Fluent Essays

Course Schedule AFAS 160 - Fall 2021 All assignments are due by 11:59 PM MST on the due date. Voice threads are due on Fridays and Quizzes are due by Sunday. The Norton Anthology readings for the first (2) weeks of class are provided in the Google Drive folder. Class About Due August 24 (LIVE ZOOM) Class: General introduction to the course and all of the modalities we will use. Read: ● Syllabus September 5th ● VoiceThread 1 - Self-Introduction September 5th ● Sign up for your Author Discussion ● Quiz 1 & 2 - Syllabus, Wheatley, Truth and Walker August 26 (LIVE Spatial) Class: Introduction to Spatial, functionality and use. Discussion of how we will use it in class. Read: ● Norton Anthology ○ “The Literature of Slavery and Freedom” (pp. 75–86) Watch/Listen: ● Best of: Jamiles Lartey On Racism In Policing / Pete Davidson & Judd Apatow August 31 (LIVE Spatial) Class: Introduction to African American literary tradition, oral tradition, folktales etc. Read: ● Norton Anthology ○ “Phillis Wheatley” (pp.137–150) Watch/Listen: ● The “Miscegenation” Troll ● Browns Descendants Return To Harpers Ferry ● Why African-Americans Loathe Uncle Tom ● Lincoln and Douglass Shared Uncommon Bond ● Harriet (Tubman) The Spy September 5th ● VoiceThread 1 - Self-Introduction September 5th ● Sign up for your Author Discussion ● Quiz 1 & 2 - Syllabus, Wheatley, Truth and Walker https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/10y92etBpXbXsGEfAzRbvn7c92uj4f3DV?usp=sharing https://www.npr.org/2020/06/12/875896131/best-of-jamiles-lartey-on-racism-in-policing-pete-davidson-judd-apatow https://www.npr.org/2020/06/12/875896131/best-of-jamiles-lartey-on-racism-in-policing-pete-davidson-judd-apatow https://daily.jstor.org/the-miscegenation-troll/?utm_term=The\%20\%5Cu201CMiscegenation\%5Cu201D\%20Troll&utm_campaign=jstordaily_02142019&utm_content=email&utm_source=Act-On+Software&utm_medium=email https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113911976 https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113911976 https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93059468 https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100694897 https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100694897 https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112384583 work Course Schedule AFAS 160 - Fall 2021 September 2 (LIVE Spatial) Class: Class will discuss ideas of freedom and democracy through the works of Walker and Truth Read: ● Norton Anthology ○ David Walker (pp. 159 – 171) ○ Sojourner Truth (pp. 176 – 180) September 7 (LIVE Spatial) Class: Author Discussions and Introduction to the Great Negro Migration Read: ● “Parable of the Sower” by Octavia Butler, Chapter 2024 (pp. 1-21) September 10 ● Voice Thread 2 - Butler September 12 ● Quiz 3 - Readings in Anthology through Sept 11thSeptember 9 (LIVE Spatial) Class: Author Discussions and introduction to revolutionary Read: ● The Confessions of Nat Turner ● “Parable of the Sower” by Octavia Butler, Chapter 2025 (pp. 23-79) September 14 (LIVE Spatial) Class: Author Discussions and discussion on folktales and Black storytelling Read: ● “Parable of the Sower” by Octavia Butler, Chapter 2026 (pp. 81-119) ● Norton Anthology ○ Charles Chesnutt (pp. 580 – 618) September 17 ● Voice Thread 3 - September 19 ● Quiz 3 - Chesnutt, Dunbar, and Washington September 16 (LIVE Spatial) Class: Author Discussions and introduction to ideas of the “mask” and the birth of Black conservatism Read: ● “Parable of the Sower” by Octavia Butler, Chapter 2027 (pp. 121-261) ● Norton Anthology ○ Paul Laurence Dunbar (pp. 894–916) ○ Booker T. Washington (pp. 548–550, 572–579) http://users.wfu.edu/zulick/340/natturner.html work Course Schedule AFAS 160 - Fall 2021 September 21 (LIVE Spatial) Class: Author Discussions and Black radicalism Read: ● Norton Anthology ○ W.E.B. DuBois (pp. 679–702) September 24 ● VoiceThread 4 - Johnson September 26 ● Quiz 4 - Johnson and Novel, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man September 23 (LIVE Spatial) Class: Author Discussions and discussion of Black “passing” and its implications Read: ● Norton Anthology ○ The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man by James Weldon Johnson (pp. 780–783, 792–871) September 28 (LIVE Spatial) Class: Introduction to the Harlem Renaissance Read: ● Norton Anthology ○ Introduction to Harlem Renaissance (pp. 929–944) October 1 ● Voice Thread 5 - the Harlem Renaissance September 30 (LIVE Spatial) Class: Continue discussion of Harlem Renaissance and the works of Hughes as the Godfather of spoken word poetry Read: ● Norton Anthology ○ Langston Hughes (pp. 1302–1324) October 5 (LIVE Spatial) Class: Introduction to Black research modalities: ethnography Read: ● Norton Anthology ○ Zora Neale Hurston (pp. 1029–1079) ○ “Spunk” October 8 ● VoiceThread 5 - Harlem Renaissance, Hughes, and Hurston October 10 ● Quiz 6 - Hughes and Hurston http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5131/ work Course Schedule AFAS 160 - Fall 2021 October 7 (LIVE Spatial) Class: Introduction to “Cane” and its new depiction of the rural south Read: ● Norton Anthology ○ Jean Toomer (pp. 1141–1170) October 12 (NO CLASS) Office Hours today for assistance with A/V Mix or Author Discussion Presentations. Midterm Exam VoiceThread Available today October 17 ● Midterm Voice Thread October 14 (NO CLASS) Office Hours October 19 (LIVE Spatial) Class: Discuss Midterm Exam. Author Discussions continue today. Intro to Jean Toomer, passing and the critique of African American artistic creativity (DuBois and Locke) Read: ● “Criteria of Negro Art” by W.E.B. DuBois ● “The New Negro” by Alain Locke N/A October 21 (LIVE Spatial) Class: Author Discussions continue today. Discussion of protest literature Read: ● Norton Anthology (Volume 2) ○ Richard Wright (pp. 119-132) ● “Bright and Morning Star” Note: Click on “Entire Issue” at the top middle of the page to read the story October 26 (LIVE Spatial) Class: Author Discussions and introduction to Ann Petry, James Baldwin, and Black Arts Movement Read: ● Ann Petry ● Norton Anthology ○ The Black Arts Era (pp. 533–561) ○ James Baldwin (pp. 390 – 394, 413 – 435, 453 - 465) October 30 ● Voice Thread 6 - Baldwin, Petry, and Black Arts Era http://www.webdubois.org/dbCriteriaNArt.html http://literarymovementsmanifesto.wordpress.com/more/alain-locke-the-new-negro-1925/ http://bit.ly/1JJ7T6R https://www.evernote.com/shard/s1/sh/6bdacd10-6994-44c5-ac24-f570e4787bb6/b6cb01764fd3deafb5fdf7fd0ee9ef03 work Course Schedule AFAS 160 - Fall 2021 October 28 (LIVE Spatial) Class: Introduction to Black nationalism Read: ● Norton Anthology ○ Malcolm X (pp. 565 – 587) November 2 (LIVE Spatial) Class: Discussion of the modern day Civil Rights Movement Read: ● Norton Anthology ○ Martin Luther King (pp. 592 – 607) November 5 ● Voice Thread 7 - Malcom X and Martin Luther King. November 4 (LIVE Spatial) Class: Continuation of the Black Arts Movement. Discussion on poetry as advocacy Read: ● Norton Anthology ○ Audre Lorde (pp. 637 – 652) ○ Amiri Baraka (pp. 660 – 665, 674 – 688) November 9 (LIVE Spatial) Class: Introduce Black Feminism Read: ● Norton Anthology ○ Sonia Sanchez (pp. 708 – 725) ○ Nikki Giovanni (pp. 879 – 886) Notes: If you submit your Reflective Writing Essay by or before November 14th, you will have an opportunity to receive feedback and if necessary, re-write your essay for early submission of November 21st or the regular submission due date of November 28th. Submitting your Final Draft by the early submission date (November 21st), will earn 5 points extra credit applied to this essay. Contact your grader directly if you choose to submit your Reflective Writing Essay early, otherwise, she or he will not know it is there). November 12 ● Voice Thread 8 - Lorde, Baraka, Sanchez, and Giovanni work Course Schedule AFAS 160 - Fall 2021 November 11 (LIVE Spatial) Class: Discussion of Walker, the “Color Purple,” and Womanism Read: ● Norton Anthology ○ Alice Walker (pp. 1176 – 1205) November 16 (LIVE Spatial) Class: Introduction to Ntozake Shange and “For Colored Girls” and choreopoems Read: ● Norton Anthology ○ Ntozake Shange (pp. 1290 – 1296) November 28 ● Intellectual A/V Mix (Submit by November 21 for extra credit - you must notify your