The Arts & Justice Collective, in collaboration with South Congregational Church announces the Negro Spirituals Royalty Initiative. 

The Negro Spirituals Royalty Initiative (NSRI) is a new program, created by the Social Justice Matters team of South Congregational Church in Centerville and managed collaboratively with the Hyannis-based Arts & Justice Collective. 

Rooted in the plantation fields of the American South, Negro Spirituals (the term most commonly used by Black Americans and historians for this body of music) were forged out of the lived experience of enslaved communities. Passed down through oral tradition, these songs served as personal prayers, communal strength, and declarations of faith. Crucially, many Spirituals carried dual meanings—functioning both as expressions of spiritual salvation and as coded communications that signaled escape routes, meeting points, and directions to physical freedom along the Underground Railroad. Unlike other hymns and worship music, Negro Spirituals were not published until after the names of their creators were long forgotten, if they were ever even known. Many of these songs were eventually written down, and have become the source of countless musical arrangements and compositions published and sold to churches, schools, community choruses, orchestras, bands, and all manner of musical organizations. Due to the erasure of the original composers, neither the artists or their descendants benefit financially from the continued usage of these spirituals in worship or other settings. 

A number of Congregational churches in MA and around the country have established Negro Spiritual royalty programs to acknowledge, through royalty offerings to Black musicians working today, the importance of and lack of compensation given to the creators of Negro Spirituals. South Congregational Church in Centerville has affirmed the artistic and spiritual worth of all Negro Spirituals by developing its own NSRI effort to support local Black musicians. The congregation is invited to participate in giving to this Initiative three times in the year, and all the Negro Spirituals sung each period are recorded and documented. 

The Arts & Justice Collective conducted a focus group with local Black musicians, on behalf of South Congregational Church's NSRI, to determine the best steps for distributing these funds. On 10/20, the Collective will publish the NSRI Enrollment Form, allowing Black-identifying local musicians to opt into the pool of beneficiaries of the fund. After an initial enrollment period of one month, an advisory committee will be formed from the enrolled musicians, who will oversee the regular distribution of funds to the pool.

If you think this Initiative applies to you, please fill out the NSRI Enrollment Form.