Frederick Douglass Believes Regarding Slave Music And How It Represents The Core Of Slavery

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The article discusses the view Frederick Douglass has regarding slave music and how it represents the core of slavery. Stuckey states that there is a link between the slave spirituals and the advent of the blues. He also investigates the influence Douglass had on Du Bois. Du Bois idea regarding the beginnings of slave music has a direct lineage back to Frederick Douglass accounts according to Stuckey. Douglass did not discern a difference between the music heard within the “Ring Shout” and the anguish that rose from the fields as the slaves sang away the tedious day of field labor. Stuckey draws a comparison in regards to how Du Bois and Douglass viewed the origins and the slave spiritual, the connection to religion and eventual evolution