Sacred Song : Survival: Salvation: In the African American Religious Experience

Enslaved Africans brought their music and religion with them to America. They adapted their spiritual worldview into the existing Christian framework for survival. The God of the oppressor was transformed into the God of liberation and justice. Salvation became the conduit for survival. Sacred song was embedded with African spirituality and African American theology to create a religious experience from the seventeenth century to the twentieth century that sustained African American people and became established forms of praise and worship. The Civil Rights movement changed the religious reality of African American people. Sacred song in the twenty-first century has many challenges. Will the legacy and heritage of sacred song survive?