Deep River
A digital archive of Negro spirituals — preserving the songs, stories, and scholarship of a tradition born from the deepest suffering and the most enduring hope.
These songs belong to Black Americans. This archive exists to honor that, and to make the history and scholarship surrounding these works freely accessible to all.
The archive is organized around four scholarly collections — Du Bois, Fisk, Hampton, and Lomax — and draws on primary sources and peer scholarship. Read more about our editorial approach and cultural commitments.
Featured spiritual
Roll, Jordan, Roll
Roll, Jordan
The first song in the first published collection of African American spirituals — a Sea Islands shout in which the Jordan rolls forward and the singer asks to roll with it, into heaven, into freedom, into the next world this one cannot yet contain.
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Explore the archive
Browse and search 30 documented spirituals, filterable by era, region, theme, and scholarly collection.