With its strong musical component, vibrant graphics, and beautiful design, There Is a City Called Heaven

shares the story of America’s journey towards Equal Rights and religious freedom during the nascent

period of the Civil Rights movement. The book is dedicated to The Founding Black families of America,

their mighty ancestors and proud descendants, and explores the faith, integrity, and genius unique to

African American spirituals.

Richly illustrated with an empowering history, the book explores spirituals as a bellwether among

America’s Founding Black Families. As enslaved and free workers, people of African descent built the

country and a thriving economy. As warriors and visionaries, thinkers and orators, many survived the

death sentence of plantation work, breaking away to change the country and become Douglass, Gates,

Moaney, Pennington, and Tubman. These were people who utilized their strength, their resilience, and

yes–their genius–to build this country, and therefore represent members of the Founding Black Families

of America. Their legacies are a part of America’s rich oral, written, and musical history.

Lost for nearly a century, a rare artistic and archival collection of African American spirituals created by

Ruth Starr Rose (1887-1965), a woman artist from Maryland’s remote Eastern Shore was recently

discovered. Her collection was credited as the most complete set of illustrations, depicting what members

of historic Black congregations envisioned when they sang to their God. Whether they were in a church or

at a secret assembly in a grove of trees, people of color got together to harness the strength that saw them

through slavery and, furthermore, help to establish them as independent founding citizens of this country.

From the 1920s, the artist intended to create a book of spirituals, and Paul Robeson promised to write

the forward. The vision for the publication was as original as the subject matter–as the artist creatively

integrated prints, musical scores, lyrics, and notes about each song. Ultimately the cost of this hybrid

book proved a stumbling block, and the work went unpublished as the artist was unwilling to compromise

on the graphics. Miraculously, the mock-up for this book was recently discovered and serves as a template

for There is a City Called Heaven. Gathered together with an astonishing collection of oil paintings,

prints, notes, and sketches that had been scattered all over the world one hundred years later, the vision is

realized through this uplifting book honoring the Founding Black Families of America whose community,

perseverance, and social values represent the kind of world we all enjoy as Americans.