Wings over Jordan: Press Coverage and Critical Comments 1938 - 1942

By Sam Barber

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 8, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669824541

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Copyright © 2022 by Sam Barber.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

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Rev. date: 05/06/2022

Xlibris

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

Part I          The Wings Over Jordan Choir

Part II         Profile Of The Reverend Glenn T. Settle

Part III       Press Coverage

Part IV       Critical Comments

Conclusion

Footnotes

INTRODUCTION

(cold) at 9:30 a.m....Wings Over Jordan. Today Columbia presents to its nation-wide audience and to the Negroes of America, the twenty-first in its series of Sunday morning devotional periods heard each week at this hour over some of these stations. Wings Over Jordan comes to you from Cleveland through the facilities of WGAR. It is under the direction of its organizer, Rev. Glenn T. Settle, prominent Negro clergyman of Cleveland with music by the Gethsemane Choral Singers under the direction of Worth Kramer, in charge of choral music at this station. The nation’s most prominent Negro pastors, educators and professional men and women are presented regularly on this program. To its vast Sunday morning audience, Columbia presents again...Wings Over Jordan.¹

Although this once internationally celebrated choir’s contributions to American and world history were lauded and honored everywhere, today, its achievements are little known and perhaps all but forgotten except in the memory of the participants and a few loyal admirers. Neither bold initiatives, historical firsts, nor symbolic significance inspired press or others to record in any meaningful way this vital and rich vein of Negro culture. This classic institution has yet to be chronicled and to become an integral part of American history. At this writing, it is difficult to know the exact reasons why these activities went unrecorded. Speculation abounds. What we do know, although not alarmingly so, is that the few accounts recorded in standard texts and reference books are pitifully unsatisfactory.

When citations are recorded, much of the information is not only sketchy but oftentimes incorrect as well. Even in conversation a tribute paid to the Wings Over Jordan Choir often evokes a response of disbelief.

In an attempt to put an end to this speculation and to bring some order to the activities of the Wings Over Jordan Choir, this project gives me the opportunity to investigate an unexplored and undocumented slice of Negro culture of intense interest. The aims of this project will be to examine the accounts of the choir’s activities by three leading Negro newspapers from 1938 - 1942, and to report the findings. The specific objectives will be to determine the extent of press coverage and to determine to what extent, if any, critical comments by music critics, staff writers, and others, were made a part of this coverage.

The three newspapers selected were the Chicago Defender, the Pittsburgh Courier, and the Cleveland Call