Look down dat lonesome road!
Look down!
De way are dark an' col'
Dey makes me weep, dey makes me moan,
All cause my love are sold.

"A nigger sings about two things--what he eats and
his woman." ¹ Euphemistically rephrased and with some extension
of definite bounds made to include spirituals, this critical dictum
of a Southern plantation overseer represents the opinion of most
people today in regard to the nature and extent of Negro folksong.
Even scholars who believe that there are other motivations for the
composition of folksong than the satisfaction of the need for enter-
tainment and diversion, are not agreed on explanations for the
comparative paucity of songs embodying protest and discontent
from an ethnic group whose history in America for the past three
hundred years has been a story of almost continuous oppression

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