THE BIRTH OF ‘SPIRITUAL’

Evening Star, Issue 20057, 24 December 1928, Page 9

THE BIRTH OF ‘SPIRITUAL’

NEGRO SONG OF THE FLORIDA HURRICANE

The recent typhoon in Florida saw the birth of a new “spiritual.” Its quality is perhaps not very remarkable, but the striking fact about it is that it was observed m the making. It was composed on the shores of Lake cliobee, in Florida. What happened there cannot ho known abroad, for the story has never been fully told. The lake lies in Hat land at dead sea level, like much other land in Florida, which cannot drain itself once it is Hooded. The wind from, the east swept the lake almost out of its bed, and wind and water together produced appalling suffering. The luckiest wore drowned or killed at once. Some escaped after incredible adventures; others, after adventures as terrible, met death by drowning or accident when they had exhausted every resource. The whole countryside for days afterwards'was a scene of desolation, into which relief workers could not penetrate, because Hoods covered the laud and wreckage made the loads impassable. In this wilderness hundreds of negro! refugees lived in trees or on floating rafts, suffering from hunger as they had before suffered from exposure, and out of their agony they made the song which the officials of the Red Cross have now recorded:— On the sixteenth of September, In tho year nineteen twenty-eight,, God started riding early, And He rode till very late. He rode out on the ocean, Chained the lightning to His wheel, Stepped on the land at West Palm Beach, And the wicked hearts did yield. —Chorus.— In the storm, oh, in tho storm, Lord, somebody got drowned, Got drowned, Lord, In the storm. It is an interesting revelation of how a primitive' people, living in huts and loghouscs without our modern protection against the elements, could return to their ancient ways and around the : refugee camp Hres produce a real “ folk ” song.”—‘ Observer.’