Great African American Anthems:

"This brief study explicates a deeper poetics of meaning encapsulated within fine music at once sacred and secular. Along the way, it explores subtle cross-fertilizations between African American aesthetics and American organized labor. In tracing the race’s cultural memory, a path leads from the secular music of the early nineteenth century to the experimental arrangements of the modern era. While the major concern here is literary appreciation, readers may discover, secondly, a subtext of American politics. For often the popular culture of the times reveals the social injustices of them as well. "
From the Introduction