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The Negro and His Music
(Locke) /
The
Spiritual and the Blues: An
Interpretation (Cone) /
Best Loved Spirituals (Mahalia)
The Book of the American Negro Spirituals (Johnson) /
American Negro Songs: Folk Songs and Spirituals (Work)
Deep River and The Negro Spiritual Speaks of Life and Death
(Thurman)
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Black Affirmation Through Song
Reviewed by Cornish Rogers At a time when some so-called black
theologians are beginning to “universalize” their systems of
thought (thereby reducing their dependence on a peculiarly black
experimental base), James Cone continues to inform and
illuminate his theology by exploring the common experiences of
black people, as voiced in song and story. Cone’s belief that
the black spirituals and blues are significant cultural and
historical expressions of the black ethos has led him to
examine, in this small volume, their sociological and
theological implications.
Having made a cursory survey of what others
have written about the spirituals, Cone scores critics who
dismiss them as escapist songs based on white musical forms and
white fundamentalist “pie-in-the-sky” theologies. He
disagrees also with scholars who view the spirituals as
political documents devoid of transcendent dimensions. He takes
exception even to Howard Thurman’s thoroughgoing religious
interpretation and suggests that Thurman does not go far enough
toward acknowledging the serious theological content of
spirituals. Cone contends that Benjamin May’ theological
analysis reflects a too-narrow sociological viewpoint. In fact,
only W.E.B. DuBois’ views are accorded his unconditional
approval.
Central to Cone’s own interpretation is his
conviction that a very evident theme of liberation pervades the
spirituals. “So far from being songs of passive resignation,
the spirituals are black freedom songs which emphasize black
liberation as consistent with divine revelation.” Through the
skillful use of illustrations from the spirituals, he
convincingly demonstrates that “the theological assumption of
black slave religion as expressed in the spirituals was that
slavery contradicts God, and he will therefore liberate black
people.”
But, Cone adds, the spirituals do not provide
a simplistic or escapist solution. Black suffering is faced
honestly and realistically in the spirituals; there is no
attempt to explain it away or to dismiss it as unimportant.
Rather, these songs gave a theological perspective to suffering
– as expressed, for example, in the line “I’m so glad that
trouble don’t last always.” Cone likens the spirituals’
treatment of the problem of suffering to that of the Old
Testament books of Job and Habbakuk. Christian hope, he says,
“is a vision and promise for the poor, the sick and the
weak.” In this regard he excoriates those white theologians
who have promulgated a theology of hope based on “theological
abstractions” rather than on the sufferings of the oppressed.
Cone’s artful interpretation of the blues
owes much to the existential cast of his theology. He cuts
through the sexual and personal-conflict imagery of the blues to
characterize the songs. Charley Patton called those “mean black
moans” as poignant attempts by blacks after slavery to affirm
their “somebodiness” in the cauldron of a white racist
society without pointing to a transcendent referent. These
“secular spirituals,” according to Cone, “are about black
life and the sheer earth and gut capacity to survive in an
extreme situation of oppression.” Through songs notable for
their beat and their utter truthfulness, the blues singers
sought not to escape their world but to make black life bearable. Once, disputing the white racist myth that
blacks are no more than animals, Big Bill (William Lee Conoley)
Broonzy asked, “You never seen a mule sing, have you?”
In
Cone’s view it is this affirmation of black existence through
the power of song that connects the blues theologically with
spirituals: “The blues tell us about a people who refused to
accept the absurdity of white society. Black people rebelled
artistically, and affirmed through ritual, pattern, and form
that they were human beings.”
In summary, Cone sees the blues as the vehicle by which
black people sought to deliver themselves through song from the
oppressiveness of the existential moment; spirituals, on the
other hand, promised liberation to blacks through the agency of
the transcendent in their midst. This book represents another
step in James Cone’s continuing search through black
experience for a deeper explication of his black theology of
liberation.
Bill Moyers and James Cone (Interview)
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Books by James Cone
God of the Oppressed
/
A Black Theology of Liberation /
For My People, Black Theology and the Black
Church
Martin & Malcolm & America: A Dream or a Nightmare (1992)
/
Black Theology and Black Power
Risks of Faith: The Emergence of a Black Theology of
Liberation, 1968-1998 /
The
Spiritual and the Blues: An
Interpretation
Black Theology: A Documentary History: Volume Two: 1980-1992
/
My Soul Looks Back
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Source: Christian Century (September 20, 1972)* *
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James H. Cone
Charles A.
Briggs Distinguished Professor of Systematic Theology at Union Theological
Seminary, New York. His many books include
A Black
Theology of Liberation;
God of the Oppressed; Martin & Malcolm & America: A Dream
or Nightmare? and My Soul
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