grader if you decide to do so) November 18 (LIVE Spatial) Class: Discussion of Maya Angelou’s work as an example of personal narratives demonstrating larger cultural themes Read: ● Norton Anthology ○ Maya Angelou (pp. 944 – 957) November 30 (LIVE Spatial) Class: Introduction to “narrative shifting” and centering “othered” characters. Read: ● Norton Anthology ○ Toni Morrison (pp. 985 - 1067) December 3 ● VoiceThread 9 - Walker, Shange, and Angelou December 2 (LIVE Spatial) Class: Introduction to Black Speculative Fiction Read: ● Norton Anthology ○ Octavia Butler, Bloodchild (pp. 1251 – 1266) December 7 (LIVE Spatial) Class: Discussion on what it means to be “American” and ideas of citizenship Read: ● Norton Anthology ○ Jamaica Kincaid (pp. 1304 – 1314) ○ Barack Obama (pp. 1409 – 1419) December 9 ● Complete the End-of-Course Evaluation for extra credit! work Course Schedule AFAS 160 - Fall 2021 Class: Class wrap-up! Notes: Your Intellectual A/V Mix Project and your Reflective Writing Exercise were your Final Exam. Good Luck on the rest of your Final Exams. Thank you for taking this course. Consider Majoring/Minoring in Africana Studies and going to Paris next Spring 2022 with my AFAS 421/497P Class! Also, those who took this class via Spatial, please send feedback on the experience. work l ; Talking ·Book~ , • l . •-; > ·r •, I . \ The lesson to be drawn from this cu,tso.ry glance at wh il t I may . call the past , present and futur ~ of ou r Race Literature apart from its value as first begfrmings, not only tci us· as a p eople biit · literaturein genei-al, j s that :unless earnest and systematic-effort be mad.e to procur~. p. nd preser(e; for transmissiop .to our succe~- sors, the records, bcioks and various publications already pro_- ciuced by u.s, not on°Jy will the stu rdy pi,oneers who p~ved the way andlaid the fo lindation for ourRace Literatu re be-robbed of their just due ; but an irretrievable wrong will be inflicted upon the· generations that shall come ilfte~ us., . , . ) · . . -;-:VICfORIA E ~ RLE MATTHEWS, ) 895 In the history of .the worlds· great literatures, few traditions have origins· as curious as that created by African-slaves ·and ex-slaves,writing in the English language ih the third quarter of the eighteenth century. In the ·stubbornly durable hist0ry of human slavery, · it: was only-the black slaves in England and the United, States who:created; a genre- of literature that, at once, testi- fied •against their .captors and bore vvitness to the urge •to ·be free · and liter- ate, -to embrace the European . Enlightenments dream of reason and the American Enlightehments dream of civil liberty, wedded together glori- ously ,in a great republic 0 of letters . ·) ·. For what could be more peculiar to the institution of human slavery t han liberal learning, than the arts and sciences, as the French philosophes .put it? Slavery, ,as Lucius ·C ., Matlock argued in 1845 in a review of Frederick Douglasss now classic Narrative ,of the Life, naturally and necessarily: is ·the enemy of literattire .l! 1Despite ·that antagonistic, relation, Matlock con- tinued, slavery had by the middle• of ;the nineteenth century become- the prolific theme of ;much that is profound in argument, ·sublime in poetry, and thrilling 1in narrative. -Whats more, he concluded with as much aston- ishment as ·satisfaction, the soil of1slavery itself-and the demands for its abolition-had·tur.ned ·out>:to ,be an ironically fertile ground fo t the creation of. a,new literature, a literature indicting oppression, a literature created by the oppressed: FroQI the soil 6f slavery itself have sprung forth some of the most ·brilliant productions, whose logical levers will ultimately upheave ,and overthrow -the system .. It. will be frorri the pen of self-eni.anoipated slaves, Matlock predicted, that startling incidents authenticated, far excelling fic- tion in their touching pathos , will secure the execrations of all good men and · become a monument more enduring than marble, in testimony strong as sacred-wit .... XX XV xxxvl INTRODUCTION African American slaves, remarkably, sought to write themselves 0 slavery by mastering the Anglo-American bellettristic tradition. rts;f that _they did ~o against the greatest ~dds. does not beg~n to suggest th~ heroic proportions that the task of reg1stermg a black voice in printed I _ ters entailed. James Albert _UkawsaWi Gr;o_nn,i?saw, the author of the fi;:t full-length black autobiography, A narrative of the most r,emarkahle par- ticulars in the life of James Albert Vkawsaw .Gronniosaw, an African Prince (1770), and the source of the genre of the slave narrative, accounted for this animosity, as well as the slaves anxiety before it, in the trope of the talking book: [My Master] used to read prayers in public to the ships crew every Sab- bath day; and then I saw him read. I was never .so surprised in my life as when I Sa\V the . book tal~ to my master, for I thoug~t it did as i observed him to looJ<, ,upon it, and mo:ve h,i~ lips. I ;w,ished it would do so with me. As soon as my master had done r-eading, I followed him to the place where ·he put the book, being · mightily delighted with it, and when nobody Sa\,\/ .111e, I opened fr, a~d put inf ei;ir down cl9se upon it, in great, hope.s that it. would say sometning to me; but I ,was sorry, and greatly ·disappointed, when I found that it would ·not . speak. This thought immediateJy presented itself to me, that every body and every thing despi~ed me because r was black. The text . of • Western letters .refused . to speak to the -person of African descent; paradoxically, ;we read about that refusal in a text created -by that very person of African-descent. In a very ,real sense, the.Angld-African liter, ary tradition was created tw~ centuries ago in order to :demonsfrate that persons of African -desc_ent possessed ·the requisite degrees of reason and wit to create literature, that they were, indeed,, full a11,d equal mem~ers of the community of rational, sentient beings, tha~ -they could, indeed, .write. With Gronniosaws An African Prince; .a distinctively tAfri~an :voice· regis- tered its presence in the republic of letters; it was_, a i te~t that both talked black, and, through its unrelenting indictment .of the · institution of slav- ery, talked bac~. , , ·. . , - i , 1 · Making the text, speak ·in the full range,. of. timbres · that the African enslaved in England and America brought to the process of writing be<::arrie the dominant urge of the•ex-slave authors. So compelling did Gronniosaws trbpe of the talking book-prove to be that, between 17.70 and 1815, no fe~er than five authors of. slave narratives used the same metaphor as a crucial scene of instruction to dramatize the authors own road to· lite~acy, initially, and to authorship, :ultimately. John Marrant in 1785,, Cugoano in 1787, Equiano in -1789, and John Jea in , 1815-all :modified Gi:onniosaws figur_e of the talking book as the signal structural element .of their autobiograph1• cal narratives, thereby providing the formal Hnks ofrepetition and .revision that, in pa~t, define any literary tradition, So related,, in theme and structure, were these texts that by 1790 -yronniosaws ·Dublin publis~er also include~ John Marrants Narrative on his list and advertised its-sale on .GronniosaW 5 endpapers . · , , Still, the resistance even to the idea that an African could create litera· ture was surprisingly resilient. As early as 1680, Morgan Godwyn; the self- INTRODUCTION I . xxxvll described Negro and Indians Advocate/ had accounted for the resistance in this way: [a] disingenuous and unmanly Position had been formed; and privately (as it were in the dark) handed to and again, which is th,is, That t~e Negros though in their Figure they carry some resemblances 1 of manhood, ye.t,,~re inde~q not. men .. ·} ,he. <\qnsi,der,ation of the shape and figure of OU~ Negros Bodies, their U:~bs and memb~rs; ,their Voice and. Countenanc~1 in all things ,according ~th.other mens; together with their Risi_bility and Discourse (mans peculiar Faculties) should be sufficient Conyiction. How. s}:iould they otherwis~ be capable of Trades·; and otp~r ~o less manly imployments; as also ~f Readiiig and Writjng, or ,show so mu~h Discretion in management of