Page:Natalie Curtis - Negro Folk-Songs Book 1.djvu/10

 O RIDE ON, JESUS

Recorded from the singing of

The version here recorded of this old song was brought to Hampton from St. Helena's Island, South Carolina, where an offshoot of the "Hampton Spirit" is practically demonstrated in the Penn Industrial School, situated in the heart of a black rural population and conducted by two devoted Hampton workers, Miss Rossa B. Cooley, principal, and Miss Grace Bigelow House, vice-principal. The Negroes on this Island are still primitive and their songs are very old. This one has a triumphant stride, and the climax of the verse "Ride on, conquerin' King!" when fairly shouted by a great Negro chorus, is as stirring as any "Hosanna in the highest." The whole song rings with the joy of certain salvation. The sinner on the "mourners' bench" has "come through" : he has "bin baptize," and to-morrow he will be in "Gali-lee" whither he is already bound in spirit, shouting messages as he goes, to tell mother, father, sister, brother, preacher, deacon and all others, to meet him there. Each verse ends with the refrain that closes so many of the old songs — "Want t' go t' Hebb'n in de mo'nin'."

In "Old Plantation Hymns"1 Rev. W. E. Barton says that "conspicuous among the religious songs of the colored people, as of the white people of the Cumberland Mountains, is the large group of 'Family Songs' in which the chief or only variation in the successive stanzas is the substitution of 'father,' 'mother,' or other relative in order." These songs, he tells us, are usually sung at the opening of religious services, and one can well see how, through their personal allusions, they would "warm" a "meet'n'." In the dignity of its melody this simple spiritual is a superb bit of music, while the last verse contains the sudden gleam of imagery that so often proclaims the ingenuous Negro folk-singer a true poet.

That many people in the North have had the opportunity to know the Negroes through their songs is due to the fact that, like Fisk University, which gave to the world the original Jubilee Singers, Hampton, too, sends her students during vacation far over the country to sing the old songs wherever meetings are held in behalf of the school; for regular campaigns to raise money for Negro education are organized and participated in by the faculty and the students of Hampton.2 The recording of this song is taken from the singing of a self-organized quartet of Hampton boys, who had formed for Hampton meetings in the North during the summer of 1915. Each afternoon at odd hours taken from their work in shop, field or class, they came to

Note: — I printed the verses of this song with those of "God's a-gwine to move all de troubles away" (see Book II, this Series), in Poetry, December, 1917, accompanied by a little description.

1 "Old Plantation Hymns." William E. Barton, D. D. Lamson Wolffe & Co., 1899.

2 See "Negro Folk songs," Book II, this Series.