In the view of many people, the American South is a complex phenomenon.
One aspect of its complexity is that cultures brought there from Africa
and Europe interacted with one another despite efforts to keep them
separate, and so African Americans and European Americans have assimilated
to a certain extent, and adapted similar religious traditions. Yet,
though some congregations are now integrated, especially the Full Gospel
churches, religious life in the South continues to be divided along
racial lines. The assertion that 11:00 a.m. on Sunday morning is the
most segregated hour in American society is probably as valid today
as it ever was. However, the segregated nature of Southern religion
is one that African Americans and other ethnic groups chose, in order
to worship not only with a sense of dignity and independence but also
in their own style.
outside Bethlehem No. 2 Missionary Baptist Church, Shaw, Mississippi.
Photo © Tom Rankin
This article attempts to examine briefly the richness and diversity
of worship experiences in the Mississippi Delta. Looking at oratory,
music, ritual, and sacred spaces also helps us understand what Anglo-
and African-American sacred folk traditions have in common and where
SINGING THE WORD
The tradition of Southern oratory includes roaring campaign speeches
from the back of a pickup truck as well as "fire and brimstone"
preaching at a backwoods church revival. The central figure in the religious
oratory folk community is the preacher. An indispensable part of his
art and skill is to be able to respond to, engage, and raise spiritual
energies during the performance of a sermon without a written text.
Where the sermon was first chanted, and by whom, is very difficult to
determine. Bruce Rosenberg places the background of present-day fundamentalist
beliefs and the chanted spiritual sermon in the 19th century by relating
them to the Second Great Awakening of 1800-1801. Certainly the Great
Awakening ushered in the age of the informal folk preachers in America
and did much to modify the image of the clergy. In fact, the clerical
profession in general has not been the same since the spiritual services
took to the brush arbors and camp meetings.
It is probable that the Great Awakening provided African-American preachers
their first significant public exposure; however, their preaching style
and long, colorful, narrative prayers had been developed earlier, during
the institution of slavery. The chanted sermon style - once held to
be altogether European in origin - has historic precedents in several
West, Central, East, and South African groups. Because many African
cultures emphasize oral tradition, the artful manipulation of "the
word" (from precolonial epics of the West African griot to playing
the dozens or rapping in the streets) is a highly prized skill among
people of African descent. Although both African Americans and Anglo
Americans perform the folk chanted sermons - and may go beyond chanting
to actually singing - the tradition has been most fully developed in
the African-American community.
Timing is a vital factor in the building of the sermon, which normally
begins in prose and moves into metrical verse. The rhythm of the lines
must be properly maintained throughout the performance for it to be
effective, and the congregation+s response, often in terms of call-and-response,
plays a key role in the rhythmic structure of the sermon. The preacher's
individual style - his preference for particular melodies, rhythms,
formulaic expressions, and themes - continually recreates the tradition.
SONGS OF THE SPIRIT
Another important aspect of worship is, of course, music. Spirituals,
the sacred folk songs created by enslaved African Americans during the
ante-bellum era, are still being performed in their traditional a cappella
(unaccompanied) style in many rural African-American churches. Urban
churches have added piano accompaniment as well as other forms of instrumentation,
and spirituals have also been arranged as gospel songs.
Rev. Lionell Wilson leads the "rocking" procession
and carries the banner which symbolizes the cross. The table is ornamented
with twelve lamps representing the twelve disciples and twelve cakes
representing the twelve tribes of Israel. This sacred ritual takes place
in the Winnsboro community in the Louisana Delta region. Photo
© Nash Porte
Although Anglo- and African-American Baptists in the Delta
rarely share their pews, they do share some of their hymns. Common to
both churches is the lining-out style of the Dr. Watts and other long-meter
hymns (Dr. Isaac Watts was an 18th-century English Methodist hymn writer).
Lining-out is a hymn-singing tradition that arose out of necessity.
There was a lack of hymn books and an abundance of people who could
not read; therefore, one person was designated to 'pitch' the song for
the whole congregation. Both African and Anglo Americans practice this
tradition in different performance styles. In the Anglo tradition the
congregation sings almost the exact melody and rhythms of the leader,
with some variation from individual singers; in the African-American
tradition, the lead voice and congregation overlap melodically and rhythmically
and decorate the hymn tunes with various vocal embellishments and moans.
This produces an extraordinary effect sometimes called surge singing.
In many churches this style is still performed a cappella.
Members of a shape-note singing convention perform
at Union Chapel Baptist Church in Monroe, Louisana. Shape-note singing
is a system of notated music commonly using four or seven shapes in
lieu of the round notes found in statndard European notation. This singing
school system facilitates learning the music by note. Photo © J. Nash Porter.
