Wacker, Religion in Nineteenth-Century America, in Religion in American Life: A Short History, by Jon
Butler, Grant Wacker, and Randall Ballmer, 2nd edition, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 172. 102 Ibid, 171. On the First Great Awakening, see Thomas S. Kidd, The Great Awakening: The Roots of Evangelical
Christianity in Colonial America (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007). 103 Wacker, Religion in Nineteenth-Century America, 179-181. On Methodism and Baptist Churches’ popularity, see
also Alwyn Barr, “Black Urban Churches on the Southern Frontier, 1865-1900,” The Journal of Negro History 82,
no. 4 (Autumn, 1997): 368-383. 104 Wacker, 171, 182-183, 277-278 and Goff Jr., Close Harmony, 16-28. For a comprehensive history of
evangelicalism, see Frances FitzGerald, The Evangelicals: The Struggle to Shape America, (New York: Simon &
Schuster Paperbacks, 2017).
32
where segregation prevailed, many revivals saw strong participation by blacks.105 Thus blacks
throughout the North and South had exposure to the early gospel music, to songs by composers
like Sankey and lyrics by lyricists like Fanny Crosby and James Rowe. Unfortunately, these
revivals, while ensuring mutual contact and influence, also tended to reinforce the racist
stereotypes that whites had of blacks as naturally interested in and very talented at music.106 This
built on a long line of such observations, but even in these early days of gospel, it showed that
gospel had the power both to unify and divide along racial lines.107
Black gospel can likewise best be understood in the context of emotional religious
worship. African Americans, as slaves in the south, had little opportunity for self-expression
through formal religion. Slaves were forced to attend church with their masters and observe the
staid white worship style. The dynamic worship practices that characterized black churches of
the south in the late nineteenth century were largely developed in secret, when slaves met
wherever they could get away from their masters to worship in a way that expressed their
feelings and Christian belief, often a belief that incorporated traditional African elements as
well.108 When they visited black churches after the Civil War, white observers were generally
quite impressed by the sheer power of black participatory worship.109 Group singing, often in call
and response form with a leader and the congregation, generated formidable emotional power.
Spontaneous verbal interjections, during the music and the service more generally, were also a
105 Goff Jr., Close Harmony, 19-20. 106 Goff Jr., Close Harmony, 19-20. For a more detailed discussion of race and worship, see John B. Boles, ed.,
Masters and Slaves in the House of the Lord: Race and Religion in the American South, 1740-1870, (Lexington,
KY: University Press of Kentucky, 1988). 107 See Levine, Black Culture and Black Consciousness, 5-55. 108 Ibid, 55-80. For more on black worship away from whites, see Nicole Myers Turner, Soul Liberty: The Evolution
of Black Religious Politics in Postemancipation Virginia, (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press,
2020), 12-32. 109 Levine, Black Culture and Black Consciousness, 5-6, 20-30. Leon Litwack, Been in the Storm So Long: The
Aftermath of Slavery, (New York: Vintage Books, 1978), 462.
33
notable feature of the dynamic black worship.110 The call and response, while unique in the way
blacks used it, resembled a practice referred to as “lining out”: originating with austere Puritan
music, it refers to the practice of a leader singing a line, with the congregation then repeating
it.111 Dynamic African worship, before and after the Civil War, relied on a form of lining out for
its music. Black gospel, as a result, has prominently featured a call-and-response format.
The Holiness movement laid critical groundwork for gospel music’s popularity. The
Holiness movement swept across the nation beginning in the late nineteenth century. In the
Holiness movement, Christians sought authenticity in their worship and life. Authenticity is a
complex idea, but here it can be simply understood as looking to reclaim the inner conviction of
Christianity, rather than practicing formulaic worship that was not necessarily carried over into
daily life.112 They looked to the early Church (i.e., the Christian church as described in the books
and letters of the New Testament) for inspiration.113 The Holiness movement, which particularly
appealed to Methodists, showed surprisingly little racial distinction in its appeal: both blacks and
whites were drawn to the Holiness churches. These churches, however, segregated themselves
quickly, and by the 1890s blacks were establishing their own Holiness churches.114 The
emotional style of their worship ensured that gospel music found a ready-made audience and
venue. The use of different instruments in worship, such as the piano and guitar, also influenced
110 Levine, Black Culture and Black Consciousness, 19-80. Litwack, Been in the Storm So Long, 450-471. 111 Jon Butler, Religion in Nineteenth-Century America, in Religion in American Life, 53. 112 Jackson, Singing in my Soul, 16-20. For a comprehensive overview of the Holiness and Pentecostal Churches, see
Vinson Synan, The Holiness-Pentecostal Tradition: Charismatic Movements in the Twentieth Century, Second
Edition (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1997). 113 Grant Wacker, Religion in Nineteenth-Century America, 278-279. Briane Turley, “A Wheel Within a Wheel:
Southern Methodism and the Georgia Holiness Association,” The Georgia Historical Quarterly 75, no. 2 (Summer
1991): 305-310. 114 Jackson, Singing in my Soul, 16-26. For more on black holiness beliefs, see Calvin White, Jr., “In the Beginning,
There Stood Two: Arkansas Roots of the Black Holiness Movement,” The Arkansas Historical Quarterly 68, no. 1
(Spring, 2009): 9-16.
34
the performance style of black gospel.115 White Holiness groups, steeped in the same basic
tradition of dynamic worship, provided fallow ground for gospel and followed many of the same
worship practices. The Holiness movement therefore represented a shared heritage but overt
source of division between white and black gospel.
An examination of themes other than heaven and its related implications can reveal quite
a lot about the functioning of gospel music in the reinforcing of racial understanding, as well as
the creation of meaning for listeners, through ambiguity but also the ability of the listener to
personalize the message of the song, as Harrison argues.116 Gospel is appealing “not because of
its sufficient theological vagueness but because each listener has given the song an
individualized meaning.”117 If it were appealing due simply to vagueness, it would be difficult to
come up with anything new and/or interesting for gospel lyrics after the initial spate of songs had
been written. What Harrison argues is that, even when the lyrics are specific, they can be
appropriated by listeners, made meaningful in light of their own life experiences. This relates in
turn back to Bakhtin’s concept of a maximum of mutual comprehensibility. The words and
theology of black and white listeners would color (no pun intended) the way they heard songs
and made their own meaning, and references in black gospel might be intended a certain way
that would not be understood by a white listener, and vice versa. However, gospel could raise a
variety of themes and issues that would relate not only to the listeners themselves but to the
broader context of gospel music, not just the socioeconomic background of the listeners (which
of course informed their understanding) but the congregational and theological background of
115 Jackson, Singing in my Soul, 22-24. 116 See Douglas Harrison, Then Sings My Soul: The Culture of Southern Gospel Music, (Urbana, IL: University of
Illinois Press, 2012), 3-4. 117 Ibid, 9.
35
the churches in which gospel operated. Therefore, themes like grace, duty, and love can only be
understood in context for the beliefs of their composers and listeners.
Grace is a somewhat fraught theological concept that is at once simple and difficult to
reckon with. Grace appears nearly everywhere in some form or another within both Christian
thought and gospel song lyrics, whether it is invoked explicitly or not. Grace is a many-layered
term, meaning different things to different people. The Catholic Church tends to identify grace as
both a gift from God and a state. Sanctifying grace is the state (or God-given condition) in which
a person can go to heaven. It is easy to descend into semantics where theology is concerned, but
grace is, in its most basic sense, necessary for salvation in Catholic thought. It is bestowed by
God but also given as a result of a believer’s efforts.118 The Protestant definitions of grace tend to
be similar yet different from the Catholic description. Grace is what a believer receives from God
for salvation. One of the main differences is that grace is often tied to a conversion experience,
particularly in evangelical thought. There are different descriptions of how grace, and the related
concept of salvation work. Some hold that grace is given by God and cannot be withdrawn.
Grace then helps a person to live and believe as a Christian, and so be saved. Or, conversely,
grace can be withdrawn if a person fails to live up to Christian ideals. Particularly, there is the
idea of a two-step conversion, an initial conversion and a recommitment, that is present in
evangelical thought.119 Whether or not this is important, it is certainly borne out in some
experiences: Thomas Andrew Dorsey’s life particularly comes to mind, with his time as a blues
artist and concomitant abandonment of Christianity. Even here, then, we can see at least two
118 Language is very important (maddeningly so at times) in capturing the nuance of Catholic thought. Because of
sin, everyone deserves damnation, but God extends salvation to those who make a sincere effort, hence the fact that
I do not say it is earned. That basic understanding of it, however, is easy and even useful on a working level. 119 My basic account of grace is drawn from Jon Butler, Religion in Colonial America, in Religion in American Life,
Butler, Wacker and Balmer, eds., 12, and Wacker, Religion in Nineteenth-Century America, 171-183. A more
thorough discussion of grace can be found throughout Gary Scott Smith, Heaven in the American Imagination,
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).
36
meanings for grace, similar but related: something given by God that helps a believer along, and
a state of being worthy for salvation. It is both given/received freely and earned, to put it in
simple terms. This can be seen in the use of the term grace in gospel music, and how it
contributes to a racialized consciousness in the same way heaven does, even while lending itself
to easy personal interpretation and application.
Within her music Fannie Crosby reflected very well the perception that grace is
something bestowed by God, given to help people to live their lives and faith as Christians. The
references in her songs abound, both implicit and explicit. Grace is “given for every trial.” In the
song “A Message Sweet is Born to Me,”
Oh, wondrous grace for all mankind,
That spreads from sea to sea!
It heals the sick and leads the blind,
And sets the prisoner free;
The soul that seeks it cannot fail
To see the Savior’s face,
And Satan’s power cannot prevail
If we are saved by grace.120
Here, we see that grace is understood to have great power both within the believer’s soul and
more broadly within the world. Grace is for all mankind, but the involvement of man is minimal,
only that seeking grace cannot possibly result in failure to meet with God, but even prisoners and
those healed are not necessarily themselves the ones actively seeking grace. Therefore, grace is
the ultimate gift from God, bestowed purely for humankind’s help and edification. In the same
song, the singer claims to be “saved by grace, by grace alone, /Through Christ, whose love I
claim. . .” Here this puts slightly more agency on the believer, but claim seems to entail
120 Fanny Crosby and Howard Entwistle, “A Message Sweet is Borne to Me,” (1898).
37
entitlement more than a choice or any kind of challenge. Again, white gospel shows a basic sense
of ease where salvation is concerned.
Other Crosby songs show a similar take on God’s grace, whether they make explicit
reference to it or not. In “Draw Me Nearer,” the singer prays “By the pow’r of grace divine; / Let
my soul look up with a steadfast hope, / And my will be lost in Thine.”121 Here Crosby seems to
elide the distinction between the two states of grace. The explicit reference to grace being divine
suggests that it is again something bestowed by God and gives the believer hope that he or she
will be saved. On the other hand, asking for grace to let the believer lose his/her will in God’s
suggests that it is something of a state of worthiness in its own right, related to the conversion
experience and an acceptance of God as the believer’s salvation. Still, her language also puts the
ball squarely in God’s court, again suggesting that the believer has nothing to do except let God
work through him/her. No suffering or even action apart from looking to heaven is required.
