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George Conway - (whose mother came to the US from the Philippines) - said of Trump - (and - being the husband of Kellyanne - he would be in an intimate place to know) - that -he always viewed Trump as being - ‘boorish’ - ‘dim-witted’ - ‘inarticulate’ - ‘incoherent’ - ‘narcissistic’ - and ‘insensitive’ -but - he also thought that Trump - instead of being a ‘racist’ - was - simply - an ‘equal-opportunity’ bully - in his own - ‘uniquely’ - ‘crass’ and ‘crude’ manner -as someone who would ‘attack’ anyone that he thinks is ‘critical’ of him -but - now - he believes that a combination of ‘naivete’ - ‘resentment’ - and ‘outright racism’ - ‘roiled’ into a ‘toxic mix’ - has given us a ‘racist president’ -Conway recalled a ‘racist’ woman - in the 70s - who approached his mother in a parking lot - saying - “Go back to your [own] country’ -but - he said that this did not really bother him - because to ‘his mind’ - most Americans just weren’t ‘like that’ -because - to ‘his mind’ - the woman in the parking lot was just a ‘boor’ - an ‘ignoramus’ - an ‘aberration’ - (the ‘exception’ to the ‘rule’) -but - now - (he says) - he can see that there are a lot ‘more people’ in the ‘world’ - who ‘share’ this woman’s ‘point’ of ‘view’ -and it ‘horrifies’ him - that Trump ‘appears’ to be one of them -that Trump is not just some ‘random’ - ‘embittered’ person - in a ‘parking lot’ -(he is - instead - the President of the United States - and that - by ‘virtue’ of his ‘office’ - that he ‘speaks’ for the ‘country’) -so - says Conway - what is at ‘stake’ now - is ‘more important’ than any ‘judges’ - or ‘tax cuts’ - or any ‘policy issue’ of the ‘day’ -that - what is at ‘stake’ - are the nation’s ‘ideals’ - its very ‘soul’ -my ‘first impression’ is - ‘what a ‘choice’ -‘crass’ and ‘crude’ - and ‘narcissistically boorish’ - or else ‘vile’ - (as in ‘evil’) -but - to sort this out - we need to ‘break down’ what we are looking at -before Trump - (who always wants to be ‘thought of’ as the ‘best’ of ‘everything’) - the most ‘racist’ president that America has ever had was - (get ready for this) - Woodrow Wilson -we ‘teach’ Wilson as if he was - from the North - (the president of Princeton University) - but Wilson was a ‘child’ of the Civil War era South - (born in December of 1856 - in Staunton, VA - who moved to Augusta, GA when he was 2 - [he was about 4 1/2 years old when the war began - and one of his earliest memories was an ‘Autumn day’ - playing in his yard - and standing near his ‘front gate’ - when he heard a ‘passerby’ announce - in disgust - that Abraham Lincoln had been ‘elected’ - and that ‘war’ was ‘coming’] -Wilson’s father - (a Presbyterian minister) - was one of the ‘founders’ of the ‘Southern Presbyterian Church is the US’ - (which ‘split’ with the Northern Presbyterians - in 1861 - over the war) -Wilson spent the ‘war years’ in Augusta - and - afterwards - moved to Columbia, SC - (where his father was a professor of theology) - before attending Davidson College - (1873–74) - and - then - transferring - as a ‘freshman’ to Princeton -so - Wilson - (you could say) - at least came by his ‘racism’ - ‘honestly’ - (it was the way ‘things were’ when he was ‘growing up’ - and ‘losing’ a ‘war’ doesn’t tend to ‘change’ - ‘hearts’ and ‘minds’ - it only tends to ‘entrench’ them -Trump - on the other hand -well - ‘honesty’ is just not a ‘quality’ that is usually ‘associated’ with him -Trump’s ‘father’ was ‘arrested’ in 1927 for ‘marching’ - in a KKK ‘parade’ in Queens - in full ‘Lan regalia’ - (on a ‘charge’ of ‘refusing’ to ‘disperse’ from a ‘parade’ when ‘ordered’ to do so) -but - the KKK - in Queens - in 1927 - was ‘protesting’ - Protestant America ‘citizens’ being ‘assaulted’ by - (mostly ‘Irish’) - ‘Roman Catholic’ police -Trump was an ‘entitled’ - ‘embittered’ - ‘rich boy’ - with ‘mommy issues’ - (his father may have been ‘distant’ to him - but his ‘mother’ - [a Scottish immigrant - who had gone from being a ‘nanny’ to the wife of one of the ‘richest’ men in America] - was even ‘more distant’) -so - instead of being a ‘classical racist’ - Trump is more ‘xenophobic’ - (someone with a ‘deep-rooted’ fear of the ‘unfamiliar’) -and - since his own ‘family’ tended to be ‘unfamiliar’ to him - Conway’s ‘original impression’ seems more - ‘on’ the ‘mark’ -Trump ‘appears’ to be ‘controlled’ by an ‘unresolved’ five year old ‘complex’ - (a five-year old kid - who ‘wants’ to be ‘liked’ - but doesn’t ‘know’ how - and - instead - is ‘resentful’ - with a ‘compulsive need’ to ‘punch back’ - at ‘slights’ - ‘both ‘real’ - and ‘imagined’) -an ‘equal-opportunity’ bully - (who - like most ‘bullies’ - is ‘motivated’ by ‘fear’ -and who ‘manufactures’ a ‘tough guy’ image - just to ‘compensate’) -Trump was - on his father’s side - the product of German ‘immigrants’ - when it wasn’t a popular thing to be ‘German’ -(during WWII - his ‘father’ denied that he actually ‘spoke’ German - and ‘claimed’ - instead - that he was of Swedish ‘origin’ - a ‘claim’ which is ‘echoed’ in Trump’s - ‘The Art of h Deal’ - where Trump ‘falsely claims’ that his ‘father’ was the ‘son’ of a Swedish immigrant’ - who was ‘born’ in New Jersey -Fred Trump, Sr was ‘born’ in Bavaria - (with ‘dual citizenship’ - because Trump’s grandfather - who had left Germany - as a ‘draft dodger’ - and made his ‘fortune’ as a ‘brothel owner’ in America - was trying to re-establish’ himself in Bavaria) -Trump ‘grew up’ - being ‘raised’ to be ‘ashamed’ of the ‘immigrate origins’ of his ‘family’ - (telling them the world that he was ‘Swedish’) -so - it is not surprising that he has ‘issues’ - ‘honestly’ come by -but he is not so much - a ‘tribalist’ - (who is ‘xenophobic’ to those - ‘outside’ his ‘tribe’ - as he is a ‘narcissist’ - who considers himself to be a ‘tribe’ of his own -he is a ‘petty’ - ‘vindictive’ - ‘opportunist’ - who ‘weaponized’ the ‘nationalistic’ - ‘anti-immigrant’ tides’ that were ‘rebounding’ - not just across America - but across the world -he did not ‘invent’ these ‘tides’ - but he - most certainly - ‘exploited’ them - and ‘fanned’ the ‘flames’ to ‘raise up’ the ‘temperature’ -and he had a lot of ‘help’ -after the ‘failed’ run of Romney against Obama - in 2012 - the ‘defeated’ Republicans ‘financed’ an ‘political autopsy’ -Romney had ‘run’ - ‘distancing’ himself from his family’s ‘roots’ in Mexico -(Romney’s - I believe - ‘great-grandfather’ had ‘fled’ to Mexico - as a Mormon ‘missionary’ - from a ‘felony’ charge - relating to ‘polygamy’ - after one of Romney’s great-great uncles had ‘lost’ the ‘case’ for ‘polygamy’ in the Supreme Court - [Romney vs the US]) -Romney - who was badly in need of the ‘hispanic’ vote - chose - instead - to ‘downplay’ his ‘family ties’ to Mexico -the 2012 ‘autopsy’ concluded that the ‘future’ of the Republican party ‘rested’ in its ‘need’ to ‘expand’ the ‘tent’ - and to ‘open up’ the ‘party’ to more ‘diversity’ - (at the very least - to ‘Hispanics’ - and to ‘women’) -but - there was another ‘alternative’ - (which ‘stemmed’ from the Koch family - and ‘expanded’ into a ‘coalition’ between the Mercer family - (and Kellyanne Conway) - and Steve Bannon -and - to ‘understand’ this - we must become ‘familiar’ with a relatively ‘new’ term - ‘astroturfing’ - (that is - ‘artificially’ producing the ‘appearance’ of a ‘grass-roots’ movement - ‘financed’ by a few ‘wealthy’ individuals - for their own ‘purposes’) -the ‘father’ of the Koch brothers - (who are - themselves ‘libertarians’ - and whose ‘father’ made the family’s ‘fortune in the oil fields of Russia) - ‘astroturfed’ the ‘John Birch Society’ in the late 50s -the JBS was an ‘advocacy’ group - which claimed to ‘support’ - ‘anti-communism’ - and a ‘limited’ government - but which has been ‘described’ as being a ‘radical’ - ‘far-right’ - and ‘racist’ organization - (once called by the Huffington Post as being the ‘intellectual seed bank’ of the ‘far right’) -Fred C. Koch - the ‘founder’ of ‘Koch Industries’ - was one of the ‘founders’ - and ‘financial supporters’ of the JBS -and David - and Charles Koch were also ‘reported’ to have been ‘members of the JBS - though - again - ‘reportedly’ - they had ‘left’ the JBS before the 70s -the Koch brothers - (primarily - David - but also Charles) - in 2004 - ‘founded’ a ‘libertarian’/’conservative’ - ‘political advocacy’ group - called ‘Americans for Prosperity’ - (the AFP) - (the ‘predecessor’ group - also founded by the Koch brothers - in 1984 - with (Ron Paul as its first ‘chairman’) - was called ‘Citizens for a Sound Economy’ - (the CSE) -in 2002 - the CSE designed its ‘tea party movement’ website - (even though the ‘movement’ itself did not ‘take off’ until 2009 - Obama’s ‘first ‘mid-term’ elections) -in 2004 - the CSE ‘split’ into two new organizations - with the CSE - merging with ‘Empower America - and becoming ‘FreedomWorks’ - and the CSE Foundation becoming the ‘AFP’ -and both organizations were widely ‘instrumental’ in forming the ‘Tea Party Movement’ -the ‘Tea Party Movement’ - which has been described as a ‘populist’ - ‘constitutional’ movement - composed of a mixture of ‘libertarian’ - ‘right wing populist’ - and ‘conservative’ activism - was - (at least - initially) - proposed as a ‘fiscally conservative’ political movement within the Republican Party - calling for ‘lower taxes’ - a ‘reduction’ in the ‘national debt’ - (and the ‘federal budget deficit’ - through ‘lower’ government spending - (supported by ‘small-government’ principles) - and an ‘opposition’ to ‘government-sponsored’ - ‘universal health care’ -according to various polls - in 2013 - it was estimated that slightly over 10% of Americans ‘identified’ as being a ‘part’ of this movement -which was - supposedly - ‘launched spontaneously’ - following a February 19th - 2009 - ‘call’ - by CNBC reporter - Rick Santelli - on the ‘floor’ of the Chicage Mercantile Exchange - for a ‘tea party’ -but - as you can see - in reality - this ‘astroturfed’ - ‘populist’ movement - had been in the works - by a handful of ‘billionaires’ - since 2002 -by 2019 - it was ‘reported’ that that the ‘conservative wing’ of the Republican Party had - ‘basically - ‘shed’ the ‘tea party’ moniker - along with its ‘aspirations’ to be ‘fiscally conservative’ -the ‘House Freedom Caucus’ - which was ‘formed’ - in ‘sympathy’ to the Tea Party Movement - is also ‘coming apart’ - over the ‘Party’ of ‘Trump’s’’ - ‘indifference’ to the ‘cause’ of ‘fiscal conservatism’ -this ‘fatal’ development to the ‘tea party’ movement - was caused by a ‘reaction’ to the 2012 Republican ‘autopsy’ - which - initially involved the Koch brothers - (who would later - withdraw’ their ‘support’) - but ‘centered’ around an ‘astroturfed alternative’ - offered - primarily - the Mercer family - (Robert and Rebekah - who brought with them - the ‘services’ of Kellyanne Conway) - and Steve Bannon -Robert Mercer is an American ‘computer scientist’ - who was a ‘developer’ of early ‘Artificial Intelligence’ - and the co-CEO of ‘Renaissance Technologies’ - a ‘hedge fund’ -Mercer played a ‘key role’ in the Brexit campaign - by donating ‘data analytics’ services to Nigel Farage - (‘interference’ in the ‘election’ by a ‘foreign’ power) -he was also a ‘major funder’ of organizations that ‘supported’ - ‘right-wing’ political causes in the US - (including Steve Bannon’s ‘alt-right’ - Breitbart News - and Donald Trump’s ‘nationalistic’ 2016 campaign for president -Mercer was the primary benefactor to the ‘Make America Number 1’ - ‘super PAC’ -this ‘group’ - (the Mercer’s - and Steve Bannon’s ‘Cambridge Analytica’ group - (a - supposedly - British ‘political consulting’ firm - (partly-owned by the Mercer family - with Steve Bannon serving as the VP) - saw - through its work - (combining ‘data mining’ - ‘data brokerage’ - and ‘data analysis’ - along with ‘strategic communication’) - an ‘alternative path’ to ‘victory’ for the Republicans - (other than the ‘autopsy’ suggestion for ‘expanding’ the ‘tent’) - by ‘fanning’ the ‘flames’ of ‘division’ - and ‘exploiting’ the ‘viable’ - (though ‘diminishing’) - ‘votes’ of ‘disaffected’ - primarily - ‘aging’ - and ‘under-educated’ - ‘white males’ - through ‘fear’ and ‘resentment’ -originally - Ted Cruise was ‘intended’ to be the ‘designated candidate’ - (and - despite living in Trump World Tower for 7 years - 2001–2008 - and ‘conducting ‘private polls’ for Trump in late 2013 - when he was considering running for ‘governor’ of NY) - Conway - initially ‘endorsed’ Ted Cruise for president in the ‘primaries’- and ‘chaired’ a pro-Cruz PAC -but - when Cruise was ‘abandoned’ in favor of the ‘nationalistic’ Trump - Conway - (still associated with the Mercer’s) - went to work as a ‘senior advisor’ to - and - then a ‘partial’ - ‘campaign manager’ for Trump -so - Conway - who has been a ‘major player’ in the Republican Party - (since - at least -the Clinton years - when he helped to - ‘constitutionally’ - clear the path towards the ‘impeachment’ of Bill Clinton) - has had a ‘center seat’ for all of this -Not only has he - successfully - argued before the Supreme Court - he has had a ‘clear’ and ‘present’ - ‘intimate’ view of how Donald trump came to ‘power’ -he knows where the ‘bodies’ are ‘buried’ - and he ‘knows’ what he is ‘talking about’ -but - the ‘question’ that he ‘posed’ in the Washington Post - had to do with the ‘question’ - of whether someone who ‘walks’ like a ‘racist’ - and ‘talks’ like a ‘racist’ - is actually a ‘racist’ - or is simply ‘pretending’ to be - for ‘personal purposes’ of ‘exploitation’ - and ‘opportunity’ -is he a ‘racist’ - or - simply - a ‘sociopath’???perhaps Trump’s ‘white nationalist’ advisor - Stephen Miller - (who - unlike his ‘boss’ - is - apparently ‘well-read’ - much of the ‘rhetoric’ of the 2016 campaign - and the ‘language’ of Trump’s ‘inaugural’ - ‘American Carnage’ speech - was ‘lifted’ from the 1930s German ‘Nazi’ movement) - Is it still ‘plagiarism’ if the ‘plagerised’ material is ‘lifted’ from one language - and ‘translated’ into another???perhaps - Miller - (whose one-time ‘fraternity brother’ at Duke - [they - not only ‘knew’ one another - back then - ‘worked’ with each other] - Richard Spencer - is an ‘important member’ in the American ‘white supremacist’ movement - (and the president of the National Policy Institute - (a ‘white supremacist’ - ‘think tank’ - and ‘lobby group in the Virginia ‘suburbs’ of Washington, DC) -Richard Spencer is the one who ‘coined’ the term - ‘alt-right’ -but - perhaps Miller could ‘quote’ the ‘passage’ from the ‘writings’ of Heinrich Himmler -‘my ‘honor’ is my ‘loyalty’ -‘all of us - who are members of the Germanic peoples - can be ‘happy’ - and ‘thankful’ - that once - in thousands of years - ‘fate’ has given us - from among the ‘Germanic peoples’ - such a ‘genius’ - such a ‘leader’.., and you should be ‘happy’ to be ‘allowed’ to ‘work’ with ‘us’ -or - from the ‘writings’ of Joseph Goebbels -‘a ‘lie’ - told once - remains a ‘lie’ - but a ‘lie’ - told a thousand times - becomes the 'Truth' -and - ‘if you ‘repeat’ a ‘lie’ often enough - people will believe it - and you will even come to believe it yourself’ -it ‘walks’ like a ‘duck’ - it ‘talks’ like a ‘duck’ -the chances are pretty ‘good’ that it’s a ‘duck’ -3this ‘movement’ - was itself - ‘astroturfed’ -

Q. What casualties had the US after the Cold War?A. First an exhaustive list of US Cold war casualties. Then accounts of John Birch, the first Cold War casualty (last article most complete).American Cold War Veterans, Inc.The first casualty of the Cold War - Aug 25, 1945 - HISTORY.comOn this day in 1945, John Birch, an American missionary to China before the war and a captain in the Army during the war, is killed by Chinese communists days after the surrender of Japan, for no apparent reason.After America had entered the war, Birch, a Baptist missionary already in China, was made a liaison between American and Chinese forces fighting the Japanese. But on August 25, Birch, commanding an American Special Services team, was ordered to halt by Chinese communist troops. A scuffle ensued, and Birch was shot dead.In the 1950s, Robert Welch would create a right-wing, anticommunist organization called the John Birch Society. For Welch, Birch was “the first casualty in the Third World War between Communists and the ever-shrinking Free World.”John Birch (missionary) - WikipediaJohn Morrison Birch (May 28, 1918 – August 25, 1945) was an American Baptist minister, missionary, and United States Army Air Forces captain who was a U.S. military intelligence officer in China during World War II. Birch was killed in a confrontation with Chinese Communist soldiers a few days after the war ended. He was posthumously awarded the Army Distinguished Service Medal.The John Birch Society, an American anti-communist organization, was named in his honor by Robert H. W. Welch, Jr. in 1958. Welch considered Birch to be a martyr and the first casualty of the Cold War. Birch's parents joined the Society as honorary Life Members.August 25, 1945: Captain John Birch MurderedSometimes regarded as the first casualty of the Cold War, Captain John Birch died seventy years ago. Born in 1918 in India to American Baptist missionaries, he followed in his parents’ footsteps by becoming a missionary in China in 1940. After the Doolittle Raid he helped rescue some of the raiders who landed in China. He was commissioned a First Lieutenant, later promoted to Captain, in the Fourteenth Air Force. General Chennault, legendary founder of the Flying Tigers, got him to accept the commission by telling him that he could still function as a missionary in his off hours. He performed intelligence missions behind enemy lines for the Army Air Corps and the OSS. While on these missions he would conduct services for Chinese Christians. He was utterly fearless, despising both the Japanese and the Chinese Communists. He built up an extensive network of Chinese who passed along information to him about Japanese troop movements and shipping that he passed on to Chennault for bombing attacks.On August 25, 1945, as he was leading a group of Americans, National Chinese and Koreans to liberate Allied personnel in a Japanese POW camp, he was ordered by a party of Chinese Communists, who had intercepted his group, to surrender his revolver. Birch refused and was murdered by the Communists. He was posthumously awarded a Distinguished Service Medal. Dead at age 27, he had led a short but eventful life.The John Birch Society was founded by businessman Robert Welch in 1958. Never large in numbers, the Society, as a result of its frequently bizarre claims, was useful for critics of American conservatism in their ongoing effort to portray conservatives as paranoid crazies. Denounced by most mainstream conservatives, the organization continues to exist but with little influence. Jimmy Doolittle, who met Birch, thought that he would not have been pleased to have his name used in this fashion. However, both of the parents of Birch joined the Society as life membersRobert Welch, founder of the John Birch Society shown in his Belmont (Mass.) headquarters with a painting of U.S. Army Capt. John Morrison Birch for whom the society was named. Birch was a Baptist soldier-missionary who was killed by communists in China in 1945.John Birch Society Records at the John Hay LibraryHistory: August 25, 1945: First Victim of the Cold War, John BirchA Brief HistoryOn August 25, 1945, American Army Intelligence officer, Captain John Birch, was killed by communist revolutionaries in China a mere 10 days after the end of World War II. Birch is seen by many, especially hard corps right wing anti-communists, as the first martyr or victim of the Cold War between the totalitarian communist states and the democratic capitalistic nations (largely East vs. West).Digging DeeperBirch was the son of Christian missionaries and was born in India in 1918. Highly intelligent, hard working, and a dedicated patriot, Birch graduated Magna cum laude from Mercer University in 1939, a Baptist affiliated school. His idea of Christianity was rather strict and literal, with no tolerance for divergent ideas. Birch followed his conscience and studied to become a missionary, traveling to China in 1940, learning the language and volunteering for service in the US Army when the US joined World War II.Considered too valuable for his knowledge of Mandarin and the ways of the Chinese to serve as a chaplain, Claire Lee Chennault, commander of the famous Flying Tigers (American Volunteer Group) made Birch an intelligence officer instead.Lieutenant General Claire Lee Chennault (September 6, 1893 – July 27, 1958), was an American military aviator. A contentious officer, he was a fierce advocate of "pursuit" or fighter-interceptor aircraft during the 1930s when the U.S. Army Air Corps was focused primarily on high-altitude bombardment.When the war ended China was torn between revolutionary communists and the Nationalist forces of Chiang Kai-shek. The US military employed the former occupiers of China, the Japanese Army, to keep order while things were sorted out, a situation that infuriated the Chinese communists. While traveling with a small group of Americans Chinese and Koreans, Birch was stopped by a communist patrol that demanded he turn over his pistol. Birch refused, a confrontation ensued, and Birch was shot and killed, the other members of his party taken prisoner.Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek 蔣中正1940 photo of Chiang Kai-shek in full military uniform.Chairman of the National Government of ChinaJohn Birch became a symbol of anti-communism as a martyr in the struggle against the atheistic socialists, and in 1958 the John Birch Society was formed by Robert Welch, Jr., an American businessman. The John Birch Society is a radical right wing organization that firmly resists the idea of wealth redistribution, “big government,” any hint of communism or socialism, government intervention in business or society and later became synonymous with resistance to the Civil Rights movement by condemning the Civil Rights Act of 1964. At first considered a far right but still sort of mainstream organization without undue stigma attached to membership, the John Birch Society became demonized as a radical right quasi racist outfit that national level politicians could not associate with and expect to get elected, though in some extremely conservative localities politicians can still afford to proudly claim membership. This shift in social acceptance happened rapidly after 1985 when the founder, Robert Welch, died.Originally based in Massachusetts, the John Birch Society is now based in Wisconsin. It is hard to determine exactly how many members the JBS currently has, although the Southern Poverty Law Center estimates as many as 100,000 people may have been members during its peak in the 1960‘s, and numbers are believed to be somewhat less today. The JBS may well have gotten a surge in interest and membership due to the elections of Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, and his policies such as “Obamacare” remain priority targets of the group.John Birch was decorated for his military service with a Distinguished Service Medal and twice awarded the Legion of Merit, among other decorations. Jimmy Doolittle, commander of the famous “Doolittle Raid” was assisted by Birch and his unit after crash landing following the bombing of Tokyo in 1942, and later opined that Birch would not have approved of the use of his name in the John Birch Society. Was Birch a martyr to the Cold War? Is the John Birch Society a legitimate American organization or should they be considered radical pariahs? Share your thoughts on these subjects with your fellow readers. For opposing views, see these links: https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2013/bringing-back-birch and http://www.jbs.org/For God and Country: The Story of John Birch (warfarehistorynetwork.com)September 6, 2016The story of John Birch, missionary and intelligence officer, reveals a hero’s contribution to victory.by Sam McGowanIn the 1960s the John Birch Society was well known to most Americans as a right-wing political organization noted for its anti-communism and conspiracy theories. Yet few knew anything at all about the man whose name the organization bore. Most assumed that John Birch founded the society, and even members of the organization knew only that the real John Birch was a missionary who became an intelligence agent in China and died at the hands of Chinese Communists in the closing days of World War II.While his death as the “first American soldier killed in the war against communism” was considered heroic by adherents of the society’s principles, few knew that Captain John Morrison Birch not only was truly a hero, but that his actions in World War II rival those of the most swashbuckling Hollywood spymaster. Even fewer Christians realize that, even though Birch was an Army Air Forces intelligence officer, he was also a dedicated defender of the faith who continued to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ in China even after he had undertaken a new mission serving his country.Recognizing Lt. John Birch for his bravery in undertaking hazardous missions behind Japanese lines in China, General Claire Chennault, commander of the U.S. Fourteenth Air Force, pins a medal on the hero’s chest.John Birch was born on May 28, 1918, in India, where his parents were serving as missionaries. Two years later the family returned to the United States because of his father’s ill health, first settling in New Jersey, then moving to Georgia when John was in his early teens. When the family decided to return to the Birch farm near Macon, John and his younger brother went down and cleaned up an abandoned house for the family to live in and planted the fields, which gave him a strong bond with the land and an appreciation for the outdoors.Born with keen intelligence, as a boy John was fascinated with airplanes and aeronautics. After the family moved to rural Georgia, he became interested in radios and designed and built his own set, using the cardboard centers from toilet paper rolls and copper wire to make coils. Raised in a devout Christian home, John was baptized into a Baptist church in New Jersey at the age of seven. His parents had left their Presbyterian church because they believed the denomination had become modernist, and they joined a nearby Baptist congregation. When he was 11, John decided to become a missionary after hearing one describe his adventures in South America. After graduating from high school, John enrolled at Mercer University, a Baptist school in Macon, from which he would graduate first in his class.Two major events occurred during Birch’s years at Mercer. The young man fell under the influence of J. Frank Norris, a legendary and controversial Baptist preacher from Fort Worth, Texas. During a service in Macon, Birch heard Norris tell about the accomplishments of two missionary families in China and how they were praying for a strong young man to come to China to work with them. During the invitation at the conclusion of the service, Birch went forward and told Norris that God was calling him to China and he would go. Shortly afterward, Birch became involved in a campus controversy when he and other members of the ministerial student body brought charges against members of the faculty for teaching things that were contrary to Baptist doctrine. An uproar resulted, and fellow students branded Birch as the vilest person on campus. He was threatened with expulsion but held true to his convictions and refused to go along with demands made by the college dean to cancel a planned city appearance by Norris. The controversy was settled when Norris inexplicably canceled the meeting.True to his word, immediately after his graduation from Mercer, John Birch began the journey to China by enrolling at Norris’s Fundamental Baptist Bible Institute in Fort Worth. He completed the two-year seminary course in a year, and in the summer of 1940 set sail for Shanghai, along with another graduate named Oscar Wells. They arrived to find a country in disarray, with thousands of refugees from the country crowding the streets and disease and starvation on every corner. China was literally divided, with Japanese troops occupying much of the central coastal areas, Communists in the northern mountains, and Free China to the west. They were met by Fred Donnelson, who took the two new missionaries to his apartment, where they met the other members of the World Fundamental Baptist Missionary Fellowship team in China, which consisted of Donnelson and his wife, Effie, an elderly missionary affectionately known as Mother Sweet, and her partner in the mission field, Margaret Fitzgerald.Birch and Wells enrolled in the Adventist Chinese Language School in Shanghai, where Birch’s zeal and intelligence allowed him quickly to gain a working knowledge of the language. He felt called to minister in the distant towns and villages away from Shanghai and the coast. Hangchow was the city that was on his mind, and he finally got the opportunity to visit it when J. Frank Norris’s associate, Beauchamp Vick of Detroit Baptist Temple came to China.John Birch poses with a Mongolian pony he once rode for 60 miles through a snowstorm over rough terrain in one day.John was convinced this was where he should minister and he returned to Hangchow in early 1941. From then on, his ministry was in the inland regions of China as he ventured out from Hangchow to preach in the villages and towns in the surrounding no-man’s-land where Chinese guerrillas fought Japanese troops. In August, he was visited by his friend Oscar Wells, who was ministering in Shanghai, where he had met and become engaged to a young female missionary from the Reformed Church. Along with Pastor Du, the Chinese pastor in Hangchow, the two young men set off on a journey to Shangjao, a city in the mountains in Free China almost 200 miles away. Journeying by bicycle and on foot, they slipped through the Japanese lines then made their way westward until they were well into the mountains. As they left Japanese territory, they realized that the food was better and the people happier. When they reached Shangjao, they were directed to the Baptist church and were invited to conduct services that evening. The local Christians were eager to host the missionaries and told Birch that there were many places to the west where they could establish churches. He promised to come back.Birch Told His Friends That if He Wasn’t at Breakfast That He Would Have Already Slipped Through the Lines on His Way Into Free ChinaBirch made friends with dozens of Chinese pastors during the next few months and established relationships that would later prove beneficial. Many Chinese Christians were involved in the guerrilla movement, while others were members of the Nationalist army. Chiang Kai-shek and his wife, Madame Chiang, were both Christians, and Chiang had written a tract about his belief in Jesus Christ that was passed through the ranks of the army. Birch was more than welcome among the Nationalist troops, and he was encouraged to preach to them. But clouds of war were gathering, and American missionaries were told to get out of the country. Many decided that their place was in China, and even though they knew that if the United States entered the war they would be interned, the Donnelsons, Mother Sweet, the Wellses, and Birch all elected to stay.In November, John was scheduled to take a language exam in Shanghai, so he journeyed through the Japanese lines to Hangchow and caught the train to the city. He finished the exams on a Friday and left the next day for Shangjao. He arrived in Hangchow and visited some Presbyterian missionaries, who encouraged him to spend the weekend. Birch felt he should be on his way and refused the offer; he told his friends that if he did not appear at breakfast with them the next morning, he would have already slipped through the lines on his way into Free China. The next day was Sunday, December 7, in China and Saturday in the United States. Had Birch accepted the invitation to remain in Hangchow for the weekend, he probably would have been interned by the Japanese. He got word of the attack on Pearl Harbor from Chinese soldiers he met on the road.Over the next six months, John Birch was a stranger in a foreign land, cut off from his friends, who had been interned by the Japanese, and with little funds. He had some traveler’s checks, but the Chinese banks in Shangjao refused to cash them. Still, he continued his ministry, preaching in homes and churches in the mountains around the town. In April 1942, he wrote a letter to the U.S. military mission in Chungking inquiring about the need for someone with his qualifications. His first choice was to be a chaplain, but he offered to do whatever was needed. In the letter he mentioned his knowledge of radio and stressed his ability to withstand physical hardship. Three days later, the Chinese Army cashed his checks and he sent most of the money to his friends through a courier who had made the long journey to inform him that they were interned and in need of funds.On April 27, John Birch was sitting in an inn in a remote river town when a Chinese man sat down at his table and asked if he was an American. Sensing that he might be watched, Birch silently nodded that he was. The Chinese told him to finish his meal, then follow him, but to be careful that they were not seen. The man led the missionary to a sampan sitting low on the water. He nodded toward the boat and said, “Americans.” Birch was incredulous—how could any Americans be out here in the middle of China? As far as he knew, he was the only American within hundreds of miles. He knocked on the door of the cabin and called out, “Any Americans in here?” After a moment of silence, a voice from inside said, “No Japanese could mimic an accent like that,” and the door swung open. He looked inside and saw five Americans dressed in military uniforms. The leader stuck out his hand and said, “I’m Jimmy Doolittle. We just bombed Tokyo.”Lt. Col. and future Gen. Jimmy Doolittle poses with several of his fellow survivors of the famed April 1942 raid on Tokyo. Also pictured is one of the friendly Chinese who risked their lives to shelter the raiders from the vengeful Japanese.Birch was with Doolittle and his crew for barely 24 hours, but the young missionary made an impression on the veteran pilot. Doolittle told Birch to write down any notes or letters he wanted delivered, and he would take them back to the United States. Birch stayed with the sampan until it reached its destination, then guided Doolittle and his crew to a Chinese Army post at Lanchi. He told the officer in charge who the men were and asked if they had word of any other fliers. The officer asked Birch to inform Doolittle that the Chinese Army was doing everything possible to prevent any of the airmen from falling into Japanese hands. Birch continued on to Shangjao where he found a telegram from the Army telling him to report to the nearest air base at Ch’u Hsein and await further orders.When he arrived at the airfield, Birch found two other American bomber crews who were badly in need of an interpreter. Birch made arrangements for a flight to take them to Chungking. He received a phone call from a missionary in Yang Kou, who told him that Doolittle had left money and instructions. Another crew arrived as he was preparing to leave to pick up the money. Doolittle had left $2,000 in Chinese money and instructions to arrange for the burial of Corporal Leland Faktor and any others whose bodies might be brought in, to arrange for medical aid, to obtain all information pertaining to survivors, and to serve as an interpreter for crews who came to the field.Doolittle Raider 80 Brave MenWhen the last crew left, Birch was to go with them and report to the U.S. military mission at Chungking. Over the next several days, Birch was able to account for 60 of the Doolittle Raiders. When Birch asked the military commander about purchasing a burial plot, the Chinese said he would not sell it to him but would give it for a hundred years or as long as needed. The Chinese also paid for the coffin and the cost of the marker. Birch conducted a memorial service for Faktor with 13 Doolittle Raiders present, then two weeks later conducted a graveside service.Birch did not make it out on the last plane; instead he made his way to Kweilin by truck, on foot, and by train looking for Claire Chennault, who he had been told was there at his forward operating base. He found the American Volunteer Group (AVG) commander in his operations cave on the side of a mountain. When he introduced himself, Chennault revealed that Jimmy Doolittle had spoken of him and the aid he had provided to the members of the mission to bomb Japan. Birch replied that he wanted to be a chaplain, and Chennault asked which denomination. When Birch said he was a fundamental Baptist, Chennault replied that he was a Baptist himself, a member of a congregation in Louisiana.Men of the U.S> Fourteenth Air Force attend Sunday church services at their base in China.Birch told Chennault that he wanted “to serve God and my country.” Chennault said he already had one chaplain but might be able to make him an assistant. Birch asked Chennault for a ride to Chungking and was told to meet him at the airport. Birch was there at the appointed hour, and he climbed aboard the airplane with Chennault himself at the controls. When they landed, Chennault took the young missionary to Hostel A, where he and his pilots stayed, and arranged for a room.Birch arrived in Chungking in late May, at a time when the U.S. military role in China was developing. Although he held the rank of general in the Chinese air force, Chennault had yet to be brought back into the United States Army, from which he had retired a few years previously. After seeing that the young missionary had a place to stay, Chennault turned him over to a U.S. Army officer for a debriefing on his activities with the Doolittle Raiders.It was at this point that Birch detected an air of superiority among the Americans, an attitude that directly affected the conduct of the war in China. When Birch turned in the $2,000 Doolittle had left for him and related that the Chinese Air Force had paid the costs of the burials, the debriefing officer was incredulous. Birch had grown to love the Chinese and was offended when the American commented, “All of the Chinese we’ve dealt with have their hand out.” Such an attitude was common among the Americans who made up the China military mission. Birch was soon to learn that many Americans, including their commander, Lt. Gen. Joseph Stilwell, preferred Mao Tse-tung’s Communists over Chiang’s Nationalists. Birch could not believe his eyes when he visited the American Office of War Information and found a pamphlet praising Mao’s revolutionaries.An Army Air Force B-25B bomber takes off from USS Hornet (CV-8) at the start of the raid, 18 April 1942. Note men watching from the signal lamp platform at right. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives.The Doolittle Raiders – The MissionBirch also learned that most of Chennault’s AVG men would soon be leaving. With the exception of a few who agreed to accept induction into the U.S. Army, most refused to serve under Colonel Clayton Bissell, the U.S. Army officer who replaced Lt. Gen. Lewis Brereton as commander of Tenth Air Force in India and whom General Henry H. “Hap” Arnold had picked to command U.S. air operations in the theater. The pilots and mechanics of the AVG were all former military personnel who had been recruited from the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps, and the former naval aviators were particularly turned off when they were told they would become part of the Army instead of returning to their previous branches of service.Chennault Wanted Nothing Less than Birch’s Total Commitment; Birch Told Him He Would Have to Pray About itWhen Birch arrived in Chungking, the transition to the Army was still a few weeks in the future, so he decided to delay his entry. As an ordained minister, he was exempt from the draft and could not be inducted. His impression of Chennault had been highly favorable, and he decided he would prefer to serve directly under him. The admiration was a two-way street; Chennault had been equally impressed with the young missionary, and while he was willing to let him go through the motions of applying for an appointment as a chaplain, he realized he could be far more important in another role.Over the next few weeks, Chennault and Birch were frequently together. On an occasion when Chennault invited him to ride into town, he brought up a new subject. He told Birch he had a need for field intelligence officers with experience in China, men who had lived there before the war, spoke the language, and were familiar with Chinese customs. He told Birch how important the work would be to the winning of the war and that it would be extremely dangerous. The punch line was when he told the young missionary that he would be free to preach on Sundays if he chose to accept a commission as an intelligence officer. There was one thing Chennault wanted, and that was total commitment. He told Birch that if he decided to accept the job, he would give him an immediate field commission. Birch said he would pray about it.On July 4, Birch attended a barbecue hosted by the first lady of China, Madame Chiang (formerly Soong) herself, and General Chennault, held at the home of the Chinese president, Lin Sen. Birch was surprised to get an engraved invitation. Madame Chiang’s sister, the widow of the founder of the Chinese Republic, Sun Yat Sen, was also present. When Birch came through the receiving line, Chennault introduced him to the Soong sisters as “a missionary who helped General Doolittle and his flyers.” Birch and the Soongs had something in common; the sisters’ father was a Methodist minister, and as young women they had attended Wesleyan College in Macon. They were thrilled to learn that Birch was from Macon and greeted him warmly.Another member of Chennault’s entourage was also from Macon. Colonel Robert L. Scott, who would take command of the 23rd Fighter Group, was a Macon native. Although the two knew each other—Birch was part of the 23rd Fighter Group—the young missionary was not the inspiration for the title of Scott’s famous book, God Is My Copilot. The title came from a comment made by another missionary, Dr. Fred Manget, who treated Scott for minor shrapnel wounds.On July 5 at breakfast, Chennault again approached Birch about becoming an intelligence officer. Birch told Chennault that he thought he knew what the delay was; although he met most of the requirements for being a chaplain, J. Frank Norris’s school was not accredited, and graduation from an accredited seminary was a requirement. The senior chaplain in Chungking had told Birch he would request a waiver, but no word had come down. Chennault told Birch he could accept a commission as an intelligence officer and transfer to the chaplaincy later if an appointment came through. The concession excited Birch, who immediately accepted. Chennault had the paperwork drawn up and commissioned John M. Birch as a second lieutenant assigned to the 23rd Fighter Group as the group intelligence officer.Although he had been commissioned as an intelligence officer, Birch volunteered to assist Chennault’s chaplain, Paul Frillman, another missionary who had joined Chennault’s staff in the Chinese Air Force and had come into the U.S. Army as a chaplain. Frillman would later become an intelligence officer himself. Frillman was Lutheran while Birch was a fundamental Baptist, and although there was disagreement between the two over issues of personal conduct, Frillman made Birch his assistant and assigned him to preach at Sunday services when he was absent and to orient new personnel to the theater.Birch was still focused on becoming a chaplain, and when he learned that the chief of chaplains for the CBI was coming to Chungking, he requested that his file be reviewed. The request was approved. When he went to tell Chennault the good news, the Old Man told Birch he wanted him to go on a mission for him. Birch agreed, under the condition that if the appointment came through, he would be allowed to transfer. Chennault countered by asking Birch whether he would remain as his intelligence officer if the appointment did not come through. Birch said he would, and the two shook hands.Birch’s mission was to journey into southeastern China to inspect clandestine airfields that Chennault had ordered built two years previous and had stocked with gasoline and ammunition. Chennault wanted to know the condition of the airfields and supplies so he would be