Perelman American Roots
Thank you for joining us in our exploration of African American song.
The Perelman American Roots program was designed and originally published in conjunction with Honor! A Celebration of the African American Cultural Legacy, a Carnegie Hall festival that took place in March 2009 and was curated by Jessye Norman.
The curriculum looks at African American spirituals and some of their appearances in gospel music and modern dance. These songs have historically provided a means by which dreams can be realized, prayers can be answered, burdens can be cast off, people can be united, and freedom can become a reality.
Jump to section:
Lessons
Lesson 2: Religion and Black Americans
Explore with students the role of religion in the lives, culture, and songs of Black Americans.
Lesson 3: Spirituals in the Struggle for Civil Rights
Explore with students the role of spirituals during the Civil Rights movement.
Lesson 5: Spirituals in Modern Dance
Explore dance in Black American song with your students.
Timeline of African American Music
Learn more about spirituals in Carnegie Hall’s Timeline of African American Music.
Background on the language used in this curriculum
Many of the historical sources mentioned in this curriculum make use of outdated language to describe the Black experience in America. In the case of several mentions of the noun “slave” we have endeavored to keep the original language in these quotes out of respect for historical accuracy, but also acknowledge per the example of the National Archives of the United States that
“The word Slave normalizes and reifies the condition of slavery as a state of being, rather than an active process of dehumanization and bondage imposed on a person or people. In contrast, enslaved person and its variants emphasize the condition in which kidnapped Africans and their descendants were kept while reinstating their personhood, and often their gender, age, or profession.
In addition, we have made a distinction between the use of the terminology African American, and Black. Concurrent with many news and publishing organizations, we will use the word Black to refer to peoples of African descent who live in the United States. Author Brittney Cooper states this preference as follows:
“Blackness fundamentally shapes any core part of any black person’s life in the US context, and really around the world. In the choice to capitalize, we are paying homage to a history with a very particular kind of political engagement.
We will, however, continue using the identifier African American as we speak to the historical understanding of cultural traditions brought from Africa and expanded upon during the long period of forced labor in the United States.