On Sunday, February 23, we’ll celebrate one year of our Royalty Reparations Program, in which we collect offerings each time we sing a slave spiritual in worship. We launched the program to honor slave spirituals and Black music as an integral part of American music.
Spirituals are an unacknowledged form of intellectual property of enslaved Africans, with at least 1,000 to 6,000 spirituals in existence. These songs were a form of prayer and community-building for enslaved people, offering strength and comfort amidst the cruelties of daily life.
Our goal has been to recognize and honor the musical contributions of Black people to our worship repertoire, acknowledging that our contributions can never fully repay the debt owed. In the past year, we raised $2926 for the Albina Music Trust, thanks to all of you and the Steering Team, which kicked in additional money from the general fund:
$1,509—February Last Sunday kickoff event
$200—church general fund for reparations and outreach
$275—March Last Sunday, split extra Easter donations with IMIrJ
$830—Donations made throughout the year in worship to Royalty Reparations Fund
$112—Donations made to Venmo
We’ve given 100% of our offerings to the Albina Music Trust, the only full service community archive in the United States, dedicated to the restoration of a Black community's historic musical culture. Their programs amplify the legacy of Albina's musician community through archival media preservation, events and exhibitions, a record label, a radio program, oral history publications, and a sound walk. They are the stewards of a digital repository documenting Albina’s arts and culture legacy, the Albina Community Archive.
Our donations have been used to help with events such as Sounds of Albina Imagined, Albina’s Gospel Revisited, and many concerts, in addition to album releases and the Albina Soul Walk.
We’ll celebrate our first year with worship services on Sunday, February 23 to honor Black History Month and Black music. Our special guest will be Marilyn Keller. A 2016 Jazz Society of Oregon Hall of Fame inductee, Marilyn is a versatile vocalist with 40 years of experience in jazz, gospel, R&B, blues, and theater. She has performed worldwide, recorded extensively, and collaborated with renowned musicians like Darrell Grant and Tom Grant. A longtime member of the Black Swan Classic Jazz Band and the Augustana Lutheran Jazz Quartet, she has performed at The Jazz Standard and the Smithsonian.
Join us at 8:30 and 10:45 a.m. at Spirit of Grace to continue our tradition of royalty reparations!