{"id":3278,"date":"2018-03-20T13:49:59","date_gmt":"2018-03-20T18:49:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/?p=3278"},"modified":"2018-03-20T13:49:59","modified_gmt":"2018-03-20T18:49:59","slug":"the-history-and-reception-of-roll-jordan-roll","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/2018\/03\/20\/the-history-and-reception-of-roll-jordan-roll\/","title":{"rendered":"The History and Reception of “Roll Jordan, Roll”"},"content":{"rendered":"
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After a discussion on the origins of black spirituals I was left questioning the origins of specific spirituals like “Roll Jordan, Roll”. I found, although not very surprising, that “Roll Jordan, Roll” was created by an european man by the name of Charles Wesley in the eighteenth century. He was a methodist preacher and after reading the articles by Jackson and Krehbiel, which have the goal of tackling this question of origin, I was not at all surprised that the origins of the song came from a white, protestant background. What I am left wondering is how “Roll Jordan, Roll” made it’s way to the slave south of the mid to late nineteenth century.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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What I have found through my search in pursuit of answering my wonder is that the song may have been used as an effort to christianize the slaves. What I mean is the song wasn’t the sole proprietor in christianizing but was apart of a curriculum in doing so. It seems that the song had gone through an evolution and rather than being a christianizing song to the slaves, it was turned into a song of sorrow or conduit for abolitionism.<\/div>\n
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The religious allegories of the song had become a story of escaping slavery. There are many adaptations of the song, but the idea of the song being one of being delivered from slavery remains. The photo below is a documentation of one adaptation of the song. It was recorded into the\u00a0Slave Songs of the United States (1867).\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n
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Slave Songs of the United States<\/em>\u00a0by William Francis Allen<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“Roll Jordan, Roll” was eventually widely accepted as a former slave song rather than methodist spiritual. Below is a excerpt from a newspaper article from 1880. Whomever wrote it acknowledges that the songs sung by the Jubilee Singers, included “Roll Jordan, Roll” originated from “slavery times”, not the old English Methodists.<\/div>\n
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I suppose for me “Roll Jordan, Roll” can not be owned by any race. It is a black spiritual as well as a Methodist hymn.<\/div>\n
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Works Cited and Consulted:<\/div>\n
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“The National Capital. Wether–Society–The Jubilee Singers.” Weekly Louisianian<\/i> (New Orleans), March 20, 1880. Accessed March 20, 2018. African American Newspapers.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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“Roll Jordan Roll: A Community in Song and Sound.” The Black Atlantic. March 18, 2014. Accessed March 20, 2018. https:\/\/sites.duke.edu\/blackatlantic\/2014\/03\/18\/roll-jordan-roll-a-community-in-song-and-sound\/.<\/div>\n
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“The River Jordan in Early African American Spirituals by Daniel L. Smith-Christopher.” River Jordan in Early African American Spirituals. Accessed March 20, 2018. http:\/\/www.bibleodyssey.org\/places\/related-articles\/river-jordan-in-early-african-american-spirituals.<\/div>\n
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“Slave Songs of the United South.” William Francis Allen, 1830-1889, Charles Pickard Ware, 1840-1921, and Lucy McKim Garrison, 1842-1877. Slave Songs of the United States. Accessed March 20, 2018. http:\/\/docsouth.unc.edu\/church\/allen\/allen.html#slsong1.<\/div>\n
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After a discussion on the origins of black spirituals I was left questioning the origins of specific spirituals like “Roll Jordan, Roll”. I found, although not very surprising, that “Roll Jordan, Roll” was created by an european man by the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2743,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[1058,1072,1083,154,159,25],"class_list":["post-3278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-black-spiritual","tag-black-spirituals","tag-roll-jordan-roll","tag-slave-songs","tag-slave-songs-of-the-united-states","tag-the-jubilee-singers"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7jEhR-QS","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2743"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3278"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3278\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3313,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3278\/revisions\/3313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}