A Sound from ‘Something Within’: The Sonic Properties of Fugitivity in the Black Preaching Tradition

This paper will argue that a fuller understanding of Black fugitivity is achieved when regarding its sonic properties. That sound, I contend, can be located at the site of the Black sermon. I therefore intend to theorize the phenomenon of call-and-response that participates in the Black fugitive sounds heard on any given Sunday in Black churches across the United States. The sounds that inhabit the sanctuary during the sermon form what I name as the endophonic counterwitness that designates Black churches’ sanctuaries as a ‘within-space’ where the gathered congregation maroons themselves weekly. My argument attends to the ways that the sound objects—the preacher’s voice, the Hammond organ, and the gathered congregation—fuse together in the sanctuaries in Black churches forming a fugitive sound.