DEEP RIVER
Library of Congress Number 75-27041
ISBN 0-913408-20-4
ISBN 9-781956149-01-2 (e-book)
Copyright 1975 by Howard Thurman
Published 1975 by Friends United Press
Reprint 1990
General Introduction
The reprinting of Deep River and The Negro Spiritual Speaks of Life and Death in a single volume at this time may call for an explanation. All through the intervening years since the mid-forties when they first appeared, there has been an intermittent but consistent demand for them. This demand was greatly intensified during the period marked by a fresh sense of root or collective self-awareness brought into sharp focus by the tempests of the Civil Rights Movement. Despite the primary secular and political character of the movement it found sources of inspiration and courage in the spiritual insights that had provided a windbreak for our forefathers against the brutalities of slavery and the establishing of a ground of hope undimmed by the contradictions which held them in tight embrace. Often those who were most involved in the throes of the struggle were not aware of the dimension of this flow of courage from the past; nevertheless, it was a brooding presence in myriad rallies in a thousand churches which gave refuge and support to young and old in the heights and depths of the agonies of the 60s.
Many of my young friends have queried me at one critical point. Why is there so little attention given to the part that protest and resistance played in the life of our forefathers as expressed in the Spirituals? It is in order to state quite frankly, that initially these essays were addressed to a generation which tended to be ashamed of the Spirituals or who joined in the degrading and prostituting of the songs as a part of conventional minstrelsy or naive amusement exploited and capitalized by white entertainers. The aim was to denigrate and casually to humiliate. It seemed urgent to me to explore the ground of hope and self-respect in the idiom of the Spirituals. The element of protest was recognized in my exploration but was not emphasized. This seemed to me to make their timelessness more readily available to meet the new urgencies of that generation and, in my judgment, of subsequent generations.
My first formal statement of the religious significance of these songs was a series of chapel addresses to the students at Morehouse and Spelman Colleges in the academic year 1929-30. Six years earlier, during my senior year in college, there was an incident that precipitated my reflection upon the meaning of the Spirituals. A small party of visitors from the General Education Board was presented in chapel. After their minor greetings to us, on cue, the director of Music walked to the front and gave the key for the student who led the Spirituals. The student sang the first line and normally, the whole student body would come in with the body of the text as the swell of a great organ. But we did not respond. This was repeatedno response. The President of the college was embarrassed profoundly. In the evening, a special assembly was called and the entire student body was soundly reprimanded. The response to him was very simple. We refuse to sing our songs to delight and amuse white people. The songs are ours and a part of the source of our own inspiration transmitted to us by our forefathers."
Finally, these essays are intimate and personal. They lay bare in my hand the gift which these songs, centuries old, are to my own spirit. For me, they are watering places for my own spirit and have enabled me to affirm life when its denial would be more ego satisfying, to honor my own heritage and rejoice in it.
To stay in the field
To stay in the field
Until the war is ended.
To My Sister Madeline
PROLOGUE
In 1945 I published privately a little volume of reflections on the religious insights of certain of the Negro spirituals. These reflections were first given as addresses before various groups. This early volume has long since been out of print, and as a result of many requests the manuscript has been revised and enlarged, and is now being re-issued under the same title.
My own life has been so deeply influenced by the genius of the spirituals that the meaning as distilled into my experience in my early years spills over in much that I have come to think in my maturity. The reader who is acquainted with Jesus and the Disinherited or with the Ingersoll lecture on The Immortality of Man under the title The Negro Spiritual Speaks of Life and Death will recognize at once some of the basic ideas expressed in this volume. For this I make no apology. In what is written here there is at work the movement of the creative spirit of God as it has sought under great odds to tutor my rebellious spirit in conflict with some of the tragedies of my social experience. I believe, with my forefathers, that this is Gods world. This faith has had to fight against disillusionment, despair, and the vicissitudes of American history.
If some light may be thrown on the readers struggle for courage, self-respect, and emotional security, no greater justification for publishing these reflections may be found. It is in this hope and with this spirit that they are sent on their way.
H. T.
T HE ante-bellum Negro preacher was the greatest single factor in determining the spiritual destiny of the slave community. He it was who gave to the masses of his fellows a point of view that became for them a veritable Door of Hope. His ministry was greatly restricted as to movement, function, and opportunities of leadership, but he himself was blessed with one important insight: he was convinced that every human being was a child of God. This belief included the slave as well as the master. When he spoke to his group on an occasional Sabbath day, he knew what they had lived through during the weeks; how their total environment had conspired to din into their minds and spirits the corroding notion that as human beings they were of no significance. Thus his one message springing full grown from the mind of God repeated in many ways a wide range of variations : You are created in Gods image. You are not slaves, you are not niggers; you are Gods children. Many weary, spiritually and physically exhausted slaves found new strength and power gushing up into all the reaches of their personalities, inspired by the words that fell from this mans lips. He had discovered that which religion insists is the ultimate truth about human life and destiny. It is the supreme validation of the human spirit. He who knows this is able to transcend the vicissitudes of life, however terrifying, and look out on the world with quiet eyes.
It is out of this sense of being a child of God that the genius of the religious folk songs is born. There were three major sources from which the raw materials of Negro spirituals were derived: the Old and New Testaments, the world of nature, and the personal experiences of religion that were the common lot of the people, emerging from their inner life. Echoes from each source are present in practically all the songs. We shall examine each of these somewhat in detail, with reference to the use to which they were put and the end result.
