For the last dozen years, in the basement of a university library in Waco, Texas, a small team of audio engineers has been busy trying to save black gospel music.

An engineer delicately removes a scuffed vinyl record from its tattered sleeve. He then cleans the disc and drops the needle on the turntable. Exhilarating music rises, filling the small room with voices not heard in half a century. Once the song has come to an end, the audio file is loaded into a digital archive at Baylor University.

In 2005, Robert Darden, a journalism professor at Baylor, wrote in an article in The New York Times, that innumerable black gospel records, particularly from the “Golden Age” of the mid-1940s to the mid-70s, were at risk of being lost, whether because of damage or neglect. He wrote, “It would be more than a cultural disaster to forever lose this music. It would be a sin.”

Darden estimated that around 75 percent of all gospel vinyl released during the Golden Age was no longer available. One of the rare songs that Darden helped recover was “Old Ship of Zion,” recorded in the early 1970s by the Mighty Wonders. Darden recalls the first time he heard it: “Our engineer played it for me in the studio, and we both broke into tears. I just want to make sure that every gospel song, the music that all American music comes from, is saved.”

Reverend Clay Evans, a Baptist pastor in Chicago who has worked as a civil rights leader and gospel recording artist, has powerful memories of the Golden Age. He says:

Gospel music motivated us. Music gave us hope. Hope that we needed to continue to overcome. Hope that we were on the right trail to overcome the racism that existed. Hope that God was with us in the struggle. We face the same issues today, and we still need encouragement.

Evans sees parallels between today’s struggles for social justice and the civil rights struggles of the past. “It’s good for children to know what we’ve been through. Then they can be encouraged to make it through, too.”

Click here to listen to ”Mighty Wonders – Old Ship of Zion”

Possible Preaching Angles: Black History Month; Church History; Worship music – It is so important to preserve the rich heritage of black gospel music. In this way, we will never forget the cultural context of gospel music and the vital contribution it made to church worship music.