James Rowe, like Fanny Crosby, sees grace as something that is bestowed by God, and
allows the believer to reach heaven, but it also reaches out to the “lost of ev’ry nation.” Grace is
a manifestation of God’s love for everyone. In “Ring Out the Message,” Rowe exhorts the
listeners:
Tell the world of saving grace,
Make it known in ev’ry place,
Ring it out, (Ring it out,) Ring it out; (Ring it out;)
Help the needy ones to know
Him from whom all blessing flow,
Ring it out, (Ring it out,) Ring it out. (Ring it out.)122
121 Fanny Crosby and W. H. Doane, “Draw Me Nearer,” (W. H. Doane, 1903), in Gospel Pearls, ed. Willa A.
Townsend et al, (Nashville: Sunday School Publishing Board, National Baptist Convention, U.S.A., 1921), no. 34,
accessed February 18, 2020, USC Digital Library Gospel Music History Archive. 122 James Rowe and Samuel M. Beazley, “Ring Out The Message,” (Beazley and Vaughan, 1912), in Gospel Pearls,
no. 115.
38
Here Rowe displays a conception of grace tied to the conversion experience, since it is “saving,”
and also aimed at the “needy ones” who apparently do not know God and could benefit from his
grace. It is notable that Rowe also, unlike Crosby, puts some burden of action specifically on the
believer, who has to “tell the world,” and is specifically enjoined to help those who do not have
God in their lives. Here grace displays a distinct connection to duty, which I will discuss in more
detail shortly. Elsewhere, Rowe affirms that “We shall reach the home supernal, by His grace”
and exhorts “In joyous songs let us laud His grace, (O, let us laud His wondrous grace,) /For our
souls (For our souls) He hath restored (He hath restored) /And made this desert a pleasant place.
(made this a glad and pleasant place.)”123 Grace is what allows the believer to reach heaven,
bestowed by God, but like Crosby Rowe describes grace as also capable of changing the
believer’s life. The capability of grace to bring not just salvation but joy, making the desert a
pleasant place, suggests an aspect of consolation as well. Part of this is undoubtedly a simple
recourse to an easy image, but it also suggests that for the believer, grace will prevent suffering.
This is a concept that would likely have been foreign to any black gospel listener.
In black gospel, grace is hardly ever invoked by name, in contrast to white gospel. While
there are other references that suggest that black gospel, like white, had a certain conception of
grace, it also refers to it less often by name. As I have already argued, black gospel was always
far more likely to emphasize the potential difficulties of living a Christian life. Charles Albert
Tindley, in his own reference to grace, does nothing to diminish the fact that life as a believer is
difficult even with grace:
My lot among men may be dreary
My station quite poor and despised;
By grace I shall run and not weary,
123 James Rowe and Samuel W. Beazley, “Magnify His Name,” published in Musical Million 43, no. 5 (May 1912),
74-76.
39
Till called up with Jesus on high.124
Here we see a different conception of grace than the type described in several of the white gospel
songs. It is ambiguous whether this grace is more the internal state of conversion, or something
bestowed by God; even the rest of the verse does not make that clear. However, where white
gospel conceived of grace as both something that helped the believer and something that could
overcome physical/earthly challenges, and sometimes even benefit those who were not
themselves religious, this seems to show a different conception of it. The singer acknowledges
that there may well be difficulties on earth, and no easy way to overcome them. Grace only gives
the strength to push on despite such challenges in this presentation of it.
Elsewhere in black gospel, other less explicit references show that this conception of
grace as something that is only inner, rather than something that can also work through the
believer. Lucie Eddie Campbell’s iconic song “Something Within” sounds as though it is
referring this exact idea of grace, even though it never uses the word:
Something within me, that holdeth the reins;
Something within me that banishes pain;
Something within me, I cannot explain
All that I know, there is something within.125
While later in the song Campbell refers to the something as “Heavenly Fire,” it is clearly
something akin to Tindley’s conception of grace, as something that allows the believer to push
forward to salvation, to live life in a Christian fashion. The explicit reference to banishing pain is
124 Charles Albert Tindley, “The Pilgrim’s Song,” (C. A. Tindley, 1901), in Soul Echoes No. 2: A Collection of
Songs For Religious Meetings, ed. Bishop J. S. Caldwell et al, (Philadelphia: Soul Echoes Publishing Company,
1909), no. 40. 125 Lucie E. Campbell, “Something Within,” (Screen Gems-EMI Music Inc., 1950, renewed 1979, originally
composed 1919), printed in Reverend Charles Walker, “Lucie E. Campbell Williams: A Cultural Biography,” in
We’ll Understand it Better By and By: Pioneering African American Gospel Composers, Bernice Johnson Reagon,
ed., (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992), 137.
40
very similar to Tindley’s reference to the low station of the singer in his song. Campbell also
describes her “something” as a burning desire, but never makes it clear what it is a desire for. It
could be a simple desire for salvation, full stop, but since the song uses imagery of fighting and
teaching in the first verse, but it could also be a desire for serving God in a different way. In this
way, it still follows Tindley’s conception of grace, although it also relates to the concept of duty,
as the references to teaching and battle would also suggest. The odd implication of this is that
where Tindley’s grace seems personal, the implication is that Campbell’s is the kind of grace that
can make itself felt for others as well, since as a “burning desire” it could spur the believer to
action. However, the difference is that even then grace is only a catalyst for action, not a love so
great that it overflows a single person.
Here we can see, then, that black gospel had both a narrower and a more personalized
conception of grace, one tied more to the conception of grace as a state than grace as tied to
conversion. On one level, it is easy to see how, just like with heaven in the previous chapter,
grace hews to racial experiences. For black listeners to whom nothing in life ever came easily,
grace gives perseverance to face difficulties and live a good life. Grace for white listeners is
more complex and broader, being both an inward state for salvation and something that spilled
out of a believer to improve the world at large. What this does not explain, however, is why there
is so little reference to grace in black gospel. While race could perhaps explain it, with black
Christians having both a more experiential and less theologically complex religious outlook, this
is not a satisfactory explanation, especially not when grace can make itself felt in the lives of
believers. Instead we must look to broader religious and social trends in the later nineteenth to
the twentieth century.
41
The nineteenth into the twentieth century, the rough period encompassed by this thesis,
was a period of considerable social change in America, a trend from which religion was by no
means exempt. The explanation for why grace hardly appears in black gospel music where it was
widespread in white gospel can instead be found in chronology. Virtually all the songs that
mention grace, black and white, were written before 1920. This raises the question of
significance, and religion as well as the trends broadly encompassed in modernism/modernity
provides an explanation. American religion was beset by a series of conflicts during this period,
roughly 1870 to 1920. The period saw more conservative and innovative conceptions of
Christianity vying for dominance.126 Some old-school preachers hewed closely to Christian
ideals, with emphases on right living, particularly on a personal level as opposed to a social one,
and biblical literalism, although that debate was naturally characterized by gradations and
distinctions, with the basic opposing positions holding that the bible was free from any error or
contradiction and that the bible was mostly symbolic, communicating truth but not in the literal
sense.127 This view of Christianity extended well beyond simple interpretation of the Bible, to a
more rational and social application of Christianity. Movements like the Social Gospel countered
the large evangelical movement that saw its largest causes in temperance and missionary
work.128 Religion manifested the contradictions of modernity, in short, nostalgia and
reason/logic, which also saw their manifestations in the religious practice of the time.129 And it
126 I am imitating Grant Wacker, who specifically uses the terms “innovators” and “conservators” in Religion in
Nineteenth-Century America, 262-291. On conservative Christianity, see David O. Beale, In Pursuit of Purity:
American Fundamentalism Since 1850, (Greenville, SC: Unusual Publications, 1986). For a survey of liberal
Protestant thought in America, see William R. Hutchinson, The Modernist Impulse in American Protestantism,
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1976). 127 Wacker, Religion in Nineteenth-Century America, 262-291. 128 See ibid, 292-306. For an overview of the Social Gospel, see Ronald C. White, Jr. and C. Howard Hopkins, The
Social Gospel: Religion and Reform in Changing America, (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1976). 129 On the underlying tenets of modernity, see Kenneth J. Bindas, Modernity and the Great Depression: The
Transformation of American Society, 1930-1941, (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2017), 1-14. Bindas
highlights order, planning, and reason as the key tenets of modernism/modernity.
42
must be noted that while the evangelical churches embraced gospel music with a passion, they
did not make it. The gospel composers were part of the mainline traditions, the more progressive
aspect of American Christianity.
The conservative movement saw some successes, but by 1940 it had fallen mostly by the
wayside. Prohibition was the zenith of a conservative Christian approach to legislation, and it
was a resounding failure.130 The Scopes “monkey” trial, about which much has been written, also
helped seal the doom of the evangelical movement in America at large. It was called the monkey
trial because it was about the theory of evolution, although monkeys also draw up associations
with the circus, which is appropriate given the carnival atmosphere the case exhibited. Scopes
was a test case in which John Scopes, a Tennessee schoolteacher, had taught evolution in his
class in contravention of state law specifically so the case could be tried. Clarence Darrow
defended the case, while William Jennings Bryan, the politician and orator, and a conservative
Christian, prosecuted. Darrow ingeniously called Bryan as a witness to the case, and he made
himself look incredibly foolish defending the inerrancy of the Bible. The case’s verdict was itself
irrelevant; the evangelicals had lost in the court of public opinion and for the most part retreated
from the national stage to lick their wounds among their own communities.131 It is also worth
noting that the fundamentalists lost the battle for control of the mainstream denominations in
which some of them were represented. This saw a vacation of any potential positions of power,
and by extension ability to dictate the future direction of the denomination at large. Therefore,
130 Wacker, Religion in Nineteenth-Century America, 299-301. On the retreat and subsequent resurgence of the
fundamentalist Christians, see Joel A. Carpenter, Revive Us Again: The Reawakening of American Fundamentalism,
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1997). 131 My account of the Scopes trial is drawn from Randall Balmer, Religion in Twentieth- and Twenty-First Century
America, in Religion in American Life, Butler, Wacker, and Balmer, eds., 329-331. For a comprehensive look at the
Scopes trial and the religion-science conflict in American society at the time, see Edward J. Larson, Summer for the
Gods: The Scopes Trial and America’s Continuing Debate over Science and Religion, (New York: Basic Books,
1997).
43
many mainline churches, in which gospel composers were active, moved in a more rational,
socially aware direction.132
What this has to do with grace should be apparent with some thought and consideration
of the religious trends as well as the modernist milieu. In short, grace was replaced by a certainty
of salvation, hence its virtual disappearance from black and white gospel song by 1920. Grace
does not represent an automatic promise of salvation, particularly in the black conception of it. It
represents a state bestowed by God wherein one can hope to achieve salvation and spread God’s
goodness and love to others, but not automatic salvation. At best it is being worthy of salvation,
not already saved, or having the strength to live a good life and be saved as a result. In a more
rational conception of Christianity, Christians were both more socially responsible and more
assured of God’s love and salvation.133 Where before grace was something that only promised
the possibility of salvation, that was not enough by about 1920. Part of this was the milieu of
modernity more generally. The period in question was one of some uncertainty. Advances had
made life more technologically oriented but also more ambiguous. Things were harder to
understand: as Miles Orvell highlighted, advancing knowledge about both nuclear physics (i.e.
subatomic particles) and astronomy, stars, galaxies, the universe itself, had directly observable
effects but were not directly observable themselves.134 And urbanization, particularly in the form
of the Great Migration, which saw millions of black and white southerners take up residence in
northern and western cities, divorced those people from some traditional aspects of their lives.