Another style of religious music still prevalent today
in the Delta is sacred harp, in which a system of four shapes - a triangle,
circle, square, and diamond - is employed to designate the musical syllables
fa, sol, la, and mi (shape-note singing is also called fasola singing).
This system, a popular and effective way of teaching people to "read"
music, was an outgrowth of the New England singing school movement and
the Great Awakening. Published in Philadelphia in 1801, William Little's
The Easy Instructor, or A New Method of Teaching Sacred Harmony
introduced the shape-note system to the general public. Later in
the 19th century the publication of books employing the shape-note system
began to spread south. William Walder's Southern Harmony (1835)
and Benjamin White and B.J. King's The Sacred Harp (1844) have
been two of the most widely used.
The Anglo-American sacred harp singing conventions that take place in
the Delta are usually all-day affairs, and everybody is expected to
participate in these religious social events. What follows the singing
is another tradition - "dinner-on-the-grounds," a communal
feast contributed to by all participants. Most of the singing is still
done a cappella with the hymns sung first using the "fasola"
The Oldham Family quartet is a sacred English/ Scots/ Irish group
based in the First Church of God in Oak Grove, Louisana. The group sings
hymns learned in singing school with the seven-note system. Photo
© Susan Roach
Although shape-note singing has been called White spiritual
and White gospel singing, the system was adapted by certain African-American
congregations in the South during the 1880s using texts of songs drawn
from old hymns, gospel songs, and a few spirituals. There is only one
collection of African-American sacred harp compositions, The Colored
Sacred Harp (1934) by Judge Jackson.
The African American Shape Note and Vocal Music Singing Convention
Directory for Mississippi and Areas of Northeast Alabama was published
through the efforts and coordination of Chiquita Willis to "foster
and support a network of African-American shape-note music singers and
supporters that will facilitate interaction among conventions."
In August 1993, nearly 300 people, including delegations from twenty
different singing conventions, attended the two-day West Harmony Singing
Convention held at Pleasant Grove First Baptist Church in Grenada County,
Mississippi. This convention and the work of Chiquita Willis have demonstrated
that Mississippi has a much larger, more widespread shape-note tradition
than previously thought.
Among the various African-American shape-note singing groups in the
Louisiana Delta area are the Winnsboro Senior Citizen Singers and Mr.
and Mrs. Orland Johnson, a singing couple from Start, Louisiana. They
participate along with other groups, most of whom sing a cappella, in
the parish-wide, state, and regional convention and singing schools.
The shape-note singing conventions also led to the formation of some
a cappella gospel quartets. The Oldham Family from West Carroll Parish
in Louisiana is an English/Scots/Irish quartet that sings hymns learned
in shape-note singing schools with the newer seven-note shape-note system.
A number of African-American quartets in the Delta started with the
shape-note system as well. The Pleasant Star Singers (formed in 1946),
one of the oldest a cappella quartets in the Winnsboro, Louisiana, area,
still sing with the singing conventions. The Convention Specials Quartet
(with members from various Delta parishes), the Mighty Soul Guides,
and the Royal Newtown Spiritual Quartet from Monroe can usually be found
at church programs and quartet anniversaries.
Gospel music has contributed tremendously to the Mississippi Delta region's
unique musical heritage. This new sacred music of the 20th century reflects
the concerns of urban life and to a large extent has replaced other
sacred styles like the folk spiritual and the Dr. Watts hymn. In the
African-American community during the 1920s the gospel tradition began
to emerge in small, urban, Pentecostal "storefront" churches,
then gradually in Baptist churches. Now the genre has found its way
into the sanctuaries of African-American congregations of virtually
every religious denomination, including Catholic.
When Anglo-American settlers moved into the Delta, they brought with
them their fiddling, ballad-singing, and sacred music traditions. Their
gospel music can be found in performances of gospel quartets, family
and community groups, and country and bluegrass bands. Many of these
styles are rooted in the shape-note singing tradition.
Though country and bluegrass music differ in their themes and instruments,
bands from both genres usually perform sacred songs. You can also find
an occasional sacred instrumental band in the Delta. Rev. Gerald Lewis,
who grew up in Ferriday, Louisiana, plays gospel piano in his Pentecostal
Band and built a ministry in several rural churches in Swartz, Louisiana.
His cousins Jerry Lee Lewis, Mickey Gilley, and Jimmy Swaggart took
that small-town background and musical skill to the top of the rock
and roll, country, and television evangelism fields.
Rites of passage such as birth, death, and marriage mark a change in
a person"s socioreligious position. Baptism in the Delta region,
a symbolic ritual of purification and initiation, is a significant rite
of passage. As late as the 1950s, river submersion was common in both
African- and Anglo-American Protestant churches but continues today
primarily among African Americans.
