Anthologies of African American Writing

Dark Symphony: Negro Literature in America

"Dark Symphony: Negro Literature in America.” Ed. James A. Emanuel and Theodore L. Gross. New York: Free Press, 1968. xviii+604 pp.

● James A. Emanuel and Theodore L. Gross / Preface
● Alphabetical List of Authors and Works

I / Early Literature
● Introduction
● Frederick Douglass / A Child's Reasoning [from “Life and Times of Frederick Douglass”]
● Frederick Douglass / Letter to His Master, Thomas Auld
● Charles Waddell Chesnutt / The Goophered Grapevine
● Paul Laurence Dunbar / The Party
● Paul Laurence Dunbar / A Song
● Paul Laurence Dunbar / We Wear the Mask
● W.E.B. DuBois / The Song of the Smoke
● W.E.B. DuBois / Of the Sons of Master and Man

II / Negro Awakening
● Introduction
● James Weldon Johnson / O Black and Unknown Bards
● James Weldon Johnson / Sence You Went away
● Alain Locke / The New Negro
● Claude McKay / America
● Claude McKay / The White House
● Claude McKay / Harlem Dancer
● Claude McKay / In Bondage
● Claude McKay / Harlem Shadows
● Claude McKay / The White City
● Claude McKay / North and South
● Claude McKay / Baptism
● Claude McKay / If We Must Die
● Jean Toomer / Esther
● Jean Toomer / Avey
● Rudolph Fisher / Miss Cynthie
● Eric Walrond / The Yellow One
● Sterling A. Brown / Negro Character as Seen by White Authors
● Countee Cullen / Yet Do I Marvel
● Countee Cullen / Heritage
● Countee Cullen / For a Poet
● Countee Cullen / For a Pessimist
● Countee Cullen / For John Keats
● Countee Cullen / For Paul Laurence Dunbar
● Countee Cullen / She of the Dancing Feet Sings
● Countee Cullen / Counter Mood
● Countee Cullen / Song in Spite of Myself
● Countee Cullen / Nothing Endures
● Countee Cullen / Magnets
● Countee Cullen / Sonnet: What I Am Saying Now Was Said Before . . .
● Countee Cullen / Sonnet: Those Are No Wind-Blown Rumors, Soft Say-Sos . . .
● Countee Cullen / To France
● Countee Cullen / Scottsboro, Too, Is Worth Its Song

III / Major Authors
● Langston Hughes / The Negro Speaks of Rivers
● Langston Hughes / Mulatto
● Langston Hughes / The Negro Mother
● Langston Hughes / Evenin’ Air Blues
● Langston Hughes / Dream Boogie
● Langston Hughes / On the Road
● Langston Hughes / Dear Dr. Butts
● Langston Hughes / Jazz, Jive, and Jam
● Richard Wright / The Man Who Killed a Shadow
● Richard Wright / The Ethics of Living Jim Crow
● Ralph Ellison / Flying Home
● Ralph Ellison / King of the Bingo Game
● Ralph Ellison / Hidden Name and Complex Fate
● James Baldwin / Notes of a Native Son
● James Baldwin / Sonny’s Blues

IV / Contemporary Literature
● Introduction
● Albert Murray / Train Whistle Guitar
● John A. Williams / Son in the Afternoon
● Paule Marshall / Brazil
● Ernest J. Gaines / The Sky is Gray
● William Melvin Kelley / Cry For Me
● Melvin B. Tolson / from “Harlem Gallery”
● Arna Bontemps / Southern Mansion
● Arna Bontemps / Miracles
● Arna Bontemps / Reconnaissance
● Robert E. Hayden / The Diver
● Robert E. Hayden / Frederick Douglass
● Robert E. Hayden / Runagate Runagate
● Dudley Randall / The Southern Road
● Dudley Randall / Booker T. and W. E. B.
● Dudley Randall / Perspectives
● Dudley Randall / To the Mercy Killers
● Margaret A. Walker / For My People
● Margaret A. Walker / Molly Means
● Gwendolyn Brooks / from The Womanhood in “Annie Allen”
● Gwendolyn Brooks / from Section II of The Womanhood in “Annie Allen”
● Gwendolyn Brooks / The Egg Boiler
● James A. Emanuel / A Clown at Ten
● James A. Emanuel / Emmett Till
● James A. Emanuel / After the Record is Broken
● James A. Emanuel / A Pause for a Fine Phrase
● Mari Evans / The Alarm Clock
● Mari Evans / And the Old Women Gathered
● Mari Evans / When in Rome
● Mari Evans / Black Jam for Dr. Negro
● Leroi Jones / Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note
● Leroi Jones / A Poem for Black Hearts
● Leroi Jones / Jitterbugs
● Arthur P. Davis / Trends in Negro American Literature (1940-65)
● Philip Butcher / Emerson and the South
● Nathan A. Scott Jr. / Society and the Self in Recent American Literature
● Julian Mayfield / Into the Mainstream and Oblivion

● Bibliography
● Index

• The editors note that, "Although no novels have been excerpted for this anthology, a glimpse of their representative contents is vital background for understanding other works" (361).

• n/a

• Includes a "selective but fairly extensive bibliography (pp. 564-600), especially valuable on library holdings and collections of black American literature and individual black American authors. It describes ten holdings and collections, and lists nine others. Lists works by and about more than thirty black American writers, major and minor; this section is divided into three major parts, following the divisions of the anthology: 'Early Literature,' 'The Negro Awakening,' and 'Contemporary.' This section is especially useful for its listing of individual short stories that do not appear in collections" (Rowell 1972: 34).
• A well-produced anthology: "It is arranged by chronological sections, not by genres, and the section introductions are substantial. A section on 'Major Authors' includes Hughes, Wright, Ellison, and Baldwin, all with well-written introductions, not brief headnotes. The thirty-five page bibliography is well planned and executed. More belletristic than most anthologies in the field, Dark Symphony states emphatically that 'intrinsic artistic merit' is the criterion for inclusion, not social or historical relevance. A weakness more obvious now than a quarter century ago is the paucity of women writers (four out of thirty-four) and the absence of Phillis Wheatley and Zora Neale Hurston" (Kinnamon 1997: 463).

Kinnamon 1997: 463

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