Spirituals Radio Project: How A Grand Vision Of Jesus On A White Horse Signaled Triumph Over Slavery

National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
The founding members of the Fisk Jubilee Singers in 1875. The group was composed mostly of former slaves, and among the first to give public performances of Negro spirituals, including Ride On King Jesus. Fisk University is in Nashville, Tennessee.

...many enslaved Africans adopted biblical figures not only as heroes, but as ancestors, to replace the African ancestors from whom they had been torn. -M. Roger Holland, II