As Laura mentioned in her blog post, Sunday we attended the 11:00am service at the Central Baptist Church on Washington. It was amazing. We strutted in there wearing her hats, nervous and talking each other up, saying hello and being greeted with smiles. At the beginning of the service, Reverend Scott asked anyone who was attending the Central Baptist Church for the first time to stand up and be recognized by the congregation. Later on, when Dr. Scott instructed his congregation to walk around and greet one another, people made their way down the aisles to shake our hands and wish us a glorious Sunday. Then, the singing began, and it was beautiful and it was irresistible. Even if my intent was to walk in there and simply observe, I would have failed miserably. The energy and the desire to move created by the people and the music were overwhelming. I don’t know how the building itself managed to stay still. I stood there, clapping and moving to the music and it still wasn’t enough for me. I still felt like one of the uptight white persons described for whom black music was watered down for. I’m not exactly sure what it is my body wanted to do, as it was still early in the service; we hadn’t reached the point yet where Reverend Scott would encourage us to “praise the Lord through dance” and show us all how it’s done. It was extremely powerful, and while I was listening to the lyrics of the song, it made sense to me why Ray Charles would take Gospel tunes and change the lyrics and they would become hits across America. There was something about the energy of the music and the passion in the way it was delivered, regardless of the message that just made you feel amazing. It also made sense to me how protest songs grew out of African American spirituals, as they are both soulful, heartfelt songs protesting against a greater evil and asking for a wrong to be set right with the help of a greater power.
The Reverend’s speech was also extremely impressive and moving and listening to him, I was reminded of why those who are known as great orators study orators of the past. As teachers, we need to be great orators in order to engage our students and this man did not allow you to take your focus off of him for one second. If we were not responding with the right amount of feeling or he didn’t feel as if we were quite getting his message, he made sure to tell us; at one point he said to us all, “You people don’t even know when to shout; I didn’t have to work this hard at the 7:45am service.” He even tried to answer Dr. Early’s question about what is music, stating that, and in regards to praise, music brings us together; it is a unifying force. The differences, however, between praise and song, Rev. Scott stated, are you can be cranky when you’re singing, but you can’t be cranky when you’re praising.
-- Andronike Giannopoulos
Image provided courtesy of the CBC website.
