After the U.S. Civil War, there were several Black colleges establish in the United States. Perhaps the best known was Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. The university soon got into financial problems, and music director John W. Work took the university choir, the Fisk Jubilee Singers, on the road to do concerts of "Negro Spirituals" for white audiences, to raise money to keep the university alive. The choral versions of spirituals that Work arranged, were intended for white audiences, so sometimes the arrangements of the songs were not true to their slave roots. Nonetheless, the songs were good and the performances were good, and they raised a lot of money for the university. I have "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" in an 1880 book titled The Story of the Jubilee Singers with their Songs. To me, the song has always meant the yearning of Black slaves to escape slavery, with hope for a brighter future after the chariot has "carried us home."

It's certainly not the slave roots of this song that might be objectionable. I think it's the desecration of this sacred song of freedom that is objectionable. To be truthful, I didn't find any performances of the song that I would object to, but I have seen Americans perform the song with hand motions that are nearly obscene. I think this is an anti-slavery song that should be treated with respect.

-Joe-