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Plantation Echoes

A COLLECTION of ORIGINAL
NEGRO DIALECT POEMS

By
Elliott Blaine Henderson

Columbus, Ohio
PRESS OF F. J. HEER
1904

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Entered According to Act of Congress
in the year 1904

BY E. B. HENDERSON

In the office of the Librarian of Congress
at Washington.

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The music of the American negro, the fresh and spontaneousexpression of a good and care-free heart, haslong been one of the most pleasing features of Americanlife. It is human nature in its first vocal garb—originaland unique, often humorous and always true to the sentimentof the singer. If there ever was an illustration of the closerelationship between language and thought, it is this.

What is true of the melodies of the negro as developedin the simple existence on the plantation is also true of thatother form of singing, verse-making. Among the negroesthere have sprung up a number of exponents of the wisdom,wit and humor of the race. They have caught the spirit ofothers—the humble philosophers of their kind—and theyhave employed the dialect to reproduce the thought in all itsquaintness and originality. One of the most notable of theseexponents or interpreters is an Ohio negro, Paul LawrenceDunbar, who has taken high rank among the poets of the day.Another is Elliott Blaine Henderson, also a son of Ohio, whosefirst volume of verse is herewith presented.

In much that Mr. Henderson here presents, there is therush of expression and the jingle of words that are so characteristicof the negro. There is also humor and there issentiment, and always that other quality which makes versein these days readable—good cheer.

He who correctly interprets the spirit of his race serves agood cause, and it is believed that Mr. Henderson will befound to have succeeded in his undertaking to make his peoplebetter and more widely understood.

E. G. Burkham,
Editor of the Columbus Dispatch, Columbus, Ohio.

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