African American history and culture is unique compared to other cultures. One of the more tragic elements of African American culture is what W.E.B. Du Bois refers to as “sorrow songs”. These sorrow songs are a very important piece to African American history and culture. In W.E.B. Du Bois’ text, The Souls of Black Folk, he introduces sorrow songs as calling them “weird old songs in which the soul of the black slave spoke to men. They came out of the South unknown to me… and yet at once I knew them as of me and of mine” In saying this, I interpret Du Bois to mean that these sorrow songs are as olden and interwoven into African American culture as a Mother Goose nursery rhyme might be as nostalgic to one of us today. Both whispered from mother to child, passed down from generation to generation. Another point Du Bois makes of the importance of sorrow songs to African American history is by saying that “it still remains as the singular spiritual heritage of a nation and the greatest gift of the Negro people.” meaning that these songs are the embodiment of past African American slaves’ spirituality and one of the best pieces of their culture that they could’ve shared with the world. Which brings me to another way in which the sorrow songs were a key part of African American culture and history, which is the creation of the Fisk Jubilee Singers. The Fisk Jubilee Singers were, as Du Bois states, a group of African American singers whom toured and shared their sorrow songs with the world. This brought global recognition and helped fund Fisk University, a historically black university.
In my opinion one of the most significant sorrow songs Du Bois mentions in The Souls of Black Folk is Nobody Knows the Trouble I See. Du Bois recounts the story as when a general was bringing the news of broken promise of land to the freed slaves, an elderly woman led the group of African Americans in this song and the scene was so touching and powerful that it caused the general to weep. I feel that the news the general brought had hurt the woman so deeply that she began to sing that sorrowful song and the reason it was so moving and more than just a musical performance is because there was actual emotion behind the song.