These conditions were, of course, only exacerbated by the onset of the Great Depression in 1929.
132 Balmer, Religion in Twentieth- and Twenty-First Century America, 331-332. 133 Wacker, Religion in Nineteenth-Century America, 262-273, and Balmer, Religion in Twentieth- and Twenty-First
Century America, 325-341. See also Smith, Heaven in the American Imagination, 109-157. 134 Miles Orvell, The Real Thing: Imitation and Authenticity in American Culture, 1880-1940, Twenty-Fifth
Anniversary Edition, (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 2014), xxx-xxxi.
44
Certainty was a precious commodity, in art as well as in other aspects of life. Authenticity in
things like art, literature, and music was a common pursuit, and although the definition of
authenticity is varying and often ambiguous, the main idea behind it is a combination of
originality and lack of outside influence (particularly in the case of music for the latter). This
uncertainty, as well as the search for authenticity, which extended to religion as well, explains
why the image of grace was unsatisfying. A more emotional response to Christianity was more
authentic, and to some extent grace is antithetical to that. Grace represents a possibility but not a
certainty, and it is difficult to react emotionally to that, as opposed to an assurance of salvation,
as could be seen in some of the music surveyed in Chapter 1. In short, the disappearance of grace
from gospel was a response both to this strain of emotionalism in American society and a
response to the uncertainty of modern life. Where grace promised only worthiness of salvation
and help to others, a guarantee of salvation was something far more tangible and usable to
believers. Coupled with the more rationalist approach to Christianity taken in the mainline
churches, an approach that emphasized God’s love, grace became somewhat superfluous. Like
the concept of duty, it was a product of its time and place.
Duty is another essential concept in black and white gospel. Duty too is a complex idea,
one that goes back at the very least to the Protestant Reformation. One of Martin Luther’s
principal elements of thought, was that faith alone, rather than faith and good works, was
necessary for salvation. This both helped Luther’s personal peace of mind and revolutionized
Christianity. Based on a passage from Saint Paul, Luther came to the conclusion that faith alone
(sola fides) was necessary for salvation, as opposed to both faith and good works, as the Catholic
Church taught. Luther, a monk troubled by his personal sins, found the idea immensely
comforting. On one level, then, Protestant Christianity is built on a certain rejection of the idea of
45
duty, at least that there is duty beyond the belief in God, Christ, and the Scripture.135 The concept
of predestination only enhances the idea of faith not bringing duty with it, at least not to the
extent Catholicism holds it true. Predestination is the belief that God has predestined people to be
saved or damned, and that nothing a person does can affect the ultimate outcome. This opposes
the Catholic emphasis on free will, although that itself is a complicated issue.136 However,
predestination (a widespread but not universal Protestant belief) still brings with it an emphasis
on living well: John Calvin (who developed the teaching) and others taught that a Christian
should still try to live well, regardless of whether or not he/she was saved. So duty is simply
something that a Christian was charged with. The practice, however, was different from what
this would suggest, as song lyrics show.
Duty would have meant different things to different listeners and people, but it is also
worth noting that in its historical context duty would have had different connotations. I have
already discussed the temperance movement, which was one of the most obvious Christian
reform efforts of the late nineteenth into the twentieth centuries. However, another main
Christian activity, and one without which it is impossible to understand duty completely, was
missionary work. The later nineteenth century, and into the twentieth century, saw the most
intense period of American Christian missionary activity both at home and abroad (i.e., outside
the United States). Plenty has been written about missionary activity, but a deep understanding is
not essential. Much criticism has been leveled to the effect that American missionaries to other
countries conflated Christianity with American culture more generally. The Christianizing
135 The Catholic Church also upholds the importance of Sacred Tradition alongside Scripture. Tradition is anything
that comes via story or other writing that was not included in the Bible. Luther and other Protestant reformers
rejected Tradition (“sola scriptura,” only scripture). 136 The implication of God’s omniscience in Catholic thought is that God knows who will go to heaven and who will
not, but that he still lets people make their own choices (free will), rather than slating it, as predestination holds. The
distinction is subtle if one thinks hard about it.
46
mission was not just about teaching people Christianity but about civilizing them, and obviously
being Christian also meant that one had to live in a way conducive to Christian conduct, which
by extension meant that aspects of primitive civilization had to go.137 Of course this critique is
neither entirely fair nor universally applicable, but there seems to be plenty of evidence that it
was not by any means entirely untrue, either. Christian evangelism often implied a racial/cultural
condescension, which in turn tied Christianity (and Christian duty) to ideas of race. This was
borne out to some extent in the language used to describe duty in gospel songs.
Fanny Crosby articulates one of the clearest conceptions of duty in her song “Rescue the
Perishing.”
Rescue the perishing,
Care for the dying,
Snatch them in pity from sin and the grave;
Weep o’er the erring one,
Lift up the fallen,
Tell them of Jesus the mighty to save.138
Here we see a basic articulation of this missionary impulse. Pity serves as a motivator to work to
“snatch” the unbeliever and the sinner from their ways of error and spread the word of
Christianity. It is worth nothing that, unsurprisingly, all the burden of action is placed on the
believer. The subject of the believer’s ministrations is not given any choice, while the believer is
supposed to do all he or she can for those who are not Christians or are not practicing their
beliefs. It is at once charitable and casually condescending. In the final verse of the song, Crosby
equates this formulation of Christian action more specifically with duty:
Rescue the perishing,
137 Wacker, “Religion in Nineteenth-Century America,” 305-306. For a take on this critique, see Emily Conroy-
Krutz, Christian Imperialism: Converting the World in the Early American Republic, (Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University Press, 2015). Conroy-Krutz does in fact argue that American culture was inseparable from Christianity in
most foreign missionary efforts. See 1-16 especially for a basic overview of these ideas, which are not entirely borne
out in the rest of the text. 138 Fanny J. Crosby and William H. Doane, “Rescue the Perishing,” (F. T. Doane), published in Gospel Pearls, no.
82.
47
Duty demands it;
Strength for thy labor the Lord will provide;
Back to the narrow way
Patiently win them;
Tell the poor wand’rer a Savior has died.
Here the conception of grace described earlier is alluded to, though not by name, but more
importantly the idea of helping people is reformulated not as an implicit kind of charity but as
duty. It seems that the Lord provides strength to the believer, both to follow the “narrow way”
and to guide others back to it, and such a gift also imposes a duty. The idea of grace spreading
out to help others is related to this, but it is also specifically aimed at converting, not just helping,
others. Here the Christian has a duty to both help and convert others, both being charitable and
evangelizing.
Other white gospel songs present a similar view of duty. William H. Ruebush’s “The Call
of the World” is worth quoting at length because it hits several important points in an active,
communal conception of duty similar to what Crosby describes. The first verse, chorus, and
second verse are:
1. Hark, on your ears the sound of duty’s call,
Rise up today responsive one and all,
Put now to flight the hosts of death and shame,
And to the world your righteous cause proclaim.
Chorus
‘Tis the call of the world calling you,
To the call of the world, oh be true,
Haste to make earth more bright,
Banish sin’s awful blight,
In your strength stand for God and the right.
2. Count not the cost, tho’ great the sacrifice,
Rise, win the day, your duty is the price.
Bear in your hands the torch of life and light,
Dispelling clouds and gloomy shades of night.139
139 Will. H. Ruebush, “The Call of the World,” published in Musical Million 40, no. 8 (1 August 1909), 122.
48
On one level, this song revolves around the clever rhetorical device of turning the idea of the call
of the world from a temptation to sin, as many believers would probably think hearing the
phrase, to a call to remake the world in God’s image. The first verse is mostly an exhortation,
assuring the listener of the righteousness of the call, although the idea of making earth more
bright is an ambiguous one; specifics are really not given. The second verse notably sets duty up
as something that is not necessarily pleasant; “your duty is the price” suggests that making the
world a better place may require immense “sacrifice” on the part of believers. Certainly, to actual
missionaries and moral reformers who faced resistance, these words would have rung all too
true. It takes until the final verse for the song to explicitly equate bringing light to the world with
missionary activity and temperance; “Free all the slaves now bound in sin’s dark thrall, /And
bring to judgment old king alcohol.” This could hardly make it clearer that the Christian’s duty
involves moral reform that could easily be extended to both evangelism and the effort that
ultimately brought Prohibition to fruition. The Christian’s duty, then, is to help others whether
they particularly want to be helped or not, because that is the charge of Christianity, at least as
the writers interpret it. In light of this it is easy to see why some of the critiques were leveled at
missionary activity: it fosters an idea of the Christian automatically knowing best.
Black gospel, by contrast, offers a different and generally more personalized conception
of duty, one that relates more to the believer’s own conduct than to how the believer should
interact with others. References to duty, like with grace, are fewer and less explicit than in white
gospel, but duty is not a large concern in either white or black gospel. Where white gospel tends
to focus on what the believer should do and how it affects others, black gospel tends to focus on
the believer’s experience, even when it suggests that he or she should be acting towards others.
Lucie Eddie Campbell’s “He Understands; He’ll Say, ‘Well Done!’” never actually invokes the
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term “duty,” but it articulates a conception of duty that a person is required to labor throughout
life as a Christian, even if Campbell’s focus is on personal salvation:
If when you give the best of your service,
Telling the world that the Savior is come;
Be not dismayed when friends don’t believe you;
He understands;
He’ll Say, “Well done.”140
The rest of the song describes life as a battle that must be won and offers the assurance that so
long as a believer tries, regardless of actual success, the Savior will greet him/her with a “well
done” at death. Here we see a conception of duty that, like in white gospel, emphasizes action,
but it also speaks in vague terms, never specifying what should be done beyond the reference to
evangelism in the first verse (the portion quoted directly). Duty seems in this case to be more for
the believer’s benefit than for anyone else.
Campbell would have understood the idea of duty better than just about any other gospel
composer, save perhaps Charles Albert Tindley. Campbell was revered in gospel circles both for
her music, and in fact she defined a generation of music performance for the National Baptist
Convention U.S.A., Inc., the largest black congregation in the country.141 Campbell, born in
1885 in Duck Hill, Mississippi, the youngest of nine children, grew up in Memphis and taught
herself music based on her older sister’s piano lessons. She was a woman of unusual
accomplishment for the time, graduating high school and later getting a college degree. She
started writing (or at least published her first music) in 1919. She was responsible for organizing
the Convention’s yearly music convention and was also extensively involved in compiling
140 Lucie E. Campbell, “He Understands; He’ll Say, ‘Well Done!,’” (Screen Gems-EMI Music Inc., 1950, renewed
1978, original copyright 1933), printed in Horace Clarence Boyer, “Lucie E. Campbell: Composer for the National
Baptist Convention,” in We’ll Understand it Better By and By, Johnson Reagon, ed., 107. 141 My account of Campbell’s life and career is drawn from Boyer, “Lucie E. Campbell,” 81-108, Luvenia A.
George, “Lucie E. Campbell: Her Nurturing and Expansion of Gospel Music in the National Baptist Convention
U.S.A., Inc.,” 109-119, and Reverend Charles Walker, “Lucie E. Campbell Williams: A Cultural Biography,” 121-
138, in Johnson Reagon, We’ll Understand it Better By and By.
