Christian P.
Blues People: Negro Music in White America
Reading Response:

        Amiri Baraka wrote this book as one of earliest depictions of African-American artistic expression in the form of blues, the first widely-known and beloved music in America's history. Since becoming a staple of American culture and tradition since its inception, the musical genre known as blues has also been central to the upkeep of the influential Afro-American culture at the same time. As a society that has been facing oppression for so long, Baraka believed it was the only way Afro-Americans could combat the racial divide. Through utilizing art, blues, the "parent of jazz", became symbolic and representative of the notion that music never had any bounds.
        The growth of Afro-American music, specifically blues, had never been conventional nor by intent. Baraka explains that their music had been embraced by whites regardless of where it came from, meaning that artistic expression as a concept had been sorely absent in America as blacks essentially were its pioneers fairly more so than whites. Baraka talks about the impact and values of art in the form of music:

Blues is the parent of all legitimate jazz, and it is impossible to say exactly how old blues is-certainly no older than the presence of Negroes in the United States. It is a native American music, the product of the black man in this country: or to put it more exactly the way I have come to think about it, blues could not exist if the African captives had not become American captives. (3)  

Baraka firmly believed that blues may not have existed if blacks never faced the kinds of hardships and brutal conditions that they did. Afro-American art was a product of the lives they lived and their music encapsulated just that. Even so, whites enjoyed and even reveled blues just as much as the oppressed artists.
        The evolution of Afro-American culture developed parallel to the triumphs and progressions of their society as a whole (70). With each and every achievement, their art evolved, gradually blurring the line between black and American art. Whether their music was melancholy or uplifting, it reflected their emotions while inspiring and empowering them simultaneously. Consequently, blues became more influential as it was a primary source that gave the world a glimpse into black life in America.