able to use them as forward airfields if the need arose. Birch and a Chinese soldier named M.L. Wang left on the mission in mid-September. It was the first of many long treks into contested territory. They took only what they could carry. Birch also carried maps, a list of contacts, and a roll of gospel tracts written in Chinese to pass out along the way. They covered more than 1,000 miles on the two-month journey, traveling by land, water, and air. When they were in Japanese-controlled territory, they moved by night. Birch’s contacts, many of whom were Chinese Christians, allowed them to sleep in their homes, and on Sundays he was usually offered the opportunity to preach in homes and local churches.Birch and Wang inspected the airstrips and asked the contacts to show them the supply caches, which had been ingeniously concealed. Gasoline cans and ammunition boxes were buried under pagodas, hidden in corn cribs, suspended on ropes in wells, hidden in caves, and buried underground. Birch was pleased to discover that local villagers had kept the airstrips in good condition. When they returned, Chennault read Birch’s report and immediately wrote a letter of commendation for his personnel file and recommended that he be promoted. It was the first of several recommendations for Birch’s promotion made by Chennault, along with recommendations for decorations, but the convoluted command structure in the CBI required that they be approved by Tenth Air Force Commander Clayton Bissell, who was quick to disapprove just about any recommendation Chennault made.Maj. Gen. Clayton Bissell (left), commander of the U.S. Tenth Air Force, and Maj. Gen. Claire Chennault (right) were bitter rivals. This meeting at Tenth Air Force headquarters in Delhi, India, was strained.The command arrangement in the CBI caused many problems. Although the War Department apparently originally saw China as a base for an aerial bombing offensive against the Japanese home islands, the Japanese victory in Burma and the offensive in China in the wake of the Doolittle Raid caused the theater to lose its importance. General Stilwell went to China as the senior American officer, but he had little regard for Chiang and the Nationalists and was focused entirely on avenging his defeat in Burma. Stilwell and nearly everyone else in any position of authority were jealous of Chennault’s relationship with Chiang and the military successes of his shoestring forces in the Chinese interior.Hap Arnold hated Chennault and had been forced by the White House to accept him as the senior air officer in China. He had seen to it that Chennault’s authority was diminished by making him subordinate to Bissell. He wrote the orders promoting both of them to brigadier general so that Bissell outranked Chennault by one day. He also placed Chennault’s China Air Task Force (CATF) under Bissell’s Tenth Air Force and required that Chennault go through Bissell with every request. Birch’s family would learn after the war that he had been recommended for every combat decoration up to and including the Medal of Honor, but the recommendations were all mishandled except for the Legion of Merit and Distinguished Service Medal. Bissell and his staff disapproved most of the recommendations for decorations submitted from China on the basis that the men were “just doing their duty.” The attitude led to great resentment against Bissell and his staff, who were safe in offices in Delhi.Birch learned that no authorization for him to become a chaplain had come through, so he accepted the position as Chennault’s intelligence officer. Chennault told him that he was his “intelligence department” and would answer directly to his command. Birch’s office was a shack a few yards from Chennault’s headquarters. His first duties were to make corrections to aerial maps and debrief pilots returning from missions. He would be in charge of all intelligence, no matter from what source. A few weeks later he discovered that Bissell had decided to take over the intelligence department as well, without consulting with Chennault.Questioning a local villager as to their position, members of Y Force stop in a remote Chinese village for the night. Utilizing a map, they attempt to orient themselves during their foray into northern Burma and work to establish radio communications.On December 10 two officers arrived at Kweiling, where Bissell had ordered Chennault to relocate his headquarters, and informed Chennault that they had been sent by Bissell to become his chief intelligence officer and assistant. After his initial meeting with the two officers, Chennault ignored them for more than a week. He told them that he did not appreciate Bissell picking his staff and that he already had an intelligence man, Lieutenant John Birch.The two officers were actually well qualified and did not appreciate being caught in the middle in the war between Bissell and Chennault. Lt. Col. Jesse Williams had been in Shanghai for 18 years as an oil company executive, while Captain Wilfred Smith was the son of missionaries and had studied oriental history at the University of Michigan. Neither had the kind of experience Birch did, but they were well qualified to serve as intelligence officers in China. They finally decided to ignore Chennault and go to work. They went to Birch’s office and told them who they were. It was an uncomfortable moment as Birch answered directly to Chennault on his order, and he commented to the two officers that Bissell was not too popular in that part of the world. Yet, he recognized that they were superior officers and told them to pull up a chair and he would show them what he was doing. The three men got along well together and soon all were laughing over the feud between the two generals.Birch Needed to Cover More Than 300 Miles in Japanese-Controlled Territory, So He Decided to Disguise Himself as Chinese.Although he was an intelligence officer, Birch still had the opportunity to preach. He was amazed to discover that the American military personnel responded to him better than they did to the chaplain. The young soldiers and airmen realized that Birch did not have to be in the Army because as a member of the clergy he was exempt from the draft, yet he was undertaking dangerous assignments far from friendly lines. He had thought that he could best serve God as a chaplain but discovered that he was more effective in the spiritual role in a different status. He was also able to continue ministering to Chinese Christians when he went out on intelligence-gathering missions in the countryside.In early 1943, Chennault was finally promised reinforcements. He went to Williams and Smith and told them he needed intelligence from the coast. He wanted his own intelligence network in China so he would not have to rely on Stilwell’s headquarters, which usually was a week or more late in passing on reports that would have been important to mission planning if they had been more timely. When Smith commented that they were not the Office of Strategic Services and did not have the resources for such a program, Chennault responded that they had John Birch. He told them to send Birch out with some radios on a mission to set up a network of reliable Chinese agents who would pass intelligence regarding Japanese shipping back to him. Chennault realized that Japanese supply routes to Formosa were just off the coast and believed that his CATF could interdict shipping. When Smith informed Birch of the mission, Birch only had one question—could he preach in Chinese churches on Sunday? Smith responded that he could preach on Monday if he wanted, as long as he got the job done.Birch left Kweiling and flew to the CATF’s easternmost airfield, from which he set out on foot. He hired a coolie to assist him with his cargo of radios and prepared to trek to his first destination in Fukien Province. He would have to cover more than 300 miles in Japanese-controlled territory, so he decided to disguise himself as Chinese. He dyed his brown hair black, then donned traditional Chinese peasant garb and put on sandals. His initial trek was over mountains, and as he climbed he taught the coolie an old children’s spiritual, “Climbing Jacob’s Ladder.”After they descended the mountains and reached a river, Birch sent the coolie back home and obtained a sampan from a guerrilla. He repeated the process of using a coolie when trekking overland and sampans on rivers when he could, a system that allowed him to average nearly 40 miles a day. He kept in touch with Smith by radio. He frequently encountered Chinese Christians who were incredulous to see a missionary so deep inside Japanese territory, and he preached to several congregations as he came across them on his way to the coast. On one occasion he and his coolie hid their cargo in a dung pot and carried it through a Japanese checkpoint as the guards held their noses and turned away.When he reached a village near the coast, Birch sought out a Christian he had been told to contact. The man took him to the leaders of the local church, where Birch explained his mission and told them he needed two fishermen who were “willing to risk their lives for China.” One of the deacons said he was a fisherman and that he had a friend who would help. Birch interrogated the two men to be sure they were dedicated to defeating the Japanese and then showed them how to work the radios. He also promised them $10 a month apiece to cover their expenses and compensate them for their time away from their livelihood. He gave them a radio and a codebook that was set up so they could translate their messages into English.Birch devised his own system of mixing up the pages to confuse the Japanese who monitored the transmissions. Meanwhile, Captain Smith had set up monitoring/relay stations in Free China to pick up the messages from the coast and pass them along to his headquarters. By the time Birch returned to Free China, Smith was receiving as many as 50 messages a day.The intelligence was priceless. The coast watchers transmitted reports of ship sightings that were relayed to CATF. Chennault set up a Teletype system at his main base to pass along mission orders to his dispersed bases. In some instances, CATF aircraft were in the air on their way to intercept Japanese ships within 10 minutes after the coast watcher transmitted the report. Some ships were attacked less than an hour after they were reported. Smith also compiled a daily report that was transmitted to Navy personnel at Stilwell’s headquarters in Chungking, which then transmitted the information to U.S. Navy submarines and ships operating in the China Sea. Chennault was elated at the quality of the intelligence and recommended Birch’s promotion to first lieutenant for the third time.A bomb hit on a Japanese patrol boat is recorded by a photographer aboard an American aircraft. During the same mission in which they sank this vessel off the Shantung Peninsula, pilots of the U.S. Fourteenth Air Force destroyed 45 Japanese planes on the ground and damaged 55 others.Although Arnold still considered him a crackpot, in early 1943 Chennault was allowed to break out from under Tenth Air Force control as the CATF became the Fourteenth Air Force. Chennault’s staff members were elevated in rank, and John Birch was promoted to first lieutenant while his immediate superior, Captain Smith, jumped two ranks to become a lieutenant colonel. Chennault was promised a force of 500 planes, and Stilwell was ordered to transfer control of the Hump airlift from Bissell to Chennault. Stilwell refused.In the spring of 1943, Japan launched a new Chinese offensive, and Smith sent Birch to serve as a liaison between Fourteenth Air Force and Chinese Marshal Hsueh Yo’s army on the Yangtze River. Birch’s mission was to set up air support for the Chinese ground forces. He would seek out targets and guide air strikes in on them and set up a rescue network to retrieve downed airmen. It was a pioneer effort, and Smith and the Fourteenth Air Force staff hoped to establish tactics for a larger effort with new agents who would be trained to take his place.Birch went by train and sampan to Changsha, where Yo had his headquarters. After familiarizing himself with the area, he set out with a team of Chinese soldiers on a 300-mile hike to the front lines, where he was turned over to guerrillas who took him deep inside Japanese territory. Once again, he disguised himself as a coolie. He and Smith had worked out a plan under which Birch would mark targets with white cloth panels pointing in the direction of the target. His first target was a pagoda that had been converted into an ammunition dump.A Curtiss P-40 Tomahawk fighter came in for a strafing run that set off the ammunition. Then Birch directed the fighter onto a Japanese artillery piece. He and his guerrillas slipped back into the forest and crawled on their bellies in the darkness of night to locate their next target, a fuel dump at a Japanese camp. Early the next morning a pair of Consolidated B-24 Liberator bombers hit the dump, causing fires that spread through the camp. Birch remained at the front for more than a month, calling in air strikes that enabled the Chinese troops to drive the Japanese back into their previous positions.In mid-1943, Birch was summoned back to Kunming, where he was to take part in the commissioning of a new batch of intelligence agents, including his friend Arthur Hopkins, who had served briefly with him the year before, and Chennault’s former chaplain, Paul Frillman. Birch briefed the men on his experiences, and Williams pointed out that he was the first U.S. agent to live and work with Chinese troops. The commissioning of the new agents gave Birch the opportunity to ask Chennault for permission to apply for pilot training. He had been interested in aviation since childhood, and seeing the Fourteenth Air Force fighters and bombers in action at close range had rekindled his interest. Chennault agreed to pass the application forward but would later tell Birch that he was more valuable to him in his present capacity than 10 pilots would have been.Guerrillas Operating Near the Bombing Site Reported That Bodies of Dead Japanese Were Hauled Away by the Truckload.Birch’s next mission was to set up a network of agents along the Yangtze to keep watch on river shipping. Arthur Hopkins and Sergeant Leroy Eichenberry would assume his previous role with Marshall Yo. They would fly together to Changsha. Then, Birch was to continue northward to contact General Heuen Yoh, commander of the Second Guerrilla Brigade. Birch remained in Changsha for a few days before continuing his journey to visit members of the China Inland Mission and deliver supplies he had brought for them. Accompanied by two Chinese radio operators and a team of coolies, he then set off on a 10-day trek in scorching heat through swamps and over hills to link up with General Yoh. The guerrillas planned a route for Birch and his two radio operators down the Yangtze in a series of junks. Once again, Birch set up a system for rescuing downed airmen. While on the Yangtze, he learned that the Japanese were drawing considerable material from the iron mines at Shihweiayo and arranged an air strike against them.Birch’s determination was revealed when he got wind of an ammunition dump at Hangkow that had been established in a former residential area. He infiltrated through Japanese positions and located the dump, then radioed directions back to the Fourteenth Air Force. The area was too congested to risk laying his customary white panels, and when the formation of bombers came over, the crews were unable to identify the target. Birch then made his way back to a remote landing strip where he was picked up by a light airplane and flown to the bomber base. He went up in the nose of the lead airplane and pointed out the target to the bombardier. The first bombs set off the dump, and the series of explosions spread through the Japanese camps. Guerrillas operating in the area reported that bodies of dead Japanese were hauled away by the truckload.In the spring of 1944, Birch went on “a trip,” as he called his missions, to the plains of the Yellow River. There he found huge numbers of Japanese troops massing for an offensive. Riding on horseback, he set out to locate the enemy lines of supply. Birch saw thousands of Japanese marching southward from northern China. He wondered why Mao’s Communists had made no attempt to stop them. After setting up observation teams to keep watch on the railroad, he boarded a sampan for the journey down a tributary of the Yangtze to Lao Ho Kow, where he was to link up with two other members of the intelligence team.Laden with Chinese commandos, sampans make their way down the Liu River en route to attack Japanese positions in the hills near Tanchuk.On May 17, Birch joined Lieutenant William Drummond and Sergeant Eichenberry, then set out with them to search for a place to set up an intelligence base before proceeding north to Shantung Province to establish a network of Chinese agents. As they proceeded northward, they came into an almond-shaped valley on the Yellow River, which had been bypassed by the Japanese. An army of 100,000 Chinese soldiers had been cut off in the valley for over a year. Birch immediately recognized the 100-mile-long valley as a natural location for a forward base, with a radio station and secret airfields at each end. Birch visualized the airfields being used as emergency landing strips for airplanes returning from missions to the north and as refueling stops for bombers and fighters going on missions into Manchuria—and perhaps even Japan. They could also serve as gathering points for downed aircrews to be picked up by Fourteenth Air Force transports.Birch radioed his headquarters for approval, then explained his idea to the Chinese general in command of the troops and received permission to go ahead. After setting up the radio station, Birch took a squad of Chinese soldiers looking for sites for airstrips. Relying on experience gained during a summer in which he measured cotton in Georgia, he laid out a 3,500-foot runway himself. Thousands of Chinese soldiers worked with picks and shovels to level out a dry streambed and then packed the runway with sand and gravel. With the airstrip complete, they constructed a small terminal and radio shack nearby. A second strip was laid out in a pasture. The first airplane into the valley came to evacuate Sergeant Eichenberry, who had come down with cholera. The two airfields were constructed entirely by Chinese military personnel and without any assistance whatsoever from U.S. sources other than Birch’s supervision. They had not cost the U.S. Army one thin dime.John Birch also suffered from serious medical maladies, particularly malaria, the same disease that had forced his father to leave India. In early August, he was picked up at one of the secret airfields and flown to Kunming to be decorated with the Legion of Merit.Recognizing that Birch was ill and tired, Chennault told him to take a 60-day furlough and go home for a rest. Birch refused, telling his commanding general that he did not want to take up a slot that some other soldier could use. Birch was true to his word when it came to furlough. He never took leave the entire time he served in China, not even to visit a young Scottish Red Cross worker he met in China, but who transferred to India shortly after they met. Birch proposed marriage to the girl, but then retracted the proposal when he realized that his postwar plans were to take the gospel into either Tibet or Turkestan, remote areas that would make life rough on a woman. The woman remained single for the rest of her life.A Japanese offensive in mid-1944 cost the Allies considerable territory in eastern China, a defeat that Chennault and many others blamed on Stilwell’s obsession with Burma and neglect of China. Stilwell’s days in China were numbered, although he attempted to gain complete control over the theater. He is believed to have drafted a plan giving him command of all the Chinese armies and sent it to Washington, where it was presented to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. When a message came back ordering Chiang to turn command over to Stilwell, “Vinegar Joe” made the mistake of delivering the message himself—“to break the Peanut’s face” as he expressed his feelings in his diary. The plan backfired. Although Chiang had been willing to relinquish command, Stilwell’s arrogance not only caused him to change his mind, but he also wired Washington that he was through with Stilwell and demanded that he be replaced.The arrival of General Albert C. Wedemeyer brought about a change in the fortunes of the Fourteenth Air Force. Chennault began receiving support that Stilwell had withheld, and Fourteenth Air Force returned to offensive operations throughout the country, striking targets in northern China and south into Indochina. Chennault supported Birch’s plan to use the new base on the Yellow River for intelligence operations in north China and ordered the delivery of supplies to the airfield at Anhwei.Birch returned to duty and went north with the supplies. Shortly after he got there, he took a squad of Chinese soldiers and radios and headed further north. As was his practice, he carried a New Testament and a supply of gospel tracts. He was gone for two weeks. In early November, the effort paid off. One of the new agents radioed that he had discovered the crew of a Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber, who had bailed out of their airplane six months before and had been hiding in the mountains. Guerrillas brought the men to the new base, and they were flown out in a C-47. On the day the transport came, an intense thunderstorm struck the valley and the airplane arrived in the middle of a heavy downpour. Birch ran out to the radio shack and got a bearing on the airplane, then talked the pilot in for a landing in nearly zero visibility.In early 1945, Birch arranged the evacuation of a number of missionaries who had been ministering in northern China. Mostly elderly, they were American, British, and Dutch who had ministered in rural towns that had been bypassed by the Japanese. As the war intensified, they began to fear for their lives. Some of those in the Anhwei area got wind of Birch’s base and sent word through guerrillas that they wanted to be rescued. Birch advised