Business; .. . but wherein lWe know) that many of our People are deficient, were they not truly Men? · Godwyns account of the claims thatAJrican~ were not hum~n beings and his ·use of the poss~sslon· of reas~n and its manifestations_ through Reading and Writing to refute these claims were widely debated during the Enlight- enment, generally at the Africans expense: . .. The putative relation bet~e~n litera~y and th/ quest fo~ freedom pro- vided the subtext for this large{ d~liate over lh~ Africans place in nature, his or her place· in the great chain of being. Following the Ston6 Rebellion ofl739 in South Carolina, the largest uprising of slaves in the colonies before the American Revolution, legislators there 1e·nacted a d~aconi~n hody of p~blic laws, ~aking two forms of litJ~acy pui-iish~ble bylaw: the mastery of w~itipg, and the masterr, ofthe ,dri.ui-1..Th~ _Ia~ ~~ainst )earning to write read as follows: · And whereas the having of slaves taughtto write, or suffering them to be -employed in writing, may be attendfng with great inconveniences; Be it enacted, that all .and every, person and· persons whatsoever, who shall hereafter teach, or cause any slave or· islaves to • be taught· to . write, or shall use or employ any slave as a scribe in any manner of writing what- soever, hereafter taught to write; eyery such person or persons shall, for every offense, forfeit the sum of one hundred pounds <;urrent money. The law against the use of the talking dr1;1m was just as strong: .And for that.as it is absolutely necessary to the safety of this Province, • that all, due care be taken to restrain the wanderings and meetings of negroes and other slaves, at all times , and more especially on Saturday nights, Sundays and o~her holidays, and their ;using and carrying. wooden swords, and other ,mischievous and ·dangerous ;weapons, or using or keeping of drums, horns, or other loud instruments, which may call together or, give sign or notice to one •another- of, their wicked designs and purposes .. , . And whatsoever master,·owner.or overseer,shall per- mit or suffer his or their negro or other slave or slaves, at any time here- after, or beat drums, blow horns, or use any ci~her loud -instruments, or whosoever shall suffer and countenance any, .public meetings or seat- ings or strange negroes or slaves in their plantations, shall forfeit I 0 current money, for every such offence. xu vlll IN TRODU C T I ON 1 n the ~w ,w Hcbclllon, both formM of li tcrucy- :,f En~Ji~h lcti.:,. and of tiJt 11 ·I v •rnundur- hud been pivotal to the islavc II C.1J p m:1 t y tJJ rebel. )11 C( l .I, h J J• .. f.. Writing, muny phll ()1wph cr:, argu~u ,n t c .;., n 1,.,,,t,c2mc_nt , 1 ~t,1od c1lonc 1. 101111 the fin e urt H 1H1 th e mo,; t ,w l, cn t rcpm,,tory ol gcn,w,1 the vi~if,l= II I ,., I J I h . , I sign of reason ii sel f. In tlrl s :, u wr ,n alc ro c, . owcv~r, writ1 1 ng, c1 thou~ secon da ry lo rca:wn, wa ll neverth ~Jc1111 t~c medium of r~ason ,. cxprcs~ion. We know rcu son l,y Hs rcprcsc nLi.JllOn !i. Suc.: h rcprcscntat,om, could as~umt spoken or wr itten form . Eightecn l~ ~ccnlury European _writ.c:s ~rivilegca wrUing~ in th elr wr ilin gs about A ~ri cam, _al least- as the pn_nc,pal mea- sure of th e African s hum anity, th e ir capacit y for progrcc,s, their very pl~ in th e grea t chain of being. As th e Scottish philosopher Da vid Hume put it in u footnote to the second edition of hi~ widely read essay Of National Chara cters: I am apt to suspec t the negroes, and in general all the other species of me n (for there are four or five different kind s) to he naturalJy inferior to the whites. There never was a civilized nation of any other complex- ion than white, nor eve n any indi vidu al eminent either in action or speculation. No ingenious ma nu facturers amongst them, n o arts, no sciences. On the other hand , th e most rude and barbarous of the whites, such as the ancient Germans, the present Tartars, have still something eminent ab~ut them , in their va lour, fo rm o f government, or some other particular. Such a uniform and constant difference could not happen, in so many countries and ages, if nature had not made an original distinc- tion betwixt these breeds of men. Not to mention our colonies, there are negro slaves dispersed all over Europe, of which none ever discm·ered any symptoms of ingenuity; tho low p eople, without education, iJI start up amongst us , and distinguish themsel ves in every profession. In Jamaica indeed they talk of one negro as a man of parts and learning [Francis Williams] ; but tis likely he is ad mired for every slender accom - plishment, like a parrot, who speaks a few words plainly. Immanuel Kant, the German philosopher, responding to Humes essay a decade later, had this to say: The negroes of Africa have by nature no feeling that rises aboYe the trifling. Mr. Hume challenges anyone to cite a single e.~mple in which a Negro has shown talents , and asserts th at among the hundreds of thousands of blacks who are transported elsewhere from the countries. al th ough many of them have been set free , still not a single one~rns e,·er found who presented th· · · th . any mg great m art or science or anv o er praise-worthy quality h h - ·. all · . , even t oug among the whnes some cont.mu nse aloft from the lo t bbl · h Id S wes ra e, and through superior gifts earn respecl 1 ~ t e word .. 0 fundamental is the difference between these two races o ma n, an It appears to b . . . . color. The reli ion of~ . e as grea_t m regard to mentaJ capac1t.Jes as in sort of idolatrvgth . ttshes so w.de-spread a mong them is perhaps a si bl e to huma;, nc~tL.s:; 1 s a~ deepl y mt o the trifling as a ppears to be pos- other common b · A bi rd feat h er, a cow horn, a conch shell, or a~· is an ob,iect f , 0 ~ect . as soo n as it becom es consecrated bv a few words. J · o , enerat1 0 <l f · · n a n o invoca tion in swea r ing oaths. The blacl-s INTRODUCTION xxxlx are very vain but in the Negro s way, a nd so talkative th a t they must be driven apart from each other with thrashings . · Thomas Jefferson , in his Notes on the State of Virginia (1785) , echoed this discourse in his disparaging remarks about Phillis Whea tleys book of poems: Misery is often the parent of the most affecting touches in poetry. Among the blacks is misery e nough , God knows, but not poetry. Love is the peculiar oestrum of th e poet. Their love is a rde nt, but it kindles the senses only, not the imagination. Religion , indeed, has produced a Phillis Wheatley; but it could not produce a poet. The compositions published under her name a re below the dignity of criticism. To test assertions such as these , various Europeans and Americans edu- cated young black slaves along with their own children. El negro Juan Latino, who published three books of poetry in Latin between 1573 and 1585, w as one of the earliest examples 6f such an experiment, followed by Wilhelm Amo, Jacobus Capitein , and Francis Williams·, in the first quarter of the eighteenth century. The first black person to publish a book of poetry in English , Phillis Wheatley, was also the subject of such an experiment. But whether Wheatley had the capacity to write, herself, poems of such accom- plishment, was a matter of considerable controversy in Boston in 1773. And it was a matter of controversy a nd of immediate concern to her master and mistress, John and Susannah Wheatley, because the publication of their slaves book was dependent upon establishing the authenticity of their slaves authorship, the fact that she had written her poems herself. How could they prove that? Well, sometime in 1772 or 1773, through a proce- dure the nature of which scholars have yet to discover, the Wheatleys per- suaded a group of Bostons m0st august citizens-the most respectable characters in Boston, as they would later be described , no less than eigh- teen of them-to read Phillis Wheatleys manuscript and then, somehow, to examine her about the poems in that manuscript. Whether or not they did so collectively, in a trial setting (as a filmmaker might conceive it), or whether they did so individually (which seems unlikely, given the time that eighteen separate interviews or examinations would entail), we do not know. Among them were John Erving, a