Old-Fashioned Hymn Sing-A-Long at Old Cahawba

Due to the popularity of last year's inaugural Old-Fashioned Hymn Sing-A-Long, on Sunday, November 03rd, 2024 at three o'clock in the afternoon, the Old Cahawba Archaeological Park will be hosting a second Old-Fashioned Hymn Sing-A-Long inside of their historic St. Luke's Lutheran Church. The hymns will be led by local musicians from Selma Church choirs. And will feature some of the classic hymns that those who attended Church prior to the wave of electronic Praise and Worship music that began in the 1990s will recall.

A classic Old-Fashioned hymn is defined as strophic, that is it has multiple stanzas with the same melody. And it is designed to aid congregational singing rather than being a performance. Many classic hymns have their origins in the classical Church music of composers like Bach, Handel, and Mendelssohn. The lyrical content of a classic hymn is doctrinal and directed towards God or about God, rather than being self-referential. And best of all, they connect singers with the Christian tradition of many centuries. As the earliest handwritten hymnals date back to the Middle Ages. And the first printed hymnal was published in Prague in 1501 by the Czech Brethren.

On Sunday, the Old-Fashioned Hymn Sing-A-Long will take place inside of St. Luke's Lutheran Church, which was originally St. Luke's Episcopal Church dating back to the 1850s. In the 1880s, the Church was moved away and turned into an AME Zion Church. Then in 2007, as part of a project of the Auburn Rural Studio, an off-campus design-build program of the Auburn University School of Architecture, St. Luke's Church was carefully returned piece by piece to the Old Cahawba Archaeological Park.

The Old Cahawba Archaeological Park is significant in Alabama history as Old Cahawba was the site of Alabama's first capital when Alabama became a state in 1819. And it remained the state capital until 1826. Then during the War Between the States, which took place between 1861 and 1865, Old Cahawba served as a Civil War Prison. After the fiercely fought war ended, Old Cahawba became a Freedman's Village for African-Americans who had obtained their freedom. By the 1870s, the population of the once prosperous river town diminished to 300. And today Old Cahawba is known for being Alabama's most famous ghost town.

The address of the Old Cahawba Archaeological Park is 9518 Cahaba Road, Orrville, Alabama, 36767. And hymnals will be passed out to those in attendance.

Luisa Reyes is an attorney in Tuscaloosa with a bachelor's degree in mathematics from Judson, a master's degree in library science, and a law degree from Samford's Cumberland School of Law. She is also a piano instructor and vocalist.