them to come out of the mountains and that he would evacuate them somehow. Several stranded airmen were also in the valley waiting for a plane.In late December, the missionaries began arriving. Birch called Kunming but learned that Colonel Smith had been called back to the United States for an urgent meeting. No one else in Kunming was sympathetic to the missionaries’ plight. Birch was told that they were not running an airline for missionaries. There were not enough downed airmen to justify sending a transport, and even when Birch sent word that they were running out of supplies, he was told he would have to wait.Lt. John Birch (second from left) and a pair of fellow Americans pose with officers of the Chinese Army.Birch finally got Kunming’s attention when he told them that he had a bag of sensitive intelligence that needed to be sent back. He was finally promised that an airplane would arrive when the weather broke. Birch rode a pony the 50 miles to the airstrip and discovered a snow-covered runway. He went to General Wang, the Chinese commander, and told him he needed men with shovels. Wang asked how many, and Birch said about 800 would do. The Chinese soldiers quickly cleared the runway, and the plane came in and picked up the stranded airmen and all but one of the missionaries, who had to wait for another month. The pilot gave Birch what he considered to be distressing news. Birch and his men were going to be transferred to the OSS, which was why Colonel Smith had been called to Washington.This was something Birch had feared. A planeload of OSS colonels and majors had arrived at Kunming before he left and started throwing their weight around. A few days after the pilot told him of the rumor of the impending transfer, Birch received a message sent under Chennault’s name that he and the other Fourteenth Air Force intelligence men would be transferring to the OSS and that the move would be beneficial for them. Birch was not buying it. He was convinced that the OSS would cause nothing but problems and that they would mess up the entire intelligence program he and the agents who followed him had been working for years to set up and maintain. He sent a return message in which he said he would rather be a Fourteenth Air Force buck private than a full colonel in the OSS and have access to Wild Bill Donovan’s slush fund, knowing that the message would be intercepted and read by every OSS man in China.Birch Told Chennault That the War Was Almost Over, and He Intended to Stay Until “the Last Jap is Out of China.”Birch’s opinion of the OSS changed when Lieutenant Bill Miller, a recent West Point graduate, came to visit him at Ankang where he had been hospitalized during another bout with malaria. The young officer told Birch that he was famous in the OSS and that everyone back in Washington had heard about him. Birch replied that it was probably because of the message he had sent. Miller confirmed that he knew about it but that Birch was widely respected for the magnificent job he had been doing in China for the past three years. He told Birch that he had been assigned as an escape and evasion agent to the airfield at Foyuang about 50 miles from Birch’s base at Linchuan. Deciding he liked Miller, Birch offered to help him all he could.When Smith returned from Washington, he brought Birch back to Kunming to attempt to talk him into accepting the transfer to the OSS. Birch was adamant in his refusal and insisted on remaining with the Fourteenth Air Force. Smith was not surprised. The rest of his staff had also been opposed to the transfer, but he had managed to talk all of them into accepting it. All, that is, except Birch. Chennault himself joined in the effort to convince Birch to accept the transfer, but the officer, who had been promoted to captain, remained obstinate. They finally worked out a compromise. Birch would work for and with the OSS but would remain on the Fourteenth Air Force roster. Chennault attempted once again to convince him to take a furlough in India, and Birch was tempted since it would offer him an opportunity to spend time with his former fiancée. Birch told Chennault that the war was almost over, and he intended to stay until “the last Jap is out of China.”Birch was now a captain, and the Chinese had given him a name, Bey Shang We, which literally meant Birch Captain. Although his activities were classified, John Birch was well known throughout China, especially among the Chinese military and the Christian community. He was also known to the Communists, who occupied a mountainous region in northern China and had done very little to oppose the Japanese. Birch was a strong anti-Communist and had been before he came to China. When he got there, he learned from the veteran missionaries that the Communists were considered to be more of a menace than the Japanese.After three years in China, Birch had come to believe that Mao and his Communists were merely waiting for the Allies to defeat the Japanese, and were depending on combat to wear down the Nationalist forces so that they would be unable to resist a Communist takeover after the war. Birch was not one who kept his views to himself and frequently admonished his friends and associates of what he believed were Communist intentions—to take over China, then move into Korea.Birch had been in the war since the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, first as a missionary wandering through remote regions and existing on starvation rations, then as an intelligence officer operating in enemy territory. He was emotionally if not physiclly worn out, and was tired of the war. He also felt that he, like Chennault, was being shoved aside. He had discovered the Anhwei pocket and set up operations there, but now there were three bases in the area he had pioneered and he had been made subordinate to an OSS major. When he got word that his family was thinking about selling the farm he had worked so hard to establish, he became even more morose. He wrote an essay reflecting his emotions entitled “The War Weary Farmer.”Birch’s intelligence network brought news of Communist activities in northern China and Manchuria. Chinese Communist troops were occupying territory that had been abandoned by the Japanese, who were in full retreat now that the end of the war was near. Communists in Henan Province tore up dikes that held back the Yellow River, causing flooding in the Anhwei pocket that destroyed what had promised to be a bumper crop. Birch was at his base at Linchuan when he got word of the detonation of the atomic bomb over Hiroshima. He also received orders telling him to make preparations to move north into Japanese territory to accept the surrender of Japanese garrisons.Keeping a sharp lookout for movement by the Japanese enemy, Chinese soldiers have taken cover in deep and lengthy trenches just beyond the Burmese frontier.Immediately after the Japanese surrender announcement, Mao’s Communists came out of the hills where they had been hiding and moved into Japanese territory as quickly as possible before American and Nationalist forces could come in. Their intention was to capture arms and ammunition and disrupt Allied lines of communications. General Wedemeyer ordered OSS offices in China to make plans to get their agents to Japanese installations as quickly as possible to make arrangements for surrender to the proper authorities. Birch and his friend Bill Miller were ordered to Süchow. Miller made plans to go by junk and suggested that Birch and his party go with him, but Birch replied that it was too risky and that he hoped to get a plane. The two talked openly in their regular morning radio conversation since the war was over and they felt no need to speak in code.The plane did not come through so Birch made plans to hike overland to Kweiteh and catch the east train on the Lunghai railroad. His friend and fellow agent Captain Jim Hart warned him that the Communists might already be in control of the railroad and suggested he go with Miller instead. Hart later reported that Birch went into a tirade about how the Antichrist would soon take control of the world and that Communists were his servants.The following morning Birch and his party departed. Three other Americans—Lieutenant Laird Ogle, Sergeant Albert Meyers, and Albert Grimes, a civilian OSS operative—five Chinese officers, and two Japanese-speaking Koreans along with Birch made up the party. One of the Chinese, Lieutenant Tung Fu Kuan, was assigned as Birch’s aide. When they arrived at Kweiteh, they were joined by two Chinese who had collaborated with the Japanese, a general and his orderly. The general was to escort them to his counterpart in Süchow, where they would accept the Japanese surrender. A Japanese officer received the party at Kweiteh and assured them they would be well received at Süchow, but that there were Communist guerrillas along the railroad to the east.Forty-five miles down the railroad the train halted at the station at Tangshan. The Japanese stationmaster informed the Korean interpreters that the railroad had been sabotaged up the line and that Communists, Japanese, and Chinese puppet troops were fighting in the area. The train was going to remain in the town until the rails had been repaired and the fighting ended. Birch and his party discussed their options. Ogle proposed that the four Americans go on alone. Birch decided they would all go and commandeered the locomotive and a baggage car. After only 10 miles, the locomotive came to a halt when the engineer saw that the rails ahead had been removed. Ogle and Birch went into a village to hire coolies but learned that Communists had come in the night before and killed most of the men. A Japanese work crew arrived with new rails. Birch commandeered the handcar and told the Japanese commander to have his men move it over the break.After spending the night in a village about a mile down the tracks, Birch and his party got under way again early the next morning, with each man taking turns pumping the handcar in the hot China sun. Sometime before noon they ran into a group of about 300 Communists, all carrying arms. The Americans and Chinese were all in uniform, and Birch wore the well-known Flying Tiger insignia of the Fourteenth Air Force on his arm. There was little doubt who they were. Birch took Lieutenant Tung ahead of the party to meet the Communists, identifying himself as Captain John Birch of the American intelligence services on a mission under the orders of General Wedemeyer. He asked to be taken to their “responsible man.”One of the Communists said he would take them to their leader, but they must first disarm. Birch refused, responding that the Americans and Chinese were allies and must respect each other. The Communist argued for a time, then gave in and took Birch to a man he identified as their commanding officer. The officer demanded that he be allowed to examine the men’s equipment, and Birch refused, replying that their equipment was the property of the U.S. government and not for personal use. He advised the Communist that the United States dealt harshly with thieves and demanded that they be allowed on their way.Birch Grabbed Their Guide by the Collar and Said, “What are You People? If I say Bandits, You Don’t Look Like Bandits. You are Worse Than Bandits.”Over the next few hours the party encountered several groups of Chinese Communists but managed to make its way through them. Birch griped constantly about the Communists, referring to them as nothing but common thieves and bandits. His men realized he was agitated and feared for their lives. When a pair of North American P-51 Mustang fighters flew over at low altitude, they attempted to signal them, but without success.Lieutenant Tung proceeded ahead of the party to deal with the Communists. When they reached the town of Hwang Kao, Tung entered the railroad station and found it occupied by hostile-looking Chinese. He advised them that they were on a mission to Süchow for General Wedemeyer and asked to speak to their “responsible man.” When one of the Communists blurted out that they must disarm the Americans, Tung replied that if they attempted to do so it would cause a serious misunderstanding. The senior officer told Tung he would send someone with him back to the party, but Tung heard him advise the man to take his gun along and if anything happened to shoot Tung first.Lt. Gen. Albert C. Wedemeyer, overall Allied commander in China and chief of staff to Kuomintang leader Chiang Kai-Shek, chats with the Generalissimo.By this time, Birch was thoroughly incensed at the treatment he and his men were receiving from their reputed allies. When Tung and the Communist joined the party, he asked the Communist if he was “another bandit.” General Peng, the Chinese collaborator, and Albert Grimes advised Birch to take it easy. When Tung told Birch that the Communists intended to disarm them, Birch exploded, blurting out that Americans had liberated the entire world, but now the Communists wanted to disarm him and his men! The Communist told Birch that he was not the “responsible man” but that he would take them to him, but that since they refused to disarm, he would not be responsible for anything that happened. Tung later reported that he and Birch expected the Communists to let them pass, then shoot them in the back.Finally, a Communist wearing the Sam Browne belt that identified him as an officer told Birch that he could see their responsible man. Ogle and Grimes insisted that they go along, but Birch told them to wait with the rest of the party and he and Tung would proceed alone. Tung later reported that Birch told him that he wanted to see how the Communists were going to treat Americans and that he did not care whether they killed him. If they did, America would punish them with atom bombs. At one point Birch grabbed their guide by his collar and said, “What are you people? If I say bandits, you don’t look like bandits. You are worse than bandits.” Tung told the Communists that Birch was joking.A little later someone called out, “Look, here is our leader.” Birch and Tung turned and saw that they were referring to the man in the Sam Browne belt. The officer told his men to load their guns and disarm Birch. Tung had taken off his sidearm earlier and told the Communists to let him get Birch’s gun in order to avoid “a serious misunderstanding.” The officer ordered one of his men to shoot Tung, which he did. He then told a soldier to shoot the American. The Communist hesitated, then fired a shot into Birch’s leg. Shortly afterward, Tung passed out from loss of blood. When he woke up, he was lying in a ditch next to Birch’s lifeless body.Word of John Birch’s death soon reached other OSS operatives. When Bill Miller arrived in Süchow, he was informed that Communists had killed his friend. Japanese soldiers and friendly Chinese found Tung and Birch’s bodies and took them to Süchow, where Tung was hospitalized. Both Tung and Birch had been badly beaten, and an autopsy found evidence that after Birch had been shot in the leg, he had been bound and then shot in the back of the head. His face had been slashed beyond recognition by bayonets. Miller was able to identify the body by Birch’s general build and from photographs taken when it was found.The senior Japanese officer at Süchow had refused to surrender to the Communists and waited for someone from the Nationalists to arrive in the city. He was sympathetic to Miller for the loss of his friend and offered his services to conduct an appropriate military funeral. Miller, the Japanese, Chinese puppet officers, and Jesuit missionaries who were in the city planned the funeral together. Two other Americans, pilots who had been killed in a crash near the city, would be interred along with Birch. A Catholic high mass was held for the young fundamentalist Baptist, and after the mass the entourage of Japanese and Chinese officers and Jesuits led a procession through the city to the music of a Japanese military band. The coffins were carried by 24 coolies. The three bodies were interred in a plot on the side of a mountain just outside the city. A Chinese Protestant conducted a graveside service. Japanese soldiers fired the traditional volley as the bodies were lowered into their graves.Frequent contributor Sam McGowan is a pilot and resident of the Houston, Texas, area. He has written extensively on World War II in the China-Burma-India Theater.China-Burma-India Theater of World War II (Feb 1, 1945)The Adventures of Captain John BirchThe John Birch Society Published on Dec 11, 2007John Birch, missionary and American intelligence officer in China during WWII, spreads a message of hope while risking his life behind enemy lines. During a chance meeting, he is led to Colonel James H. Doolittle and members of the World War II raiding party that had just completed the dramatic and legendary bombing raid on Tokyo, in April, 1942. This accidental meeting behind enemy lines proved to be the rescue the airmen had hoped for. With his encyclopedic knowledge of the language, customs, and geography of China, Birch was able to convey Doolittle and the crews of many of the other American bombers to safety in free China.Birch, an American Baptist missionary serving in China since 1940, then became an intelligence analyst as a second lieutenant with the China Air Task Force of the American Army—General Claire Chennault's legendary "Flying Tigers." He was the first American to live and work in the field with a Chinese army fighting against the Japanese. Performing high-risk intelligence-gathering missions on the ground, Birch earned the reputation as "the eyes of the 14th Air Force," devising an early warning system that enabled U.S. air units to come to the aid of Chinese units under enemy attack. He also organized a rescue system for pilots who were shot down by the Japanese. Chennault credited Birch with the fact that 90 percent of his downed flyers were rescued.The story of Birch is not as well-known as Doolittle's raid, but plays an integral role in leading the downed airmen to safety. Without Birch, many more of the raid may not have survived to tell their story nor perhaps would victory come as quickly as it did in then free China. Ten days after the war, Birch was killed by Chinese Communists as he was on his way to rendezvous with small pockets of Japanese soldiers, who were to surrender to him. Birch would never know the fact that details of his death were kept from the American people. Nor would he know of Robert Welch, who would found an organization bearing his name and who would continue Birch's quest to spread the message of freedom. He also would not know that his parents would proudly accept life memberships into the organization.John Birch: A Life: Terry Lautz: 9780190262891: Amazon.com: BooksJohn Birch was better known in death than life. Shot and killed by Communists in China in 1945, he posthumously became the namesake for a right-wing organization whose influence is still visible in today's Tea Party. This is the remarkable story of who he actually was: an American missionary-turned-soldier who wanted to save China, but became a victim instead.Terry Lautz, a longtime scholar of U.S.-China relations, has investigated archives, spoken with three of Birch's brothers, found letters written to the women he loved, and visited sites in China where he lived and died. The result, John Birch: A Life, is the first authoritative biography of this fascinating figure whose name was used for a political cause.Raised as a Baptist fundamentalist, Birch became a missionary to China prior to America's entry into the Second World War. After Pearl Harbor, he volunteered for the U.S. Army in China, served with Claire Chennault, commander of the famed Flying Tigers, and operated behind enemy lines as an intelligence officer. He planned to resume his missionary work after the war, but was killed in a dispute with Communist troops just days after Japan's surrender.During the heyday of the Cold War in the 1950s, Robert Welch, a retired businessman from Boston, chose Birch as the figurehead for the John Birch Society, believing that his death was evidence of conspiracy at the highest levels of government. The Birch Society became one of the most polarizing organizations of its time, and the name of John Birch became synonymous with right-wing extremism.Cutting through the layers of mythology surrounding Birch, Lautz deftly presents his life and his afterlife, placing him not only in the context of anti-communism but in the longstanding American quest to shape China's destiny.Editorial Reviews"Lautz skillfully provides one of the most important benefits of scholarly study - the correction of ignorant assumptions through disseminating historical fact. Lautz's effective, four-part account of Birch's 27 years provdies readers an opportunity to examine 20th-century fundamentalism, relatively unknown military efforts of WWII, the postwar rise of communism in China and anti-communism in the US. A valuable addition to any collection."-Choice"This remarkable book made clear to me how wrong I was in my assessment of John Birch. Because his name is associated with the right-wing John Birch Society, I assumed he personified its extreme views. Read this gracefully written biography and learn the fascinating truth about this extraordinary Christian, patriot, and good man."-Lee H. Hamilton, U.S. House of Representatives, former member, and U.S. Homeland Security Advisory Council"With the support of extensive and highly original research, Terry Lautz has written a fascinating and informative biography of John Birch, allegedly the 'first victim of the Cold War.' This is the engaging story of the real person behind the myth, and why and how the former was transformed into the latter as a symbol of conservative politics in America."-Chen Jian, Hu Shih Professor of History and U.S.-China Relations, Cornell University"This engaging study of the life and legacy of John Birch offers an illuminating read for anyone interested in the American missionary and military experience in China or the politics of anti-Communism in the U.S. Based on exhaustive archival and interview research, Terry Lautz's wonderful book is full of surprises about the origins of the infamous John Birch Society and the (unlikely) man in whose name it was founded."