prominent Boston merchant; the Reverend Charles Chauncey, pastor of the Tenth Congregational Church ; and John Hancock, who would later gain fame for his signature on the Dec- laration of Independence. At the center of this group would have sat His Excellency, Thomas Hutchinson, governor of the colony, with Andrew Oli- ver, his lieutenant governor, close by his side. We can only speculate on the nature of the questions posed , either col- lectively or individually, to the fledgling poet. Perhaps they asked her to identify ancl explain-for all to hear-exactly who were the Greek and Latin gods and poets alluded to so frequently in her work. Perhaps they asked her to conjugate a verb • in Latin , or even to translate randomly selected passages from the Latin , which she and her master, John Wheat- ley, claimed that she had made some progress in. Or perhaps they asked her to recite from memory key passages from th e texts of John Milton and Alexander Pope, the two poets by whom the African seems to have been mos t directly influenced. We do not know. xi INTRODUCTION We do know, bowev.er, that the African poets responses were more than sufficient to prompt these eighteen august gentlemen to compose, sign, and publish a two-paragraph Attestation, an open letter To the Publick that prefaces Phillis Wheatleys book, and which reads in part: I We whose Names are ~nder-written, do assure the World, that t.he POEMS specified in the following Page, were (as we verily believe) writ- ten by PHILLIS, a young Negro Girl, who was but a few Year·s since, brought an uncultivated Barbarian from Africa, and has ever since been, and now is under the Disadvantage of serving as a Slave in a Family in this Town. She has been examined by some of the best Judges, and is thought qualified to write them. · So important .was this document in securing a publisher for Phillis Wheat- leys poems that it forms the signal element in the prefatory matter printed in the opening pages of her Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, which was issued in London in the falI of 1773 because Boston printers remained skeptical about her authorship and refused , to publish the book. Without. the printed Attestation/ , Phillis Wheatleys publisher claimed, few would have believed that an African could possibly have written -poetry all by herself. As the eighteen put the matter clearly in their letter, Num- bers would be ready to suspect they were not really the Writings of PHILLIS. This curious anecdote, surely one of the oddest oral examinations on record; is only a tiny. part of a larger, and even more curious, episode in, the Enlightenment;. At least since the end of the seventeenth century, Europe- ans -had wondered aloud whether or not the African ·species .of men, as they 1:post commonlf put it, could ever create formal literature, could ever master the ·arts and· sciences. If they could, the argument ran, then the African variety of humanity and the _European variety were fundamentally related. If not, then it ,seemed clear that the African was destined by nature to be a slave, rightly relegated to a low place in the great chain, of being, an ancient construct that arranged all of creation on a vertical scale ascending from plants, insects, and animals through human beings to .the .angels and God himself. By 1750, the chain had become minutely calibrated; the . human scale rose from the lowliest Hottentot .(black South African) to glorious Milton and Newton. If blacks could write and publish imaginative literature, then they could, in effect; take a few , giant steps up the chain of being; in a pernicious metaphysical game of Mother, May I? For example, reviewers of Wheatleys book argued that the publication .of her poems meant that the African was indeed a human being and should not be enslaved. Indeed, Wheatley herself was manumitted . soon after her poems were pu~l!shed. That which was only implicit in Wheatleys case would become explicit fifty . ·der-years later. George Moses Hor.ton had, by the mid 1820s, gamed~ cons• ull- able reputation at Chapel Hill .as the· slave-poet. His master ~n~ted f a page · advertisements in northern newspapers soliciting . subscriptions fo~ book of Hortons. poems and promising to exchange the slaves freedom 0 ; a sufficient return on sales of the book. Writing, for these slaves, was no ·only an activity of mind; it was also a commodity that gained them access to their full humanity-Horton literally bought freedom with his poems. INTRODUCTION xii Two hundred and twenty years separate the publication of Phillis Wheat- ley s curious book of poems and Toni Morrisons receipt of the Nobel Prize for literature in 1993. Morrisons success is part of a larger phenomenon . African American literature has been enjoying a renaissance in quality and quantity for the past several decades, .even vaster than the New Negro, or Harlem, Renaissance of the 1920s, spurred on to a significant extent since 1970 by the writings of African American women such as Morrison , Alice Walker, Maya Angelou, Rita Dove, Gloria Naylor, Jamaica Kincaid , and Terry McMillan , among a host of others. The number of literary prizes won by black authors in the last thirty years, including Pulitizer Prizes, National and American Book Awards, far exceeds the total number of such honors won by African Americans during the previous hunqred years. And several times since 1990, as many as three or four black authors have appeared simultaneously on the best-seller list of the New York Times. While the audience for this magnificent flowering of black literature crosses all racial boundaries, black readers have never been more numerous: as early as June 1996 the Times reported that African Americans were purchasing 160 mil- lion books a year; a decade and a half later, that figure has dramatically increased. This prominence in the marketplace has had its counterpart in the cur- riculum. Black literature courses have become a central part of the offerings in Engfish departments and in departments of American studies , African American studies, and womens studies. Maya Angelous delivery of On the Pulse of Morning at President Bill Clintons inauguration in 1993 (she was the first poet to read at an inauguration since Robert Frost did so for John F. Kennedy in 1961), Elizabeth Alexanders delivery of Praise Song for the Day at President Barack Obamas first inaugµration in 2009, and Rita Doves unprecedented two-term appointment as Poet Laureate of the United States are further signs of the pervasive presence of African Ameri- can literature in American society. The globalization of hip hoj:>, the domi: mnt form of American popular music for the past three decades , has not only spawned a Spoken Word movement (a much larger postmodern ver- sion of poetry readings by the Beats in coffeehouses on the 1950s) and the citation of classical black poetry (and the sampling of canonical soul and rhythm and blues lyrics from the 1960s and 1970s in marvelous examples of intertextuality), but also has contributed to a renaissance in African American poetry, which we shall address at the end of this essay. This broad acceptance of the authority of African American writing was, of course, not always the case. Leonard Deutsch, a professor of English at Marshall University, recalls the harsh resistance that greeted his request to write a Ph.D. dissertation on Ralph Ellison at Kent State University in 1970. When his prospectus was approved, a member of his thesis commit- tee-a well-known Mdville scholar-;---resigned in protest, arguing that To write this dissertation is bad on two counts: for Len Deutsch him- self, and subsequently for the university. A doctoral dissertation implies substance, we_ight (stuffiness ·often accompanying this), and spread, and not concentration upon the wings of a gnat. If it be concentration, the dissertation must by concentration bring together and sum-up worlds of thought and material-the dissertation as metonymy or synecdoche , xi I I I NTRODUOTION which it generally is , One coul~, _for !_nsta~ce,_ w~ite about Hemingway, Faulkner, ·or Bellow (recently, hvmg or still k1ckmg) ·because .men like them ha:e established a respectable an.d accepted corpus of work rang, ing sufficiently to call for comment. .