This post is by Carolyn Bennett, the 2018-2019 Library of Congress Teacher in Residence.
Don’t Be Weary, Traveler, Motet on a Negro Folk Song Motif : For Six-Part Unaccompanied Chorus of Mixed Voices, 1921
R. Nathaniel Dett was one of the earliest composers to arrange African-American folk melodies in new, creative settings. In his documentary four-volume Dett Collection of Negro Spirituals, containing simple harmonizations, he is credited as