Beverly Wagoner passed away in Greencastle, IN. This is the full obituary story where you can express condolences and share memories. Services by Bittles & Hurt.
While watching the newly released PBS documentary, “The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song,” I instantly thought about the Negro spirituals and hymns that I grew up hearing in church as a young girl in Athens, Georgia.
The documentary, and the book which bears the same title, comprises the outstanding and vivid storytelling of Henry Louis Gates Jr., the director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University.
An eminent scholar and filmmaker on the Black experience in the U.S., Gates begins his narration of “The Black Church” walking into Waldon United Methodist Church, the house of worship he attended in Piedmont, West Virginia.
Tell me where would I be?
Where would I be?
This was one of the choir anthems of the 1980s in many Southern, Black Baptist churches. I remember it well as a young girl growing up in Ebenezer Baptist Church West in Athens, Georgia.
The adult choir, in their maroon-and-white robes, would march down the aisles to lead the congregation into morning praise. I instantly thought about this childhood memory while I watched the newly released PBS documentary, “The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song.” “If it had not been for the Lord on my side,” along with many other well-known Negro spirituals, hymns and gospel music, provided a rich, soulful backdrop for this four-hour series on the history of the most significant institution within the African American community.