Paul Robeson Gives First All-Spirituals Concert in U.S. History

On April 19, 1925, Paul Robeson gave the first solo vocal recital devoted entirely to Negro spirituals and worksongs at the Greenwich Village Theatre in New York, accompanied by pianist Lawrence Brown. Sponsored by the Provincetown Players, the concert was greeted with enormous enthusiasm at a time when spirituals were seen by some middle-class Blacks as relics of slavery. Robeson's concert reframed spirituals as a sophisticated concert art form with universal emotional power.