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hymnals: she was among the group that assembled Gospel Pearls, the first black gospel
collection, from which I have drawn many of the songs studied here. Her composing was never
terribly prolific, but apparently hit a peak in the later 1940s, and she published songs
sporadically up into the early 1960s.142 Campbell was by all accounts a sincere Christian: she is
favorably remembered by many who knew her. However, she was also incredibly strong-willed
and had a fiery temper. She was expelled from two different churches, taking a large following
with her both times. Her conception of duty stood out in her career: despite her extensive
involvement in church music, she was a teacher by occupation, and taught African American
history long before it was in vogue to do so. Her composition of tunes for two songs about black
veterans’ dissatisfaction after WWI also suggests a high degree of race consciousness. Campbell
clearly held both a racialized and religious sense of duty, whatever her flaws may have been.
Charles Albert Tindley, like Campbell, did not refer specifically to the term duty, but
some of his music shows the same impulse, both to frame duty and to keep the focus on the
believer rather than the Christian duty to others as described in white gospel songs.
And often when I would do good,
And keep the promise as I should,
I miss the way, and coming short,
It makes me mourn and grieves my heart.143
Here the use of the word “should” implies a definite sense of duty. The song as a whole
emphasizes the believer’s alienation from the world, and heaven being his/her true home, as well
as the hardships faced as a result of living the Christian life. The promise mentioned is a promise
to serve God. However, while this is duty, it never makes any reference to what it is the believer
actually has to do. As with Campbell, however, it is a personalized conception of duty. It also
142 See Boyer, “Lucie E. Campbell,” 83, for a list of Campbell’s known compositions, sorted by copyright date. 143 C. A. Tindley, “I’m Going There,” (C. A. Tindley, 1907), in Soul Echoes No. 2, no. 44.
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emphasizes the believer’s choice, as in duty being something accepted and taken on by choice of
the believer, not exactly an obligation in same way that the other songs portray it. Again, it is a
more personalized conception of duty, one that puts the onus on the believer because the believer
has made a promise to God, not really because he/she has an obligation to repay God.
Elsewhere, however, Tindley shows the same missionary impulse that the white gospel
composers showed, in an obligation to spread a Christian message to others:
If you chance to find a stranger,
Put him in the way,
Tell him how to flee the danger,
While it is called today.
Tell him there’s a precious fountain,
Flowing free for all,
Jesus Christ, on Calvary’s mountain,
Paid for Adam’s fall.144
In this description of duty, the idea is to spread the word of God to others who will benefit from
hearing it. The references to danger suggest as much, and also therefore suggest a more
compassionate view of missionary activity than the one articulated in white gospel, which seems
to be a spreading of the gospel everywhere regardless of the costs. Here missionary activity is
more a way to help those who need it, a sort of offshoot of grace, which also can spread to those
around the believer. Here, too, Tindley presents perhaps the least personalized conception of
duty, one that focuses on the other as much as the believer, as white gospel songs tended to do. If
this is the exception, however, it still raises the issue of why black gospel had such a
personalized, internalized conception of duty where white gospel simply emphasized duty as
affecting others.
There are a couple reasons to consider for the different conceptualizations of duty. As
with missionary activity, it was white churches that were most heavily involved. Part of it was
144 C. A. Tindley, arr. William D. Smith, “Pilgrim Stranger,” (C. A. Tindley, 1909), in Soul Echoes No. 2, no. 1.
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undoubtedly a cultural phenomenon, a conflation of Christianity with white Anglo-American
culture more generally, something that left no room for blacks to do anything even if they were
Christian. However, part of it could have come down to resources as well. At least some white
churches were well-enough situated that they could devote time, energy, and resources to
missionary activity. There would have been far fewer similar black churches, given general black
poverty in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Such a conceptualization of duty, as one of
spreading Christianity to outside people would have been foreign for a couple reasons. One
would have been simply practicality, that for most blacks such a thing would not have been
feasible. Hence, the focus was on the believer rather than the effect he/she had in discharging
duty. The other goes back to the different antecedents of black and white religion. While black
mainline churches increasingly imitated white churches in worship style and theology, and grew
considerably in membership, they also did not have quite the same roots in puritanical and
evangelical traditions that would have made missionary activity and temperance so important.
Hence, due to the difficulties of black life, the emphasis was again placed on the believer for
black Christian duty, where white Christian duty was conceived more in terms of the other being
served by duty, and often the spreading of the Christian faith. The black gospel conception of
duty was more self-centered, but also more respectful of others, seemingly, not having the
trappings of white Anglo-American culture. Duty was not mentioned by name often in songs, but
it was an important idea for both black and white Christians.
The final idea under consideration in this chapter is love. Love is an encompassing term
that has a variety of meanings in Christian thought. It also, arguably, ties together the other two.
Grace is rooted in God’s love for people, and duty requires, to some extent, a love of others (for
God’s sake, to delve deeper into the theology). Love is, on one level, simply what we commonly
53
think of when we hear the term, not in a romantic sense but a deeper sense of wanting what is
best for the other person.145 This is the way God loves everyone (however much that seems to
contradict some of the fierier versions of Christianity). In addition, a Christian should love others
for the sake of God, as the Great Commandment given by Jesus says in the gospels. There are
countless quotes from the Bible that mention love, but it is worth noting that love is synonymous
with charity when it is applied to the cardinal virtues: faith, hope, and charity/love. It entails,
basically, a selfless devotion and caring for others, encompassing both working for them (duty)
and accepting any mistreatment from others, as Jesus preached in the gospels. Love can be
understood in both these ways in both forms of gospel.
Perhaps predictably, references to God’s love were the most common form of love found
in both black and white gospel different songs take slightly different approaches, but the
principle did not change. God loved unconditionally, and so much that He (through Jesus Christ)
was willing to die for all of mankind, whether or not they chose to accept salvation. Tindley
described this in “Pilgrim Stranger” (which I have already discussed in relation to duty):
Tell him [a stranger] that above a brother,
There’s a Saviour’s love,
If on earth he has no other,
There’s a friend above.146
In Tindley’s formulation here, God loves a person no matter what happens, especially what
people think, and the use of the term Savior evokes images of Christ’s suffering and death on
behalf of all believers. Some white gospel songs make this idea even more explicit. James
Rowe’s lyrics to the Ruebush song “Hail the King” (actually a Christmas song) point to Jesus as
the obvious symbol of God’s love for humankind:
145 Catholic theology commonly uses the different Greek terms that translate as love, with agape referring to this
kind of love. It is distinguished from romantic love, brotherly love, and dutiful love. 146 Tindley, “Pilgrim Stranger.”
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O’er the earth the strains are swelling,
God’s great love for mortals telling,
Jesus in our midst is dwelling,
Hail the newborn King!147
The strains are played by Christmas bells, and the reference to God’s love for mortals refers not
so much to Jesus’ crucifixion as to the act of God becoming human itself as the obvious symbol
of God’s love for people. The power of this as a symbol is hard to underestimate since anyone
can appreciate the implications of an omnipotent and omniscient God choosing to live as a
human and even let himself be tortured and killed for the benefit of mankind.
That image of the crucifixion is understandably significant to Christianity, and one that
Fanny Crosby employed repeatedly in her music, referencing the crucifixion specifically as the
ultimate sign of God’s love. “Near the Cross, a trembling soul, /Love and mercy found me;”
comes from the aptly titled “Near the Cross.”148 Love provides both comfort and a way for the
believer to reach salvation, with the visible sign of the cross, a reminder of Jesus’ death. Here we
also see a conception that, while never invoking the term, calls back to the idea of grace helping
a believer achieve salvation. The rest of the song makes that clearer, referencing how the soul
will find rest and asking for help to “walk from day to day.” Love is integral to grace even
though the two terms were not used in tandem in the songs I surveyed. A similar song, “At the
Cross,” makes a similar assertion: “Love can soothe thy troubled breast; /In the Savior find thy
rest;/ At the cross there’s room!” Crosby sees divine love, as demonstrated by Jesus’ death on the
cross, as a source of comfort for the believer. Another Crosby song references Jesus’ death in
less direct terms:
Endless praise to our Redeemer
For His all atoning love,
147 James Rowe and William H. Ruebush, “Hail the King,” published in Musical Million 39, no. 11 (November
1908), 345. 148 Fanny J. Crosby and W. H. Doane, “Near the Cross,” published in Gospel Pearls, no. 14.
55
That prepares for us a mansion
And a crown of life above. . .
Here Jesus’ love is explicitly equated with salvation, and the idea of redemption, that Jesus made
salvation possible through his death for humankind. Crosby therefore sets up a unique image of
love that, while similar to what the other composers articulated, makes love clear through its
association with the image of the cross, and Jesus’ crucifixion and death, by extension. Given her
generally devotional bent, this is not surprising. Crosby enabled believers to see love manifested
in a concrete image that had deep symbolic implications, able to be interpreted and particularly
strong in the assurance it offered.
The other conception of love is also present in some gospel songs: that believers should
love others. White composer Aldine S. Kieffer’s “The City of Light” contains a line in its final
verse: “Let us love, watch, and pray, in our pilgrimage here; /Let us count all things else but as
loss.”149 The subject of such love is not clear; it could be other people, God, or both. However, it
makes it clear that part of Christian’s life, indeed, a Christian’s duty, is to love. It is necessary for
salvation, according to this formulation, and nothing else is even worth the time. And here we
see the overlap between love and duty. Since it is necessary to love God and others to get to
heaven even if there was disagreement about the particulars of what that meant, of how obligated
Christians were to actually act to help others. Overall, however, the use of love tipped
overwhelmingly toward referring to God’s love for people.
Why, then, was that the case? This also raises the question why black and white gospel
really did not use different terms or framing to refer to love. Tindley, the only black gospel
composer to explicitly refer to love, used it to refer to Jesus as Savior in a way reminiscent of the
white gospel composers. The most obvious answer is that love is reassuring. Knowing that God
149 Aldine S. Kieffer, “The City of Light,” Musical Million 39, no. 8 (August 1908), 245.
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loves humans offers a promise of either salvation outright or at least fairness. With the way grace
was not invoked much after 1920 because it was not concrete enough, love is both similar and
different. On one level, love is more assuring than grace because the believer knows that,
regardless of everything, God loves him/her. Grace offers only the promise of help to achieve
salvation and help others. However, love on its own, except perhaps as Crosby frames it, does
not offer assurance of salvation either. It offers consolation and sometimes obligation, as applied
to others, and is part and parcel of salvation, but still not necessarily a guarantee. The value of
love is that it makes life better, and is essentially freely given by God. That, to any twentieth-
century listener, living through uncertain times, would have been immensely reassuring.
Grace, duty, and love, then, form a sort of blurry triad that defines a believer’s relation to
both God and others. Grace is given to the believer and is a state the believer can occupy to get
to heaven, but it also benefits others, as it was conceptualized in white gospel. Duty likewise
entails an obligation to do good on behalf of God, and to help others, something that both white
and black gospel stressed, although white gospel stressed the effects of duty while black gospel
tended to emphasize the believer’s obligation and the way doing duty could help those served.
Grace and duty, in short, overlapped, and where that can be seen is through the idea of love.
