There are a great many colored people who are ashamed of the
cake-walk, but I think they ought to be proud of it. It is my opinion
that the colored people of this country have done four things which
refute the oft-advanced theory that they are an absolutely inferior
race, which demonstrate that they have originality and artistic
conception, and, what is more, the power of creating that which can
influence and appeal universally. The first two of these are the Uncle
Remus stories, collected by Joel Chandler Harris, and the Jubilee
songs, to which the Fisk singers made the public and the skilled
musicians of both America and Europe listen. The other two are ragtime
music and the cake-walk. No one who has traveled can question the
world-conquering influence of ragtime, and I do not think it would be
an exaggeration to say that in Europe the United States is popularly
known better by ragtime than by anything else it has produced in a
generation. In Paris they call it American music. The newspapers have
already told how the practice of intricate cake-walk steps has taken
up the time of European royalty and nobility. These are lower forms of
art, but they give evidence of a power that will some day be applied
to the higher forms. In this measure, at least, and aside from the
number of prominent individuals the colored people of the United
States have produced, the race has been a world influence; and all of
the Indians between Alaska and Patagonia haven't done as much.

Just when I was beginning to look upon Jacksonville as my permanent
home and was beginning to plan about marrying the young school
teacher, raising a family, and working in a cigar factory the rest of
my life, for some reason, which I do not now remember, the factory at
which I worked was indefinitely shut down. Some of the men got work
in other factories in town; some decided to go to Key West and Tampa,
others made up their minds to go to New York for work. All at once a