The African American Catholic Hymnal and the African American Spiritual

Abstract

In the past four decades African American Catholics have done a good deal to ani mate and direct the inculturation of our faith and to transform and shape various aspects of our celebration of the Eucharistic Liturgy, our preparation for and reception of sacraments, our private and communal prayer, and, thus, our spirituality. The fine start on this endeavor owes much to the National Office for Black Catholics (NOBC), particularly, the untiring and imaginative leadership of Marianist Joseph Mary Davis, its first executive director, and Clarence Joseph Rivers, the doyen of Black Catholic liturgists. In the mid-1970s and early 1980s, through annual workshops, conferences, and the publication of its journal, Freeing the Spirit, as well as occasional monographs, the NOBC's program for Culture and Worship constructed a platform for the work of Black Catholic composers and liturgists such as Rivers, Rawn Harbour, Leon Roberts, Marjorie Gabriel-Burrow, Grayson Brown, Avon Gillespie, Eddie Bonnemere, and Ray East. These men and women molded and directed an African American renewal of Catholic worship, ritual, and forms of prayer. Thus, at least, to date, we may conclude that the primary impact of inculturation for African American Catholicism has been aesthetic, and the publication and widespread use of Lead Me, Guide Me: The African American Catholic Hymnal1 is a singular example of this impact. There were, perhaps, two proposals for a hymnal reflective of the spiritual, that is religious and cultural, sensibilities of Black Catholics. Avon Gillespie prepared a pro posal for a hymnal in 1978. Three years later, Father James T Menkhus, an associate pastor of St. Martin's in Baltimore, Maryland recognized the need for liturgical and devotional music reflective of his congregation.2 In 1983, the National Black Catholic Clergy Caucus authorized the development of a hymnal and formed a committee