Abstract
The Bible has played an important role in each period of African-American development. A casual survey of this history reveals overwhelming evidence of the use and influence of the Bible in the songs of the African Diaspora on the North
American continent. It has been a primary source for spirituals, hymns, and gospel songs composed by African Americans. Even the spiritual’s secular progeny—blues, soul, and jazz—sometimes make reference to the Bible’s concepts and context due largely to its being a common language for a displaced people unable to trace their native tongue to their own county. Africa, a vast continent of many spoken languages, is an example of a disinherited people who were forcibly taken to the New World with no national language except the Bible.