Mother and child are sung, but seldom father; fugitive and weary wanderer call for pity and affection, but there is little of wooing and wedding; the rocks and the mountains are well known, but home is unknown.
Du Bois observes the recurring themes and notable omissions in the spirituals, highlighting aspects of family, longing, and the experience of displacement.
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So long as the world stands meekly dumb before such questions, shall this nation proclaim its ignorance and unhallowed prejudices by denying freedom of opportunity to those who brought the Sorrow Songs to the Seats of the Mighty?
Hear my cry, O God the Reader; vouchsafe that this my book fall not still-born into the world wilderness.
Such an assumption is the arrogance of peoples irreverent toward Time and ignorant of the deeds of men.