Ritualizing the Unspoken

Chapter 6 continues exploration of Tonéx’s Unspoken album to consider unspokenness as a means of decentering the primacy of oration in African American worship leadership, while bringing to center the power of presence in ministry when the posture of standing in one’s truth is assumed in public worship. While music scholars have researched the moments in which the musical rest is a facet of sound, chapter 6 contends that unspokenness is a prized aspect of African American orality and nonverbal communication. More than a silent treatment, unspokenness manages musical moments in the face of censorship and oppression, during worship experiences where queer potential is assessed and rebuked. The multifold notion of standing in one’s truth is an animating principle that symbolizes a queer ministry of presence.

Creating a Ministry of Presence

In the fall of 1963, the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW) took steps to become more directly involved in the civil rights movement when Dorothy Height travelled with a small interracial team of elite clubwomen to investigate the abuse of activist children imprisoned in Selma. The team moved behind the scenes and tried to establish ties with local black and white women to better support the movement. After the Selma trip, white team member Polly Cowan developed plans to bring additional teams of interracial middle and upper class women down to the South. At a March 1964 Atlanta meeting of black and white southern clubwomen, Clarie Collins Harvey, a black businesswoman and clubwoman from Jackson, Mississippi, invited Cowan and the NCNW to provide support to civil rights efforts in Jackson. Her invitation led Cowan and Height to develop plans for Wednesdays in Mississippi to help with Freedom Summer.