Amazing Grace might be the ultimate song of redemption, steeped in two centuries of black history, but its writer had also been a slave ship captain. There is no shortage of versions of Amazing Grace.

This enormous, in some ways groundbreaking, anthology shows the range and depth of verse about the captivity, enslavement and sometime freedom of peoples of African descent in the English-speaking ...

What do Nelson Mandela’s 70th birthday, Woodstock, a Barack Obama speech, Coal Miner’s Daughter, Fannie Lou Hamer’s civil rights marches, The Grand Ole Opry, and American churches have in common? It’s ...

‘Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land, Taught my benighted soul to understand That there’s a God, that there’s a Saviour too: Once I redemption neither sought nor knew. Some view our sable race ...

What do Nelson Mandela’s 70th birthday, Woodstock, a Barack Obama speech, Coal Miner’s Daughter, Fannie Lou Hamer’s civil rights marches, The Grand Ole Opry, and American churches have in common? All ...