W.E.B. Du Bois: “If somewhere in this whirl and chaos of things there dwells Eternal Good, pitiful yet masterful, then anon in His good…”

They are the music of an unhappy people, of the children of disappointment; they tell of death and suffering and unvoiced longing toward a truer world, of misty wanderings and hidden ways.

Of death the Negro showed little fear, but talked of it familiarly and even fondly as simply a crossing of the waters, perhaps—who knows?—back to his ancient forests again.

In these songs, I have said, the slave spoke to the world.

But the true Negro folk-song still lives in the hearts of those who have heard them truly sung and in the hearts of the Negro people.