INTRODUCTION


Of the hundred millions who make up the population of the United
States ten millions come from a stock ethnically alien to the other
ninety millions. They are not descended from ancestors who came here
voluntarily, in the spirit of adventure to better themselves or in the
spirit of devotion to make sure of freedom to worship God in their own
way. They are the grandchildren of men and women brought here against
their wills to serve as slaves. It is only half-a-century since they
received their freedom and since they were at last permitted to own
themselves. They are now American citizens, with the rights and the
duties of other American citizens; and they know no language, no
literature and no law other than those of their fellow citizens of
Anglo-Saxon ancestry.

When we take stock of ourselves these ten millions cannot be left out
of account. Yet they are not as we are; they stand apart, more or
less; they have their own distinct characteristics. It behooves us to
understand them as best we can and to discover what manner of people
they are. And we are justified in inquiring how far they have revealed
themselves, their racial characteristics, their abiding traits, their
longing aspirations,--how far have they disclosed these in one or
another of the several arts. They have had their poets, their
painters, their composers, and yet most of these have ignored their
racial opportunity and have worked in imitation and in emulation of
their white predecessors and contemporaries, content to handle again
the traditional themes. The most important and the most significant
contributions they have made to art are in music,--first in the
plaintive beauty of the so-called "Negro spirituals"--and, secondly,