God’s love is why we are able to have grace, and grace in turn entails an obligation for the
Christian to love others and a duty to help others, generally framed as evangelizing in gospel
song. The more individualistic way these things are framed in black gospel speaks partly to the
need for consolation and partly to the life experiences of blacks, particularly poverty, which
ensured that black churches were, while by no means uninvolved or inactive, less able to
contribute financially and prevented by whites from participating institutionally in missionary
efforts. Where white gospel defined grace, duty and love as defining a Christian’s relationship to
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God and neighbor, black gospel used them to define the believer’s relationship with God first,
with a secondary focus on the effects of the concepts on others via the believer’s actions. As with
heaven, the songs used rather similar language to demonstrate a different, and racialized,
understanding of the meaning of gospel music and the religious terms it used. However, both
white and black gospel were responding to the same general currents and events within
American society, and their reactions were not at all uncommon, as a look at popular music
demonstrates.
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III. “When You Go to Heaven:” Racialized Religious Imagery in Popular Song
Gospel music employed a variety of themes that highlighted the unity of listeners, but
more especially the divide in understanding between black and white Christians. Heaven was
particularly illustrative. Where white gospel tended to treat heaven as home as well as an
essentially foregone conclusion (with some exceptions), black gospel tended not to emphasize
the home aspect so much as peace that could be found there. That was only logical given that
black gospel also tended to emphasize the difficulties one had to survive to reach heaven in the
first place. Both used similar imagery to describe heaven, however, as a city with streets of gold,
as being across either a sea or a river, and often as having loved ones waiting there. The terms
that they used, however, had different meanings to the listeners, even when songs were able to
bridge the racial divide, which at times proved surprisingly permeable (remember, for example,
the use of Thomas Andrew Dorsey’s music in white hymnal collections). Similarly, the songs
articulated subtly different ideas about grace, love, and duty, with black gospel tending generally
to emphasize personal difficulties more, while white gospel tended to focus more outwardly on
the way a Christian affected other people. This reflected, as I have argued, both responses to
modernity and a certain reflection of racial consciousness and lived experience. This also found
itself manifested in popular music. Gospel did not develop in a vacuum, and in fact was notably
influenced in its formation by popular forms. The ideas of gospel music also saw themselves
reflected in the popular music of the early twentieth century. Blues, Tin Pan Alley (popular), and
folk songs, all contained some of the themes that appeared so prominently in gospel songs. A
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sampling of such music is representative of both black and white music and shows how the
subtly racialized themes of gospel played out for popular music and related to broader trends in
American music and society at large. The same trends that informed gospel music, in moral
outlook, religion, and conception of heaven and salvation all showed themselves in popular
music. Gospel may have been in some ways a more obvious manifestation, but these popular
songs, which had listeners across the socioeconomic spectrum, show the diffusion of the
religious outlook that underpinned gospel through American life more generally. As such, gospel
can be understood as one manifestation of broader themes. The songs also show the same racial
coding in message and sound that gospel did, and so any analysis such ideas in gospel cannot be
fully demonstrated without appealing to popular music as well.
As I have shown, gospel music was inherently a southern form of music at its roots, even
if much of gospel activity was centered outside the South. With black gospel, the main exponents
of it were southern: Charles Albert Tindley was from Maryland, and an ex-slave, while Thomas
Andrew Dorsey, who grew up in Villa Rica, Georgia, was steeped in the southern blues tradition
(which he learned in Atlanta) even though his gospel career was centered in Chicago. White
gospel was arguably even more centered in the South. The main gospel composers and lyricists
(Crosby, Rowe, Brumley) were all southerners, and the shape note and later gospel publishers
were likewise all centered in the South. It was the fact that gospel was southern that,
paradoxically, also allowed it to spread beyond the South. The Great Migration, which James
Gregory shows was as much white as black, spread southerners throughout the nation,
particularly the Northeast, Midwest, and West Coast, and therefore also facilitated the spread of
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gospel.150 Where such migrations facilitated the spread of southern music, they also facilitated
the spread of the racialization of said music.
Southern music in general served to reinforce segregation, as Karl Hagstrom Miller
argues. Southern music of the early twentieth century was characterized by an avoidance of overt
confrontation of issues of race and a retrenchment of segregation through music. While some
music did have distinctly racial origins, especially the blues, there was much that crossed over
racial lines. Unfortunately, much of the popular music that was associated with the south,
hillbilly music as well as “coon songs,” songs that played to unfavorable stereotypes about
African Americans, was not distinctly southern.151 Even more unfortunately, although many
listeners may have recognized the stereotypes at play, they became so intertwined with the music
that they became, especially to outsiders, representative of southern music.152 While the
unfavorable stereotypes included poor whites as well as blacks, the damage was done.
Ethnography, exemplified in music by the efforts of John and Alan Lomax, a father-and-son
team of musicians who traversed the South recording people they could find in an effort to
record as much authentic (untainted by popular influence) southern music as possible, gave a
veneer of legitimacy and authenticity to stereotypical music, which in turn was able to be
deployed in support of segregation by reinforcing negative stereotypes about blacks.153 Blues
was not entirely immune from this process, as it was appropriated by whites, who in turn reaped
most of its commercial benefits. The bluesy style would also reinforce stereotypes about black
150 For the demographics of the Great Migration, see James N. Gregory, The Southern Diaspora: How the Great
Migrations of Black and White Southerners Transformed America, (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North
Carolina Press, 2005) 12-21. 151 See Hagstrom Miller, Segregating Sound, especially 51-84 for black music and 121-155 for black music and
stereotypes. On hillbilly stereotyping, see Patrick Huber, Linthead Stomp: The Creation of Country Music in the
Piedmont South, (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 2008), 42-44 and 64-68. 152 Hagstrom Miller, Segregating Sound, 51-84 and 187-214 describe this process. 153 Ibid, 187-274. For the Lomaxes, see ibid, 79-81 and 236-272. Refer also to Benjamin Fillene, Romancing the
Folk: Public Memory and American Roots Music, (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 2000).
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musical ability, ensuring that blacks suffered continuing discrimination in the face of the
assertion of identity through black gospel. Notably, Dorsey never seemed to have much feeling
about race and gospel. Asked about how to teach gospel to others , whites and even Jews, while
in Israel, he said that “. . . you don’t preach it and you don’t teach it.” First, it had to be “inspired
by God” before it could be taught.154 So to Dorsey, it was the religious message of gospel that
was fundamental, and no issues of race would change that. However, for all that it is worth
noting he never came out and denied that there was something unique about black gospel, either.
The relationship between gospel and popular music, then, is closer than many casual
observers would believe, especially nowadays. Scholars such as James Goff and Douglas
Harrison have made a lot of the fact that southern gospel today, and indeed since the 1980s at
least, has a large listenership and a generally distinct community that favors the music above
virtually all other forms and listens to it regularly and with considerable devotion, as well as
attending concerts with some degree of regularity, although concerts also seem to be the venue
wherein outsiders to the community most easily engage with gospel. However, it is also worth
noting that the division between gospel and popular music was more fluid in many ways prior to
1940. Country and even regular popular music employed a lot of the same themes as white
gospel music did in the 1930s. The Depression would have made such themes peculiarly
resonant, especially the assurance of salvation. Heaven was a favorite image in cowboy songs,
which enjoyed a heyday in the 1930s and 1940s. As Kenneth Bindas and Patrick Huber argue in
various forms, these were elements of antimodernism as well as part of the broader modernist
milieu of twentieth-century America. Bindas points to the heavy aspect of nostalgia in American
music, part of modernity in that it longed for an essentially imagined past and offered hope of
154 Thomas A. Dorsey, interview by Robert L. Taylor, Thomas A. Dorsey Father of Black Gospel Music: An
Interview, (Bloomington, IN: Trafford Publishing, 2013), 17.
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heaven as a sort of counter-answer to the rapid advancement of modern life.155 Huber situates
such music, namely country, in a more explicitly anti-modern framework, as the music of the
working class, but also one largely oppositional to such conditions, even when it was rooted in
them. The overlap between such music and gospel was also strong, as Huber and Bill Malone
have pointed out.156 Many country and southern artists perform(ed) gospel music in their sets.
There was a notable perceived distinction between musicians who performed gospel and gospel
musicians, the quartets and singers who only sang and played gospel music, and generally had
much tighter ties to the music publishers. Still, that division was hardly fast, as Huber’s look at
the life of Dorsey Dixon demonstrated.
Dorsey Dixon was from the Piedmont region of North Carolina, the region that Huber
studied in his book. Dixon developed a style all his own. He was a southern (i.e. country)
musician who sang and played in that style, but his main bent was toward religious music.157
Dixon had notable success as a recording artist with a group that included his brother Howard, an
accomplished musician in his own right, although Dorsey, the songwriter, a reasonably talented
guitarist, and lead singer, was the obvious face of the group. Although he worked with some
country material, Dixon’s music is described by Huber as gospel, and if gospel is defined by its
message only, it certainly would be. In the 1940s Dixon had a massive hit with the song
“Nobody Prayed,” better known by the title “Wreck on the Highway,” lamenting the decline of
religious faith in America, with lyrics about deaths in a car accident and the lack of concern
evinced by others, particularly religious concern, which transitioned into a more general
155 Kenneth J. Bindas, Modernity and the Great Depression: The Transformation of American Society, 1930-1941,
(Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2017), 152-163. 156 Huber, Linthead Stomp, 6-19, and Bill C. Malone and David Stricklin, Southern Music/American Music, Revised
Edition, (Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky, 2003), Kindle Edition, Chapter 4. 157 My account of Dixon’s career is drawn from Huber, Linthead Stomp, 216-274.
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rumination on how America needed to return to God. Dixon’s music was often unusual and
introspective-sounding, and was not precisely written to be church music, but insofar as it was
religious in tone, it also was not popular music in the same way that most other songs were. It
occupied a sort of ambiguous middle ground between regular popular music, intended for wide
consumption, and the kind of gospel music recorded in the same fashion but aimed at church
audiences and for further use only in church performances. The popular style of southern gospel
performance, however, underlines that ambiguity as well. Gospel was never purely religious,
either stylistically or in performance and listening, especially after the sheet music companies got
involved with quartets to promote the sale of their songs. Dixon, who could be considered a
popular musician in that he did not perform under the auspices of any specific church (or music
company), brought a gospel-style religious message to a wide audience. Dixon demonstrates, as
Thomas Andrew Dorsey does for black gospel, the overlap between gospel and popular music.
Southern gospel, then, can be understood in a variety of contexts. Like Dixon’s music
and the popular southern music more generally, gospel existed (and for that matter continues to
exist) in an antimodern context. Douglas Harrison, whose monograph Then Sings My Soul
constitutes the first academic study of southern/white gospel by a true insider of the southern
gospel community, argues that gospel is fundamentally ambiguous, antimodernist and yet subtly
modern as well. Harrison describes southern gospel as forming a sort of oppositional modernity
that is defined by conservative Christian values as well as, to some extent, nostalgia.158 Nostalgia
for an imagined past is, as Kenneth Bindas argues, one of the defining aspects of modernity. This
was defined both by a longing for the past and a knowledge that one could not actually return to
it, a contradictory relationship that was nonetheless very powerful, and manifested especially
158 Douglas Harrison, Then Sings My Soul: The Culture of Southern Gospel Music, (Urbana, IL: University of
Illinois Press, 2012), 4-8. The phrase “oppositional modernity” is, as far as I am aware, my own.
