Our song, our toil, our cheer, and warning have been giving to this nation in blood-brotherhood. Are not these gifts worth giving? Is not this work and striving? Would America have been America without her Negro people?

Eric Sundquist's answer to this last question is an emphatic 600 page plus "no!" However, To Wake the Nations does far more than simply describe the often unnoticed physical contributions of African-Americans to this country. In this book, Sundquist looks at black variations of language, dialect, revolutionary idealogy, folklore, prophetic leaders, Afrocentrism, music and vernacular culture among other aspects, in order to try and understand the crisis of race in America and, in particular, American Literature. Sundquist accomplishes this task by taking a look at what many others have labeled "marginal" texts, and extracting from them the many cultural values that he believes even modern day readers fail to see. He believes that racism and prejudice have clouded America's vision when it comes to recognizing the impact of African-Americans on this country. Therefore, he attempts to recognize as many examples as he can. He admits, "Certain themes and tropes recur throughout the book, but there is no single running argument (7)." Sundquist does bring credibility to numerous texts which may have otherwise gone largely unnoticed, yet he still illustrates the effect of various forms of African-American traditions and cultural values on society. To Wake the Nations is an attempt to do just that - to bring serious attention to the numerous forms of African-American contributions, as well as, the impact, interpretation, and misrepresentation of those contributions on the foundations of this country.

Although he reviews a number of lesser known works by authors such as Nat Turner, Herman Melville, and Mark Twain, Sundquist devotes almost one third of the writing in his book to Charles Chestnutt. Sundquist argues that as a nineteenth century African-American fiction writer, Chestnutt has hardly been read with the seriousness he deserves. The particular work that Sundquist focused on is The Marrow of Tradition. He used this work to show how an African-American art-form had been transformed by white audiences, that either could not or would not grasp the cultural significance, into a degrading and comical form. The specific art form he spoke of was called "The Cakewalk."

For white audiences, viewing the cakewalk served as a simple form of amusement. The cakewalk originated among American black slaves who, often in the presence of their masters, used the dance as a subtle satire on the elegance of white ballroom dances. White audiences used the cakewalk as a stereotype in minstrel shows where white men would don black make-up and perform the cakewalk in exaggerated form. As Chesnutt points out in The Marrow of Tradition, In order to give the [Northern] vistors... a pleasing impression of southern customs, and particularly of the happy-go-lucky disposition of the Southern darky and his entire contentment with existing conditions, it was decided by the hotel management to treat them on the last night of their visit, to a little diversion, in the shape of a negro cakewalk. (272) White audiences did not see the cakewalk as having any significant cultural value. Whether performed by actual slaves or by men in blackface, the cakewalk was simply a form of entertainment that reinforced the one stereotype whites truly wanted to believe; Blacks were a happy-go-lucky, ignorant and lazy people that were content with their conditions. Sundquist describes the Cakewalk by saying,
It derived in its stage form from the "walk-around" that concluded many minstrel shows, a grand promenade in which couples dancing in a circle competed with fancy improvised steps and struts...[By the end of the 19th century] the cakewalk would become the most popular element of the minstrel and early black theatrical stage, usually a grand finale with elaborate chereography and costumes. It could be easily made to correspond to the stereotype of black buffoonery...(277).
Even though some might argue that such performances actually benefitted blacks in terms of employment opportunities, the rise of the cakewalk and coon songs came at an obvious price. "It was an age of black caricature on stage and in print from the crude racism of white supremist propaganda to stand-up comedy to the manifold racist representations of blacks in song-sheet illustrations, advertisements and southern memorabilia (283)." Whites had taken these forms of Afican-American expression and transformed them to fit within their own racist models.

Yet, in trying so hard to fit such aspects of African-American expression within their agenda, Sundquist argues that whites have overlooked the extent to which blacks were actually rebelling through their clever use of satire that actually mocked whites. America, according to Sunquist, tends to remember the ways in which whites mocked African-Americans through minstrelsy, but often forgets the original functions of such acts as the cakewalk. The true roots of the cakewalk had a meaning separate from and prior to enslavement. Based on the oral testimony of former slaves and their descendents, Sunquist writes that,
The cakewalk was a festival dance connected to harvest time. In their Sunday dress, sometimes lighting the night with torches, the slaves competed for a prize cake awarded for the best "cuttin of figgers...Marked by cheerfulness and grace...it could be traced in form, if not in particulars, to African tribal celebrations (281).
The cakewalk combined this ritual festivity with the cycle of plantation work. Slaves had taken their mundane labor tasks and reinterpreted them as an art form. As Sterling Stuckley observes, such a dance allowed the slaves to review "the labor performed on the plantation that made it possible for the master to exist and to prosper." The plantation cakewalk was thus "a means of distancing slaves from the purely exploitative reality of work, and extracting from the experience spiritual and artistic rewards, which helped slaves to affirm their dignity through labor (281)." Slaves were well aware of their dismal plight, but just because they all did not resist through acts of force and violence does not mean that they were accepting of their situation. Blacks found other means of resistance through these expressions of song and dance.

