Swing Low, Sweet Chariot

[upbeat music] The Michael Berry Show is on the air.

Swing low, swing low, sweet chariot.

Coming forward to carry me home.

Swing low, sweet chariot.

Coming forward to carry me home.

He built Turning Point USA from a two-man startup into an eighty-five million dollar youth political machine, became one of the most listened to voices in America.

Band of angels coming after me.

Coming forward to carry me home.

Um, so he's saying, "Let me be your heir and let God finish the work He started through you through me." So then we get to the center point of the whole chapter, verse eleven, "As they were walking along and talking together, suddenly a chariot of fire and horses of fire appeared and separated the two of them and Elijah went into heaven in a whirlwind." What a moment.

I take it this is the moment that inspired the Negro Spiritual song, "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," coming forward to carry me home.

Um, still that brings the city values with me as well as-- So I'm gonna sing about that at the end.

But, um, you can see the original ideas, such wonderful things we get here that Elijah is one of two people we know of in human history given the privilege that the Lord took him home to be with Him without him having to pass through death.

And so the, kind of the song evoking that kind of prayer that we'd be brought home to God.

Wonderful for Elijah, but what for the people? Again, deeply troubling.

But now he's gone.

Oh

... "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" and, and "Row, Row, Row Your Boat," which is just such a beautiful idea.

You know, the River Styx and going to the other side, and who's gonna be the Psychopomp to take you across? Um, and just standing there with his family and close friends over that grave on this little piece of land that they had, you know, built this community on, um, on the edge of this beautiful wild reserve of thousands of acres, um, singing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat," it made me go, "Whoa, yeah, that song has a deeper meaning that not many people are aware of."

Yes.

They were coded communication.

Historians have identified specific spirituals such as Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, and Follow the Drinking Gourd as possible navigation songs for the Underground Railroad, though this interpretation remains actively debated among scholars.

And they were acts of profound psychological resistance, insisting on the full humanity and spiritual worth of people the law defined as property.

The first time America encountered these spirituals in a significant way was through the Fisk Jubilee Singers, a student vocal ensemble from Fisk University in Nashville, one of the historically Black colleges founded after the Civil War.