Presentation on Black Sacred Music and the Civil Rights Movement

Baylor University Professor to Speak on Black Sacred Music and the Civil Rights Movement Sunday, Sept. 18 @ 9:30am FBC Sanctuary

"Nothing But Love in God's Water," the two-volume work by Robert F. Darden, follows the rise of black sacred music as protest, from the African-American spirituals through the civil rights movement through the recent surge of democratically inspired protest movements and the #blacklivesmatter campaign. Using previously lost and unavailable music and images, "Nothing But Love in God's Water" graphically shows how a music born in faith and blood not only endured but continually grew in power and impact—from the antebellum American South into an international phenomenon today. Spirituals, gospel songs and freedom songs not only change lives, they transform nations.

Robert F. Darden is professor of journalism, public relations, and new media at Baylor University. He is the director of Baylor's Black Gospel Music Restoration Project, which is the world's largest initiative to identify, acquire, digitize, catalogue, and make accessible the fast-vanishing vinyl of gospel music's golden age. He is the former gospel music editor for Billboard Magazine and author of "People Get Ready: A New History of Black Gospel Music" and "Nothing but Love in God's Water: Black Sacred Music from the Civil War to the Civil Rights Movement, Volume I." He also is also a frequent contributor to Huffington Post on the topics of Black sacred music and the civil rights movement.

Darden’s expertise also includes 20 years as Senior Editor of The Wittenburg Door (the world's oldest, largest, and probably only religious humor and satire magazine). He is the author of more than two dozen books and hundreds of magazine articles. His articles and short stories have appeared in The New York Times, The Oxford American, Southern Arts, Amazing Journeys, The Library of Congress/National Registry of Historic Recordings, and others.

Darden has been interviewed and featured on National Public Radio's All Things Considered, Tapestry (Canadian Broadcasting Corp.), C-SPAN and Fresh Air. 

Darden will be in Washington the weekend of the 18th to participate in some pre-opening events for the Smithsonian’s new National Museum of African American History & Culture, opening on September 24th.