r was the first Negro poet to gain nationwide recognition,
at the beginning of the twentieth century. While, on one hand, he
captured and depicted the spirit of the Negro folk, on the other hand, he
did it in such a way as to perpetuate black stereotypes and white
prejudices. Actually, this aided his popularity, and he later came to
regret it.

Negroes had also been dancing and creating music in America for over
three gundred years. Vaudeville and minstrelsy were their first
commercial products. Ironically, the first professional entertainers to
perform in minstrel shows were whites who were imitating plantation slave
productions. In the beginning, whites performed in blackface, and, only
later, did Negroes themselves perform commercially. The spirituals were a
religious manifestation of the Afro-American heritage. They appear to
have been on the verge of disappearing when the "Fisk University
Singers", late in the nineteenth century, took steps to preserve them. A
choral group from Fisk was touring the country in order to raise money
for the school. They received only polite appreciation. When, on one
occasion, they decided to offer one of their spirituals as an encore, the
audience was enthusiastic. Since then, spirituals have become a standard
part of American religious and concert music.

In short, even before the Negro Renaissance of the 1920s the
Afro-American community had made a basic contribution to American
culture, providing America with a peasant folk tradition of the greatest
importance. The social mobility in the American scene had permitted each
wave of European immigrants to move up the social ladder before it had
time to develop into an American peasant class. However, this mobility
was not extended to the Afro-American. Therefore, it was from the
Afro-American peasant class that an indigenous American folk culture was
to emerge. When minstrelsy and jazz spread around the world, they were
seen as American productions. They were, at the same time, Afro-American
creations.

The Afro-American folk culture must be seen as the product of the
African's experience in America rather than as an importation into
America of foreign, African elements. Although the content of the
Afro-American folk culture grew out of the American scene, its style and
flavor did have African roots. It was based on the artistic sense which
the slave brought with him--a highly developed sense of rhythm which was
passed from gene