· · , · · , · ,. Emso~s wor~, he conclud.ed, was ofthe ·.st 0 ature _to ~~ ria,n_~ beiryg, itud- ied for ,a f>h.q. ii/ English. Other_ stories 1of w~it~ pr?f~ .. ss~r-~ ,;mq Pfedi;i~i~ nantly white instit4tio_n,s of ~~gher edu<;:~t10~ d1~c.°-ur_ag~n~ .scholarly inte.rests an~ careers in Afi!c~p , American literat1,1,re abo_1.p;i d _in _ acaderni,c folklore. . . · . ; , , . , , . . , .· , The resistance to the lit¢rary meri.ts _of black literature, as we have .see~ has its origins in the, Ei:i,li,gh!~nment , a~d in tpe pecul~a~ instit1!~1on of ery. The so1;ja, an~ politi_ca~~ ,us,es to ~hich t~is literature h11s been put haV:~ placed a trew.endo~s burden 0I).• the_s~ w,riters,_ cast~n& aQ author and her or his works i.n , i:,li~ ,rok.~f i ynec9oche, a part standing for .th,e et~ni~ w.h9i~, signifyfog ~h~ -,:~h~ N~gro ~as,, w~9, t pis or _h~r i~her~nt intellec;!4a) poten,tial, might be, _and whether _or not, tqe . larger group w~s ~q,titled to ·the full ran,ge of rights and resporisibiJities jof Arperican citizensh.ip. B~cause ~f the perilous stature of African Americans in American so~iety, their liter~~ ture has suffered u.nd~r Jremendous e~~ral!terary burdens. . , · ,. Writing in the Pref~ce to An Antho{pgy of American Negro Literature (1929), V. F. Caly~~Joi{, _:a 1\Jrrxist critic;, argued that black litr r~~u~e --~~s primarily a reflection of th~ Negros h~stor ica] economic exploitation,: In a subtle way,- Negro art and litera ture in Amedca have had an eco- nomic origin. All · that is original iri ! Negro folk~lote, · or singular ·fn Negro spirituals and Eli.Jes, , can- be·trace d to the economic institution of slavery i1nd its infltierice upon the · Negro soul. · 1 < • • ). ·.,•. • Richard Wright w<;mld. e<;ho th~se sen.t,iments in his Bluepril)t for Negro Writing, pµblished in 1,9,37. Calver.ton went ~n to argue that the Neg~os music and folk art were never purely imitative, and tqat .black vernacular cultural: forms were definitely. and unequivocally American, . th~ only qrig- inal Amer.ican culture. y,et cre,ated. \i\Trjght, too,. would repeat this claim. Ji ~lack writ~rs turned to t~e~r own vern,acula,r .tr.~di~ions, he concl~dtq, bl: 1 t literature ~ould he as ongmal and as cpmpellmg as _black music an? ( o~- lpre. The lite~a~y m?vement of the , 1920s, he maintained, _was mort; 1~~he tant for what it implied ahqu( what.;hi~torian Carter G. Woo4son:c.alledf h public Negro mind th~IJ. for ·w.hat , it, had contributed. to the qmon ° t e worlds great literatures: .·, , . , . . · .• t·•.; . • - f . . , . > , stitute a I this new literature of the Negt o in America does not cop itis · • : d , · • · 1 1, · d culture, -renaissance, It oes signify rapid growth ih racia art an . · tes a · a g th th · · · · · · · it illustra row at is as yet unfinished. Indeed we may say · , than g rowth th t. d , .r ,, , . ·l• ,. b . , It. d1·cates more a m a ynamxt sense has just egun. m the rise of a literature. It marks the rise of. an .entire people. . . d the nse . Calvert~ns argument ~~out_ .t~e pr~dt ctjo:n of lite~ary arts ~n, oet Jarn~s of an entire people ech_o,ed . t_he eloquert argument that th~;J of Amert· W(.ldon Johnson h~d qiade in his . important antholo~r, T_~e ~f the· Harle: can Negro Poetry, published in 1922 at the very beg~nnmg .. · I essays 0 Renai J h · , · · · r cnuca ssance. 0 nsons preface remains one of the maJ0 INTRODUCTION xlill the nature and function of black literature. In it Johnson states explicitly what had been implicit in the critical reception of black … Hello everyone and welcome to our midterm exam voice thread throughout the semester we’ve been reading about and discussing ways in which African-Americans have used literature and other creative meetings to rebel against the established power structures that were and in some cases still are firmly entrenched here in the US. Now at times as you’ve now realized it appeared that African-Americans were completely excepting the status quo and at other times it was violently evident that some have had enough and were willing to fight back even if it meant their death literally or figuratively. 1. Now from the work that we read up to this point I would like for you to select any two and discuss in detail how you understand or see elements of either open or covert rebellion against the established power structure. Now I really need to be completed your thoughts essay or entire work assigned for class but also your own ideas of rebellion found within that piece. 2. The second part of this exam asks that you select any two of your favorite authors who’s worked so far I’d like for you to describe for me why you consider him or her among your favorites and to include what aspect of his or her work your attention I’m looking for you to be detailed enough to demonstrate to me that you not only read the work by the author you chose but also that you can intelligently describe what it was about his or her work that you liked surface level descriptions with little or no detail will receive few if any points. (please talk about Jean Toomer and his work Cane) 1 l • 1 -~ f \ ,. , i I • I n African American literature, .the vernacular refers to the church songs, blues, ballads, sermons, stories, m~ and, .in our own era, hip-hop songs that are part of the oral, not primarily the literate (or written-down) tradition of black expr~ssion. What dis.tinguishes this body of wo.rk is its in-group and, at times, secretive, defe_nsive,. and aggressive ·character: it is not, generally speaking,. produced for. circulation beyond .the black group · itself -(though it sometimes is bought · and sold by those outside its circle). This highly charged mate- rial. has been extraordinar,ily influential for writers of poetry, fiction, drama, and so on. What would the ·work of. Langston Hughes, Sterling A. Brown, Zora Neale Hurston, -and Toni Morrison be like_ without its black verIJ.acular ingredients? What, for that- matter, would the ~riting of Mark Twa.in or William Faulkner be without these same elements? Still, this vernacular , ·material also has its own shapes, its own integrity, its own place. in the black literary canon: the literature of the vernacular .. Defining the vernacular and delineating it as a cat- egory of African American literary studies have been difficult and controversial projects. Some critics note Avenue Steppets Marching Club, 1982·. Black New Orleans features parades at Mardi Gras and throughout the year-for other holjdays, fun~rals, an~ ~any occasioi;is. The styli;zed music and dan~e steps characteristic of the parades have helped cJefine New Orleans culture and bind its community. Th~se stre~~ forms offer a continuing source of inspiration for artists across the categories·: liter~ry, vi~u-;.l, and otherwis~. Photography by Michael P. Smith© The Historic New Orleans Collection. Throughout this section, titles followed by• are available on the StudySpace website · I 4 TH E VE RN AC U LA R T RA D I TI O N , PA RT 2 th vernaculars typical demarcation as a category of things that e d h . . are attached only to lower-class groups, ~n ot erw1se simplistically ex r ll1ale, of a vast and complexly layered and dispersed group of people. 0th P essive both against the sentimentalization of a stereotyped folk and the:S.,warll d against the impulse to define black people and their literature I Iore an . f . b h . so el . terms of the product10n o unconsc10us ut some ow definitive Wo k } II) the bottom of the social ~ierarchy. ~ith these critiques often corn: /;011i ings against forming too easy an idea about the shape and direction f rtt. · h M h · · h O Afr can American literary 1story. ost emp atic 1s t e argument ag . , ,. modernist view that would posit an almost sacred set of found:tst a vernacular texts by black and unknown bards (to borrow James W~~:al Johnsons ringing phrase) leading to ever more complex works by higher ll higher artists marching into the future. Is contemporary music really rn and . 