In spite of the unique beauty and universal appeal of African American spirituals, they are rarely considered to be lyric poetry. In the first major study, this book attests that the spirituals deserve a central place in the African American and American poetry canon as one of a foundational and distinctive body of lyric expression. Ramey restores the slave songs to their rightful place in literary tradition for their intrinsic value as poetry, and as a touchstone of the American imagination.