This Little Light of Mine

“This Little Light of Mine” is a popular gospel song of unknown origin. It was often reported to be written for children in the 1920s by Harry Dixon Loes, but he never claimed credit for the original version of the song, and the Moody Bible Institute where he worked said he did not write it It was later adapted by Zilphia Horton, amongst many other activists, in connection with the civil rights movement. The origin of the song is unclear, but the phrase “This little light of mine” appears published in poetry by 1925 by Edward G. Ivins, a writer in Montana. In 1931, the song is mentioned in a Los Angeles newspaper as “Deaconess Anderson’s song”. In 1932, the song was mentioned in a 1932 Missouri newspaper In 1933, the song was mentioned in newspapers as being sung by a chorus at an African Methodist Episcopal conference in Helena, Montana and then various other churches around the United States later that year. In June 1934 John Lomax and Alan Lomax recorded the earliest known recording of the song when they recorded Jim Boyd of Jacksonville, Texas singing at the State Penitentiary in Huntsville, Texas. In 1939 Lomax returned to Texas with Ruby Lomax during their Southern States Recording Trip and recorded the song again. This song and others were sung by a black woman, Doris McMurray who was imprisoned at Thomas Goree Unit in Texas and said that she learned the song from her grandmother in Waco.