Nowadays, after their week-long annual revival, Rev. L.D. Oliver, pastor
of St. Paul Baptist Church in Monroe, Louisiana, and Rev. Roosevelt
Wright, Jr., pastor of the Tabernacle Baptist Church, gather their congregations
together for the river baptism. In this setting the old, traditional
spirituals such as "Take Me to the River," "I Know I've
Got Religion," and "Wade in the Water" are sung. Rev.
Oliver works to remind other area ministers and youth about their heritage
of river baptism from the biblical example set by John the Baptist baptizing
Christ in the Jordan River.
Rituals involving immersion in bodies of water are also prevalent in
traditional African religious ceremonies. They are symbolic of purification,
washing away evil and healing the physical as well as the spiritual
being. The ritual act of immersion carries the hope of renewal and freedom,
ideas that have driven African-American spirituality.
The ministers in Rayville and Alto still take their congregations to
the nearby Beouf River, and in Monroe the Ouachita River at the Foot
of Pine Street has been used for several generations. This sacred place
is called by the elders of the community the Old Burying Ground, an
appropriate name for the place of ritual baptism in which "the
candidate is symbolically buried in Christ, sins are washed away, and
one is raised up to walk in newness of life."
Another sacred ritual that takes place in rural African-American Baptist
churches in northern Louisiana is the Easter Rock ceremony held on the
eve of Easter Sunday. In this ritual the elders sing some of the old
traditional spirituals such as "Oh, When the Saints Go Marching
In" and "King David." The songs are sung in a chant-like
manner, as the participants move counterclockwise with circular rocking
movements around a table placed in the middle of the church floor. Dr.
Watts and other long-meter hymns such as "I Know the Lord Will
Answer Prayer" and "I Love the Lord, He Heard My Cry"
are also very prominent in the context of the Easter Rock. The congregants
dress in white, and the leader carries a circular banner representing
the cross. The table is decorated with white tablecloths, and twelve
lamps and twelve cakes, representing the twelve disciples and twelve
tribes of Israel. The Easter eggs on the table symbolize new birth.
This ritual clearly has African and Caribbean antecedents; there are
many accounts of sacred circular dances throughout the African diaspora.
Some of the elderly Delta participants recalled their parents remembering
the tradition as pre-dating the Civil War. The "rock" had
vanished for awhile, then certain individuals became interested in the
history and began to revive the tradition. The ritual has been passed
on by the Addison family for many generations. Now Hattie Addison coordinates
the Winnsboro Easter Rock, and people from various congregations in
the area participate. The Original True Light Baptist Church, pastored
by Rev. J.L. McDowell, is ideal for the "rock" because its
wooden floors contribute to the percussive effect, and movable pews
make room to "rock" in a circle. The whole ceremony is done
a cappella; only hand clapping and foot stamping accompany the songs.
Easter Rocks were once held around Ferriday, Louisiana, in Clayton and
Sicily Island; however, those have not been organized in the last few
The religious experiences of many people are tied to specific places
where rituals are performed. Some people also construct personal sacred
space to their own specifications.
On Old U.S. 61 in Kings, Mississippi, just outside of Vicksburg, one
man's sacred space has been under construction for several years. Rev.
Herman Dennis is spreading the word of God not only through his spontaneous
sermons but also through his craftsmanship.
Dennis has decorated Margaret's Grocery Store (belonging to his wife)
in red and white brick with large brick columns of varying size. All
bear bits and pieces of biblical phrases and messages that travelers
can read. He has also placed reproductions of various symbolic designs
in very strategic places. For example, on the wall, ceiling, and the
sidewalk he has placed the Masonic order symbol of the "G,"
which to him represents God.
To the right of the grocery store is a large brick tower where he plans
to house the Ark of the Covenant, which will eventually contain the
Ten Commandments. Then, he believes, Margaret's Grocery Store will attract
people of all Christian faiths to worship. Dennis believes that God,
like himself, is a builder or a "craftsman." "The Almighty
is the greatest architect," he says, :"and I am his assistant."
These genres of worship in the Delta constantly reunite a region by
reminding it of its shared but multifocal heritage. Worship traditions
are shaped by a collective and selective memory. Decisions are made
by regarding fundamental and shared values. To participate in traditional
worship traditions is to relive that past and to make it a source of
power for the future of the Delta.
Joyce Marie Jackson, an ethnomusicologist and folklorist, is Associate
Professor in the Department of Geography and Anthropology at Louisiana
State University in Baton Rouge. She received her Ph.D. from Indiana
University, Bloomington. She has been a Rockefeller Fellow and has produced
The Gospel Train: Zion Travelers Spiritual Singers, a documentary
recording on the a cappella quartet tradition. Her book, From These
Roots, which also focuses on the a cappella quartet tradition, is
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