Black Solidarity as Expressed in the Blues

During several periods of its history, and particularly in the late fifties and early sixties when the new black consciousness was developing, the blues has been seen, especially among up-and-coming blacks and those active in social and political movements, as an abject music smacking of Uncle Tomism and connoting a retrogressive attitude which they now wanted to leave behind. I have attempted to show that the blues is much more than that and that a protest function which relies heavily on ir..