The present volume undertakes to treat somewhat more thoroughly than has ever before been attempted the achievement of the Negro in the United States along literary and artistic lines, judging this by absolute rather than by partial or limited standards. The work is the result of studies in which I first became interested nearly ten years ago. In 1910 a booklet, "The Negro in Literature and Art," appeared in Atlanta, privately printed. The little work contained only sixty pages. The reception ac

I N his lecture on "The Poetic Principle," in leading down to his definition of poetry, Edgar Allan Poe has called attention to the three faculties, intellect, feeling, and will, and shown that poetry, that the whole realm of aesthetics in fact, is concerned primarily and solely with the second of these. Does it satisfy a sense of beauty? This is his sole test of a poem or of any work of art, the aim being neither to appeal to the intellect by satisfying the reason or inculcating truth, nor to a

O N one of the slave ships that came to the harbor of Boston in the year 1761 was a little Negro girl of very delicate figure. The vessel on which she arrived came from Senegal. With her dirty face and unkempt hair she must indeed have been a pitiable object in the eyes of would-be purchasers. The hardships of the voyage, however, had given an unusual brightness to the eye of the child, and at least one woman had discernment enough to appreciate her real worth. Mrs. Susannah Wheatley, wife of Jo

I NCOMPARABLY the foremost exponent in verse of the life and character of the Negro people has been Paul Laurence Dunbar. This gifted young poet represented perfectly the lyric and romantic quality of the race, with its moodiness, its abandon, its love of song, and its pathetic irony, and his career has been the inspiration of thousands of the young men and women whose problems he had to face, and whose aspirations he did so much to realize. Dunbar was born in Dayton, Ohio, June 27, 1872. His pa

C HARLES WADDELL CHESNUTT, the best known novelist and short story writer of the race, was born in Cleveland, Ohio, June 20, 1858. At the age of sixteen he began to teach in the public schools of North Carolina, from which state his parents had gone to Cleveland; and at the age of twenty-three he became principal of the State Normal School at Fayetteville. In 1883 he left the South, engaging for a short while in newspaper work in New York City, but going soon to Cleveland, where he worked as a s

W ILLIAM EDWARD BURGHARDT DUBOIS was born February 23, 1868, at Great Barrington, Mass. He received the degree of Bachelor of Arts at Fisk University in 1888, the same degree at Harvard in 1890, that of Master of Arts at Harvard in 1891, and, after a season of study at the University of Berlin, received also the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Harvard in 1895, his thesis being his exhaustive study, "Suppression of the Slave-Trade." Dr. DuBois taught for a brief period at Wilberforce University

T HE foremost of the poets of the race at present is William Stanley Braithwaite, of Boston. Mr. Braithwaite is not only the possessor of unusual talent, but for years he has worked most conscientiously at his art and taken the time and the pains to master the fundamentals that others all too often deem unimportant. In 1904 he published a small book of poems entitled "Lyrics of Life and Love." This was followed four years later by "The House of Falling Leaves." Within recent years he has given l

I N addition to those who have been mentioned, there have been scores of writers who would have to be considered if we were dealing with the literature of the Negro in the widest sense of the term. Not too clearly, however, can the limitations of our subject be insisted upon. We are here concerned with distinctly literary or artistic achievement, and not with work that belongs in the realm of religion, sociology, or politics. Only briefer mention accordingly can be given to these latter fields.

T HE Negro is peculiarly gifted as an orator. To magnificent gifts of voice he adds a fervor of sentiment and an appreciation of the possibilities of a great occasion that are indispensable in the work of one who excels in this field. Greater than any of these things, however, is the romantic quality that finds an outlet in vast reaches of imagery and a singularly figurative power of expression. Only this innate gift of rhetorical expression has accounted for the tremendous effects sometimes rea

I N no other field has the Negro with artistic aspirations found the road so hard as in that of the classic drama. In spite of the far-reaching influence of the Negro on American life, it is only within the last two years that this distinct racial element has begun to receive serious attention. If we pass over Othello as professedly a Moor rather than a Negro, we find that the Negro, as he has been presented on the English or American stage, is best represented by such a character as Mungo in th

P AINTING has long been a medium through which the artistic spirit of the race yearned to find expression. As far back as in the work of Phillis Wheatley there is a poem addressed to "S. M." (Scipio Moorhead), "a young African painter," one of whose subjects was the story of Damon and Pythias. It was a hundred years more, however, before there was really artistic production. E. M. Bannister, whose home was at Providence, though little known to the younger generation, was very prominent forty yea

I N sculpture, as well as in painting, there has been a beginning of highly artistic achievement. The first person to come into prominence was Edmonia Lewis, born in New York in 1845. A sight of the statue of Franklin, in Boston, inspired within this young woman the desire also to "make a stone man." Garrison introduced her to a sculptor who encouraged her and gave her a few suggestions, but altogether she received little instruction in her art. In 1865 she attracted considerable attention by a

T HE foremost name on the roll of Negro composers is that of a man whose home was in England, but who in so many ways identified himself with the Negroes of the United States that he deserves to be considered here. He visited America, found the inspiration for much of his best work in African themes, and his name at once comes to mind in any consideration of the history of the Negro in music. Samuel Coleridge-Taylor [9] (1875-1912) was born in London, the son of a physician who was a native of S

T HE three years that have passed since the present book appeared have been years of tremendous import in the life of the Negro people of the United States, as indeed in that of the whole nation. In 1918 we were in the very midst of the Great War, and not until the fall of that year were the divisions of the Students' Army Training Corps organized in our colleges; and yet already some things that marked the conflict are beginning to seem very long ago. To some extent purely literary and artistic

A S an illustration of the highly romantic temperament that characterizes the Negro race, and also as an instance of an artist who has worked for years to realize his possibilities, we might cite such a shining example as Charles S. Gilpin, the star of "The Emperor Jones" in the New York theatrical season of 1920-21. Here is a man who for years dreamed of attainment in the field of the legitimate drama, but who found no opening; but who with it all did not despair, and now, after years of strivi