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FREEDOMWAYS FOURTH QUARTER 1966

understood. The first of many thigs that one must understand about what is called "Negro humor" is that it is a two-faced coin with an following lines taken from an old blues song:

You see me laughin'
I'm laughin' just to
Keep from cryin'.

To the black American, humor has been many different things, depending on time, need and circumstances. It has been concurrently an outlet for deep frustration, an emotional crutch and a survival tactic. "Negro humor" that is worth serious attention must be more serious than humorous.

In his introduction to this book of "Negro humor" collected and edited by Philip Sterling, Saunders Redding has said:

To declare that American Negro humor is different is to state a quite obvious, though generally ignored, fact. But how is it different? And from what is it different?... Except for the beast fables, which are anciently derived from the world's multi-racial heritage, and which were truly universal long before America Negro humor is rooted in social oppression. And—again excepting the animal fables —it differs from classical, Western, and white American humor in another respect. It is totally devoid of those myth-making and myth-transmitting elements and symbols that appeal so deeply to the American mind in the tall-tale tellers such as Davy Crockett, Seba Smith, Mike Fink, and Mark Twain. There are no Rip Van Winkles, Johnny Appleseeds, Paul Bunyans, or Calamity Janes—and none bearing the faintest resemblance to them—in Negro American humor.

It is to Philip Sterling's credit that he made every effort to search for new material for this book and also to select some of the best of the old material. The book is arranged to show the many varieties of "Negro humor" and how it is often used as a shield against oppression. Neither the editor of this book nor any of the many contributors to it are of the opinion that humor has helped to destroy oppression. The Afro-American's particular sense of humor has helped him to survive in spite of oppression.

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Transcription Notes:
not dictating italicize to adhere to current guidelines