The impermanent, communal form of spirituals reflected the fragile bonds among enslaved singers.

Evidence

Among all else that spirituals could be, they were essentially communal, a people speaking to each other and reaching for God. Together. Their evanescent, evaporative, one-of-a-kind nature seemed to acknowledge the sobering impermanence of the bonds among their singers. Yet to learn a spiritual, no matter how, is to know it forever. Here today and, God willing, here tomorrow, too. — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 1099