A Long Time to Freedom

At the start of the 1970s, Ella Jenkins released A Long Time to Freedom, an album made for all ages but geared toward adult listeners. In the album, she adapts long-established, historically significant Black gospel songs, spirituals, and blues songs collected from the churches, jukeboxes, and record stores of her youth. Songs including "I'm Gonna Tell God All My Troubles" and "How High's the Water" reflect her active role in the ongoing struggle for Black liberation in mid-century America. Joining Ella are her accompanists Brother John Sellers, who learned to sing in churches and collaborated with Northern blues legends, and Joseph Brewer, who enjoyed a career participating in world-famous symphonies and operas, representing the changing makeup of traditionally exclusionary musical spaces.