-Elizabeth J. Perry, Henry Rosovosky Professor of Government at Harvard University and Director of the Harvard-Yenching Institute"A fascinating window into the tumultuous events of American involvement in China during World War II. Lautz's depiction of the John Birch affair provides the human story behind a mythical figure in American political life. This is an eye-opening account that scholars as well as general readers interested in American and Chinese history and politics will value."-David Shambaugh, George Washington University and The Brookings Institution"Most treatments of Birch's life have tended to present it as a short preface to the history of the society carrying his name. But now, in "John Birch: A Life" (Oxford), Terry Lautz reverses the usual proportions and presents a biography of Birch in which the society figures as a sort of epilogue. Lautz has the kind of credentials-a trustee of the Harvard-Yenching Institute; a member of the Council on Foreign Relations-guaranteed to give fits to any Bircher past or present, but his book is thorough, judicious, and, except for a few overdone academic references to Cold War "paranoia," respectful of larger historical realities. Even conservatives near the mainstream's right bank will be hard-pressed to see it as another anti-anti-Communist undertaking." --Thomas Mallon, -The New Yorker"Lautz sorts the real story from the 'lunatic fringe'. A useful work that elucidates both the U.S. role in China and some elements of the contemporary conservative mindset." -Kirkus Reviews"Lautz rounds out a commendable study that fills a significant scholarly gap." - Publishers Weekly"Mr. Lautz's meticulous, readable book tells the whole story, from Birch's birth in India to missionary parents to his controversial afterlife. It is a pungent and poignant tale that touches on several major themes of midcentury history-Western evangelism in China, U.S. relations with the Chinese Communists and the caustic accusations of treachery made against American officials after those Communists took power in 1949." --Richard Bernstein, Wall Street Journal"The only way to learn about the real John Birch is to read about him - and Lautz's biography is the right place to start." --John J. Miller, National Review"Beyond bringing us back to a chapter of irrationalism in our past, Lautz's equally interesting contribution is to rescue John Birch, the man, from obscurity and from the society that pirated his name." --Gabriel Schoenfeld, lThe Weekly Standard'"Lautz painstakingly reconstructs the brief life of this missionary, soldier and spy, who arrived in China to save souls in 1940 and was shot dead by Communist soldiers five years later. Birch becomes a case study in the "well-meaning idealism and misguided adventurism" that had animated the interest of Americans in China since the 19th century... Lautz has written an enlightening reflection on a complex history." --Global Asia"In his splendid new biography "John Birch: A Life," Terry Lautz of Syracuse University asks many questions about Birch's life and legend. The first, in the opening pages, is the most compelling: How did a young, obscure lieutenant killed in a remote province of China become the namesake of an anti-communist organization whose zealous supporters shook the foundation of American political life?" --Alaska Dispatch NewsAbout the Author: Terry Lautz is a Moynihan Research Scholar at the Maxwell School at Syracuse University and former vice president of the Henry Luce Foundation. He is also a director of the National Committee on United States-China Relations, trustee of the Harvard-Yenching Institute, and member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He graduated from Harvard College, served with the U.S. Army in Vietnam, and holds an MA and PhD from Stanford University.Who Was John Birch?By Rick FlandersMost people who have heard of John Birch associate his name with the John Birch Society, a public-policy educational association founded in the 1950s to combat communism. But the truth is that if nobody had named an organization for him, his name would be properly honored today, especially by fundamental Baptists. On August 25, 1945, John Birch was murdered in China, which was a significant event at the beginning of the Cold War because he was killed by Communists who, at the time, were supposed to be our allies. The seventieth anniversary of his murder occurs this year, and there are many reasons for Christians to remind themselves at this time of who this great man was.HE DID NOT FOUND THE JOHN BIRCH SOCIETY. The John Birch Society was organized in 1957, but not by John Birch, who had been dead for more than a decade. The founder was Robert Welch, a successful candy manufacturer who had made himself a serious student of world events and saw the need to take action against forces he saw were threatening the freedom of the United States and the so-called “Free World.” The society was named for John Birch because of the significance of his death to the larger situation we called the Cold War. Not only was the young Birch killed by the Communists, but the murder was covered up by the United States government. This cover-up of an act of aggression against us by the Communists, along with several more such cover-ups that were exposed in the post-war era, revealed a tangled web of treason and conspiracy that moved some to take action for the preservation of their liberty from powerful forces that threatened them. The death of John Birch, and the efforts of the American government to hide the facts about it, demonstrated the awful predicament in which our nation has been since World War Two. It also relates the remarkable story of the bravery and dedication of a young American Christian to his country and to his Lord in the face of great peril.HE WAS A BAPTIST PREACHER! John Birch was born in India to Presbyterian missionary parents in 1918, and was twenty-seven years old when he died. At seven years of age, he was “born again” (read John 3:1-17) by trusting in Jesus Christ for his salvation after hearing the gospel in the Baptist church his parents (who had been Presbyterians but left them over theological liberalism) had joined. When he was eleven, he surrendered to the Lord’s call to be a missionary. John was a dedicated Christian as a teenager and a strong Bible-believer as were his parents. When the time came for him to go to college, he went to a Southern Baptist Convention institution, Mercer University in Macon, Georgia, to begin ministerial training. He was already an accomplished preacher and preached often as a student, even pastoring a Baptist church for a time while in school.HE WAS A FUNDAMENTALIST. As a student at Mercer, John Birch came to see clearly the issue of infidelity in the churches, and took a stand against professors at the university who were undermining the faith of the students. He also had a chance to hear the famous fundamentalist preacher, J. Frank Norris, preach against what in those days was called “modernism” (a term for the liberal theology that had crept into the churches, which questioned or denied cardinal doctrines of the Christian Faith), and determined to take his stand. In his senior year, Birch united with a dozen other Mercer students to petition the state Baptist convention to investigate certain teachers on charges of heresy. In the midst of the furor that ensued, University officials threatened to expel the upstart. The newspapers made his name a household word in Macon, in either positive or in negative terms. In time, the heresy charges failed to convict the professors, and John Birch finished his senior year. He was graduated magna cum laud from Mercer. Instead of going on to a Southern Baptist seminary to further his education, he enrolled in the new Fundamental Baptist Bible Institute that had been organized in Fort Worth, Texas, by Norris, who was a leader in the national “fundamentalist” movement. Fundamentalists contended that Christianity must be defined in terms of the fundamental doctrines of the Gospel, and that those who denied any of these cardinal tenets of the Faith, even if they are ordained ministers, are not really Christians. Fundamentalism was a grassroots movement in the historically evangelical churches against the influence of liberalism. John Birch was an all-out fundamentalist, and his intentions were to train to be a missionary and go to China to help the Baptist fundamentalists who were laboring courageously and faithfully there.HE WAS A MISSIONARY. In 1939, God sent John Birch to China as an independent Baptist missionary. He worked with two legendary fundamental Baptist men, Oscar Wells and Fred Donnellson. When he arrived, China was torn in the conflict that became the Second World War. Japan had invaded China, and the United States was putting pressure on them while seeking to stay out of the war. The government of Nationalist Chaing Kai-Shek over China was being challenged both by a Communist insurrection and the Japanese invasion. As the war progressed, his missionary support diminished to a trickle, and the place of his service came under Japanese control. Nevertheless he vigorously and zealously spread the Gospel, won souls to Christ, and nourished the Baptist churches in occupied China. American interest in the plight of China brought military help from the United States even before Peart Harbor. Volunteers from our country formed a unit of air force to aid the Chinese that was famously called “The Flying Tigers,” which fought the Japanese bravely until they were absorbed into the U.S. Army after we entered the war. All this time John Birch served the spiritual needs of the Chinese people with the war raging around him.HE WAS A PATRIOT. In this situation, Birch volunteered to join the United States Army. He made application to be enlisted, based on two appeals: (1) he wanted to help his country and the Chinese he came to serve, and (2) he needed an income. He argued that his fluency in the language and familiarity with the culture of the people would make him valuable to the war effort of the United States. As an ordained Baptist minister, he was seeking appointment as a chaplain. Eventually he made an attempt to join General Claire Chennault and the Flying Tigers, the fighting unit of American volunteers this great man commanded. It was the general that told Birch that they had no need for a chaplain, but that they did need an intelligence officer who could work behind Japanese lines and provide important information for the 14th Air Force (as the Flying Tigers came to be known). Eventually Birch was appointed an officer and served in the Army during World War II while he served the Lord as a missionary and an evangelist in war-torn China. He preached on Sundays and spied for Chennault during the week. After Birch was killed, General Chennault said, “John was more than just a very good officer in my command. In fact, I have always felt toward him as a father might feel toward a son.” In a letter to the Birch family after John’s death, General Charles Stone, his commander after Chennault, commended his service.“As an intelligence liaison officer of the Fourteenth Air Force, Captain Birch performed invaluable services which greatly aided the achievement of ultimate victory. His work was performed to a great extent behind enemy lines and often under hazardous conditions, in circumstances of extreme personal hardship and immediate danger. His unassuming manner, unswerving loyalty, and personal courage earned him the respect and admiration of officers and enlisted men among both American and Chinese units.”John Birch played a unique role in wartime China: he was a combination of Baptist missionary and American intelligence officer. His service at to both God and country was virtually unprecedented.HE WAS A HERO. While interviewing with General Chennault regarding his application to serve in the Army, Birch played an important role in the renowned mission of Colonel Jimmy Doolittle to bombard Tokyo. After the attack on Japan, Doolittle’s squadron of planes ran into trouble over China, as the famous flier’s plane ran out of fuel. He and his comrades wandered the Chinese landscape until providentially they ran into John Birch. Birch and his cohorts were able to get the great pilot and his men to American troops and safety. The news of his heroic efforts in this incident gave Birch credibility and favor before General Chennault, and got him a commission as captain. As the war with Japan came to a close, Birch had proven himself to be a remarkable soldier. He also had come to serious spiritual and political conclusions about the significance of the war. He wrote to his family,“I believe that this war will set the stage for Antichrist. I’ll have a lot to tell you when I get home. Things about the future of China and of the world.”As he prepared to come home, John Birch was to fulfill one more mission. Under orders of General Albert Wedemeyer, commander of American forces in China, he and ten other soldiers (three Americans, five Chinese, and two Koreans) were to take a train to Suchow to inspect the airport there before Birch would make his way back to the United States. In their journey the eleven where detained by Communists and eventually John Birch and his Chinese personal aid were shot and Birch was killed. The aid (whose name was Tung) was badly wounded and basically left for dead but survived and gave an eyewitness account of the captain’s abuse at the hands of the Communists. John Birch repeatedly refused to surrender weapons and other equipment carried by his men, insisting that since the war was over and Americans were supposed to be allies of the Communists, they were under no obligation to be subject to this treatment. They would not be disarmed by the Red Chinese. The arguments were heated and repeated. Tung warned John Birch against antagonizing the Communists, and several times the captain replied, “Never mind, Lieutenant, I want to see how the Communists treat Americans. If they kill me, America will stop the Communist movement [advance] with atom bombs.” They did kill him. He was buried we think in Suchow. But instead of holding the Communists responsible for this hostile action, the American government decided that the incident should not be made known. The story of the murder of John Birch became a tightly-guarded secret.HE WAS A WITNESS FOR JESUS CHRIST!In a letter to his parents in 1944, John testified,“If my hour to depart should strike, I am ready to go, thanks to the merits of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.”The source of his bravery in the final hours of his service to his country was the assurance John Birch had in his mind and in his heart that he would go to Heaven. His decision to risk his life by standing for the rightful interests of the United States was based on the conviction that his life could be a sacrifice for the betterment of the world. All of these amazing qualities in the life of John Birch resulted from the work of grace wrought in his heart by Jesus Christ.After the war a newspaper reporter who had spent much time in China (Adeline Gray) wrote in amazing terms about John’s life and service in a letter to his parents.“Yesterday, I read of John Birch’s death in the [Washington, D.C.] Evening Star and was very shocked. Your son was one of the finest men who ever came to China. He never drank, smoked, swore, or did an unkind thing to anyone. He believed that wars were due and are due to lack of religion. He talked of this in most lofty and beautiful worded sentences. He exerted a profound effect upon the thousands of people who came in contact with him…“His loss is a great loss not only to China, but to America and the world. He loved China and the Chinese people dearly and planned to stay in China all his life. During the war he performed many dangerous and heroic feats. As a member of the U. S. Army Intelligence, he often was parachuted out into Japanese areas and spent weeks and months behind the lines. He was a beloved man of the U.S. Army in China; he was widely known all over China…“I understand that no news agency was allowed to send out the story of your son’s death from China for fear of arousing Chinese Communists and American relations to a higher pitch of instability and ill-will. So his death was not mentioned in any news story from China. Otherwise, it would have been on the front page of every paper in the U.S.”On the Fourth of July in 1945, he had written a letter home that eloquently stated his perception of the need of the world:“There is only one real problem in the world with all its complicated evils, and there is only one answer, amidst the maze of futile plans. Here is the problem and the answer: ‘The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord’ (Romans 6:23).”Over the years after his death, the heroism and martyrdom of John Birch occasionally leaked out from the classified report, with statements made about him in Congress and the press. But the report itself was never seen by the public until it was de-classified in 1980. However, the testimonies of soldiers and family-members who knew his story have inspired thousands of Christians and patriots for seventy years. How he lived, what he said, and what he did tell us all that there is more to life than staying alive, that only in Christ can the needs of men be met, and that the still-spreading collectivist conquest of nations is evil at its core and essentially spiritual in its errors. May he be remembered, and the lessons of his life heeded.Have you bowed to Jesus Christ as your own Lord and Savior? Reader, have you received the gift of eternal life by faith in the Son of God? Christian friend, will you stand bravely for the truth of God in these dark days when many may be challenged to pay a price to live for Christ? As we remember John Birch, may the Lord use the testimony of his life and death to draw us to love the One Who loved us, and gave Himself for our salvation.“And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held: and they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?”(Revelation 6:9-10)SOURCES OF INFORMATION ABOUT JOHN BIRCH:Welch, Robert. The Life of John Birch. Belmont, Massachusetts: Western Islands, 1960.Hefley, James and Marti. The Secret File on John Birch. Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers, 1981.The John Birch Society, 770 N. Westhill Blvd., Appleton, WI 54914—920.749.3780.Arlington Baptist College, 3001 West Division, Arlington, Texas 76012—817.461.8741: ask for information on John Birch.

Firstly. History. Origins and developments, blues. influences. the melding of African rhythmic ideas with Western musical ideas laid the foundation for a genre of African-American music, in particular spirituals and, later, gospel songs.Spirituals: A journeyJohn Gibb St. Clair Drake, the noted black anthropologist, points out that during the years of slavery, Christianity in the U.S. introduced many contradictions that were contrary to the religious beliefs of Africans. For most Africans the concepts of sin, guilt and the afterlife, were new.The Christian tenet of sin guided personal behavior. This was primarily the case in northern white churches in the U.S. where the belief was that all people should be treated equally. In the South many believed that slavery was justified in the Bible.1674 – Hymnist and theologian Isaac Watts (1674-1748) is born in England. The writer of more than 750 hymns, his songs will become so popular among African Americans that they are simply referred to as “an old Dr. Watts.” Isaac Watts1730’s – The Great Awakening, a religious revival in British North America, signals the first major effort to Christianize enslaved Africans.1777 – George Leile establishes the First African Baptist Church of Savannah, Georgia, the oldest Black church in North America.[These are black folks] George LieleIn 1787, reacting to racial slights at St. George Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia, two clergymen, Absalom Jones and Richard Allen, followed by a number of blacks left and formed the African Methodist Episcopal Church.1787 – With the establishment of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the first independent African American Christian denomination in the United States is created.1800’s – African American innovation in Christian-centered sacred music begins to distinguish itself in the forms of spirituals, shouts, lined-hymns, and anthems.1865 – Slavery legally abolished with the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution.1871 – The Fisk Jubilee Singers set out on their inaugural tour to raise money to help save Fisk University from closure. Eventually becoming an international tour, the choir brings the sacred music of African Americans the attention of the world. The Jubilee Singers also provide a model a tight, four part harmony-centered, choral singing that will continue for generations within the African American community.Fisk Jubilee SingersFisk Jubilee Singers, 1875Fisk Jubilee SingersThe Fisk Jubilee Singers are an African-American a cappella ensemble, consisting of students at Fisk University. The first group was organized in 1871 to tour and raise funds for college. Their early repertoire consisted mostly of traditional spirituals, but included some songs by Stephen Foster. The original group toured along the Underground Railroad path in the United States, as well as performing in England and Europe. Later 19th-century groups also toured in Europe.In 2002 the Library of Congress honored their 1909 recording of "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" by adding it in the United States National Recording Registry. In 2008 they were awarded a National Medal of Arts.HistoryFisk Jubilee Singers, circa 1870sThe Singers were organized as a fundraising effort for Fisk University. The historically black college in Nashville, Tennessee was founded by the American Missionary Association and local supporters after the end of the American Civil War to educate freedmen and other young African Americans. In 1871, the five-year-old university was facing serious financial difficulty. To avert bankruptcy and closure, Fisk's treasurer and music director, George L. White, a white Northern missionary dedicated to music and proving African Americans were the intellectual equals of whites, gathered a nine-member student chorus, consisting of four black men (Isaac Dickerson, Ben Holmes, Greene Evans, Thomas Rutling) and five black women (Ella Sheppard, Maggie Porter, Minnie Tate, Jennie Jackson, Eliza Walker) to go on tour to earn money for the university. On October 6, 1871, the group of students, consisting of two quartets and a pianist, started their U.S. tour under White's direction.