History of the song This Little Light of Mine

Almost everyone knows this song and many of us love to sing it.  You'll hear it in many movies.  It also has a fascinating past:  both how it came to be, how it has been used in social movements, and how various versions of it have been created and used.  

• Eric Deggans' 7-minute podcast of a 2018 NPR All Things Considered story is a good place to start:

How the Civil Rights Movement Transformed 'This Little Light Of Mine'

(note that NPR will autoplay after the archival 7-minute podcast).

• Check out the version of This Little Light of Mine in the Unitarian Universalist Association Hymn Book (1993 edition).  The harmony in the song is attributed to Horace Clarence Boyer (1935 – 2009), but the words and music are from an African American spiritual (c. 1750 - 1875).  The song appears in the 'Commitment and Action' section of the hymn book.  Boyer was a music performer/director and a scholar/historian of gospel music, and viewing the index reveals two things:  that three of his arrangements appear in our hymnal, and that there are 24 African American Spirituals in total.  When it built the hymnal, the Living Tradition of the UUA expanded its teachings by drawing from one of UU-isms six sources, "wisdom from the world's religions which inspires us in our ethical and spiritual life."  In fact, Boyer is credited with introducing African-American church gospel music to more than just the UU religious denomination, in part by writing the book How Sweet the Sound: The Golden Age of Gospel Music (1995). (we ordered a copy of the book to share)