1 h h k f B · S · h R b ore progressive or comp ex t an t e wor o ess1e m1t , q ert Johnson or Louis Armstrong? ,, And yet even after these questions and criticisms have been raised somehow such distinctive forms as church songs, blues, talI tales, work songs, games, jokes, dbzens, and rap songs-along with myriad other such forms, past and present-· persist among African Americans, as .they have for decades. They are, as a Langston Hughes· poem announces, still here. Indeed, the vernacular is not a body of quaint, folksy items. It is not an exclusive male province. Nor is it associated with a particular level of.society or with a particular historical era. It is neither long ago, far away; nor fading. Instead, the vernacular- encompasses vigorous, dynamic processes of expres- sion, past and present. It makes up a rich storehouse of materials wherein the values, styles, and character, types of black American life are reflectea in language that is highly energized and often marvelously eloquent. Ralph Ellison and Toni Morrison ·have argued that vernacular art accounts, to a large degree, for the black Americans legacy of self-awareness and endurance. For black performers and :listeners (as well as readers) it has often served the classic function of teaching as it delights. Refusing to sub- scribe wholly io the white Americans ethos andworldview, African Amer· icans expressed in these vernacular forms their own ways of seeing the world, its history, and its meanings. The vernacular comprises, Ellison said, nothing less than another instance of humanitys triumph over chaos. In it experiences of the past are remembered ·and evaluated; through it African Americans attempt to humanize aff often harsh world, and to do so with honesty, with toughness, and often with humor. VERNACULAR IN THE MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY PERIODS: A BRIEF HISTORY From the first stirrings of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1940s through the first decade of the twenty-first century the lived experience of black A · · f of mencans creatmg freshly innovated art has continued to be a act ~mfrican cu!tural l~fe . In particul~r, . black Americans have produced tidal wave of mnovative black v~I_nacula_i- expression: new forms sacred an, 5 secular, ~cross the categories of art. Perhaps the philosopher Cornel West formu~atwn best expl~ins this phenomenon of spurting black creativity: h: has said that as black creative output is adopted bought , and sold by th broader community, the blacks themselves have been forced to come up -------- -------- INTRODUCTION 5 Jazz singer Billie Holiday often performed the anti-lynching song Strange Fruit at New Yorks Cafe Society, one of the countrys first major interracial night clubs . This poem set to music was part of a continuum of black protest songs-What Did I Do (to Be So Black and Blue) and Miss Otis Regrets among them-that became popular with American audiences. with another-and then yet another-something new of their own. Perhaps the zealousness of the search for identity, direction, and freedom in a still- hostile native land explains something about the black Americans energies for ever-dawning new directions in personal/communal ·expression. Whatever black Americans motives for creativity have been, their imag- ery, sounds, and products have traveled very well. In 2013, the French anthropologist Alexandre Pierrepont reported that year after year in his large freshman music history classes in Paris, more than 80 percent of the students when asked what music they listened to at home routinely selected a black American music (or one directly shaped by it) as their favorite. It is not an exaggeration to say that by the end of the twentieth century, black American culture had become the most popular youth culture in the world. At mid-twentieth century, rhythm-and-blues (much of it gospel-based) was circling the globe, and new forms of jazz were emerging. By the 1980s, jazz had become a widely accepted concert music , studied and taught- sometimes in interdisciplinary courses in jazz studies-all over the United States as well as overseas. Jazz dances (and their various blends) were filling the concert theaters and public dance halls (as well as private party spaces) of the world. Brewing in the last quarter of the twentieth century, and con- tinuing to claim new listeners on a worldwide scale have been hip-hop 6 THE VERNACULAR TRADITION. PART 2 music and culture, whose Bronx-born rhythms may now be heard in Hon Kong, Stockholm, Johannesburg, Berlin, and Lima. As the America! economy, and indeed most of the worlds economies, faltered in the early twenty-first century-and then as these economies attempted a gradual crawl back to stability in the 2010s-markets at home and abroad contin- ued to use blues, jazz; and hip-hop to sell their wares. Of course sheer quality accounts for much of this story of success-the mysteriously persistent allure of the beautiful U.S. black vernacular. But who can doubt that the black Americans placement in the hydra-headed economy of the United States, where the hunger for new products is pri- mary and where the capacity to market, package, and deliver them on a worldwide scale has increased with the decades, has also played its eager part? Some of this is a matter of hardware and software. The rising array of new technologies has rendered black creative productions of all sorts, in music and word art as well as in dance and the visual arts, more widely and quickly available than ever before-far beyond black communi- ties themselves. The perfection of the microphone, of speakers large and small, and of ever-more-precise recording devices, audio and video; the rise of the LP and then the CD and then of other digital chips and delivery systems; the prevalence of mini-computer and of social media technologies- all these have made it possible for art created by individuals or small James Brown in 1962, photograph by Charles Stewart. By many reports, Brown reigns as the single most influential and widely sampled musician in the world. · groups to be potentially avail- able to a worldwide audience, and available in an instanta- neous zip. · With all this said, on the level of the black community itself, the engines of black vernacular • creativity in the modern and postmodern eras have been amazingly robust. Through the Civil Rights and Black Arts Movement and post-Black Arts Movement years, black churches (Chris- tian and Muslim) have con- tinued to serve as fertile training grounds for young musicians, singers, and key- boardists · in . particular, though with horn players and percussionists also frequently in the mix. As early as the late 1940s, the influence of blues and jazz on , church music was evident. In turn, by the 1950s the influence of gospel on jazz was creating new dimensions of soul jazz-sometimes with musi- cal strw::tures and modes of INTRODUCTION 7 presentation springing, straight. out of church. The hard bop. jazz group The Jazz) Messenger: was. ?ne ~f many , outstanding groups playing jazz from a gospel foundat10n. L1kew1se, the mid-twentieth centurys rising tide of rhythm~and-blues could thank gospel for much of its sustained appeal. James Brown began his career as a church singer in Toccoa, :Georgia. Even Motown, with its . push to reach audiences beyond the black community, typically hired y:oung singers first kno~n to church congregations in Detroit or the Deep South . .Ironically, all ,the singers .in the hit Motown group The Temptations began ~s church vocalists. Sacred spaces, .with their long t:r:a- dition of vivid projections of The .Word, have also nurtured ,.secular black styles of spoken-word presentation-right up to our ·own hip-hop .era . . Worldwide jazz festivals during this , period frequently featur:ed promi- nent -gospel stages ; where wjde arrays of ,church-born projects w,ere to ,be heard. In 2003, one highly significant ja7:z singer, Dianne Reeves, reported she. spent. her entire time at the New Orleans Jazz Fest under the :gospel tent. Thats-wher.e,you hear• the most, innovative vocal music, she said. In the l 990s:one .began to :see more and more churches experimenting with new technological equipment-,-with recorded music sometimes filling in for instrumental and vocal backgrounds and with large screens showing congregations words of songs and close:ups of presenters. And just as hip- hop rhyme virtuosos were influenced .by word artists in the church pulpits of. the United States, . preachers a:nd , choirs in turn · were increasingly: