The Spirituals: An Oral History Project

The following information comes from the description on the "Pass the Word" website. "Thirty-nine interviews [recorded from 2003-2006] with scholars, historians, members of the Kentucky based American Spiritual Ensemble, ethno-musicologists, and laypeople concerning the Negro spiritual. These interviews were conducted to create a PBS documentary. The documentary recounts the history from which the spiritual art form arose, the importance of the spirituals to the Civil Rights movement, and goes on the road with The American Spiritual Ensemble as they gallantly try to preserve the vanishing folk songs of the slaves." 

Housed at the Kentucky Historical Society. See also the Library of Congress American Folklife Center website.