The Spirituals and the Blues (50th Anniversary Edition)

In the Spirituals, as Cone showed, enslaved Black people expressed their deep appropriation of the Gospel message of freedom, and their trust in God’s identification with the oppressed.

In the Blues, a “secular spiritual” born in the era of segregation and lynching, Black people expressed their dignity, love, and “the gut capacity to survive,” amidst all the forces that pressed them down.