You can make a donation to the Spiritual Royalties fund at any point during the year.
CLICK HERE and choose Spiritual Royalties Fund from the dropdown menu.

Spiritual Royalties Fund

This fall, First Parish began collecting donations as a form of royalties for our use of spirituals in our worship services. These royalties will be donated to our chosen nonprofit for this year, Hamilton Garrett Center for Music and Arts.

The spirituals we sing and hear in church from time to time are rich in history and emotional resonance from over two hundred years of being sung in various contexts by hundreds of thousands of people. The enslaved creators of these spirituals and their descendants have never been compensated as others have for music they composed. This fund will be a form of acknowledgement of this debt and of our appreciation for having this rich heritage of spirituals in our own worship experiences.

Each year we will give the proceeds from the Spiritual Royalties Fund to a different nonprofit furthering the education of Black artists and musicians. This year, our recipient is Hamilton Garrett Center for Music and Arts, founded by two women who wanted to create a community-based youth program to preserve, educate, and celebrate Black music and culture. To learn about Hamilton Garrett, you can watch the director describe how it was founded and how it has grown: CLICK HERE.

Every time we sing a spiritual in worship, we print the following in the bulletin:

Watch a presentation by Music Director Miranda Loud to learn more about Spirituals and the Spiritual Royalties Fund.

Listen to Miranda Loud present the Spiritual Royalties Fund during our October 27th service. She begins at minute 42:00.

“We at First Parish in Lincoln acknowledge the history and significance of the African American Spirituals, traditionally called Negro Spirituals, sung in today’s worship service. With respect and deep gratitude for the extraordinary musical contributions made to American music by Black people, we offer our thanks for the creators of these spirituals and their descendants. We agree that each time we sing the spiritual songs of enslaved Black people in our worship together as hymns or anthem arrangements, we will sing and hear them with open hearts honoring the unnamed musicians who created them, and we will pay royalties to organizations promoting the advancement of Black artists and musicians in America. We understand that the debt owed to Black musicians and artists can never be fully repaid. Through our words, our gifts, and our actions, we will forever strive to do what we can to end systemic racism in America.”