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strongly in cowboy and country songs.159 This extended to religious imagery as well. I described
briefly how the image of loved ones waiting in heaven was a common one in both black and
white gospel songs. This was one of the most common ways to refer to heaven in popular songs
as well.
The examples are manifold, as a look at a few songs of varying styles demonstrates. “The
Cowboy’s Dream,” from one of the Lomax collections of folk songs, refers to hope that
cowboys, who are often selfless and kind (according to the song) will be well-represented in the
“last great round-up,” run by God, the great ranch owner, and the angels, and the singer muses
on whether any cowboys will actually be present.
I wonder if any will greet me,
On the sands of that evergreen shore,
With a hearty “God bless you, old fellow,”
That I’ve met so often before.160
That musing, along with the rest of the song, paints a very rosy (i.e., nostalgic) picture of cowboy
life, while also looking forward to a reunion in heaven. The continual references to cowboy
imagery even for God also suggest a nostalgia, that the past will be recreated, perhaps better than
it ever actually was, in heaven. Other songs make similar references. In “Kentucky Days,” an old
Tin Pan Alley song, the speaker reminisces all about his life with his wife, Sue, remembering the
days of their youth from the perspective of middle or old age. The singer expresses fear over his
wife dying: “When the Master calls you I won’t know what to do.”161 However, he also looks
forward to their time in heaven as an “endless honeymoon,” while ambiguously referring to their
life together as a “dream of bliss,” which suggests both happiness and an aspiration for more,
159 See Bindas, Modernity and the Great Depression, 156-161. 160 “The Cowboy’s Dream,” printed in John and Alan Lomax, Best Loved American Ballads and Folk Songs, (New
York: Macmillan Company, 1934), 410-411. 161 Jack Mahoney and Percy Wenrich, “Kentucky Days,” (New York: Wenrich-Howard Co., 1912).
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something not attainable on Earth, only able to be attained in heaven. Again, the speaker hopes
that heaven will be like life, only better, the same way that other modernist songs constructed an
imaginary past better than the past had ever truly been.
While black gospel makes use of the same theme of loved ones in heaven, the black
relationship to the past and present was necessarily different than it was in white gospel and
popular music. The simple reason for this, as should be obvious, is that there was no real past
that could even have a nostalgic spin put on it for most black listeners. If white songs constructed
a past better than it was, it was at least because there were positive aspects of that past that could
be played up, especially in conventional images, like Bindas mentions referring to songs about
childhood homes and the singer’s love for his/her mother (and mother’s love for the singer).162
The black past, of slavery and then repression under Jim Crow laws and the more subtle northern
forms of discrimination, did not lend themselves to any kind of positive spin. Even blues,
however, was able to demonstrate some of these themes. According to Skip James, people
“couldn’t find no heaven” on earth no matter what they did, but they could get to heaven.163
Sonny Boy Williamson’s “Bad Luck Blues” talks mostly about the singer’s cousin Arthur, who
was shot to death (it is told in true autobiographical blues style, but whether or not there is any
truth in it is hard to know, and ultimately irrelevant). In one stanza the dying Arthur laments
leaving his friends and cousins but expresses hope they will meet again one day:
And he said, I hate to go leave my mother and father
Said, I hate to go leave my cousins Sonny Boy and Sid
Blow, but tell ‘em if they be good they’ll come to see me
People, on the Resur-rection Day.164
162 Bindas, Modernity and the Great Depression, 158-162. 163 Skip James, “Hard Time Killin’ Floor Blues,” transcribed in Eric Sackheim, The Blues Line: Blues Lyrics from
Leadbelly to Muddy Waters, (New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1969), 176. 164 Sonny Boy Williamson, “Bad Luck Blues,” in Sackheim, The Blues Line, 418.
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Evident here is the common theme of reunion with loved ones: Sonny Boy, provided he lives a
good life (again, a theme from black gospel especially), can see his beloved cousin again in
heaven. This song is nostalgic for the past in that it is a lament that things had to go as they did,
namely that Arthur had to die young, but its nostalgia is for life itself rather than some
constructed quasi-imaginary past. The similarity to Dorsey’s “If I Don’t Get There,” with its
theme of loved ones waiting in heaven and the need of the singer (i.e., others) to behave well to
attain salvation is also striking.
Then, too, there are the songs, cowboy songs and even the blues, that expand heaven to
include not just people but also animals and prized possessions. The blues song “Old Dog Blue”
talks of the titular possum-dog, who never let a possum touch the ground, “died like a man,” was
buried by the singer, and is now “treeing possums in the Promised Land” and in Noah’s Ark.165
The past is made both present and referred to nostalgically in such songs. Blue went “where
good dogs go,” and though the singer never talks of going to heaven himself, the implication is
that he will meet his good old dog, Blue, again. The song remembers the good times with Blue
and also offers the solace that he is in heaven. Some cowboy songs and popular songs did the
same thing. Cowboy songs also mention the presence of animals, horses in particular but also
sometimes steers, in heaven. Again, nostalgia is tempered by a promise of a better future, much
the same way as it works for modern life. The promise of meeting old friends, family members,
and even loyal animals, such as the possum dog Blue creates both a nostalgia, a sadness that they
are gone, and a hope that they will be met again in the hereafter, and therefore create a
relationship with the present that is basically disconnected. The present holds nothing of promise
in such songs; there is only the past when loved ones were still alive and the promise that they
165 Jim Jackson, “Old Dog Blue,” in The Blues Line, 247-248.
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are happy in heaven, and the singer may be able to meet them again someday. Gospel always
created this promise, and these popular songs are, in essence, no different.
As I have established, black gospel was, in Dorsey’s style, essentially blues, although
evidence suggests there was a heavy perceived division between the two forms. Blues was
considered to be, above all, the “devil’s music,” worldly, deliberately immoral, in short
seemingly antithetical to everything that gospel would stand for. Similarly, while less has been
written about black gospel, particularly after 1950 or so, there was some overlap between gospel
and jazz/blues. In 1938 Sister Rosetta Tharpe, a well-known gospel singer, launched her career
as a nightclub performer.166 She went on to enjoy considerable success performing jazz and blues
as well as gospel music. However, gospel and blues, at least according to some scholars, are not
as far apart as many people believed. Jon Michael Spencer, especially, has argued (cleverly) that
blues was essentially spiritual in its outlook, and that it dealt with religious issues even when it
did not appeal to them by name.167 However, much space has been devoted to the “devilish”
aspects of blues by both academic and casual observers. The truth seems to lie somewhere in
between. The personal lives of the major bluesmen would often seem to bear this out. Robert
Johnson had a difficult life and has been described as “devil-haunted.” He was probably
personally responsible for the rumor that he sold his soul to the devil in exchange for his (near-)
virtuosic guitar skills. Presumably this made a better story than the fact that Johnson, apparently
a mediocre guitarist in his youth, spent months practicing under the tutelage of an old blues
guitarist, and when he eventually met with other bluesmen who had known him in his youth,
effectively blew them away with his newfound skill. There is certainly some merit to the
166 On Tharpe, see Jerma A. Jackson, Singing in my Soul: Black Gospel Music in a Secular Age, (Chapel Hill, NC:
The University of North Carolina Press, 2004), 77-102. 167 Jon Michael Spencer, Blues and Evil, (Knoxville, TN: The University of Tennessee Press, 1993).
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assertions that Johnson was devil-haunted. Johnson’s personal life was extremely troubled,
including a wife who died in childbirth while Johnson was out playing as an itinerant bluesman
and another who left him (not to mention that his death putatively occurred by poisoning at the
hands of a jealous husband). He was also continually restless, never staying in place during his
adulthood and traveling and performing across the South, Northeast, and Midwest under a
variety of names. He showed a strange obsession and affinity for the devil and other hellish
themes in his music (the stunning song “Hellhound on my Trail,” particularly, springs to
mind).168 There is, in short, little about the best-known bluesman’s life to gainsay the idea that
there was something devilish about the blues.
Then, too, the personal lives of many bluesmen and the themes deployed in their songs
show a certain devilish-mindedness as well. Blues routinely made references to drinking, sex,
violence, drugs, voodoo, gambling, and other such themes that are essentially antithetical to
Christian values, and even glorified in them.169 Robert Lawson describes the blues lifestyle as a
deliberate rejection of Christian values, one opposed to them, as well as a counterculture to both
Jim Crow values and black middle-class bourgeois aspirations, which were also tied inherently to
Christianity and the church.170 However, it is also worth noting that not every bluesman was so
irreligious; some later rejected the blues in favor of religion, often becoming preachers because
there is not much difference in the performance value of blues singing and preaching (Michael
Harris is careful to highlight that fact in his biography of Thomas Andrew Dorsey, while Little
Richard’s continual flip-flopping between religious and rock music presents an obvious later
168 On the specific idea that Johnson was devil-haunted, see Ted Gioia, Delta Blues: The Life and Times of the
Mississippi Masters Who Revolutionized American Music, Kindle Edition, (New York: W. W. Norton and
Company, 2008), Chapter 6. See also Davis, The History of the Blues, Chapter 4. 169 See Paul Oliver, Blues Fell This Morning: Meaning in the Blues, Second Edition, (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1990), 95-265, for an overview with extensive lyrical examples provided. See also Lawson, Jim
Crow’s Counterculture, 23-80. 170 Lawson, Jim Crow’s Counterculture, 17-20.
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example).171 Dorsey demonstrates a facet of the blues-religion connection in his own right, and
there are other aspects of that connection. Jon Michael Spencer’s argument about blues being
essentially spiritual is drawn out, but basically, he sees blues as dealing with fundamental
religious issues, including theodicy (the problem of evil, particularly why it exists at all and why
good people suffer, as in the book of Job), and the issue of morals as well. Blues was a mixture
of African mythology, Christian imagery, and African American life images more generally, and
Spencer points out the moralizing aspects the blues often had, as well as the fact that many
bluesmen traced the blues back to spirituals.172 Spencer also argues that the blues constructed a
mythology/religion of its own, with a blues god that absorbs elements from Christianity as well
as African tradition and stands in for the purely Christian God.173 Spencer presents an argument
that should caution the student of the blues against assuming that it was only the “devil’s music.”
Arguably, the very notion that blues was the devil’s music is an implicit assertion of a Christian
worldview, a recognition of the immorality of certain aspects of the blues lifestyle, not to
mention the casual deployment of Christian ideas even when no other specific reference is made.
Blues, in short, was never entirely divorced from religion. While there were certainly aspects of
it that were distinctly opposed to Christianity, particularly the institutional aspects of churches
(one notable blues song, Son House’s “Preachin’ Blues,” talks about becoming a preacher in
order to avoid work), it was still informed by largely Christian ideas.174 And, of course, it heavily
171 There are several examples of bluesmen who subsequently got involved in religion, particularly preaching, most
notably Charley Patton, Skip James, and the obscure but talented Ishmon (Ishman) Bracey. Son House was a failed
preacher. For a basic analysis, see Spencer, Blues and Evil, 63-67. On Dorsey and the connection between the
bluesman and the preacher, see Michael W. Harris, The Rise of Gospel Blues: The Music of Thomas Andrew Dorsey
in the Urban Church, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 151-179. 172 Spencer, Blues and Evil, 57-67. 173 Ibid, see especially 6-34. 174 For “Preachin’ Blues,” see Lawson, Jim Crow’s Counterculture, 66. The entire lyrics are printed in Sackheim,
The Blues Line, under the title “Preachin’ the Blues,” 212-213.
