In Wiregrass Country, "You don't have to sing like an angel" is a frequently expressed sentiment. Locally, "good" music is God's music regardless of the manner of delivery. Therefore, Downhome Gospel presents gospel music as being more than a glorified sound. It speaks to spiritual activism writ large and the good news that makes the soul glad.
The Wiregrass constitutes a tri-state vernacular region that includes most of Southwest Georgia and approximately nine counties in both Southeast Alabama and the Florida Panhandle. The South contains more regions than any other area of the country. Yet, unlike the Black Belt, Bluegrass, and Appalachia, this region fell into the chasm of history. In addition, I arrived as a blank slate: a neophyte to the South. Ironically, a region without scribes to notate much of its history and folklife used me as its chalkboard: collecting markings of cultural retentions most had taken for granted. I revel in pursuing folkloristic avenues novel to me as well as others.
In Downhome Gospel, foremost, my research privileges sacred music contexts that, when mentioned at all, they are referred to in the past tense. For instance, Juneteenth has gained wide national appeal to celebrate freedom from slavery, but African Americans in the Wiregrass still commemorate the Twentieth of May, which is the actual date emancipation was proclaimed in most of the region (Chapter 1). Additionally, scholars generally relegate burial societies to extinction. Yet, since emancipation, mutual aid societies like Sunday Morning Band remain robust and host annual Turnouts wearing their full regalia (Chapter 2). Also, Fifth Sunday supposedly harkens back to the days of the circuit-riding preacher who went to different small towns that had no ministers to conduct services. Throughout most of the Wiregrass, congregations still meet on alternate Sundays—the first and third or the second and fourth—leaving the Fifth Sunday as a kind of wild card (Chapter 3). Within the seam of the four or five Sundays, yearly, when the calendar allows, African Americans in the region engage in a range of spiritual-related activities: Baptist Union Meetings, shape-note singing conventions, gospel programs and so on. Unfortunately, on one hand, I arrived in time to acknowledge the Wiregrass Sacred Harp Singers but, on the other hand, to bear witness to what amounts to its last gasp with the passing on of the last of its diehards (Chapter 4). Many scholars root the historical development of gospel music among urban African American churchgoers. My study substantiates the concurrent rural contribution to this musical tradition (Chapter 5). Finally, I describe the roles of women in contemporary gospel and their womanist theology (Chapters 6 and 7).
Jerrilyn McGregory returns to Wiregrass Country to explore Sacred Music, African-American History, and Culture in her new book, Downhome Gospel:African American Spiritual Activism in Wiregrass Country (University Press of Mississippi, 2010). Jerrilyn McGregory returns to a Southern region and a Southern culture that she explored in her first book, Wiregrass Country (1997).
Wiregrass country—which encompasses parts of southern Georgia, southeastern Alabama, and the Florida Panhandle—is a little-known region, with a history that "challenges long-standing assumptions about African-American life, history, and culture," McGregory writes in the introduction to her most recent publication. "Its inhabitants owe much of their love of sacred music to a dynamic historical past."
McGregory's first experiences with Wiregrass Country took place about thirty years ago, and she writes in Downhome Gospel that she entered the area "tabula rasa… I was a neophyte in the South, a neophyte in Wiregrass Country, and a neophyte studying rural culture." McGregory made site visits and had chance meetings with the people of these often-overlooked communities. Wiregrass Country was the commencement of a spiritual journey for her, she writes, appreciating that the area's "folklife endures, and African Americans there expend much time, energy, and economic resources singing sacred music for the benefit of all who hearken to hear their sound." Because many of these traditions still go unnoticed and unappreciated, however, McGregory intends with Downhome Gospel to "close the gap by shining a spotlight on the downhome gospel in Wiregrass Country."
"Sacred music plays a magnanimous, stimulating, and scintillating role within people's everyday lives," McGregory writes. "In Wiregrass Country, the people often say, 'You don't have to sing like an angel.' For them, praising the glory of God in song does not require trained voices, but only the desire to display one's God-given talent, without reproach. African American Wiregrass sacred performance communities speak in song not just to God but to one another."
Despite a self-proclaimed unawareness of the region when she first began to visit the communities and started to connect with the residents, McGregory has received strong praise for the research she has done and the stories she shares in Downhome Gospel.
"Jerrilyn McGregory… escorts her readers through their roads, homes, churches, and burial grounds, introducing us to the distinctive expressive culture that can be found throughout this region," writes Patricia A. Turner, author of Crafted Lives: Stories and Studies of African American Quilters. "Downhome Gospel is one of the richest and most significant ethnographic studies of an African-American community published in recent years."
In addition to cultural observations, McGregory writes about environmental setbacks that the area has suffered. Once rich in biodiversity, the area "stood for multiculturalism," McGregory writes. There are estimates that of an original 93 million acres of wiregrass, only 1 million acres remain. "Most people who live in the region have never seen it grow. Wiregrass is practically extinct along with certain species of wildlife, which could not survive within the monoculture deforestation produced.
"Yet, many of the region's human social rituals remain vibrant."
In addition to addressing that aspect of loss, McGregory writes in her epilogue that because of the length of time she devoted to her research, some of the people she interviewed passed away before the publication of Downhome Gospel. During this time, she writes, "my own son, Bill, succumbed. I could not have withstood his passing without years of tutelage by these spiritual activists.
