Songs of Black Folk – Past Concerts

Songs of Black Folk presents a music tradition that began on the African continent and was transported to the Americas, via slave ships, and took root in the daily sufferings of an enslaved Black people who chose to survive and who fought to be free. This Concert will feature the rise of the Negro Spirituals and demonstrate how they have evolved into other Black musical genres including, blues, Gospel, jazz, R&B, Hip-Hop, and even spoken word.

Importantly, the audience will be shown how Black musical culture has functioned as both a tool of resistance and as a powerful source of hope for a Black people who have endured four centuries of white supremacy and its relentless assault on Black lives. Ultimately, the intent of SBF is to use music to connect the African American struggle for freedom, justice, dignity, and happiness with the struggles of other Americans who have had to fight their way from the margins of American society into the mainstream.