{"id":33215,"date":"2016-11-04T13:10:19","date_gmt":"2016-11-04T17:10:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/?p=33215"},"modified":"2016-11-04T15:40:45","modified_gmt":"2016-11-04T19:40:45","slug":"african-american-spirituals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/2016\/11\/04\/african-american-spirituals\/33215\/","title":{"rendered":"African-American Spirituals"},"content":{"rendered":"

Washington National Cathedral, Howard University, and Wesley Theological Seminary recently hosted a concert that featured spirituals, the great Christian music of African slaves in the US. We talked with Rev. Kelly Brown Douglas, the cathedral\u2019s canon theologian, about the history of spirituals and their ever-relevant message of faith and freedom.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Spirituals are, of course, the songs that the enslaved crafted to tell the story of their experience. But more than that, to tell the story of their faith and the understanding of who they were in relationship to God, and who God was in relationship to them, and it became a story of freedom,\u201d says Rev. Kelly Brown Douglass, Canon Theologian at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC. More →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":160,"featured_media":33264,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6569],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-videocast","topics-belief-and-practice","topics-culture-and-society","topics-faith-and-spirituality","topics-literature-and-the-arts","topics-race","faith-christian"],"yoast_head":"\nAfrican-American Spirituals | November 4, 2016 | Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly | PBS<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/2016\/11\/04\/african-american-spirituals\/33215\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta 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