Los Angeles Colored Chorus Program No. 23

The exact date of this episode is unknown. We've filled in the date above with a placeholder. What we actually have on record is: 1937-uu-uu.

Directed by Carlyle Scott, this presentation of the Works Progress Administration and the Federal Music Project features the Los Angeles Colored Chorus singing mainly traditional African Spiritual music. According to the host, "This group is widely known for it's interesting and unusual interpretation of characteristic Negro folk melodies and spirituals"

O Southland! (Old Folks at Home)
Great Day
Steal Away
Every Time I Feel The Spirit

The program concludes with a choral hum of Old Folks at Home, also known as Swanee River.

Halfway through the program the announcer says a few words about the WPA, referencing Franklin D. Roosevelt's second term reelection and the anticipation of World War II:

"The American people want freedom and a plan to democracy. They said so, unequivocally at the polls. Behind them were years of depression, and ahead, similar years if they choose to abandon a working plan of common sense relief. Their choice proved to a world pawning its future to war that America is a lone oasis of intelligence. Depression as a force hasn't yet used up its strength. Harder than ever it drives the military machines of other nations to provide work for their jobless. We call WPA a work relief program, but it is really far more than that. It is a new mold for democracy. A better concept of representative government"

[Recorded c. 1937]

Audio courtesy of the NYC Municipal Archives WNYC Collection

WNYC archives id: 150503
Municipal archives id: LT4837