What is Spiritual?
Spiritual is a type of song or a religious song. They were sung by the slaves and practised them when they had special meetings together which in other words is called the bush meeting. At the meeting, the slaves will practice singing, dancing and chant. These meetings were done outside so the Americans would not find anything suspicious about the meetings. These Spiritual songs were sung to grow the slave's courage and give them hope, they had their own church to sing at and as well as in funerals. But the salves took advantage of this and made secret messages within the song to help them escape.
Harriet Tubman an ex-slave escaped and was very famous for helping thousands of slaves escape, she used songs to send secret messages to slaves. She used the
Underground Railroad which was basically secret tunnels or passageways used to sneak the slaves out of the slave state. The underground railroad was a network with secret routes and safe houses to escape the slave state and move towards the free states.
So I chose one of the songs that I want to explain and tell you what hidden messages were or what was behind the song, I chose 'Wade in the Water' because I understood the messages clearly and it was very impressive to me and also truly an intelligent one. The ones highlighted in yellow were the key secret messages...
Wade in the water meant to swim in the water, these messages went to the children instructing them to get into the water and follow a specific trail that led through the water. The reason they made the children go into the water because dogs could easily pick up their scent, in the water it is much harder to track the children in the water. Sure dogs can swim but they cannot pick up their scent if the children were to walk on land the dogs could easily pick the scent because the children did not shower daily making it much easier for the dogs to track them down. Children all dressed in (Red, White, Blue) meant the children themselves who wore the coloured clothes and other messages meant that someone was waiting at the end for them and that they had gotten through safely. It was quite interesting to me how they communicated using music and I liked this song the most.
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Chorus: Wade in the Water, wade in the water children.
Wade in the Water. God’s gonna trouble the water.
Who are those children all dressed in Red?
God’s gonna trouble the water.
Must be the ones that Moses led.
God’s gonna trouble the water.
Chorus
Who are those children all dressed in White?
God’s gonna trouble the water.
Must be the ones of the Israelites.
God’s gonna trouble the water.
Chorus
Who are those children all dressed in Blue?
God’s gonna trouble the water.
Must be the ones that made it through.
God’s gonna trouble the water.
Chorus
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In these modern days, it is quite significant during these times and America talk and have negotiations about the impacts of slavery. Black Civil Rights and Black Lives Matter actions use slavery and violence or injustices that happened in the past and continued to be used during these protests. The slave songs are still sung during these times and most of the music was inspired by the slave songs, genres like Blues, Soul, RnB, Gospel, Rap and Rock n Roll.
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