[ They first performed in Cincinnati, Ohio. Over the next 18 months, the group toured through Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maryland, and Washington, D.C.George Leonard WhiteGeorge Leonard WhiteGeorge White's leadership of the Jubilee Singers was the culmination of a career dedicated both to music and to proving African Americans were the social and intellectual equals of whites. Born in Cadiz, New York in 1838, White was the son of a blacksmith who played in a local band. He attended public school until age fourteen and moved to Ohio when he was twenty. Although not a singer himself, White developed a talent for interpreting music and began directing choirs at various schools and churches in Ohio, where he also founded a black Sunday school.White’s service in the Union army at Gettysburg, Chancellorsville, and Chattanooga nearly destroyed his health. After being medically discharged from the army, he joined the Freedmen’s Bureau in Nashville, a city crowded with impoverished former slaves. When the Fisk Free Colored School opened under the auspices of the American Missionary Association (A.M.A.) in 1866, White volunteered to teach music and penmanship. Recognizing that music had served as an important mode of resistance and consolation during his students’ enslavement, White organized a choir. In 1867 his group performed at Nashville's Masonic Hall, garnering $400 toward the performers' education.Still only in his 20s, White was hired as Fisk’s treasurer, making him responsible for collecting tuition from newly freed families and keeping the school's creditors at bay. White continued to work with the choir, selecting the best singers from a voice class at Fisk. With the help of sixteen-year-old Ella Sheppard, whom White hired as an assistant in 1868, the choir performed all over Tennessee, giving shows that combined drama, recitations, gymnastics, piano and singing.Though White contributed his own meager savings toward Fisk's upkeep, by the autumn of 1871 the school was deep in debt. White proposed taking the best of his singers on a fundraising tour of the North, but the A.M.A. and Fisk's new president Adam Spence opposed the idea as vulgar, risky, and born out of White's own self-interested opportunism. White's singers believed in him, however, and on October 6, 1871, White departed from Nashville with his troupe of singers "to sing the money out of the hearts and pockets of the people."The troupe had planned to stick mainly to popular songs but soon began to receive excited praise for the few spirituals they sang as encores. Many African Americans were uneasy with the performance of sacred music for the amusement of white audiences. Nevertheless, White collected as many spirituals as he could, calling upon his own singers to teach him the music their parents and grandparents had sung as slaves. Soon the singers became known for these songs, and White's naming of the group after the biblical year of Jubilee helped secure their role as unofficial representatives of the black religious experience to white audiences.In April 1873 the singers embarked on a fundraising tour of Britain. Though they were extremely well received, delighting such luminaries as Queen Victoria and Prime Minister William Gladstone, their rigorous rehearsal and performance schedule, combined with three years of accumulated fatigue from traveling, began to take a heavy toll. After his wife died of typhoid fever within a year of the troupe’s arrival in Britain, a grief-stricken White collapsed due to hemorrhaging in his lungs. The singers continued performing under the direction of Ella Sheppard, but the thrill of success would continue to be tempered by the physical and emotional stress of touring.With a few of the original singers and several new members, White embarked on a second European tour in the spring of 1875. The British, now familiar with the singers, heartily welcomed their return. Revival meetings where the Jubilee Singers were scheduled to perform frequently drew audiences of over ten thousand. When White took the singers to Holland the following year, he expected less enthusiasm since non-English speaking audiences would not understand the group's lyrics; nevertheless, the singers were mobbed by admirers. Unfortunately, White’s health continued to decline and after the group returned to England, Fisk’s president Erastus Cravath took over. Ignoring White’s pleas to let the troupe rest -- several were sick and all were exhausted -- Cravath took them all over Germany, where they again experienced huge success. But by now the singers had had enough of the relentless touring, their managers, and each other and after a series of trying incidents -- one of the singers had a stroke, another repeatedly collapsed, several became resistant to White’s paternalistic attempts to keep order, and Cravath refused to raise any of their salaries -- White quit in disgust. He sailed home in May 1878. Two months later the troupe disbanded.With singer Frederick Loudin, who had joined the group for its second European tour, White formed a new choir of Jubilee Singers in 1879. Under Loudin, the group toured Asia, Australia, and the American West in the 1880s. White, despite rheumatism and an injury sustained in a fall from a stage in 1881, continued to work with the singers on and off until his death from tuberculosis in 1895. His memorial service at Fisk was attended by several of the original Jubilee Singers. They sang the spiritual "Steal Away," a longtime favorite of White’s, in his honor.Swing Low, Sweet Chariot - Fisk Jubilee Singers (1909)Written After 1865Gospel Music History Archive [not a complete history, have taken just a few lines from this, neither is this the predominant history]BluesStylistic originsWork song - WikipediaA work song is a piece of music closely connected to a form of work, either sung while conducting a task (usually to coordinate timing) or a song linked to a task which might be a connected narrative, description, or protest song. Definitions and categories [ edit ] Records of work songs are as old as historical records, and anthropological evidence suggests that most agrarian societies tend to have them. [1] Most modern commentators on work songs have included both songs sung while working as well as songs about work since the two categories are seen as interconnected. [2] Norm Cohen divided collected work songs into domestic, agricultural or pastoral, sea shanties , African-American work songs, songs and chants of direction, and street cries . [3] Ted Gioia further divided agricultural and pastoral songs into hunting, cultivation and herding songs, and highlighted the industrial or proto-industrial songs of cloth workers (see Waulking song ), factory workers , seamen , lumberjacks , cowboys and miners . He also added prisoner songs and modern work songs. [1] Hunting and pastoral songs [ edit ] In societies without mechanical time keeping, songs of mobilisation, calling members of a community together for a collective task, were extremely important. [4] Both hunting and the keeping of livestock tended to involve small groups or individuals, usually boys and young men, away from the centres of settlement and with long hours to pass. As a result, these activities have tended to produce long narrative songs, often sung individually, which might dwell on the themes of pastoral activity or animals, designed to pass the time in the tedium of work. [4] Hunting songs, like those of the Mbuti of the Congo, often incorporated distinctive whistles and yodels so that hunters could identify each other's locations and those of their prey. [4] Agricultural work songs [ edit ] Most agricultural work songs were rhythmic a cappella songs intended to increase productivity while reducing feelings of boredom. [4] Rhythms of work songs, similar to an African drum beat, served to synchronize physical movement in groups, coordinating sowing, hoeing, and harvesting. [4] The usage of verses in work songs were sometimes improvised and sung differently each time. Improvisation provided singers with a subversive form of expression. Slaves sang improvised verses to mock their overseers, express frustrations, and share dreams of escaping. Many work songs served to create connection and familiarity between workers. Yankee Doodle is thought to have started out as a harvest song, its words possibly originating from farmers in 15th century Holland . It contained mostly nonsensical and out-of-place words that were presumably sang to a similar—if not the same—tune: "Yanker, didel, doodle down, Diddle, dudel, lanther, Yanke viver, voover vown, Botermilk und tanther ." Farm laborers in Holland at the time received as their wages "as much buttermilk ( Botermilk ) as they could drink,https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plantation-era_songsSpirituals - Wikipediaa music genre created by generations of African-Americans Spirituals (also known as Negro spirituals , Spiritual music , or African-American spirituals ) is a genre of music that is "purely and solely the creation" of generations of African Americans , [1] : 13,17 which merged African cultural heritage with the experiences of being held in bondage in slavery, at first during the transatlantic slave trade —the largest and most inhumane forced migration in recorded human history, [2] and for centuries afterwards, through the domestic slave trade. Spirituals encompass the "sing songs", work songs , and plantation songs that evolved into the blues, and the gospel songs in church. [3] In the nineteenth century, the word "spirituals" referred to all these subcategories of folk songs. [4] [5] [6] While they were often rooted in biblical stories, they also described the extreme hardships endured by African Americans who were enslaved from the 17th century until the 1860s. From its roots in African music, new derivative music genres emerged from the spirituals songcraft. [7] Prior to the end of the US Civil War and emancipation, spirituals were originally an oral tradition passed from one slave generation to the next. Biblical stories were memorized then translated into song. Following emancipation, the lyrics of spirituals were published in printed form. Ensembles such as the Fisk Jubilee Singers—established in 1871—popularized spirituals, bringing them to a wider, even international, audience. At first, major recording studios were only recording white musicians performing spirituals and their derivatives. That changed with Mamie Smith 's commercial success in 1920. [8] Starting in the 1920s the commercial recording industry increased the audience for the spirituals and their derivatives. African American composers Harry Burleigh and R. Nathaniel Dett created a "new repertoire for the concert stage" by applying their Western classical education to the spirituals. [9] While the spirituals were created by a "circumscribed community of people in bondage", over time they became known as the first "signature" music of the United States. [10] Terminology [ edit ] The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians —one of the largest reference works on music and musicians, [11] : 284–290 —itemized and described "spiritual" in their electronic resource, Grove Music Online —an important part of Oxford Music Online , as a "type of sacred song created by and for African Americans that originated in oral tradition. Although its exact provenance is unknown, spirituals were identifiable as a genre by the early 19th century." [12] They used the term without the descriptor, "African American". The term "spirituals" is a 19th century word "used for songs with religious texts created by African slaves in America". [4] The first published book of slave songs referred to them as spirituals. [13] In musicology and ethnomusicology in the 1990s, the single term "spirituals" ishttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiritual_(music)Folk music - WikipediaMusic genre Folk music includes traditional folk music and the genre that evolved from it during the 20th-century folk revival . Some types of folk music may be called world music . Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted orally, music with unknown composers, music that is played on traditional instruments, music that changes between generations (folk process), music associated with a people's folklore or music performed by custom over a long period of time. It has been contrasted with commercial and classical styles . The term originated in the 19th century, but folk music extends beyond that. Starting in the mid-20th century, a new form of popular folk music evolved from traditional folk music. This process and period is called the (second) folk revival and reached a zenith in the 1960s. This form of music is sometimes called contemporary folk music or folk revival music to distinguish it from earlier folk forms. [1] Smaller, similar revivals have occurred elsewhere in the world at other times, but the term folk music has typically not been applied to the new music created during those revivals. This type of folk music also includes fusion genres such as folk rock , folk metal , and others. While contemporary folk music is a genre generally distinct from traditional folk music, in U.S. English it shares the same name, and it often shares the same performers and venues as traditional folk music. Traditional folk music [ edit ] Definitions [ edit ] The terms folk music , folk song , and folk dance are comparatively recent expressions. They are extensions of the term folklore , which was coined in 1846 by the English antiquarian William Thoms to describe "the traditions, customs, and superstitions of the uncultured classes". [2] The term further derives from the German expression volk , in the sense of "the people as a whole" as applied to popular and national music by Johann Gottfried Herder and the German Romantics over half a century earlier. [3] Though it is understood that folk music is the music of the people, observers find a more precise definition to be elusive. [4] [5] Some do not even agree that the term folk music should be used. [4] Folk music may tend to have certain characteristics [2] but it cannot clearly be differentiated in purely musical terms. One meaning often given is that of "old songs, with no known composers," [6] another is that of music that has been submitted to an evolutionary "process of oral transmission .... the fashioning and re-fashioning of the music by the community that give it its folk character." [7] Such definitions depend upon "(cultural) processes rather than abstract musical types...", upon " continuity and oral transmission ...seen as characterizing one side of a cultural dichotomy, the other side of which is found not only in the lower layers of feudal, capitalist and some oriental societies but also in 'primitive' societies and in parts of 'popular cultures'". [8]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folk_musicCultural origins1860s, Deep South, U.S.Blues is a music genre and musical form which was originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s by African-Americans from roots in African musical traditions, African-American work songs, and spirituals. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads. The blues form, ubiquitous in jazz, rhythm and blues and rock and roll, is characterized by the call-and-response pattern, the blues scale and specific chord progressions, of which the twelve-bar blues is the most common. Blue notes (or "worried notes"), usually thirds, fifths or sevenths flattened in pitch are also an essential part of the sound. Blues shuffles or walking bass reinforce the trance-like rhythm and form a repetitive effect known as the groove.The musical forms and styles that are now considered the blues as well as modern country music arose in the same regions of the southern United States during the 19th century. Recorded blues and country music can be found as far back as the 1920s, when the record industry created the marketing categories "race music" and "hillbilly music" to sell music by blacks for blacks and by whites for whites, respectively. At the time, there was no clear musical division between "blues" and "country", except for the ethnicity of the performer, and even that was sometimes documented incorrectly by record companies.The origins of the blues are closely related to the religious music of Afro-American community, the spirituals. The origins of spirituals go back much further than the blues, usually dating back to the middle of the 18th century, when the slaves were Christianized and began to sing and play Christian hymns, in particular those of Isaac Watts, which were very popular. Before the blues gained its formal definition in terms of chord progressions, it was defined as the secular counterpart of spirituals. It was the low-down music played by rural blacks.Depending on the religious community a musician belonged to, it was more or less considered a sin to play this low-down music: blues was the devil's music. Musicians were therefore segregated into two categories: gospel singers and blues singers, guitar preachers and songsters. However, when rural black music began to be recorded in the 1920s, both categories of musicians used similar techniques: call-and-response patterns, blue notes, and slide guitars. Gospel music was nevertheless using musical forms that were compatible with Christian hymns and therefore less marked by the blues form than its secular counterpart.Blues - WikipediaMusical form and music genre Blues is a music genre [3] and musical form which was originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s [2] by African-Americans from roots in African-American work songs , and spirituals . Blues incorporated spirituals , work songs , field hollers , shouts , chants , and rhymed simple narrative ballads . The blues form, ubiquitous in jazz , rhythm and blues and rock and roll , is characterized by the call-and-response pattern, the blues scale and specific chord progressions , of which the twelve-bar blues is the most common. Blue notes (or "worried notes"), usually thirds, fifths or sevenths flattened in pitch are also an essential part of the sound. Blues shuffles or walking bass reinforce the trance-like rhythm and form a repetitive effect known as the groove . Blues as a genre is also characterized by its lyrics, bass lines, and instrumentation. Early traditional blues verses consisted of a single line repeated four times. It was only in the first decades of the 20th century that the most common current structure became standard: the AAB pattern , consisting of a line sung over the four first bars, its repetition over the next four, and then a longer concluding line over the last bars. Early blues frequently took the form of a loose narrative, often relating the racial discrimination and other challenges experienced by African-Americans. Many elements, such as the call-and-response format and the use of blue notes, can be traced back to the music of Africa . The origins of the blues are also closely related to the religious music of the Afro-American community, the spirituals . The first appearance of the blues is often dated to after the ending of slavery and, later, the development of juke joints . It is associated with the newly acquired freedom of the former slaves. Chroniclers began to report about blues music at the dawn of the 20th century. The first publication of blues sheet music was in 1908. Blues has since evolved from unaccompanied vocal music and oral traditions of slaves into a wide variety of styles and subgenres. Blues subgenres include country blues , such as Delta blues and Piedmont blues , as well as urban blues styles such as Chicago blues and West Coast blues . World War II marked the transition from acoustic to electric blues and the progressive opening of blues music to a wider audience, especially white listeners. In the 1960s and 1970s, a hybrid form called blues rock developed, which blended blues styles with rock music . Etymology [ edit ] The term Blues may have come from "blue devils", meaning melancholy and sadness; an early use of the term in this sense is in George Colman 's one-act farce Blue Devils (1798). [4] The phrase blue devils may also have been derived from Britain in the 1600s, when the term referred to the "intense visual hallucinations that can accompany severe alcohol withdrawal". [5] As time went on, the phrase lost the reference to devils, and it camhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BluesInfluence of field hollersField holler music, also known as Levee Camp Holler music, was an early form of African American music, described in the 19th century. Field hollers laid the foundations for the blues, spirituals, and eventually rhythm and blues. Field hollers, cries and hollers of the slaves and later sharecroppers working in cotton fields, prison chain gangs, railway gangs (Gandy dancers) or turpentine camps were the precursor to the call and response of African American spirituals and gospel music, to jug bands, minstrel shows, stride piano, and ultimately to the blues, rhythm and blues, jazz and African American music in general. Sylviane Diouf and Gerhard Kubik have traced the origins of field hollers to African Muslim slaves, who were influenced by the Islamic musical tradition of West Africa (see African roots above).Influence of spiritualsA watercolor painting of a camp meeting circa 1839 (New Bedford Whaling Museum).The most important American antecedent of the blues was the spiritual, a form of religious song with its roots in the camp meetings of the Great Awakening of the early 19th century. Spirituals were a passionate song form, that "convey(ed) to listeners the same feeling of rootlessness and misery" as the blues. Spirituals, however, were less specifically concerning the performer, instead about the general loneliness of mankind, and were more figurative than direct in their lyrics. Despite these differences, the two forms are similar enough that they can not be easily separated — many spirituals would probably have been called blues had that word been in wide use at the time.