ABSTRACT
It would distort African American music to argue that it has functioned primarily or even largely as a forum for protest. Black Americans have not spent all of their time reacting to the Whites around them, and their songs are fi lled with comments on all aspects of life. But it would be an even greater distortion to assume that a people occupying the position that African Americans have in American society could create so rich and varied a music with few allusions and responses to their situation. For millions of Black Americans, throughout slavery and long after emancipation, the normal outlets for protest and political expression remained fi rmly closed. To comprehend their reaction to the system under which they were forced to live, it is necessary to make our defi nition of resistance less restrictive and more realistic.
