The mass of “gospel” hymns which has swept through American churches and well-nigh ruined our sense of song consists largely of debased imitations of Negro melodies made by ears that caught the jingle but not the music, the body but not the soul, of the Jubilee songs.
In "The Souls of Black Folk," this passage offers a sharp critique of American gospel hymns as inferior imitations that fail to capture the essence of original Black melodies.
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