Legacy of the Sacred Harp
by Chloe Webb
Published by: TCU Press
256 Pages, 6.00 x 9.00 in, 50 b&w photos
- Paperback
- 9780875654164
- Published: October 2010 You will be redirected to our distributor, Texas A&M University, to purchase this book.
$20.00
BuyTraveling across the South and sifting through undiscovered family history, Webb sets out on a personal quest to reconnect with her ancestors who composed, sang, and lived by the words of Sacred Harp music. Her research irreversibly transforms her rose-colored view of her heritage and brings endearing characters to life as the reality of the effects of slavery on Southern plantation life, the thriving tobacco industry, and the Civil War are revisited through the lens of the Dumas family. Most notably, Webb’s original research unearths the person of Ralph Freeman, freed slave and pastor of a pre-Civil War white Southern church.
Wringing history from boxes of keepsakes, lively interviews, dusty archival libraries, and church records, Webb keeps Sacred Harp lyrics ringing in readers’ ears, allowing the poetry to illuminate the lessons and trials of the past. The choral shape-note music of the Sacred Harp whispers to us of the past, of the religious persecution that brought this music to our shores, and how the voices of contemporary Sacred Harp singers still ring out the unchanged lyrics across the South, the music pulling the past into our present.
~Judy HauffChloe Webb, thank you so much for writing this book! I got it yesterday, started it yesterday afternoon and finished it this morning. What a really great 400-year slice of American history; it reads like an exciting novel, except that it's all factual. You've really brought to life so many things that have somehow remained insistently dull in textbooks. I especially admire your determination to track down your people, no matter who, where, or what they were. Not surprisingly, it makes a tremendously rich tapestry, and you can be proud not only of the people, but also your part in sharing their stories with all of us. It's a wonderful piece of work.
Judy Hauff—Sacred Harp composer
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