experimenting with · hip-hop ·staccato rhyme.s; rhythms, , arid ·flow. Indeed, the .rapid and ·vigorous cycling of influences, _sacred and· secular, folk and not folk, across, the decades and ey·en the centm:ies, may be the most crucial.aspect of the U.S. black vernacular·story . . ,· . Qf course jazz festivals, the first of which .appeared .in the early 1950s, also featur~d -jazz. By the 1960s and /7.0s, these,cfestivals ,had become an important circµit for jazz musicians in ther United ,States and especially ,in Europe,. where in some ·cities· the ,festivals occurred throughout the year. ~uring this era, many forms of ,musk have. been presented under the jazz. banner; Ln NewYork and,other.major.cities, on a givefl night one might hear a virtual history of the form: re 7.creations of the earliest work of King Oliver and Jelly Roll Morton,· big band music (withs charts .. . sometimes borrowed from the Smithsonian or the Institute for Jazz Studies at Rutge rs Un.iv,er-. sity), :small· bands playing :bebop or modal jazz in ,,:t he tradition .of ,Miles Davis -and John Coltrane,· replays of the avant-gardists of the late 1950s, 6.0s, and .70s, fusiqns of many kinds-imrolying rock, flamenco, ,opera arid other European art musics, gospel; and hip-hop. In the twenty-first century, some of these mixes left jazz afficionados doubtful that the word . jazz still applied to music marketed arid .eveQ sincerely played under its name. These musical experiments Jeft otlier observers. hopeful that whether called jazz or· not, the new mixes would iriclude ingredients from which the forms of things yet unknown would crystallize. , This period saw the .rise of blues: as a ,. worldwide music , and .of. rhythm and blues-very often, as ;noted, .involving singers who got ,their , start in church-as a local urban youth phenomenon that captured the, worlds attention. By the mjd-1960s ,. a new hard-driving blues line called funk Was giving new. energy to · the generally softer sway of Motown and most other (blues and gospel-based) forms of R&B. James Brown, Sly Sto11e, the Funkadelics , and their many imitators, along with those who were extend- I . I 1/ I 8 THE VERNACULAR TRADITION, PART 2 ing the, idiom on their own, were holding center stage on the secular bi music scene. Many -of the new Afro-Pop world music productions a:ck from these highly danceable roots i Several experts report the bass d aw b . h . I rulll and horn lines of James Brown as emg t e smg e most sampled sourc . the realm of hip-hop, where sampling is a definitive mode. e 111 The story of the forms and meanings of hip-hop is still unfolding. Mo . histories mark its starting place in uptown New York City, particularly t the Bronx, while also crediting important background activities in an~ around Kingston, Jamaica. Whats clear now is that beginning sometime in the early 1970s, a form of spoken-word a:rt was emerging that was driven by new technologies, by the will to sample, remix, and improvise rhythmical commentary over existing recorded materials of many kinds; and by the flow of the human voice in spirited and often defiant recitation. Some of the performances and recordings involved . virtuosic improvisation. Buf at least as many hip-hop artists were careful loose-leaf poets who tight- ened their words on paper and then memorized ·them for public presenta- tions that · could seem improvised on the spot. (Sometimes the rappers rhythms were improvised when the lyrics were not.) In the quarter century since hip-hop first hit the national airwaves and party-spaces of America, the music has changed its course and, like jazz and gospel, has fused with other forms-in search, always, of fresh effe~ts and directions. It is ·a street party music, dance-club music: music of ·court- ship and playful (as well as sometimes competitive and even hostile) social interaction. It is a form of poetry·or spoken-word art where the subject frequently has been the grittine·ss -of urban black life-and where, increas- ingly, many other subjects . (including-romance, political activism, and the difficulty of creating art) also are raised .· Hip-hops advocates speak of the characteristically hardcore diction and . subject matter of hip-hop · as new forms of black urban realism and protest, harsh but true reports from the bottom of the American social hierarchy. They also smile at over-the-top parodic aspects of the music that insiders know not to take too· seriously. At its best, this is a music of broad aesthetic pleasures: of intricate Afro- rhythms and rhymes to challenge and ·delight the mind, the foot, and the eardrum-a music that raises contemporary black questions in an idiom no one can ignore. As much as any black vernacular form in the last hundred years, hip-hop music and culture represent a generational preference, with those coming of age before roughly 1980 typically expressing strong ·dislike of hip-hop culture in its various manifestations. Hip-hops most outspoken critics emphasize the musics casual uses of explicitly , sexual language and the association of certain rappers with gangs, violence, misogyny, loveless sex, and bragging about personal wealth. But as ,hip-hop -is gradually institu- tionalized, not just as a commercial product but as an art form . to be researched and studied as well as aesthetically enjoyed (and blended.with other forms of expression on a worldwide scale), it is emerging as a might- ily persistent force. In many contemporary schools, hip-hop is employed as a tool for teaching. As with other forms of black vernacular expression- blues and jazz in particular-hip-hop is becoming a global music. And as it develops new accents and vocabularies in Asia Africa Europe and throughout the Americas, new hip-hop forms, buil; on a bl~ck U.S. base, are emerging fast. lack raw urn, e in l ost Yin and ein 1 by ical the )me But ;i;ht- 1ta- iers and iazz !CtS urt- cial ject !as- the the 1ew the -top 1sly. fro- the 1 no hop 1ing hop itics the sex, titu- ) be With ight- :d as ln- 1d as and )ase , .........._ ----------.....i.---.1.__iu___~ INTRODUCTION 9 DEFINING THE VERNACULAR What •is the vernacular:i Accordin w; b · · , ·· comes from the Latin-; z g to ster s secon.d edition, the term vernacu us: Born m one h . f a slave born in his masters house a . t· ,, s ouse, native, rom verna; ings the following· (1) b l . nda ive -and counts among its mean- . e ongmg to, eveloped in . and sp· oke d b the people of a particular place regi . , _ _ _ or use y ( ) h . . on, or countr:y· native · md1genou 2 c aractenst1c ·of a -locality· local I I th f s. · · · vernacular may be defined a · _n e context O American art, the . t t· b t h s express10n that springs from · the creative m erllac. wn e w<;,en t e_ received or learned traditions and that which is loca y mvented, made m America ,, Th. d fi . . d . can cultural historia J h A K . is e mt10n, enved from Ameri- h , k n ° n · ouwenhoven and Ralph Ellison sees Man- t:ttan s s y~crapershas_ well as Appalachian quilts as vernacuiar because /Y) u~e mo :r~ tehc_ mques and forms (machines, factory-made materials - e c.d a onghwit _ w at Ellison calls the play-it-by-ear methods and locai pro ucts t at give American for th - d . . Wh h . . ms eir · 1stmct1ve resonances and power: atd t en, IS the- Afncan American vernacular? It consists of forms sacre -songs, prayers, ~nd sermons-and: secular-work songs, secular rhymes and songs, blues, Jazz, and stories of many kinds. It also consists of dances, wordless musical performances, stage shows, and visual art forms- of many sorts. As Houston A. Baker Jr. noted, the word vernacular as a cultural term has ?een used most frequently to describe developments in the world of ~rch1t~ct1;1re. In contrast to the exalted , refined, or learned styles of design- m~ bmldmgs, the .vernacular in architecture ,refers both to local styles by ~udders un~ware of or unconcerned with developments beyond their par- ticular provmce and to works by inspired, cosmopolitan architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright, a careful student of architecture ·as a worldwide enter- prise and of the latest technologies but also one who wanted ·his buildings custom-made for their surroundings. This example from architecture is relevant insofar as the