Gospel is a style of music that originated from the blending of traditional African-American spiritual songs and Christian hymns. The genre was first acknowledged sometime in the mid- to late-1700s, and “Gospel Music” was first published as a term in the 1780s. I am interested in the cultural barriers that were crossed with the mixing of African-American and Christian traditional music, and how this mix effected racial and religious politics in the US. Although I am neither African-American nor Christian, I am interested in music on a larger scale, and I believe that this genre has one of the most intriguing cultural effects in the past century. I want to study the ways in which gospel music gave a voice to a racial minority from the end of the civil war and reconstruction, to the present day, where racial issues are obviously still pervasive.