“The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song”: The Importance of Black Churches

African-American worship services are part of the culture of the black population of the United States. It has experienced all the horrors of slavery and discrimination but still finds the strength to thank and glorify God. The history of the “black” churches is inextricably linked with the abolition of slavery. An important role allowed black churches to raise people to fight for their rights, which is reflected in the film “The black church: This is our story, this is our song. ”

The film is imbued with music that carries the features of canonical European church chants and all sorts of pagan cults that came from the historical homeland of African-Americans. Numerous spiritual chants of North American Negroes can be heard by the viewer. Their source was religious hymns and psalms brought to America by white settlers and missionaries. Spirituals combine the distinctive elements of African performing traditions (collective improvisation, characteristic glissando rhythm, non-tempered chords, particular emotionality) with stylistic features of Puritan hymn). The film is based on the fact that the African songs were the first and most expressive means through which the whole world was introduced to black music (Holman, 2021). The wide variety of religious music of African-Americans in the film gives a clear idea of the culture of the people.

African American Christians have come a long way from underground gatherings of uneducated slaves to the creation of official religious organizations that fully participate in the political life of the United States. The features of the service, which absorbed the culture of black people, and the peculiarities of the life of their ancestors, are fully reflected in the film. “The black church: This is our story; this is our song” demonstrates the cheerfulness and spirituality with which the descendants of black slaves approach the service of God and life. It makes the viewer admire the fortitude of people who have spent hundreds of years in slavery but managed to free themselves.

Reference

Holman, S. L. (Director). (2021). The black church: This is our story, this is our song. Web.