Cayton's weekly. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1916-1921, 1917-10-27
rhE NEGRO'S CONIA1D lion TO
AMERICAN AL
Literary-D

domain OF American art have come to us
through Negro population. If this
proposition is doubted one is asked to men
ton what, besides the rag time of the mod
ern dance and the Uncle I,emus stories of
Joel Chandler Harris, has as yet "sprung
from American soil and out of American
life" The originality and power Of these
artistic creations, declares Mr.. James We'll
don Johnson field secretary Of the National
Association FOR the Advancement of ColOred
People, have influenced and appealed not
only to America, but the world. He places
the most Importance upon the "Uncle Rem
US stories and the spiritual or slave songs
to which the Fisk Jubilee Singers made the
public and musicians Of the United States
and Europe listen. The stories constitute
the only folklore that America has pro-
duced, says Mr.. johnson in the New York
Evening Post, and the slave melodies the
only folk-songs, "for in them the Negro
sounded the depths, if he did not scale
the heights, of music" Mr. Johnson also
mentions the 'cake walk" and ragtime and
points to the fact that we need not 60 very
far back to remember when cake walking
was the rage of the United States, Europe,
and South America 'Society in this
country and royalty abroad spent time in
practicing the intricate steps. Paris pro-
nounced it the poetry Of motion" Though
the popularity of the cake walk passed
away it's influence remained, fact which
this apologist goes on to examine:
''The influence which the Negro has ex-
ercsed on the art of dancing in this
country has been almost absolute. For gen.
erations, the clog and the jig, which are
strictly Negro dances, have been familiar
to american theater audiences Several
years ago the public discovered the turkey
trot, the eagle rock, and several other va
rietes that started the modern dance craze
Half the floor space in the country was then
turned over to dancing, and highly paid
opponents sprang up everywhere. The most
noted. Vernon Castle, and, by the way, an
Englishman, never danced except to the
music Of colored orchestra, and he never
failed to state to his audiences that most
of his dances had long been done by your
colored people, as he put it.
Amy one who witnesses a musical pro-
duction in which there is dancing can not
fail to notice the Negro stamp upon all the
movements, a stamp that even the great
vogue of Russian dances could not affect.
That peculiar swaying of the shoulders
which you see done everywhere by the
blond girls Of the chorus is nothing more
than movement from the Negro dance re-
ferred to above, the eagle rock
Just at this point it would be interest,"
rag-time, but that we must pass over I 90
straight to the statement that ragtime is
the one artistic production by which Amer
1"a is know the world over. It has been all
"on""ering, and is everywhere hailed as
American music
"Of course, there are those who will deny
that it is an artistic production American
musicians especially, instead of Investigate
mo ragtime, dismiss it with contemptu-
ons word. But that has always been the
course of scholasticism in every branch of
AIT Whatever new thing the people like
IS p"oh-poohed; whatever is popular is spok-
en- ct as not worth while. The fact is, moth
mo Great or enduring, especially in music
has ever sprung full fledged and unprece-
'e"fed from the brain Of any master; the
hest that he gives to the world he gathers
+""'" the hearts of the people, and runs it
f"ro"oh the alembic Of his genius.
IN spite of the bans which musicians and