The spirituals are the religious folk songs created and first sung by African Americans in slavery. “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot;” “Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho;” “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child;” “Go Down, Moses;” “Steal Away to Jesus;” “Didn’t My Lord Deliver Daniel?;” “Wade in the Water;” these are some of the best known survivors of the hundreds of remarkable religious folk songs that were created by enslaved African Americans. In fact, many Americans from all ethnic backgrounds can remember “growing up” with these songs, which were created by a circumscribed community of people in bondage but eventually came to be regarded as the first “signature” music of the new American nation. In time, the spirituals were offered as a gift to the whole world, exerting their cultural impact well into this last part of the twentieth century.