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influenced the black gospel of Thomas Andrew Dorsey, which spread across the United States
after 1940. Black gospel and blues cannot be disconnected from each other.
Even more obvious than in songs such as “Old Dog Blue” and “Bad Luck Blues,” some
musicians were basically bluesmen whose music had a purely religious message. The difference
from Dorsey is that they did not operate within church structures and did not define their music
as gospel. To critics like Lawson, such musicians would not truly qualify as bluesmen, but the
fact that they have both merited mention in blues books, as well as the fact that their songs are
included in Sackheim’s The Blues Line, a collection of blues lyric transcriptions, is telling. Blind
Gary Davis was a New York-based blues musician, a singer, songwriter and talented guitarist
who also was a somewhat devotedly religious man and served as a minister: he was known as
Reverend Gary Davis, particularly after his retirement from regular blues playing. However,
Davis also taught guitar to a later generation of musicians (although that was later and is
technically beyond the temporal scope of this study).175 Similar to Davis, Blind Willie Johnson
had some success as a bluesman with a religious message. Francis Davis says that although
Johnson’s style was, in effect, pure blues, he performed more hymns than anything else. He was
a very talented slide guitarist (slide guitar being favored among blues performers, particularly in
the Mississippi Delta, although Johnson was from Texas) and performed with incredible emotion
in his bass vocals, sometimes joined by his wife.176 Despite that, his songs had crossover appeal,
as Peter, Paul, and Mary later popularized his song “If I Had My Way.” Johnson recorded briefly
as a young man before dying tragically young in 1947, probably only 45 or 46 when he
succumbed to pneumonia.
175 Harlem Street Singer, directed by Trevor Laurence and Simeon Hutner, featuring Reverend Gary Davis,
(Acoustic Traditions Films, 2013), accessed May 2020, Amazon.com: Prime Video: Prime Video. 176 Davis, The History of the Blues, Kindle Edition, Chapter 3, Location 1616-1625.
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Both Davis’ and Johnson’s songs show some of the same impulses and themes that
animated gospel music. Given the musicians’ personal lives, Davis’ devotion and the fact that
Johnson was quite possibly a “religious maniac,” according to Francis Davis, this is perhaps
unsurprising. Davis balanced the religious and secular aspects of blues music, while Johnson was
apparently more devout despite his bluesy performance style. Still, both had a unique conception
of Christian life. Johnson liked biblical themes, although he had a more fire-and-brimstone
approach to his lyrics than most gospel songs did. Still, some of his songs refer to heaven and
duty in the conventional gospel fashion. Davis’ “Blow Gabriel” talks about the Judgement, the
end times. Most of it is apocalyptic imagery: the “sun’ll start running,” “the moon is bleeding,”
rocks melting, the seas boiling, “graves are busting.” The song ends with the singer saying he is
“gonna meet my father” and “gonna meet my brother.”177 The ambiguity of this is obvious. He
could be talking about his birth father and brother, and the capitalization suggests this, but it is
also a transcription, not an official version from a hymnal or sheet music, which means it could
also be referring to God the Father and Jesus Christ as the singer’s father and brother,
respectively. Both of those are relatively common images in religious song, so it certainly would
not be surprising. “Blow Gabriel” presents a bleaker view than most, but it also presents hope.
Whoever the singer is going to meet, family members or God, it tempers a song that uses
otherwise alarming imagery.
It was that apocalyptic strain that appeared most strongly in Blind Willie Johnson’s
music. Although one of his songs is entitled “I’m Gonna Run to the City of Refuge” and contains
the line “I’m gonna run, I’m gonna run, /I’m gonna run to the city of refuge,” apparently a
reference to heaven, the rest of the song discusses various aspects of Jesus and the apostles,
177 Gary Davis, “Blow Gabriel,” in Sackheim, The Blues Line, 352.
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conversion, and other theological miscellany. If anything, the song articulates a rather gospel-
like conception of grace in the sense of conversion, but like most black gospel it still emphasizes
difficulty. One verse goes:
And let me tell you sinner
If you want to join His band
Well you got to be converted
And give the preacher your hand.178
It emphasizes the fact that the listener is a sinner more than God’s mercy as such, with both the
personal focus on the believer and the emphasis on difficulty so common in the black gospel
description of grace, even though that word was not used specifically. Later the song mentions
“struggling hard. . . Try to stay at Jesus’ hand.” Elsewhere, Johnson emphasizes the need for
right living, in a song about the flu, even referring explicitly to the bible with the Book of
Zacharias (better known as Zechariah) about people in the cities dying because of “their wicked
ways.” Here wickedness is directly equated with punishment, something rarer in gospel song
itself, but common enough in the blues. Still, gospel’s essential conception of both salvation and
duty was a call to right living, especially in black gospel, and as such that should not be
surprising in the blues either. Gary Davis articulated an even clearer conception of duty in his
song “You Got to Go Down.” The song features, according to its transcription, verse/choruses
with spoken interludes. The song covers the idea that a person has to learn how to properly treat
others. It lists different people and the way a person should treat them: everyone, then a wife’s
husband, then how a person should act while around children, then a husband’s wife
(“companion” is the word used), and finally a drunkard. In each case, the song enjoins the
listener to “go down,” to change his/her life (“the life that you’re living won’t do to trust,”).179
178 Blind Willie Johnson, “I’m Gonna Run to the City of Refuge,” in Sackheim, The Blues Line, 96-97. 179 Gary Davis, “You Got to Go Down,” in Sackheim, The Blues Line, 350-351.
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Here we see a combination of the Christian conception of duty, of treating others properly, along
with the association of that with salvation. The idea of changing the person’s life also suggests
the conversion experience related to the idea of grace. In short, one has to do right by others in
order to reach heaven. This is a rather unique conception of duty and salvation, combining a
couple ideas in a way that gospel songs rarely did.
All this raises the question of why the same themes that ran through gospel appeared
across the spectrum of American popular songs as well. Why was gospel reflective of the
broader ethos of both American religions and aspects of American racial relations and
experiences for its citizenry? Or to frame it another way, the issue is why gospel and the
appearance of its themes becomes important. The most obvious answer, though not an entirely
satisfying one, is that gospel music was popular. There is little that can be done to dispute that
fact; Charles Albert Tindley’s music gained some currency in black churches, and Dorsey’s
gospel blues had spread across the country, and even into white churches, by 1940. White
gospel, meanwhile, had developed an extensive industrial infrastructure across the South, buoyed
by sheet music sales and quartets, who performed company music for promotional purposes but,
by 1940, were also becoming increasingly professionalized as well as popular. The time soon
arrived when the quartets reached beyond their company roots and attained widespread
popularity, a process already somewhat underway by 1940, although the best days of the quartets
came later, in the 1940s and 1950s. Meanwhile, hymnals were full of the earlier gospel songs,
the Sankey hymns, the lyrics of Fanny Crosby, James Rowe and their contemporaries. Those
songs too transcended racial lines, as Gospel Pearls, the first black gospel hymnal, contained
dozens of songs by those eminent white composers and lyricists. Gospel had appeal of a certain
popular kind: as I have already argued, it was mass music. It appealed primarily to the lower
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classes. Crosby’s lyrics were emotional and set to songs that were essentially popular in style at
their time (they would most likely sound simply like hymns to a modern listener). Tindley’s
songs were simple and rooted in black musical traditions, and Dorsey’s songs were basically
blues. The point is that the songs would not appeal to more discerning listeners, but as revival
music (the white songs) or as part of rural southern as well as northern storefront churches
(Dorsey) the songs were firmly rooted in the religious and socioeconomic lower class. As such
they had wide appeal, but as I have argued that is not enough to fully explain the gospel
phenomenon. Instead, both the style of the songs and the implication of their lyrics played a
more complex role, as the relation of gospel to popular songs should show.
The spillover of gospel themes to popular songs, the images of heaven, the emphases on
different aspects of grace and duty, as well as the racialized aspects of popular music, suggest
that gospel had a similar role to play, albeit a subtler one, in fomenting both religious and racial
identity in its performers and especially in its listeners. Popular music, in its style and especially
in the structure of the music industry and the images of race deployed within popular songs,
reinforced segregation, at least far more than it challenged it. Popular songs deployed racial
stereotypes with alarming regularity; in fact, even most “coon songs” were caricatures written by
white composers and lyricists rather than anything that legitimately represented black music or
culture. Conversely, the popularization of hillbilly music in the 1920s and onward served to
reinforce negative stereotypes about southern whites as well. Such music, then, reinforced
segregation but also reinforced regional and class division. It also, however, helped define the
identity of its listeners, as did the more legitimately endemic forms of music, blues for blacks
and folk/country songs for whites. These songs articulated, through their lyrics, a sense of
identity tied to the listener’s experiences. And through their deployment of religious themes that
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echoed what appeared in gospel, they reinforced religious aspects of the listener’s identity as
well. Even popular songs could do that, to some extent, since caricature proved popular even
among its victims. The religious themes of gospel reflected broader strains of religious and social
thought in American life, and so they also appeared strongly in popular music. Heaven, or
salvation, reflected both a promise of escape from the difficulties of life and an affirmation that
good conduct, the living of a good life, had value. However, as I have argued, even the same
imagery of heaven had different associations for white and black listeners, elements of nostalgia
for whites as opposed to promise and complex ambiguous associations for blacks. Duty and
grace were likewise presented in similar terms but with more personal emphases in black gospel,
as opposed to relating outward to others, both God and other people, in white gospel. More to the
point, for the most part this relation seems to have persisted in black and white popular music.
Black conceptions of duty were still related, even when they affected others, to the personal life
of the believer. White music, by contrast, tended to lean more into the sentimental side of things,
even when it related to concepts like grace or duty. While not completely hard and fast, the
divisions between white and black gospel remained in force even when the concepts appeared in
popular music.
Part of this relates, as I have argued, to the differing experiences of white and black
Americans. The difference is partly a matter of white privilege and partly a matter of differing
theology and the socioeconomic differences (as well as similarities) of the main people who
wrote as well as listened to and performed black and white gospel music. Gospel was rooted in
the religion and lives of the people who wrote and listened to it. But there is something more to
that. There is something to Douglas Harrison’s argument that gospel achieved widespread appeal
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not through vagueness so much as the ability to be applied personally to a believer’s life.180
Gospel, then, allowed people to articulate their identity in the same way blues and folk music did
for black and white musicians and listeners. The genius of gospel was that black and white
gospel used similar imagery and ideas, but also employed slightly different understandings that
spoke to racialized aspects of the listeners’ experiences. Gospel was, like popular forms, racially
coded, in its lyrics and also in its performance style, but it did not necessarily have to be, as the
appearance of black songs in white hymnals and vice versa demonstrates. As a result, gospel
music has never just been about religion. It has aspects of popular culture, is informed by
socioeconomic and even sometimes political conditions, and is informed by race, which is
inextricably connected to everything else. Ideas of race do not entirely dominate gospel, but it
cannot be understood fully without them, something that other scholars have recognized, but that
no one has yet taken the time to address meaningfully. In gospel we see that a racialized group
identity, ideas, were communicated through the lyrics, even through conventional images like
heaven. It was that appeal to experiences that made gospel meaningful to listeners.