makers of black vernacular art used the American language and everything at their disposal to make art that paid a minimum of attention ·to the Thou-shalt-nots of the academy or -the arbiters of high style. Coming from the bottom ·of the American social ladder, blacks have been relatively free from. scrutiny by the official cultural monitors. As a group they tended to care little about such opinions; wh~t the black social dance called the Black Bottom looked like to the proctors at the local ballet class ,(be they white or black) was of little interest to them. Thus it is no surprise that the black inventors of this rich array of definitively.American forms have had such a potent ,impact on Americas cultural life and history. The forms included here are varied and resist aesthetic ,generalizations. One is drawn nonetheless to parts of Zora Neale Hurstons wonderful cata- log of the Characteristics of Negro Expression: angularity, asymmetry, a tendency toward mimicry and the will to adorn. In addition, the,forms share traits that reflect their African background: call-response patterns· of many kinds; group creation; and a poly-rhyt_hmically percussive,_ dance-beat orientation not only in musical forms but m the rhythm of a hne, tale, or rhyme. It is not surprising that improvisation is a highly prized a~pect of vernacular performance. Here too one finds European, Euro-American, and American Indian forms reshaped to African American purposes and II I I l 10 THE VERNACULAR TRADITION. PART 2 sensibilities. For example, like black folktales,tales from Europe oft 1 clear delineations of sacred and profane, good and evil, righteous pu e~ hack and righteously punished. Similarly, the blues offer few such consol:~~ ers solutions, or even scapegoats. At times what seems revealed is the starkons, of a life that is real, that is tough, and that must be confronted without~s convenience of formulaic dodges or wishful escapes. Even the spirit t t admit that Ive been buked and Ive been scorned, Ive · been talked ab ua s I Sure as youre born. And the church songs involve-along with the ye:~: ing for heavens peace-confrontation with real troubles of the world and the will to do something about them. · rOne of the most compelling efforts at generalization about African American aesthetics is drawn by Henry Louis Gates Jr. from the vernacular itself. Drawing on linguistic research by Geneva Smitherman and others Gates has defined signifying-the often competitively figurative, subver. sively parodying speech of tales and of less formalized talk as well as of various forms of music-as an impulse that operates not only between con- testing tale tellers but between writers (and painters, and dancers, etc.) as well. According to this view, Toni Morrison signifies on writers who pre- cede her by revising, their conceptions of character and scene, for example, or perhaps she even signifies on aspects of the novelistic tradition itself. In Gatess complex formulations about how African Americans create, the vernacular meets not only formal art but the world of scholarly. criticism as well. This leaves us with a battery of concerns from postmodern cultural criti- cism: Is the idea of the .vernacular essentialist, that is, dependent on defi- nitions of racial essences that are not knowable outside the black circle? What is black about the black vernacular? When is American culture not black and vernacular? What stake do cultural observers have in this termi- nology, or, for that matter, in its rejection? This leads us further to inquire: How were this sections entries selected? Whence came these particular texts? Pouring over dozens of anthologies and collections, hymnals, songbooks, recordings, and literary works yielded texts that are not only historically representative but also distinctive and resonant with aesthetic power. One abiding problem with capturing such works is that they were not originally constructed for the ·printed page but for performance within complicated social and often highly ritualized set- tings. Nonstandard pronunciations in texts transcribed from records ~re generally represented with a minimum of invented spellings-the eye dia- lect so often used by American writers to designate declasse or politically disempowered groups. This effort was informed- by those of writers who captured black speech by getting the rhythms right, the pauses, the special emphases and colors. But contractions and new spellings were allowed when they seemed called for. What determines the order of the vernacular -selections, genre hr genre? Whenever possible, works are presented in chronological order and are clustered according to authorship. But because authorship and chronology are often unknown or ambiguous (for example, who first told the tale of the rabbit and the tar-baby?), we simply have done our best to ascertain credits and dates when they are available. In the folktales section, works are cred- ited and dated in footnotes, but-recognizing that in this instance the ·--- - INTRODUCTION 11 authors are the recorders (brilliantly artistic ones though they may be) of works created incrementally by many, many voices over many; many years- they are listed not by date or writer but by subject: the aniinal tales · precede the ones with h,uman characters and follow a general chronological arc. Such broad thematjc and timelin~ concerns govern all of the vernacular sections orderings-even when spedfic dates and authors are given. For even in the case of a Duke Ellington song or a \\tlarrin Luther King ,sermon/ speech, for which date and author seem, so specific, what we reproduce here is one particular text or version of a performance given over and over, according to changing settings and moments. And both Ellington and King draw on rich vernacular traditions (on black and unknown bards) to fashion and project their works. (ln Ellingtons case, the best text may be the recorded text, with its performance by the sixteen members of his band, each of whom adds much more to the creative process than is the: case with European classical music.) More than any other form of black literature, the vernacular resists being captured on a page or in a hi~torical f~ame: by definition, it is about gradual, group creation; it is about change. ,Clearly, the selections here and on t\ie .StudySpace playlist are not meant to be definitive but to invite further explorations and findings. Black ver- nacular forms are works in progress, experiments in a still new country. They have not survived because they are perfect, polished jewels but because they are vigorous fountains of expression. Not only are they influ- ential · for writers but they are wonderful creations on their own. In the black tradition, no forms are more quick or overflowing with black power and black meaning. GOSPEL I n a sense, the distinction between spirituals and gospel is so slight that it seems contrived. Both are black sacred songs, church songs that are constructed in a variety of forms within the African American musical tradition. Both are born and nurtured in the context of ritualized Christian worship, and yet both com- ment widely on the trying circumstances of black life in white America. To· com- plicate the picture ,rven more, traditional Negro spirituals are frequently rendered in a gospel manner. Sometimes, indeed, songs from eighteenth- and nineteenth- c,entury English hymnals-most notably the songs of Isaac Watts-may be rendered in so convincing a gospel version that listeners have thought them generated as the spirituals were generated: within the richly dramatic space of the black church ser- vice itself. · What is the gospel manner? And what is its history? Briefly, gospel music emerged in the first decades of the twentieth century as blues and early jazz styles of singing and playing instruments began to exert a ,powerful impact on the·way church musi- cians conceived their task. Especially in holinds churches, Churches of God in Christ-those farthest from the genteel European models of churchly decorum-a highly percussive, polyrhythmically syncopated, and bfuesy music began to appear. These singers, s13ys poet and critic Sterling A. Brown, · ,,, fight the devil by using what have been considered the devils weapons . …