Time for a quick chorus of Swing Low Sweet Chariot, Gob?

[MajGenl.Meade]

The Rugby Football Union (RFU) is undertaking a review into the “historical context” of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot”, a favourite song among England supporters that has roots in American slavery.

The song is routinely seen and heard at Twickenham, with its lyrics reproduced on walls at the stadium and sung from the stands, and has been a rugby union anthem for at least three decades. Its full history goes back much further, though, to its credited author Wallace Willis – a freed slave from 19th Century Oklahoma.

It became a popular spiritual in the early 20th Century and was popularised again among folk musicians during the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. Its current guise as a sporting anthem, anecdotally linked to Martin “Chariots” Offiah, is one that has come under the microscope before as a potential act of cultural appropriation. Current England star Maro Itoje told the Daily Mail this week that he felt the lineage was “complicated”.

With the ongoing focus on the Black Lives Matters protests, the RFU has decided many who enjoy the song do not know its story and stands ready to address the issue.

"Address" what "issue"? What utter bollocks. It's a song, meant to be sung by anyone for any reason - not restricted to a particular ethnic "approved" voice. It has nothing demeaning about it. It's a brave anthem written to celebrate the importance of freedom and an assurance of eventual triumph.

[Big RR]

While it is recognized as a spiritual, I recall once reading it was written by a native american after some of the efforts to relocate them.

[BoSoxGal]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swing_L ... et_Chariot

“Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” was composed by Wallis Willis, a Choctaw freedman in the old Indian Territory in what is now Choctaw County, near the County seat of Hugo, Oklahoma sometime after 1865. He may have been inspired by the sight of the Red River, by which he was toiling, which reminded him of the Jordan River and of the Prophet Elijah's being taken to heaven by a chariot (2 Kings 2:11).[1][2] Some sources[3][4] claim that this song and "Steal Away"[5] (also sung by Willis) had lyrics that referred to the Underground Railroad, the freedom movement that helped black people escape from Southern slavery to the North and Canada.

Alexander Reid, a minister at the Old Spencer Academy, a Choctaw boarding school, heard Willis singing these two songs and transcribed the words and melodies. He sent the music to the Jubilee Singers of Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. The Jubilee Singers popularized the songs during a tour of the United States and Europe.[2]

In 1939, Nazi Germany's Reich Music Examination Office added the song to a listing of "undesired and harmful" musical works.[6]

The song enjoyed a resurgence during the 1960s Civil Rights struggle and the folk revival; it was performed by a number of artists. Perhaps the most famous performance during this period was that by Joan Baez during the legendary 1969 Woodstock festival.

Oklahoma State Senator Judy Eason McIntyre from Tulsa proposed a bill nominating "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" as the Oklahoma State official gospel song in 2011. The bill was co-sponsored by the Oklahoma State Black Congressional Caucus. Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin signed the bill into law on May 5, 2011, at a ceremony at the Oklahoma Cowboy Hall of Fame; making the song the official Oklahoma State Gospel Song.[7]

[Big RR]

Interesting; as he is identified as a freedman, I would guess he is african american (or at least of african american descent). I do know that some tribes granted feed slaves full citizenship, and perhaps he was one of them (or one of their descendants). I'll have to google i later, but you learn something new every day.

I also didn't realize Steal Away was written by the same person.

[ex-khobar Andy]

I've never understood the application of 'Sing low, sweet chariot' to the English Rugby team. I don't recall it before around mid- to late-eighties. I suspect it was a response to the Welsh singing which was always excellent. The Welsh are proud, justifiably, of their singing heritage. Welsh crowds would sing Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau (aka Land of Or Fathers) and Max Boyce's Hymns and Arias and even Ar Hyd y Nos (All through the night). England needed something singable, to which most people knew the words, but mostly had to be in a fairly narrow range to suit the notoriously unmusical English. Swing Low fitted the bill.

[BoSoxGal]

Interesting; as he is identified as a freedman, I would guess he is african american (or at least of african american descent). I do know that some tribes granted feed slaves full citizenship, and perhaps he was one of them (or one of their descendants). I'll have to google i later, but you learn something new every day.

I also didn't realize Steal Away was written by the same person.

From my research online, it appears he was a Choctaw enslaved to another Choctaw from whom he got his name, Willis. No negro in the mix.

Interestingly, there was a fair bit of European enslavement of native Americans prior to the mid 1700s, when negro enslavement became more popular. And native Americans had a longstanding history of enslaving one another, although largely a different format from the chattel slavery Europeans engaged in.

[dales]

The Arabs were enslaving Blacks as early as the 7th Century.



https://glc.yale.edu/sites/default/file ... unwick.pdf

[Econoline]

I've never understood the application of 'Sing low, sweet chariot' to the English Rugby team.

I'd never heard of this (hell, I've barely heard of the English rugby team) but maybe it has something to do with this (quoted in Meade's OP):

Its current guise as a sporting anthem, anecdotally linked to Martin “Chariots” Offiah

And, well, it's easier to sing along with than this.

[BoSoxGal]

That just showed the other day on TCM, so I watched it for the first time on HDTV. I’ve loved that movie since it released and have seen it at least a dozen times but likely more. The soundtrack is brilliant.

And on another note, the brilliant Ian Holm just died yesterday.

Two brilliant Ians in Chariots, one gone very far too soon - just like Eric Liddell.

[Bicycle Bill]

I didn't hear harmony so much as I heard people singing in unison ... unless you consider a large group of people singing the same note across three different octaves to be harmony (which I don't).
Or does the term "in harmony" in this case mean that for a minute or so no one was trying to bash someone else's head in for cheering for the wrong team?

-"BB"-

[MajGenl.Meade]

From my research online, it appears he was a Choctaw enslaved to another Choctaw from whom he got his name, Willis. No negro in the mix.

Oh I think there was.

The Choctaw freedmen were indigenous people of color who were granted citizenship in the Choctaw Nation. Their freedom and citizenship were requirements of the 1866 treaty the US made with the Choctaw; it required a new treaty because the Choctaw had sided with the Confederate States of America during the war. The Confederacy had promised the Choctaw and other tribes of Indian Territory a Native American state if it won the war.

"Freedmen" is one of the terms given to the newly-emancipated people after slavery was abolished in the United States, but does not apply to all Freedmen American Indians. The Choctaw Freedmen were officially adopted as full members into the Choctaw Nation in 1885.

Like other Native American tribes, the Choctaw had customarily held slaves as captives from warfare. As they adopted elements of European culture, such as larger farms and plantations, they began to adapt their system to that of purchasing and holding chattel slave workers of African-American descent. Moshulatubbee had slaves, as did many of the European men, generally fur traders, who married into the Choctaw nation. The Folsom and LeFlore families were some of the Choctaw planters who held the most slaves at the time of Indian Removal and afterward.

Slavery lasted in the Choctaw Nation until 1866. Former slaves of the Choctaw Nation would be called the Choctaw freedmen, and then and later, a number had Choctaw as well as African and sometimes European ancestry

Some of those with black ancestry also had a Choctaw forebear; many did not. Less had both European and Choctaw. The Choctaw nation fought for the Confederacy and were part of the last standing Rebel army (indigenous) to surrender to the Union

[Gob]

Fuck the virtue signalling wanker(s) who proposed this. Put them on the rugby pitch and let the Welsh pack run over them.