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Conclusion


The African American spirituals are much more than just songs that enslaved Africans sang to pass the time away, but songs that came from the innermost souls of a downtrodden group of people that documented their life's history, struggles, and hope for a better life. In the biblical narratives of these songs, the enslaved Africans identified with many of the biblical characters. The biblical character Moses for example, who led the Israelites out of Egypt, is now personified with the name Harriet Tubman and many others who were responsible for activities that led to their freedom through the network known as the Underground Railroad. Freedom was uppermost in their mind much of the times that many songs-"Go Tell It on de Mountain" and "Rise Up, Shepherd, an' Foller" to name just a few-though coded with double entendre, alluded to this fact. To the enslaved African space and time were irrelevant, thus Moses was not just a figure of the past but a figure in the present with an impact on the future.

Booker T. Washington

The plantation songs known as "Spirituals" are the spontaneous outburst of intense religious fervor. They breathe a child-like faith in a personal Father, and glow with the hope that the children of bondage will ultimately pass out of the wilderness of slavery into the land of freedom.