In short, gospel is important because it is a sign of its time, place, and the people who
listened to and performed it. Through gospel music, the insight offered is not just into religion,
but into broader aspects of the lives and consciousness of its listeners. Group identity was
defined in some way through gospel, beyond simply its aspects of religion. Gospel’s imagery
was religious, but the images also spoke to the lived experience of its listeners, both white and
black. Hence white gospel offered assurance of salvation, while black gospel generally did so,
but stressed that it would not be easy for the listener. And while gospel was essentially religious,
180 Harrison of all people should know, something he stresses in his monograph. Harrison is gay and a secular
humanist, not having been a Christian since his late youth, but has never given up his devotion to southern gospel.
Harrison, Then Sings My Soul, 17-20.
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one did not have to be religious to enjoy the songs, which in fact bridged the perceived divide
between sacred and secular (as with Dorsey). Gospel, then, could give a pronounced sense of
group consciousness through its performance in church and its audience listening to it in other
venues and media (concerts and records/radio). Gospel could also be a mark of belonging to the
South through its musical style, although that was not necessarily exclusive (Tindley’s
Philadelphia church, for example). Gospel was, as I have argued, music of the Southern
Diaspora, and much of its appeal lay in that fact.
Through its racially coded language and performance style, gospel affirmed group
identity even as it ambiguously crossed racial lines. It could mean something to anyone, even if
specific songs were meant to be understood in certain ways. In that way, it was an affirmation of
group identity but also transcended any specific group, even though it grew increasingly insular
in performance style and intended audience. Ultimately, that is why gospel is important from a
racial perspective. It provides a window into both the racial aspects of identity and the way those
could be broken down or at least blurred by use. The same phenomenon was true of popular
music, with blues finding some white listeners and black listeners enjoying styles beyond black
music. The messages of gospel could also find their way into such music, speaking specifically
to people who would understand them in given ways, but also reaching others through the spread
of the music. Ultimately, Charles Johnson was both right and wrong when he said that gospel,
good news, had no color. It was meant, articulated, and understood in different ways by different
people, especially along racial lines, but in that it was not confined by color it did not have color.
Like the popular music that also contained its message and imagery, gospel is an ambiguous but
potent mixture of racially coded messages and meanings that could be applied helpfully by any
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listener. It is really no wonder it became so popular, but much remains to be done to see just how
gospel and its imagery influenced and were influenced by the lives of their listeners.
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Conclusion
This study concludes around the year 1940, for reasons of convenience as well as logic.
Of course the history of gospel music, both black and white, continued after 1940, and in fact
both hit their highest points after 1940. Black gospel began making broader inroads with church
and popular audiences in the 1940s and 1950s: Dorsey’s music publishing efforts were reaching
audiences across the nation by 1940, and black gospel performers, both individual performers
like Mahalia Jackson and Rosetta Tharpe and groups like the Ward Singers and the Soul Stirrers
(a quartet in which Sam Cooke was the lead singer for a couple years) attained considerable
popularity among both churchgoing and less overtly religious audiences.181 Scholars have also
pointed to the increasing influence of gospel music on popular music starting in the 1960s and
continuing after that.182 There are obvious and less obvious examples of such influence. Sam
Cooke, who abandoned gospel for popular songs before his tragically premature death is perhaps
the most obvious example, alongside singers who began in the gospel tradition or were at least
heavily influenced by it (Aretha Franklin and Ray Charles respectively).183 The musical
influence of gospel is harder to chart, but it made itself felt in various elements of soul, funk, and
disco, especially performance practices. Less scholarly space has been devoted to contemporary
181 On the Ward Singers, see Anthony Heilbut, The Gospel Sound: Good News and Bad Times, 25th Anniversary
Edition, Kindle Edition, (New York: Limelight Editions, 1997), Chapter 6. On Rosetta Tharpe, see Jerma A Jackson,
Singing in my Soul: Black Gospel Music in a Secular Age (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press,
2004), especially 77-102 but throughout the book. On Mahalia Jackson, see Mark Buford, Mahalia Jackson & the
Black Gospel Field, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019). 182 See, for example, Martha Bayles, Hole In Our Soul: The Loss of Beauty and Meaning in American Popular
Music, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994). Bayles’ book focuses on black music’s influence on American
popular music, and refers to gospel throughout, especially from pg. 123 on. 183 On Cooke, see Heilbut, The Gospel Sound, Kindle Edition, Chapters 5 and 7.
80
black gospel, so a sense of how it stands today is much harder to glean than it is for white gospel,
but all the same black gospel remains popular.
White gospel’s history has been better tracked by scholars, largely owing to the
significance of the scope of its listenership. The years after 1940 were good for white gospel
music: radio allowed quartets (as well as other mixed gospel groups) to reach wide audiences,
and by the 1950s gospel had also proven that it worked well in the medium of television.
Quartets were quite popular well into the 1960s, and a number of them had great commercial
success.184 The 1970s saw the establishment of the southern gospel hall of fame, cementing its
industrial infrastructure, although the 1970s and 1980s were also a period of some fragmentation
within the white gospel industry. Differing conceptions of how white gospel was to move
forward and operate, scandals over the personal lives of some of the performers, and sundry
other issues plagued white gospel’s infrastructure.185 However, the Homecoming television
series, started in 1991 by Bill Gaither, himself a successful gospel performer and songwriter,
gave white gospel a new lease on life, drawing in older performers, many of whom were past
their prime and largely forgotten by contemporary audiences, as well as younger performers. It
started out as an informal performance of gospel songs and other religious music by old gospel
stars, and quickly turned into a concert/talk show. The Homecoming series has, predictably,
drawn some scholarly attention, but its most notable features have been its longevity and
popularity. Millions of self-avowed southern gospel fans have watched the series and collected
184 On these years, see James R. Goff Jr., Close Harmony: A History of Southern Gospel (Chapel Hill: The
University of North Carolina Press, 2002), 157-217, which includes a breakdown of the styles and careers of many
of the most popular quartets and non-quartet groups. 185 On this period, see ibid, 223-282. See also Douglas Harrison, Then Sings My Soul: The Culture of Southern
Gospel Music, (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2012), 80-109 for a different take on those years, focusing
on popular influences and racial aspects as well as the institutional changes in white gospel.
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the videos and/or the songbooks that Gaither published as part of it.186 It has essentially defined a
generation of gospel listeners. Other aspects of white/southern gospel remain popular too,
including live concerts. Fans of southern gospel generally say they prefer it to other forms of
music, and identify the religious message as the single most appealing part of it.187 Southern
gospel, in other words, is more appealing to listeners because it is gospel than because it is
necessarily southern, although the music itself undoubtedly plays a role in that too. Listeners
claim that the feelings the music invokes are the main reason it is so appealing, so it is hard to
deny that the music itself, even if that does not define the genre, is critically important.
Apart from racial coding, this speaks more broadly to the very issues inherent in gospel.
As my argument has shown, racism was inherent within gospel, in the sentiments it expressed, in
the general practice of gospel performance. It is worth noting that while black gospel and white
gospel are similar in certain respects, they were also inherently unequal from the beginning.
White gospel was able to commandeer an extensive shape note publishing industry that had
already been established for some time, whereas black gospel publishing had to establish itself
basically from the ground up. Dorsey and Tindley both published their own music, as did Lucie
Eddie Campbell. White composers, by contrast, never had to publish their own music.
Composers like Brumley and even lyricists like Fanny Crosby were generally able to work
through established channels, having less effort of their own to put into disseminating their
music. Black gospel, it should be noted, started out at an essential disadvantage. Tindley had a
large church at which he often performed his music, but even that tended to make for only
186 On Gaither and Homecoming, the clearest source is Harrison, Then Sings My Soul, 110-136. Different aspects are
analyzed in several of the essays in Michael P. Graves and David Fillingim, eds., More Than Precious Memories:
The Rhetoric of Southern Gospel Music, (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2004). 187 On specifics of listener reasons for enjoying and preferring southern gospel, see J. D. Keeler, “Why Do They
Love Southern Gospel Music? An Audience Study of the Bill Gaither Nostalgic Concert Video Presentations,” in
More Than Precious Memories, edited by Graves and Fillingim, 201-234.
82
regional exposure. Tindley still had to publish his music himself to achieve any kind of wider
circulation. As such, while this study has assumed the essential equivalency of black and white
gospel, the nature of that equivalency is cultural far more than structural. Both were expressive
of the socioeconomic and religious milieu of their writers and listeners.
This fact was, of course, reflected in the message of both white and black gospel and
popular song. While both employed the same images, black gospel in general tended to focus far
more on the difficulties inherent in living a Christian life and in reaching heaven, and the
believer’s need to focus on him/herself before others (as in grace and duty, for example). White
gospel, on the other hand, tended to focus far more on the essential assurance of salvation as
opposed to the need to do anything in the present (as Fillingim attests), appealing to a conception
of grace and salvation far more rooted in faith than works, but also attesting to a certain sense of
privilege. Heaven was not conceived differently per se, but how one got there was often seen as
different in comparison to black gospel. Similarly, in descriptions of grace and duty, white
gospel tended to focus outward more than black gospel, on the effect a believer could have on
others rather than the importance of personal behavior. In short, according to white gospel the
believer received all of the benefits and none of the hardships associated with living a religious
life and could even turn those benefits outward to others. In this, then, gospel is demonstrative of
broader racial realities in American life. White gospel reflects the position of its listeners, namely
their ability to act with relative impunity, even if many of the listeners were poor southern
whites, the “white trash” who were so universally reviled. Black gospel reflected the fact that
nothing came easily to the writers or listeners, on account of their race: the emphasis on
difficulties and hardships makes that clear.
83
Gospel is, of course, only one manifestation of these broader threads within American
life, and they can be seen in popular music as well as elsewhere, if one simply looks for them.
However, the message that gospel conveys not just about religion but also about race, and how it
informed the way people looked at other issues makes it particularly insightful. There is much
left to be done in the study of gospel, given that the scholarship on it is so sparse. The racialized
aspects of gospel, its message and music, remain ripe for comparison, beyond what I have done.
I have only scratched the surface, particularly with the temporal scope of my project. Much
remains to be done about gospel music, both white and black, in the years after 1940, and
certainly an extension of the comparative approach to white and back gospel in that period would
go some way to eating up that gap. But there is far more unmined potential in gospel, particularly
in aspects of its listenership. Too little has been done on the audience and broader religious and
social milieu of gospel music. The focus has remained largely biographical, or institutional with
a focus on the gospel music industry’s infrastructure. A broader look at gospel would illuminate
not just more about gospel itself and American religious music, but more about American
religion and life in general. Gospel has been and remains strikingly popular, mostly but not
entirely among religious listeners. The term has also grown more encompassing recently, with
the lines between gospel and other forms of Christian popular music blurring (although not
disappearing entirely). Too often the inclination has seemed to be to divorce gospel from its
audience, and it cannot be fully understood otherwise. If this study is perhaps one step in those
directions, both of bringing gospel’s audience into the scholarly conversation and highlighting
the racialized aspects of black and white gospel, there is certainly much, very much more that
can be done. Studying gospel for its own sake is interesting to enthusiasts, but the insights that
can be gained are far greater.
84
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