For those who are not familiar with him, William Grant Still was a 20th century American composer who happened to be Black. His first symphony was entitled “Afro-American Symphony,” and I played it more than once while in the Everett (Washington) Symphony under our Black conductor, Paul-Elliott Cobbs. Sometime in the 1990s, the orchestra gifted him with the composer’s score of the symphony. We received standing ovations in 2006, when we played the “Afro-American Symphony” in Carnegie Hall.
Still’s second symphony was composed in 1936-37, and it bears his subtitle “Song of a New Race.” The composer saw his G minor second symphony as representing
… the American colored man of today, in so many instances a totally new individual produced through the fusion of White, Indian, and Negro bloods.
I found this quote on the website of the American Symphony Orchestra, in program notes written by Catherine Parsons Smith. My guess is that the composer’s subtitle and comments would not be allowed in polite society today. In a society that has rejected the ideas of Martin Luther King, Jr., Still might be an outcast. But his music speaks volumes for him and deserves a wider audience.
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