Spirituals constitute the original folk music of the United States

Evidence

Those work songs pleaded for deliverance and were sung in defiance of atrocity. Spirituals, they were called. And they are this country’s original folk music, songs sung out of the determination by the enslaved to orient themselves toward some higher vocation and, in Douglass’s estimation, toward a more humane land—here or perhaps in a less earthly realm. — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 1095

Categorization

• XREF: On the origin-story framing: locating America’s original folk music in slavery, not in white folk traditions, is a direct instance of the reframing argument this reader is tracking.