Swing Low Sweet Chariot, from Walk Together Children: Black American Spirituals

Inscriptions

Numbered, in graphite, lower left margin: 17/30; titled, in graphite, lower center margin: Swing Low Sweet Chariot; signed, in graphite, lower right margin: ABryan

Label

In this linocut, Dartmouth Professor Emeritus Ashley Bryan illustrates the well-known black spiritual "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," specifically the verse:

I looked over Jordan, what did I see

Coming for to carry me home?

A band of angels coming after me

Coming for to carry me home.

Through his portrayal of black angels riding a chariot to heaven, Bryan seems to equate heaven with freedom—that of the Israelites from Egypt, and of enslaved Africans from American chattel slavery.

This work captures the importance of the African American history of song. Spirituals created community during times of hardship, uniting people through music despite differing ethnic and cultural backgrounds. Sime historians believe this tune served as code during the underground railroad, sung as "Swing Low, Sweet Harriet" when Harriet Tubman was on her way. The spiritual represented not only a collective symbolic hope, but also a concrete hope of freedom from bondage.

From the 2019 exhibition A Space for Dialogue 97, Black Bodies on the Cross, curated by Victoria McCraven '19, Homma Family Intern

Angels trumpet the coming of the “sweet chariot,” here a humble wooden cart pulled by a donkey. An African American spiritual and Christian hymn, “Swing Low Sweet Chariot” promises a heavenly glory far removed from earthly suffering. Christian themes allowed enslaved people to preserve African music in spirituals, while the underground railroad used them to share information that was inaccessible to the enslavers. Spirituals later gave rise to the blues and gospel of the African American church.

Former Dartmouth professor Ashley Bryan created this print for his book Walk Together Children: Black American Spirituals during his time as an artist-in-residence in 1974. In the book, each image is paired with the music, simplified so that children just learning to play would be able to pick out the tunes. Bryan wrote, “These songs celebrated the hopes, the spirit, of a people in slavery.”

From the 2026 exhibition Inhabiting Historical Time: Slavery and Its Afterlives, curated by Amelia Kahl (Barbara C. & Harvey P. Hood 1918 Senior Curator of Academic Programming) and Alisa Swindell (Associate Curator of Photography)

Course History

AAAS 88.19, Contemporary African-American Artists, Michael Chaney, Summer 2021

Exhibition History

A Space for Dialogue 97, Black Bodies on the Cross, Victoria McCraven, Class of 2019, Homma Family Intern, Alvin P. Gutman Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, November 9, 2019-January 4, 2020.

Inhabiting Historical Time: Slavery and Its Afterlives, Jaffe and Hall Galleries, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, December 20, 2025 - July 11, 2026.

Publication History

Victoria McCraven, A Space for Dialogue 97, Black Bodies on the Cross, Hanover, New Hampshire: Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, 2020.

Provenance

Elizabeth R. and Michael Mayor, Hanover, New Hampshire; given to present collection, 2014.

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