[[ While the findings of Kubik and others clearly attest to the essential Africanness of many essential aspects of blues expression, studies by Willie Ruff and others have situated the origin of "black" spiritual music inside enslaved peoples' exposure to their masters' Hebridean-originated gospels. African-American economist and historian Thomas Sowell also notes that the southern, black, ex-slave population was acculturated to a considerable degree by and among their Scots-Irish "redneck" neighbors. Additionally, there are theories that the four-beats-per-measure structure of the blues might share its origins with the Native American tradition of pow wow drumming.According to Yale University music professor Willie Ruff, the singing of psalms in Scottish Gaelic by Presbyterians of the Scottish Hebrides evolved from "lining out"—where one person sang a solo and others followed—into the call and response of gospel music of the American South. Another theory notes foundations in the works of Dr. Isaac Watts and others.Moreover, the genre arose during a time when literacy was not a guarantee, utilizing a great deal of repetition (which, unlike more traditional hymns, allowed those who could not read the opportunity to participate). ]]SpiritualsSpirituals (also known as Negro spirituals, Spiritual music, or African-American spirituals) is a genre of songs that are "purely and solely the creation" of African Americans. Spirituals were originally an oral tradition that imparted Christian values while also describing the hardships of living in slavery. Although spirituals were originally unaccompanied monophonic songs, including the "closing ritard that showcases the beauty and blending of the voices", the "solo call and unison response, overlapping layers, and spine-tingling falsetto humming."Although numerous rhythmical and sonic elements of spirituals can be traced to African sources, including prominent use of the pentatonic scale (the black keys on the piano),[ according to Walter Pitt's 1996 book entitled Old Ship of Zion: The Afro-Baptist Ritual in the African Diaspora , spirituals are a musical form that is indigenous and specific to the religious experience African slaves and their descendants in the United States. Pitts said that they were a result of the interaction of music and religion from Africa with music and religion of European origin. Further, this interaction occurred only in the United States. Africans who converted to Christianity in other parts of the world, even in the Caribbean and Latin America, did not evolve this particular form.The enslaved people brought West African cultural traditions with them. Many of their activities, from work to worship, involved music and dance. However, their European masters banned many of their African-derived forms of worship involving drumming and dancing as they were considered to be idolatrous. The enslaved people were forced to perform their music in seclusion.Spirituals were primarily expressions of religious faith. Some may also have served as socio-political protests veiled as assimilation to white American culture. They originated among enslaved Africans in the United States. Slavery was introduced to the British colonies in the early 17th century, and enslaved people largely replaced indentured servants as an economic labor force during the 17th century. In the United States, these people would remain in bondage for the entire 18th century and much of the 19th century. Most were not fully emancipated until the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution in 1865.Christian influenceChristian hymns and songs were very influential on the writing of African-American spirituals, especially those from the "Great Awakening" of the 1730s. As Africans were exposed to stories from the Bible, they began to see parallels to their own experiences. The story of the exile of the Jews and their captivity in Babylon, resonated with their own captivity.From 1800 to 1825 enslaved people were exposed to the religious music of camp meetings on the ever-expanding frontier. Spirituals were based on Christian psalms and hymns and merged with African music styles and secular American music forms. Spirituals were not simply different versions of hymns or Bible stories, but rather a creative altering of the material; new melodies and music, refashioned text, and stylistic differences helped to set apart the music as distinctly African-American.The lyrics of Christian spirituals reference symbolic aspects of Biblical images such as Moses and Israel's Exodus from Egypt in songs such as "Michael Row the Boat Ashore". There is also a duality in the lyrics of spirituals. They communicated many Christian ideals while also communicating the hardship that was a result of being an African-American slave. The spiritual was often directly tied to the composer's life. It was a way of sharing religious, emotional, and physical experience through song.The river Jordan in traditional African American religious song became a symbolic borderland not only between this world and the next. It could also symbolize travel to the north and freedom or could signify a proverbial border from the status of slavery to living free.Syncopation, or ragged time, was a natural part of spiritual music. The rhythms of Protestant hymns were transformed and the songs were played on African-inspired instruments. During the Civil War, Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson wrote down some of the spirituals he heard in camp. "Almost all their songs were thoroughly religious in their tone, ...and were in a minor key, both as to words and music."Spiritual songs which looked forward to a time of future happiness, or deliverance from tribulation, were often known as jubilees.Alternative interpretations[…]Influence"The African American spiritual (also called the Negro Spiritual) constitutes one of the largest and most significant forms of American folksong." James Weldon Johnson and J. Rosamond Johnson presented spirituals as the only type of folk music that America has. Spirituals were sung as lullabies and play songs. Some spirituals were adapted as work songs. Antonin Dvorak chose spiritual music to represent America in his Symphony From the New World.Spirituals remain a mainstay particularly in small black churches, often Baptist or Pentecostal, in the deep South.CollectionsGospel musicStylistic originsHymn - Wikipediareligious song for the purpose of adoration or prayer to address deity A hymn is a type of song , usually religious , specifically written for the purpose of adoration or prayer , and typically addressed to a deity or deities, or to a prominent figure or personification . The word hymn derives from Greek ὕμνος ( hymnos ), which means "a song of praise". A writer of hymns is known as a hymnist . The singing or composition of hymns is called hymnody . Collections of hymns are known as hymnals or hymn books. Hymns may or may not include instrumental accompaniment. Although most familiar to speakers of English in the context of Christianity , hymns are also a fixture of other world religions , especially on the Indian subcontinent. Hymns also survive from antiquity, especially from Egyptian and Greek cultures. Some of the oldest surviving examples of notated music are hymns with Greek texts. Origins [ edit ] Ancient hymns include the Egyptian Great Hymn to the Aten , composed by Pharaoh Akhenaten ; the Hurrian Hymn to Nikkal ; the Vedas , a collection of hymns in the tradition of Hinduism ; and the Psalms , a collection of songs from Judaism . The Western tradition of hymnody begins with the Homeric Hymns , a collection of ancient Greek hymns, the oldest of which were written in the 7th century BC, praising deities of the ancient Greek religions . Surviving from the 3rd century BC is a collection of six literary hymns ( Ὕμνοι ) by the Alexandrian poet Callimachus . Patristic writers began applying the term ὕμνος , or hymnus in Latin , to Christian songs of praise, and frequently used the word as a synonym for " psalm ". [1] Christian hymnody [ edit ] Originally modeled on the Book of Psalms and other poetic passages (commonly referred to as " canticles ") in the Scriptures, Christian hymns are generally directed as praise to the Christian God . Many refer to Jesus Christ either directly or indirectly. Since the earliest times, Christians have sung "psalms and hymns and spiritual songs", both in private devotions and in corporate worship ( Matthew 26:30 ; Mark 14:26 ; Acts 16:25 ; 1 Cor 14:26 ; Ephesians 5:19 ; Colossians 3:16 ; James 5:13 ; cf. Revelation 5:8–10 ; Revelation 14:1–5 ). Non-scriptural hymns (i.e. not psalms or canticles) from the Early Church still sung today include ' Phos Hilaron ', ' Sub tuum praesidium ', and ' Te Deum '. One definition of a hymn is "...a lyric poem, reverently and devotionally conceived, which is designed to be sung and which expresses the worshipper's attitude toward God or God's purposes in human life. It should be simple and metrical in form, genuinely emotional, poetic and literary in style, spiritual in quality, and in its ideas so direct and so immediately apparent as to unify a congregation while singing it." [2] Christian hymns are often written with special or seasonal themes and these are used on holy days such as Christmas , Easter and the Feast of All Saints , or during particular seasons such as Advenhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hymn#Christian_hymnodySpirituals - Wikipediaa music genre created by generations of African-Americans Spirituals (also known as Negro spirituals , Spiritual music , or African-American spirituals ) is a genre of music that is "purely and solely the creation" of generations of African Americans , [1] : 13,17 which merged African cultural heritage with the experiences of being held in bondage in slavery, at first during the transatlantic slave trade —the largest and most inhumane forced migration in recorded human history, [2] and for centuries afterwards, through the domestic slave trade. Spirituals encompass the "sing songs", work songs , and plantation songs that evolved into the blues, and the gospel songs in church. [3] In the nineteenth century, the word "spirituals" referred to all these subcategories of folk songs. [4] [5] [6] While they were often rooted in biblical stories, they also described the extreme hardships endured by African Americans who were enslaved from the 17th century until the 1860s. From its roots in African music, new derivative music genres emerged from the spirituals songcraft. [7] Prior to the end of the US Civil War and emancipation, spirituals were originally an oral tradition passed from one slave generation to the next. Biblical stories were memorized then translated into song. Following emancipation, the lyrics of spirituals were published in printed form. Ensembles such as the Fisk Jubilee Singers—established in 1871—popularized spirituals, bringing them to a wider, even international, audience. At first, major recording studios were only recording white musicians performing spirituals and their derivatives. That changed with Mamie Smith 's commercial success in 1920. [8] Starting in the 1920s the commercial recording industry increased the audience for the spirituals and their derivatives. African American composers Harry Burleigh and R. Nathaniel Dett created a "new repertoire for the concert stage" by applying their Western classical education to the spirituals. [9] While the spirituals were created by a "circumscribed community of people in bondage", over time they became known as the first "signature" music of the United States. [10] Terminology [ edit ] The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians —one of the largest reference works on music and musicians, [11] : 284–290 —itemized and described "spiritual" in their electronic resource, Grove Music Online —an important part of Oxford Music Online , as a "type of sacred song created by and for African Americans that originated in oral tradition. Although its exact provenance is unknown, spirituals were identifiable as a genre by the early 19th century." [12] They used the term without the descriptor, "African American". The term "spirituals" is a 19th century word "used for songs with religious texts created by African slaves in America". [4] The first published book of slave songs referred to them as spirituals. [13] In musicology and ethnomusicology in the 1990s, the single term "spirituals" ishttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpiritualsCultural originsEarly 17th century, Southern United StatesGospel music is a genre of Christian music. The creation, performance, significance, and even the definition of gospel music varies according to culture and social context. Gospel music is composed and performed for many purposes, including aesthetic pleasure, religious or ceremonial purposes, and as an entertainment product for the marketplace. Gospel music usually has dominant vocals (often with strong use of harmony) with Christian lyrics. Gospel music can be traced to the early 17th century.Hymns and sacred songs were often repeated in a call and response fashion. Most of the churches relied on hand clapping and foot stomping as rhythmic accompaniment. Most of the singing was done a cappella. The first published use of the term "gospel song" probably appeared in 1874.The original gospel songs were written and composed by authors such as George F. Root, Philip Bliss, Charles H. Gabriel, William Howard Doane, and Fanny Crosby. Gospel music publishing houses emerged. The advent of radio in the 1920s greatly increased the audience for gospel music. Following World War II, gospel music moved into major auditoriums, and gospel music concerts became quite elaborate.Black gospel, by far the most well-known variant, emerged out of the African-American music tradition and has evolved in various ways over the years, continuing to form the basis of Black church worship even today. It has also come to be used in churches of various other cultural traditions (especially within Pentecostalism) and, via the gospel choir phenomenon spearheaded by Thomas Dorsey, has become a form of musical devotion worldwide.Southern gospel used all male, tenor-lead-baritone-bass quartet make-up. Progressive Southern gospel is an American music genre that has grown out of Southern gospel over the past couple of decades. Christian country music, sometimes referred to as country gospel music, is a subgenre of gospel music with a country flair. It peaked in popularity in the mid-1990s. Bluegrass gospel music is rooted in American mountain music. Celtic gospel music infuses gospel music with a Celtic flair, and is quite popular in countries such as Ireland. British black gospel refers to Gospel music of the African diaspora produced in the UK.Some proponents[who?] of "standard" hymns generally dislike gospel music of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Today, with historical distance, there is a greater acceptance of such gospel songs into official denominational hymnals.HistoryAccording to Yale University music professor Willie Ruff, the singing of psalms in Scottish Gaelic by Presbyterians of the Scottish Hebrides evolved from "lining out"—where one person sang a solo and others followed—into the call and response of gospel music of the American South. Another theory notes foundations in the works of Dr. Isaac Watts and others.Moreover, the genre arose during a time when literacy was not a guarantee, utilizing a great deal of repetition (which, unlike more traditional hymns, allowed those who could not read the opportunity to participate).18th centuryJohn NewtonAugustus TopladyPerhaps the most famous gospel-based hymns were composed in the 1760s and 1770s by English writers John Newton ("Amazing Grace") and Augustus Toplady ("Rock of Ages"), members of the Anglican Church. Starting out as lyrics only, it took decades for standardized tunes to be added to them. Although not directly connected with African-American gospel music, they were adopted by African-Americans as well as white Americans, and Newton's connection with the abolition movement provided cross-fertilization.Holiness-Pentecostal era (19th century)Philip Paul BlissThe first published use of the term "Gospel song" probably appeared in 1874 when Philip Bliss released a songbook entitled Gospel Songs. A Choice Collection of Hymns and Tunes. It was used to describe a new style of church music, songs that were easy to grasp and more easily singable than the traditional church hymns, which came out of the mass revival movement starting with Dwight L. Moody, whose musician was Ira D. Sankey, as well as the Holiness-Pentecostal movement. Prior to the meeting of Moody and Sankey in 1870, there was an American rural/frontier history of revival and camp meeting songs, but the gospel hymn was of a different character, and it served the needs of mass revivals in the great cities.The revival movement employed popular singers and song leaders, the most famous of them being Ira D. Sankey. The original "gospel" songs were written and composed by authors such as George F. Root, Philip Bliss, Charles H. Gabriel, William Howard Doane, and Fanny Crosby. As an extension to his initial publication Gospel Songs, Philip Bliss, in collaboration with Ira D. Sankey issued no's. 1 to 6 of Gospel Hymns in 1875. Sankey and Bliss's collection can be found in many libraries today.The popularity of revival singers and the openness of rural churches to this type of music (in spite of its initial use in city revivals) led to the late 19th and early 20th century establishment of gospel music publishing houses such as those of Homer Rodeheaver, E. O. Excell, Charlie Tillman, and Charles Tindley. These publishers were in the market for large quantities of new music, providing an outlet for the creative work of many songwriters and composers.The advent of radio in the 1920s greatly increased the audience for gospel music, and James D. Vaughan used radio as an integral part of his business model, which also included traveling quartets to publicize the gospel music books he published several times a year. Virgil O. Stamps and Jesse R. Baxter studied Vaughan's business model and by the late 1920s were running heavy competition for Vaughan. The 1920s also saw the marketing of gospel records by groups such as the Carter Family.Gospel music - Wikipedia"Gospel (genre)" redirects here. For the literary genre, see Gospel . Genre of music emphasizing Christian lyrics Gospel music is a genre of Christian music . The creation, performance, significance, and even the definition of gospel music varies according to culture and social context. Gospel music is composed and performed for many purposes, including aesthetic pleasure, religious or ceremonial purposes, and as an entertainment product for the marketplace. Gospel music usually has dominant vocals (often with strong use of harmony) with Christian lyrics. Gospel music can be traced to the early 17th century. [1] Hymns and sacred songs were often repeated in a call and response fashion. Most of the churches relied on hand clapping and foot stomping as rhythmic accompaniment. Most of the singing was done a cappella . [2] The first published use of the term "gospel song" probably appeared in 1874. The original gospel songs were written and composed by authors such as George F. Root , Philip Bliss , Charles H. Gabriel , William Howard Doane , and Fanny Crosby . [3] Gospel music publishing houses emerged. The advent of radio in the 1920s greatly increased the audience for gospel music. Following World War II , gospel music moved into major auditoriums, and gospel music concerts became quite elaborate. [4] Black gospel , by far the most well-known variant, emerged out of the African-American music tradition and has evolved in various ways over the years, continuing to form the basis of Black church worship even today. It has also come to be used in churches of various other cultural traditions (especially within Pentecostalism ) and, via the gospel choir phenomenon spearheaded by Thomas Dorsey , has become a form of musical devotion worldwide. Southern gospel used all male, tenor-lead-baritone-bass quartet make-up. Progressive Southern gospel is an American music genre that has grown out of Southern gospel over the past couple of decades. Christian country music , sometimes referred to as country gospel music, is a subgenre of gospel music with a country flair. It peaked in popularity in the mid-1990s. Bluegrass gospel music is rooted in American mountain music. Celtic gospel music infuses gospel music with a Celtic flair, and is quite popular in countries such as Ireland. British black gospel refers to Gospel music of the African diaspora produced in the UK. Some proponents [ who? ] of "standard" hymns generally dislike gospel music of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Today, with historical distance, there is a greater acceptance of such gospel songs into official denominational hymnals. History [ edit ] According to Yale University music professor Willie Ruff, the singing of psalms in Scottish Gaelic by Presbyterians of the Scottish Hebrides evolved from " lining out "—where one person sang a solo and others followed—into the call and response of gospel music of the American South. [5] Another theory notes foundations in the works of Dr. Isaachttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_musicFanny CrosbyA picture of Frances Jane "Fanny" Crosby (1820-1915), American poetess and one of the most prolific hymnist in history, composing over 8,000 hymns.