The underlying genius of such expressions as the cakewalk, "lay in its combination of satire and cultural celebration, and in the resulting complexly layered consciousness - at once derivative and original, subordinated and resistant - that marked the evolution of much African-American literary and material expression (281)." This example shows that even though blacks were the ones enslaved, they still did not submit to a slave mentality. Not only did such traditions as the cakewalk allow blacks to keep their cultural values and mock whites, but it allowed blacks to achieve these goals unbeknownst to many whites. Charles Chessnutt's stories often disguise the intelligence of black characters behind their black dialect or even such then-laughable story titles for white audiences, such as "Po' Sandy" and "Sis' Becky's Pickaninny." As in "The Goophered Grapevine" Uncle Julius would often tell tales to whites in order to achieve his goals of obtaining food, shelter or other necessities. Though not always successful, his ability to create tales for the sake of self-preservation shows that he had a great deal of hidden wit.

Similarly, Eric Sundquist argues that the values of African-Americans are often overlooked or misinterpreted when judged by the standards of European culture. Both cultures express their values in different ways, yet Sundquist feels African-Americans, both those that suffered enslavement, as well as authors such as Chesnutt and W.E.B DuBois deserve recognition for their methods of often-undetected resistance to the dominant culture. Chessnutt, for example, disguised the intelligence of blacks behind the veil of a dialect that whites more often found comical than cultural. "I lives des ober yander, behine de nex' san'-hill, on de lumberton - plank road," were Julius' words. Dialect, such as this, would easily draw in whites for amusements. This was Chessnutts con in getting whites to believe that blacks were content with their dire situation.

Throughout his work, Sundquist attacks many other issues pertaining to the crisis of race and mythology of origins in a similar fashion. It would be nearly impossible to write a thematic review based on all the ideas he presents. In critiquing this one brief section of his writing on Chesnutt, Sundquist presents a strong case for exemplifying the unacknowledged wit of slaves and the face of racist mockery. Whites, indeed, were only fooling themselves if they believed blacks were simply content.

Therefore, the main question that remains unanswered is whether Sunquist really Wakes the Nation. The answer is, "indirectly." Considering he only wrote the book 5 years ago, Sundquist only writes of the distant past without really explaining how he sees such African-American values of song and dance manifesting themselves today. Neither he nor DuBois can realistly expect people to revisit the cakewalk just because, in spite of racial stereotypes, the traditional value of it has finally been recognized. As DuBois says of black spirituals, While rejoicing in the progress of race, one cannot feel that these quaint old spirituals, with their peculiar melodies, having served their time with effectiveness, deserve a better fate than to sink into oblivion as unvalued and unrecorded examples of a bygone civilization (477). Dubois questions whether or not blacks have now forgotten their past. The answer from Sundquist should still be an resounding, "no."

Music and dance have always been a part of African-American culture. Blues, jazz and even hip-hop has simply replaced the African-American traditional expression that was once expressed through the cakewalk. Through each of these modern art forms African-Americans have found ways to express their own dissatisfaction with American society. Yet, white America has also continued to mock such cultural expressions. The Blues Brothers, for example, are modern day white men in black clothes that sing mostly black songs for laughs. Based on their style of entertainment, it is not a far stretch to compare them with minstrelsy. Even more recently, a movie called "The Wedding Singer" featured an elderly white woman singing the lyrics to one of hip-hops most original rap songs. Hers is another example of a black song being sung for laughs to a predominantly white audience. While certainly neither example should be accused of being overtly racist, the question of intent is left largely ambiguous. Cultural values between the two groups are still mis-communicated. Despite the money that hip-hop music brings in, many whites still have a difficult time accepting it as a serious or even true art form. And exactly how many Ebonics jokes have you heard? These examples all point back to Sunquist's original argument that black art forms are not taken seriously in America. Although well grounded, his argument certainly does not have to be limited to literature. African-American art-forms have been and still are being degraded through numerous types of media.