Eugene Farrar - Singing Spirituals (clip)
Interviewed by Hudson Vaughan on January 12, 2010
Eugene Farrar: [Singing] “We came this far by faith, lean on the Lord.” My, my, my, that’s a great song. I don’t know all of the words to it, but I love to hear the song being sung because that’s how African Americans come through slavery you know, come this far by faith-leaning on the Lord. Even during slavery, the slaves have songs that they sing - meeting songs:
“Going to lay down my burden, down by the riverside, down by the riverside, down by the riverside; Going to lay down my burden, down by the riverside ain’ t going to study the war no more.”
That’s when at the end of the day, slaves would go down by the river and they would have their communication and talk about how their day went and you know encourage one another. So, you know it has a great value to it, is that we have to remember where we came from and remember where we are trying to go, because if we don’t we are destined to repeat history if we don’t have a vision to go forward.