"Over the years, I had not realized how much I had internalized their lyrics and absorbed their prayers."
The Wiregrass constitutes a tri-state vernacular region that includes most of Southwest Georgia and approximately nine counties in both Southeast Alabama and the Florida Panhandle. The South contains more regions than any other area of the country. Yet, unlike the Black Belt, Bluegrass, and Appalachia, this region fell into the chasm of history. In addition, I arrived as a blank slate: a neophyte to the South. Ironically, a region without scribes to notate much of its history and folklife used me as its chalkboard: collecting markings of cultural retentions most had taken for granted. I revel in pursuing folkloristic avenues novel to me as well as others.
In Downhome Gospel, foremost, my research privileges sacred music contexts that, when mentioned at all, they are referred to in the past tense. For instance, Juneteenth has gained wide national appeal to celebrate freedom from slavery, but African Americans in the Wiregrass still commemorate the Twentieth of May, which is the actual date emancipation was proclaimed in most of the region (Chapter 1). Additionally, scholars generally relegate burial societies to extinction. Yet, since emancipation, mutual aid societies like Sunday Morning Band remain robust and host annual Turnouts wearing their full regalia (Chapter 2). Also, Fifth Sunday supposedly harkens back to the days of the circuit-riding preacher who went to different small towns that had no ministers to conduct services. Throughout most of the Wiregrass, congregations still meet on alternate Sundays—the first and third or the second and fourth—leaving the Fifth Sunday as a kind of wild card (Chapter 3). Within the seam of the four or five Sundays, yearly, when the calendar allows, African Americans in the region engage in a range of spiritual-related activities: Baptist Union Meetings, shape-note singing conventions, gospel programs and so on. Unfortunately, on one hand, I arrived in time to acknowledge the Wiregrass Sacred Harp Singers but, on the other hand, to bear witness to what amounts to its last gasp with the passing on of the last of its diehards (Chapter 4). Many scholars root the historical development of gospel music among urban African American churchgoers. My study substantiates the concurrent rural contribution to this musical tradition (Chapter 5). Finally, I describe the roles of women in contemporary gospel and their womanist theology (Chapters 6 and 7).
Jerrilyn McGregory returns to Wiregrass Country to explore Sacred Music, African-American History, and Culture in her new book, Downhome Gospel:African American Spiritual Activism in Wiregrass Country (University Press of Mississippi, 2010). Jerrilyn McGregory returns to a Southern region and a Southern culture that she explored in her first book, Wiregrass Country (1997).
Wiregrass country—which encompasses parts of southern Georgia, southeastern Alabama, and the Florida Panhandle—is a little-known region, with a history that "challenges long-standing assumptions about African-American life, history, and culture," McGregory writes in the introduction to her most recent publication. "Its inhabitants owe much of their love of sacred music to a dynamic historical past."
McGregory's first experiences with Wiregrass Country took place about thirty years ago, and she writes in Downhome Gospel that she entered the area "tabula rasa… I was a neophyte in the South, a neophyte in Wiregrass Country, and a neophyte studying rural culture." McGregory made site visits and had chance meetings with the people of these often-overlooked communities. Wiregrass Country was the commencement of a spiritual journey for her, she writes, appreciating that the area's "folklife endures, and African Americans there expend much time, energy, and economic resources singing sacred music for the benefit of all who hearken to hear their sound." Because many of these traditions still go unnoticed and unappreciated, however, McGregory intends with Downhome Gospel to "close the gap by shining a spotlight on the downhome gospel in Wiregrass Country."
"Sacred music plays a magnanimous, stimulating, and scintillating role within people's everyday lives," McGregory writes. "In Wiregrass Country, the people often say, 'You don't have to sing like an angel.' For them, praising the glory of God in song does not require trained voices, but only the desire to display one's God-given talent, without reproach. African American Wiregrass sacred performance communities speak in song not just to God but to one another."
Despite a self-proclaimed unawareness of the region when she first began to visit the communities and started to connect with the residents, McGregory has received strong praise for the research she has done and the stories she shares in Downhome Gospel.
"Jerrilyn McGregory… escorts her readers through their roads, homes, churches, and burial grounds, introducing us to the distinctive expressive culture that can be found throughout this region," writes Patricia A. Turner, author of Crafted Lives: Stories and Studies of African American Quilters. "Downhome Gospel is one of the richest and most significant ethnographic studies of an African-American community published in recent years."
In addition to cultural observations, McGregory writes about environmental setbacks that the area has suffered. Once rich in biodiversity, the area "stood for multiculturalism," McGregory writes. There are estimates that of an original 93 million acres of wiregrass, only 1 million acres remain. "Most people who live in the region have never seen it grow. Wiregrass is practically extinct along with certain species of wildlife, which could not survive within the monoculture deforestation produced.
"Yet, many of the region's human social rituals remain vibrant."
In addition to addressing that aspect of loss, McGregory writes in her epilogue that because of the length of time she devoted to her research, some of the people she interviewed passed away before the publication of Downhome Gospel. During this time, she writes, "my own son, Bill, succumbed. I could not have withstood his passing without years of tutelage by these spiritual activists.
"Over the years, I had not realized how much I had internalized their lyrics and absorbed their prayers."