[At six weeks old, Crosby caught a cold and developed inflammation of the eyes. Mustard poultices were applied to treat the discharges. According to Crosby, this procedure damaged her optic nerves and blinded her, but modern physicians think that her blindness was more likely congenital and, given her age, may simply not have been noticed by her parents.]Occupation Lyricist, poet, composerYears active 1844–1915Frances Jane van Alstyne (née Crosby; March 24, 1820 – February 12, 1915), more commonly known as Fanny Crosby, was an American mission worker, poet, lyricist, and composer. She was a prolific hymnist, writing more than 8,000 hymns and gospel songs, with more than 100 million copies printed. She is also known for her teaching and her rescue mission work. By the end of the 19th century, she was a household name.Crosby was known as the "Queen of Gospel Song Writers" and as the "Mother of modern congregational singing in America", with most American hymnals containing her work. Her gospel songs were "paradigmatic of all revival music", and Ira Sankey attributed the success of the Moody and Sankey evangelical campaigns largely to Crosby's hymns. Some of Crosby's best-known songs include "Pass Me Not, O Gentle Saviour", "Blessed Assurance", "Jesus Is Tenderly Calling You Home", "Praise Him, Praise Him", "Rescue the Perishing", and "To God Be the Glory". Some publishers were hesitant to have so many hymns by one person in their hymnals, so Crosby used nearly 200 different pseudonyms during her career.Crosby also wrote more than 1,000 secular poems and had four books of poetry published, as well as two best-selling autobiographies. Additionally, she co-wrote popular secular songs, as well as political and patriotic songs and at least five cantatas on biblical and patriotic themes, including The Flower Queen, the first secular cantata by an American composer. She was committed to Christian rescue missions and was known for her public speaking.[…] etc.Fanny CrosbyStephen FosterPhotographic portrait of American composer Stephen FosterBorn Stephen Collins Foster July 4, 1826Lawrenceville, Pennsylvania, U.S.Died January 13, 1864 (aged 37) New York City, New York, U.S.Stephen Collins Foster (July 4, 1826 – January 13, 1864), known also as "the father of American music", was an American songwriter known primarily for his parlor and minstrel music. He wrote more than 200 songs, including "Oh! Susanna", "Hard Times Come Again No More", "Camptown Races", "Old Folks at Home" ("Swanee River"), "My Old Kentucky Home", "Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair", "Old Black Joe", and "Beautiful Dreamer", and many of his compositions remain popular today. He has been identified as "the most famous songwriter of the nineteenth century" and may be the most recognizable American composer in other countries. Most of his handwritten music manuscripts are lost, but editions issued by publishers of his day feature in various collections.Eliza Tomlinson Foster and William Barclay FosterThere are many biographies of Foster, but details differ widely. Among other issues, Foster wrote very little biographical information himself, and his brother Morrison Foster destroyed much information that he judged to reflect negatively upon the family.Foster was born on July 4, 1826, to William Barclay Foster and Eliza Clayland Tomlinson Foster, with three older sisters and six older brothers. His parents were of Ulster Scots and English descent. He attended private academies in Allegheny, Athens, and Towanda, Pennsylvania and received an education in English grammar, diction, the classics, penmanship, Latin, Greek, and mathematics. The family lived in a northern city but they did not support the abolition of slavery.Foster taught himself to play the clarinet, guitar, flute, and piano. He did not have formal instruction in composition but he was helped by Henry Kleber (1816–97), a German-born music dealer in Pittsburgh. In 1839, his brother William was serving his apprenticeship as an engineer at Towanda and thought that Stephen would benefit from being under his supervision. The site of the Camptown Races is 30 miles (48 km) from Athens and 15 miles from Towanda. His education included a brief period at Jefferson College in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, now part of Washington & Jefferson College. His tuition was paid, but he had little spending money. He left Canonsburg to visit Pittsburgh with another student and did not return.Many of Foster's songs were of the blackface minstrel show tradition popular at the time but now recognized as racist. He sought to "build up taste...among refined people by making words suitable to their taste, instead of the trashy and really offensive words which belong to some songs of that order". In the 1850s, he associated with a Pittsburgh-area abolitionist leader named Charles Shiras, and wrote an abolitionist play himself. Many of his songs had Southern themes, yet Foster never lived in the South and visited it only once, during his 1852 honeymoon.Foster's last four years were spent in New York City. There is little information on this period of his life, although family correspondence has been preserved.Stephen Foster"My two cents"Well, can’t speak for black people, however, have to disagree, because, rock music, was never a black person’s domain, only Hendrix carries that mantle, if partially. However, rock music evolved well before the likes of Hendrix, and predominantly, a pop phenomenon, based on the Brits, in the 60s, fashioned on rock and roll, British pop, folk, and yes, fundamentally, within the succeeding years, from blues, or blues-orientation in music, which ultimately crept in. So too for Hendrix.And of course, many other traditions, factors, orientations, and a multitude of things etc. Basically an amalgam of sorts, and everyone, trying, to go that extra mile, or be inventive.Yet, at its very basics, its very fundamentals, yes, blues served a tremendous and cultural influence. Everyone was taken up by the blues, and black music. Imitators, copiers, the lot, too. Yet, for many, or among even the imitators, they too took it a massive step much further, combining many other elements, influences, massive refinements, and basically, fashioned a completely new style of music, direction, across the board, a new culture, around this. It was never based on one thing, or one principle, component, or strictly blues, or rock and roll, or folk, or country, jazz, anything. Music, therefore, becomes instinctive, and owed to no one, really.In truth, any combination of blues, or traditional blues, or be that blues rock, has remained a staple for white musicians, and having dominated, in this regard. In effect, also serving as its primary inventors. They can in effect, play anything. It becomes second nature. Instinctive. Part and parcel. To this day.Same applies, all prevailing pop music, all progressions in music, classic or modern, within any particular style, genre, has remained within the realms of white people, with the same lasting effect, be that strictly, soft-rock, rock, blues-rock, hard rock, metal/heavy metal, and generally, every other known description in the book, as far, any known genre to be associated, or resulting from, or not. Because, it is all based predominantly, on white musicians, artists, and not on black musicians. Not from this perspective.Thus, they [black people] have had no impact, influence, from this perspective. Of course, black musicians are still admired, or based on classic performers, and blues is the main reason, or reasons why, or why for many, obviously, they are still admired. However, it is not that broad in appeal.Music since the 60s, has taken on so many evolutions, so many components, so many directions, influences, and indeed, opinions, are abound, and it would be impossible to name them all.Of course, the greater per cent of music, any music, popular or not, does not, or has ever derived itself from blues. Not at all.However, on that note, yes, certainly, Blues has served a tremendous and cultural influence, and indeed, rock music owes much gratitude. Music, popular music, owes a lot to black Americans, and pioneers within their own right, and a massive influence on jazz, and indeed, on rock and roll.Dock Boggs - "Down South Blues" [1927]"Dock" Boggs* – Sugar Baby / Down South BluesLabel: Brunswick – 118Format: Unknown, 10", 78 RPMCountry: USReleased: 1927Genre: Blues, Folk, World, & CountryStyle: Appalachian Music, Country BluesDock BoggsMoran Lee "Dock" Boggs (February 7, 1898 – February 7, 1971) was an American old-time singer, songwriter and banjo player. His style of banjo playing, as well as his singing, is considered a unique combination of Appalachian folk music and African-American blues. Contemporary folk musicians and performers consider him a seminal figure, at least in part because of the appearance of two of his recordings from the 1920s, "Sugar Baby" and "Country Blues", on Harry Smith's 1951 collection Anthology of American Folk Music. Boggs was first recorded in 1927 and again in 1929, although he worked primarily as a coal miner for most of his life.He was rediscovered during the folk music revival of the 1960s and spent much of his later life playing at folk music festivals and recording for Folkways Records.Early lifeBoggs was born in West Norton, Virginia, in 1898, the youngest of ten children. In the late 1890s, the arrival of railroads in central Appalachia brought large-scale coal mining to the region, and by the time Dock was born, the Boggs family had made the transition from subsistence farming to working for wages and living in mining towns. Dock's father, who worked as a carpenter and blacksmith, loved singing and could read sheet music. He taught his children to sing, and several of Dock's siblings learned to play the banjo.In an interview with Mike Seeger in the 1960s, Boggs recalled how, as a young child, he would follow an African-American guitarist named "Go Lightning" up and down the railroad tracks between Norton and Dorchester, hoping the guitarist would stop at street corners to play for change.Boggs's version of the ballad "John Henry" was based in part on the version he learned from Go Lightning during this period. He also recalled sneaking over to the African-American camps in Dorchester at night, where he first observed string bands playing at dances and parties. He was enamoured of the bands' banjo players' preference for picking, having previously been exposed only to the "frailing" style of his siblings.Around the time he began working in coal mines, Boggs began playing music more often and more seriously. He learned much of his technique during this period from his brother Roscoe and an itinerant musician named Homer Crawford, both of whom shared Dock's preference for picking. Crawford taught him "Hustlin' Gambler," which was the basis for Boggs's "Country Blues." He also picked up several songs (such as "Turkey in the Straw") from a local African-American musician named Jim White. Boggs probably began playing at parties around 1918.Dock BoggsCharley PattonCharley Patton (April 1891 (probable) – April 28, 1934), also known as Charlie Patton, was an American Delta blues musician. Considered by many to be the "Father of the Delta Blues", he created an enduring body of American music and inspired most Delta blues musicians. The musicologist Robert Palmer considered him one of the most important American musicians of the twentieth century.Patton (who was well educated by the standards of his time) spelled his name Charlie, but many sources, including record labels and his gravestone, use the spelling Charley.BiographyPatton was born in Hinds County, Mississippi, near the town of Edwards, and lived most of his life in Sunflower County, in the Mississippi Delta. Most sources say he was born in April 1891, but the years 1881, 1885 and 1887 have also been suggested. Patton's parentage and race also are uncertain. His parents were Bill and Annie Patton, but locally he was regarded as having been fathered by former slave Henderson Chatmon, several of whose children became popular Delta musicians, as solo performers and as members of groups such as the Mississippi Sheiks. Biographer John Fahey described Patton as having "light skin and Caucasian features."Patton was considered African-American, but because of his light complexion there has been much speculation about his ancestry over the years. One theory endorsed by blues musician Howlin' Wolf was that Patton was Mexican or Cherokee. It is now generally agreed that Patton was of mixed heritage, with white, black, and Native ancestors. Some believe he had a Cherokee grandmother; however, it is also widely asserted by historians that he was between one-quarter and one-half Choctaw. In "Down the Dirt Road Blues", Patton sang of having gone to "the Nation" and "the Territo'", referring to the Cherokee Nation's portion of the Indian Territory (which became part of the state of Oklahoma in 1907), where a number of Black Indians tried unsuccessfully to claim a place on the tribal rolls and thereby obtain land.Patton's “Mississippi Boweavil Blues” [1929]Yet, personally, to be quite honest, I am not even a great fan of a lot of early blues music, regardless the style, and find much of it overly ‘repetitive’, and ‘unmusical’, even, ‘monotonous’, ‘overbearing’ however, exceptions, tend to vary, and the style method. I am not even a fan, Robert Johnson, although can appreciate the fact, many of these early pioneers, were simply part of the progression, of the music, and blues, still needed to totally develop. I also believe, ‘blues’ was nowhere better than ‘non-blues’ music, overall, from this standpoint. Yet, exceptions vary, accumulate, and music evolves nonetheless. Of course, you have some tremendous good things.However, listen to the clarity, musicianship, and quality of a song produced by Jimmie Rodgers.T.B. Blues - Jimmie Rodgers [1931]Jimmie Rodgers (country singer)James Charles Rodgers (September 8, 1897 – May 26, 1933) was an American singer-songwriter and musician who rose to popularity in the late 1920s. Widely regarded as "the Father of Country Music", he is best known for his distinctive rhythmic yodeling. Unusual for a music star of his era, Rodgers rose to prominence based upon his recordings, among country music's earliest, rather than concert performances – which followed to similar public acclaim.He has been cited as an inspiration by many artists and inductees into various halls of fame across both country music and the blues, in which he was also a pioneer. Among his other popular nicknames are "The Singing Brakeman" and "The Blue Yodeler"."The Jimmie Rodgers Entertainers" in 1927 (L-R: Jack Grant, Jimmie Rodgers, Jack Pierce and Claude Grant)Jimmie Rodgers (country singer)Talking blues [not actual blues]Talking blues is a form of folk music and country music. It is characterized by rhythmic speech or near-speech where the melody is free, but the rhythm is strict.Christopher Allen Bouchillon, billed as "The Talking Comedian of the South," is credited with creating the "talking blues" form with the song "Talking Blues," recorded for Columbia Records in Atlanta in 1926, from which the style gets its name. The song was released in 1927, followed by a sequel, "New Talking Blues," in 1928. His song "Born in Hard Luck" is similar in style.Okay, so not really bluesFormA talking blues typically consists of a repetitive guitar line utilizing a three chord progression which, although it is called a "blues", is not actually a twelve bar blues. The vocals are sung in a rhythmic, flat tone, very near to a speaking voice, and take the form of rhyming couplets. At the end of each verse, consisting of two couplets, the singer continues to talk, adding a fifth line consisting of an irregular, generally unrhymed, and unspecified number of bars, often with a pause in the middle of the line, before resuming the strict chordal structure. This example, from "Talking Blues" by Woody Guthrie, a cover of "New Talking Blues" by Bouchillon, serves to explain the format:Mama's in the kitchen fixin' the yeastPapa's in the bedroom greasin' his feetsSister's in the cellar squeezin' up the hopsBrother's at the window just a-watchin' for the copsDrinkin' home brew ... makes you happy.The lyrics to a talking blues are characterized by dry, rural humor, with the spoken codetta often adding a wry commentary on the subject of the verse, like Bob Dylan's "Talkin' Bear Mountain Picnic Massacre Blues".Now, I don't care just what you doIf you wanta have a picnic, that's up t' youBut don't tell me about it, I don't wanta hear itCause, see, I just lost all m picnic spiritStay in m' kitchen, have m' own picnic. . .In the bathroom.Development of the genreWoody Guthrie and his song "Talking Hard Work" is a title-tribute to Bouchillon's "Talking Blues" and "Born in Hard Luck".The "Talking Blues" begins with the line:"Well, if you want to get to heaven,/ Let me tell you what to do,/ Got to grease your feet into little mutton stew."/Several sources of the 1940s - 1950s, including the Almanac Singers, wrongly credited Guthrie as the creator of the talking blues. By the 1940s, what had started as a comedic country music genre became a more pronounced form of wry political protest singing. This sample lyric, from "Talking Union" by Pete Seeger, Lee Hays, and Millard Lampell shows the development of the genre into a vehicle for political commentary:Now, if you want higher wages, let me tell you what to doYou got to talk to the workers in the shop with youYou got to build you a union, got to make it strongBut if you all stick together, boys, it won't be longYou'll get shorter hours, better working conditions, vacations with pay ... take your kids to the seashore.In 1958, the musician and folk music scholar John Greenway recorded an album collection called "Talking Blues" on the Folkways label. His compendium included 15 talking blues songs by Guthrie, Tom Glazer, and others, and was, according to the music historian Manfred Helfert, the "obvious source" for the many 1960s forays into the genre by Bob Dylan. The best known of Dylan's talking blues is "Talking World War III Blues" from 1963:Well, I rung the fallout shelter bellAnd I leaned my head and I gave a yell"Give me a string bean, I'm a hungry man!"A shotgun fired and away I ranI don't blame them too much, though ... he didn't know meDylan's fame and his repeated use of the talking blues form contributed to the genre becoming a widely popular vehicle for the composition of songs with political content. When the country singer Johnny Cash recorded a song that described his trip to Vietnam with his wife June Carter Cash, he chose the talking blues format to describe his dissent against the Vietnam War.Talking blues is also popular as a medium for parody, as in "Like a Lamb to the Slaughter", Frank Hayes's talking-blues parody of Matty Groves:One high, one holy holiday, on the first day of the year,Little Matty Groves to church did go, some holy words to hearWhen in come old Lord Arnold's wife, she looked at him and said,"Come here often? What's your sign?" And off they went to bed.In the interests of brevity, we'll omit some of the more repetitive parts of the song.Like the part where they get undressed.All forty-seven verses of it.Talking blues—Woody Guthrie, "Mean Talkin' Blues" (1935) During the 1930s, folk singer Woody Guthrie traveled back and forth across the country collecting and singing songs about the economic suffering of Americans. In this song, he described the role of unions in the terrible economic conflict between ordinary poor Americans and American businesses.Mean Talking BluesWords and Music Adapted by Woody GuthrieI'm the meanest man that ever had a brain,All I scatter is aches and pains.I'm carbolic acid, and a poison face,And I stand flat-footed in favor of crime and disgrace.If I ever done a good deed -- I'm sorry of it.I'm mean in the East, mean in the West,Mean to the people that I like the best.I go around a-causin' lot of accidents,And I push folks down, and I cause train wrecks.I'm a big disaster -- just goin' somewhere's to happen.I'm an organized famine -- studyin' now I can be a little bit meaner.I'm still a whole lot too good to suit myself -- just mean...I ride around on the subway trains,Laughin' at the tight shoes dealin' you pain.And I laugh when the car shakes from side to side,I laugh my loudest when other people cry.Can't help it -- I was born good, I guess,Just like you or anybody else ---But then I... just turned off mean..I hate ev'rybody don't think like me,And I'd rather see you dead than I'd ever see you free.Rather see you starved to deathThan see you at work --And I'm readin' all the books I canTo learn how to hurt --Daily Misery -- spread diseases,Keep you without no vote,Keep you without no union.Well, I hurt when I see you gettin' 'long so well,I'd ten times rather see you in the fires of hell.I can't stand to fixed... see you there all fixed up in that house so nice,I'd rather keep you in that rotten hole, with the bugs and the lice,And the roaches, and the termites,And the sand fleas, and the tater bugs,And the grub worms, and the stingarees,And the tarantulas, and the spiders, childs of the earth,The ticks and the blow-flies --These is all of my little angelsThat go 'round helpin' me do the best parts of my meanness.And mosquiters...Well, I used to be a pretty fair organized feller,Till I turned a scab and then I turned off yeller,Fought ev'ry union with teeth and toenail,And I sprouted a six-inch stinger right in the middle of the tail,And I growed horns...And then I cut 'em off, I wanted to fool you.I hated union ever'where,'Cause God likes unionsAnd I hate God!Well, if I can get the fat to hatin' the leanThat'd tickle me more than anything I've seen,Then get the colors to fightin' one another,And friend against friend, and brother... and sister against brother,That'll be just it.Everybody's brains a-boilin' in turpentine,And their teeth fallin' out all up and down the streets,That'll just suit me fine.'Cause I hate ever'thing that's union,And I hate ever'thing that's organized,And I hate ever'thing that's planned,And I love to hate and I hate to love!I'm mean, I'm just mean..."Mean Talking Blues" by Woody GuthrieThe Asch RecordingsThe Asch Recordings, recorded between 1944 and 1949, are a series of albums featuring some of the most famous recordings of US folk musician Woody Guthrie. The recordings were recorded by Moses "Moe" Asch in New York City. The songs recorded by Asch comprise the bulk of Guthrie's original material and several traditional songs. They were issued on a variety of labels over the years under the labels Asch, Asch-Stinson, Asch-Signature-Stinson, Disc, Folkways and Smithsonian Folkways. The tracks for Guthrie's Songs to Grow on for Mother and Child and Nursery Days were from these sessions.[citation needed]Mean Talking Blues - Woody Guthrierecorded May 24, 1945Hank Williams - Move It On Over [1947]Hank Williams - The Blues Come Around [1948]