Page:An Anthology of Verse By American Negroes (1924).djvu/21



days of Uncle Remus and Marse Chan the American Negro became such excellent clay for literary potters that his descendants win a too reluctant recognition when they set up as potters themselves. One or two Negro poets, like Paul Laurence Dunbar, have won general recognition, but the question of the Negro's total accomplishment in poetry has been too often answered by Negroes with a citation of names whose value is vague to most of the Negroes themselves, and by white people with a dogmatic assertion that the Negro had better confine himself to more utilitarian labor. These white people are perfectly willing to recognize the value of Negro music, both because it is already familiar and because it seems typically Negro, but, rightly or wrongly, they want the Negro to keep definitely within channels already marked out for him, and poetry does not seem to them to lie within these channels. Hence a willingness to ignore the possibility of any significant Negro contribution to American poetry. But nothing is more certain than the fact that the twelve million Negroes in this country have already produced a small leisure class, unless it be the fact that this class will increase with time, if the past economic progress of the Negro is any criterion, and will turn its attention more and more to higher education and the cultural pursuits. We are dealing with a question, not of proper policy, but of fact. Already a number of Negroes have produced poetry good enough to induce reputable publishers to assume the financial risk of publication. It is therefore no longer to be doubted that the Negro will make his contribution to American poetry, if there is any poetry in him to contribute. And whether there is any poetry in him may be partly