Upon his arrival in the North, Frederick Douglass found, to his utter astonishment, "persons who could speak of the singing among slaves as the evidence of their contentment and happiness." As late as 1903, W.E.B. Du Bois observed that African American spirituals had led naive whites to believe that "life was joyous to the black slave, careless and happy." While these misconceptions have largely disappeared, the history of African American culture--and...