{"product_id":"the-book-of-american-negro-poetry-chosen-and-edited-with-an-essay-on-the-negros-creative-genius-johnson","title":"The Book of American Negro Poetry Chosen and Edited With an Essay on the Negro's Creative Genius by James Weldon Johnson","description":"\u003cstrong\u003eBy James Weldon Johnson\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Book of American Negro Poetry Chosen and Edited with an Essay on the Negro's Creative Genius By James Weldon Johnson There is  perhaps  a better excuse for giving an Anthology of American Negro Poetry to the public than can be offered for many of the anthologies that have recently been issued. The public  generally speaking  does not know that there are American Negro poets - to supply this lack of information is  alone  a work worthy of some- body's effort. Moreover  the matter of Negro poets and the production of literature by the colored people in this country involves more than supplying information that is lacking. It is a matter which has a direct bearing on the most vital of American problems. A people may become great through many means  but there is only one measure by which its greatness is recognized and acknowledged. The final measure of the greatness of all peoples is the amount and standard of the literature and art they have produced. The world does not know that a people is great until that people produces great literature and art. No people that has produced great literature and art has ever been looked upon by the world as distinctly inferior. The status of the Negro in the United States is more a question of national mental attitude toward the race than of actual conditions. And nothing will do more to change that mental attitude and raise his status than a demonstration of intellectual parity by the Negro through the production of literature and art. Is there likelihood that the American Negro will be able to do this? There is  for the good reason that he possesses the Innate powers. He has the emotional endowment  the originality and artistic conception  and  what is more important  the power of creating that which has universal appeal and influence. I make here what may appear to be a more startling statement by saying that the Negro has already proved the possession of these powers by being the creator of the only things artistic that have yet sprung from American soil and been universally acknowledged as distinctive American products. These creations by the American Negro may be summed up under four heads. The first two are the Uncle Remus stories  which were collected by Joel Chandler Harris  and the \"spirituals\" or slave songs  to which the Fisk Jubilee Singers made the public and the musicians of both the United States and Europe listen. The Uncle Remus stories constitute the greatest body of folklore that America has produced  and the \"spirituals\" the greatest body of folk-song. I shall speak of the \"spirituals\" later because they are more than folk-songs  for in them the Negro sounded the depths  if he did not scale the heights  of... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Windham Press is committed to bringing the lost cultural heritage of ages past into the 21st century through high-quality reproductions of original  classic printed works at affordable prices. This book has been carefully crafted to utilize the original images of antique books rather than error-prone OCR text. This also preserves the work of the original typesetters of these classics  unknown craftsmen who laid out the text  often by hand  of each and every page you will read. Their subtle art involving judgment and interaction with the text is in many ways superior and more human than the mechanical methods utilized today  and gave each book a unique  hand-crafted feel in its text that connected the reader organically to the art of bindery and book-making. We think these benefits are worth the occasional imperfection resulting from the age of these books at the time of scanning  and their vintage feel provides a connection to the past that goes beyond the mere words of the text.","brand":"Lushena Books","offers":[{"title":"PAPERBACK","offer_id":52502335684888,"sku":"9798890965868","price":28.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"HARDCOVER","offer_id":52502335717656,"sku":"9798890965974","price":46.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0787\/8203\/8296\/files\/9798890965868.jpg?v=1786282999","url":"https:\/\/lushenabooksinc.com\/products\/the-book-of-american-negro-poetry-chosen-and-edited-with-an-essay-on-the-negros-creative-genius-johnson","provider":"Lushena","version":"1.0","type":"link"}