Compassionate Rivers of African Diaspora Community Cross Global Roads of New World Commodities

• In Event: Global Cross Flows: Theory and History

Description for Program

Rivers are not just linear passages. They are actually cycles that include oceans, clouds, and rains as well. Such cycles are a unit of real, natural time. History—-in this case of the African diaspora in America—-takes on new dimensions when told in such time. It is possible to trace a religious history of enslaved Africans and their descendants in the Americas from colonial times to the present through the evolution of major cycles of Black music sacred and secular, and to correlate the resulting narrative with the Biblical narrative of Judeo-Christian history and also with the ongoing development of environmental changes associated with Anthropocene. Linear narratives of modern Western history and religion seem to miss this. But mythically cyclical narratives, correlating human affairs to the water cycle in particular, seem to bring it out. Still, the concept of music is ethnocentric, but C. Eric Lincoln’s description of Black religion—-as crossing all boundaries of doctrine and dogma, and also meeting a common need of Black people living in a larger societal context, in which their suffering was not only institutionalized but also foundational—-seems to imply compassion as perhaps the actual flowing quality.

Author

• Hassaun Jones-Bey