Freedom, give us freedom.

Freedom comin, and it wont be long.

Hey!

Freedom, freedom, Freedom comin and it wont be long.

Freedom, freedom, If you trace both sacred and secular forms of music here in the United States created by African Americans, you can eventually wind up at the Spiritual.

Whether were talking about hip hop, R&B, soul music, jazz, country, rock and roll, and the blues, they all have their roots in the music of the enslaved community.

The Spirituals Project offically, more or less, got started in 1998 as a self-standing not-for-profit organization here in the community.

Most people dont realize that the organization is more than just the choir, but it has a two-tiered function where in its both musical and educational.

And it was known to fugitive slaves If you could escape and find yourselves at the Union camp, you could be free.

We like to say, and it's part of our mission statement that the Spirituals Project's mission is to preserve and revitalize the music and the teachings of the sacred songs that we know today as Spirituals.

The Spirituals Project Choir is preparing for our winter concert, which will be here, on campus in the Newman Center at Gates Hall.

The title of the program is Let Freedom Ring, which will encompass some focus on Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement as well as Spirituals, because, after all, we are the Spirituals Project.

So, a lot of the musical focus will be around the music and history of the Negro Spirituals.

The Spirituals are the root and trunk of Black music.

If you want to understand this music, you have to really understand the community and the historic context.