Wake Forest School of Divinity's New Director of Music Speaks Through Gospel Music

“Everyone should have the right to worship in the language of their heart,” says Grammy- and Oscar-nominated composer and vocalist Joshuah Brian Campbell.

Still in his 20s, the South Carolina native has recently been nabbed by North Carolina’s Wake Forest University to serve as its director of music and arts at the School of Divinity. There, he will also serve as director of the University Gospel Choir — a more-than-fitting post for a man who has built a reputation for speaking to others through gospel music.

A 2016 graduate of Harvard University, Campbell first caught the nation’s attention with his original song “Sing Out, March On,” which he wrote in 2014 amid an outpouring of emotion and student protest against the police shooting of Michael Brown.

Joshuah Brian CampbellCampbell couldn’t have predicted that years later Harvard would ask him to perform the song for the late congressman and Civil Rights Leader John Lewis, who received an honorary doctorate at the university’s 2018 commencement ceremony. As Campbell puts it, sometimes “our work has a life and impact beyond what we could imagine it to have.”

In a video of the commencement ceremony on YouTube, Campbell keeps steady beat over his heart while singing before Lewis: “I believe in the power of raising my voice / And I believe in the power of making some noise / If I die, I can’t sing / And if I can’t sing, I die / So we should sing for one another, now let’s give it a try.”

“I was just so honored to be able to do that for him,” says Campbell.