My Home Is Over Jordan

摘要

The great African American tenor Roland Hayes, as well known in his day as Paul Robeson and Marian Anderson, both of whom he mentored, introduced the beauty and joy of spirituals to concert audiences in Europe and America. Sadly, he's been forgotten. This article remembers his story and his charisma. Roland Hayes touched the author's life when she was a very young child, when her parents were faculty at Black Mountain College and her father invited Hayes to sing there. In the mid 1940s, in North Carolina, an integrated audience heard this son of freed slaves sing both the European repertoire of Schubert and Bach and the African-American folk tradition of spirituals. Spirituals offer a religious attitude that intertwines African, Jewish, and Christian roots with the practical function of conveying secret messages about the way to freedom—a peculiarly American blend of soul that has much in it to sustain us in difficult times. Roland Hayes made a profound impression on the author. She invokes his spirit in this article and learns much about herself and about him.