Traditional African American Spiritual Melody (MCKEE)

MCKEE is a common-meter hymn tune adapted from an African American spiritual rather than a melody composed from scratch by one identified individual. The spiritual source is associated with the song commonly known as I Know the Angels Done Changed My Name, whose melodic family appeared in nineteenth-century Jubilee Singers collections. Henry Thacker Burleigh, usually known as Harry T. Burleigh, adapted and harmonized the melody as MCKEE in 1939 for use with In Christ There Is No East or West.

Burleigh was born in Erie, Pennsylvania, in 1866. His maternal grandfather, Hamilton Waters, had been enslaved in Maryland and taught the young Burleigh spirituals remembered from his earlier life. Burleigh later studied at the National Conservatory of Music in New York, where Antonín Dvořák encountered the spiritual tradition through his singing. In 1894 Burleigh became baritone soloist at St. George's Episcopal Church in New York, a position he held for more than half a century, while also building a major career as a composer, arranger, editor, and concert singer.

Burleigh named MCKEE for Elmer M. McKee, a rector of St. George's. Hymnary classifies Burleigh's 1939 adaptation and harmonization as public domain. His treatment of spirituals helped bring African American sacred music into concert and mainstream hymnal traditions while preserving an important connection to Black oral and congregational heritage.