When I Hear Spirituals by Cheryl Willis Hudson & London Ladd

The spiritual is a proud musical tradition created by enslaved Black people in America, who channeled the rhythms and singing of their African origins into subversive songs of solidarity and guidance, using their owners’ Christianity as a cloak for their own defiance. Cheryl Willis Hudson discusses the history of the genre in this gorgeous picture book that is aimed at children but has plenty of food for thought for adults as well.

The text of the book is simple, as a young girl describes the effect that the title songs have on her. They make her feel proud of who she is and who she came from, and give her hope and courage and strength and faith. Interspersed with her thoughts are lines from several famous spirituals, including Nobody Knows The Trouble I’ve Seen and Go Down Moses.

Perhaps more importantly, each two-page spread illustrates a scene from either the young girl’s life or from Black history in America. The latter are especially powerful, whether portraying Harriet Tubman leading the enslaved to freedom, or Martin Luther King Jr, Coretta Scott King and John Lewis leading Civil Rights marches. London Ladd’s work is excellent throughout, as he uses mixed media techniques to bring the many emotions and situations of the book to life.

To provide further context, there’s a rich section of resources at the end, with an author’s note and glossary as well. I’m 100% listening to the list of YouTube videos referenced as I type, and very much enjoying this expansion of my musical education. So if you’re looking for a book about the role of spirituals in Black history and how they can help instill pride and joy in Black children, then look no further than this beautiful volume.

Yet I — who am admittedly not Black and not Christian, so if that’s going to make you discount the rest of my opinions on the subject, then it’s totally okay to navigate elsewhere — feel weirdly conflicted about this book, in a way that I probably wouldn’t have before Christian nationalism came to the forefront with the recent US Presidential inauguration. While I’m 100% here for liberation theology, no matter what religion it comes through, I can’t help but pause and grieve at the ways in which Christianity especially has been weaponized in this country to justify the very oppression that countless Black people fought so hard against.

The subject of spirituals is thus fraught, for me, because I know far too many Americans of all races who view these songs as pretty Christian music whose original purposes of liberation and subversion are a mere historical relic and not a living, continuous exhortation. The lyrics are no longer appreciated as coded instructions for individual freedom but are accepted as spiritual pablum meant to reinforce Christian in-group superiority and, too often and unfortunately, paternalism. The fraudsters of prosperity gospel will just as cynically use these songs against Black people as white Christian nationalists will, to make the faithful believe that submission to their authority is what God wants.

I understand that the author is trying to explain the power that spirituals had on her as a child, as she explains in her author’s note. But there’s something troubling to me about the way she talks only about oppression and struggle in the past tense. While she does say that the future is something to hope and dream for, there’s no talk of activism — only existence — in the present, which is really weird coming from such a strong advocate for diverse books! Maybe that’s all outside of the scope of this book, maybe I’m asking too much of a Black woman who just wants to celebrate a favorite genre of music (and who likely wrote all this well before the 2024 elections.) In less politically turbulent times, I probably wouldn’t bring up any of my misgivings. But reading this while living under an administration that seeks to vilify diversity, equity and inclusion, for whom Black History Month is not something to be celebrated but banned, with too many people either cowed or, worse, cheering along, it doesn’t feel like quite enough. It feels, in fact, oddly reductive of the same music that it’s attempting to celebrate. It’s one thing to simplify a complex subject for the consumption of children: I’m all for that. What I don’t like is the weird framing of struggles as being in the past when they’re very clearly not.

Tl; dr if you’re getting this gorgeous book for kids you care about, make sure you sit with them and explain how the fight for civil rights is ongoing, and how spirituals have been used to sustain both the spirit and sometimes literal lives of those who sing them.

When I Hear Spirituals by Cheryl Willis Hudson & London Ladd was published January 7 2025 by Holiday House and is available from all good booksellers, including