I don't see any reference here to the United Methodists' hymnal supplement Songs of Zion: Supplemental Worship Resources, edited by a group led by J. Jefferson Cleveland (1937-1986), which contains a section of about 100 spirituals with a prefaced essay (by Cleveland, I think) that probably ought to be noted here. When I get back from this weekend's Esperanto convention in DC, I'll try to remember to transcribe the essay and make a list of the spirituals. Verolga Nix is one of the other contributors. For a church publication, the texts are remarkably unbowdlerized and apparently deliberately eclectic as to grammatical and spelling normalization. Although published by the United Methodists' Abingdon Press, I think the book was intended at least as much for the predominantly African-American Methodist bodies like the AME, AME Zion, and CME. As a Baptist, of course I particularly enjoy the lines that refer to us Baptists, including one that goes "I'm gonna hold up the Baptist finger!" (Guess which one that is? ;-) )

Haruo