How Sweet the Sound: The Spirit of African American History

This new reader contains 38 selections relating to African American cultural history. Drawing upon the author's interest and expertise in oral traditions, this reader identifies historical "texts" that reveal thought and achievement in African American communities in the United States. Professor Fitch emphasizes such non-written records as orature, movement and dance, vernacular architecture, and the plastic arts in combating the notion that traditionally oral communities have little to offer historians. HOW SWEET THE SOUND portrays the urgency and vibrancy of African American history.