“Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” was a spiritual about going home. It became a rugby anthem, and a debate

“Swing low, sweet chariot, coming for to carry me home.” The words were sung by enslaved people who longed for freedom. More than a century later, they are sung at Twickenham stadium.

The spiritual is attributed to Wallis Willis, an enslaved man owned by a member of the Choctaw Nation in what is now Oklahoma, in the mid-nineteenth century. A minister heard Willis and his wife singing it and passed it to the Fisk Jubilee Singers, who performed it on their tours in the 1870s and made it famous.

The chariot

The song draws on the story of the prophet Elijah, who was taken up to heaven: “there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire… and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven” (2 Kings 2:11). For enslaved people, the chariot represented deliverance, heaven, and perhaps escape to freedom in the North.

“I looked over Jordan, and what did I see, coming for to carry me home? A band of angels coming after me.” Crossing the Jordan was a biblical image of entering the promised land.

Spirituals

Spirituals combined African musical traditions with Christian faith. Enslaved people used them to express sorrow, hope and resistance. Some spirituals are believed to have carried coded messages about escape, and “Swing Low” has sometimes been linked, in popular accounts, to the Underground Railroad.

Recordings

The song has been recorded by countless artists, from the Fisk Jubilee Singers to Paul Robeson, Johnny Cash and Eric Clapton. It was one of the most popular spirituals of the twentieth century.

England rugby

In 1988, England rugby supporters began singing “Swing Low” during a match at Twickenham, and it became the team’s unofficial anthem. For many fans, it was just a stadium song.

The debate

In 2020, during global discussions about racism, the Rugby Football Union said it would review the song’s use, recognising its origins in slavery. Some argued that fans should learn its history or stop singing it; others said it should continue with understanding. The debate raised questions about how songs of the oppressed are used by others.

In church

The spiritual is still sung in churches, including in Africa, and by choirs worldwide.

Enslaved people sang about a chariot coming to carry them home. Whoever sings it today is singing their prayer.