Dr. Eileen Guenther is Professor of Church Music at Wesley Theological Seminary and Professorial Lecturer in music at The George Washington University. An organ recitalist who has performed around the world, Dr. Guenther also lectures widely on clergy-musician relations, global music, spirituals, and music and social justice. She has served as visiting lecturer at Africa University in Zimbabwe and taught music and worship in Uganda and Ivory Coast. Many in our country know little of the history of Africans in America: how they came to be here, the horrific conditions in which many lived, or their modes of resistance and other techniques needed to survive the brutality of their daily life. Her book, In Their Own Words: Slave Life and The Power of Spirituals, attempts to bridge that gap by setting forth the context of their lives and offering a sense of the challenges that were overcome and that, in some ways, still face Black Americans today. In Their Own Words also gives a clear picture of the power of music to engender both hope and faith in a situation where there would have been seemingly no reason for either of them to have existed, much less flourish.