Hymn(al)s in the News

This news story is a few weeks old now, but you might not have heard it yet. The Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture is scheduled to open in Washington DC in five years. They have been collecting historical artifacts for some time (the regular Smithsonian holdings already contain many). One acquisition of interest here was recently spotlighted in a piece on National Public Radio: a hymn book that belonged to Harriet Tubman.

Harriet Tubman (1820? - 1913) is known primarily for her frequent trips to the south to rescue people from slavery through the Underground Railroad. Following her own escape from Maryland in 1849, she returned and brought back several members of her family, then numerous others, a few at a time. In all she may have released as many as three hundred former slaves (sources vary as to the number of her trips and the number of slaves freed), and was popularly known as the "Moses" of her people. During the Civil War she was a scout and a spy for the Union Army, and in her later years she also became an advocate for women's rights.

According to the NPR article, Tubman and the other Underground Railroad workers sometimes used African-American spirituals as signals (though other sources dispute this). These songs were part of a long-standing oral tradition, not written down until later in the nineteenth century, thanks to the efforts of people like James W. Work and Harry Burleigh. Though Steal away to Jesus and Swing low, sweet chariot do not appear in the book that belonged to Tubman (Gospel Hymns No. 2, edited by Ira Sankey), she certainly didn't need the book to sing them.

Swing low, sweet chariot,
Coming for to carry me home,
Swing low, sweet chariot,
Coming for to carry me home.

I looked over Jordan, and what did I see?
Coming for to carry me home,
A band of angels coming after me,
Coming for to carry me home.
Refrain

If you get there before I do,
Coming for to carry me home,
Tell all my friends I’m coming, too.
Coming for to carry me home.
Refrain

I’m sometimes up and sometimes down,
Coming for to carry me home,
But still my soul feels heavenly bound,
Coming for to carry me home.
Refrain

African-American spiritual, 19th cent.
Tune: SWING LOW (Irregular with refrain)

The chariot mentioned would seem to be the one that took the prophet Elijah to heaven in 2 Kings 2:11. This spiritual was part of the repertory of the Fisk Jubilee Singers and appeared in one of their collections as early as 1873.

Harriet Tubman is the woman on the left in the photograph below which appeared in the New York Times in the 1880s, though it was probably taken about twenty years earlier. Members of her family and others in the photo who she brought back from the south: (left to right) Gertie Davis {Watson} (adopted daughter of Tubman} behind Tubman; Nelson Davis (husband and veteran); Lee Cheney (great-great-niece); "Pop" {John} Alexander; Walter Green; Blind "Aunty" Sarah Parker; Dora Stewart (great-niece and granddaughter of Tubman's brother Robert Ross aka John Stewart). [Note: Dora Stewart is sometimes cropped out of other versions of this photograph]

Thanks to the Hymn Society's Facebook page for pointing me to this article. I'm debating whether to join the blog to Facebook, which might bring more readers here, but haven't made a decision yet.