Lord, I want to be a Christian

Lord, I want to be a Christian. African American spiritual*. ‘Lord, I want to be a Christian’ is among a canon of African American spirituals that appears both in mainline denominational hymnals and in African American hymnals in the United States. It was first published in Folk Songs of the American Negro edited by Frederick Jerome Work* (1878?-1942) (Nashville, 1907) with an introduction by John W. Work, Jr. (John Wesley Work (II)*, 1872?-1925). This publication was the outgrowth of the performances by the Fisk Jubilee Singers*, who codified the Spirituals in a musical style that reached a broader audience beyond the African American community.  Its appearance in this important...