[African-Americana – Sheet Music – World War II] Razaf, Andy; Blake, Eubie; Cooke, Chas. L.

We Are Americans Too. [Sheet Music]

New York City: Handy Brothers Music Co., Inc., 1941. Sheet music measuring 9 x 12 ¼ inches. 8pp including covers. Covers with wear to edges and some wrinkling and folds, very good plus. Interior pages with some wear to edges, excellent. Overall very good to excellent. Item #List3633

Sheet music for “We Are Americans Too” by Andy Razaf, Eubie Blake, and Charles L. Cooke. The three were significant figures in the jazz and ragtime scenes. Razaf (1895–1973) was a composer and lyricist known for jazz standards “Ain’t Misbehavin’” and “Honeysuckle Rose.” Pianist and composer Blake (1887–1983) was a child prodigy and vaudevillian who wrote the musical Shuffle Along (1921), the first Broadway production to be written, directed, produced, and starring only Black artists. “Doc” Cooke (1891–1958) was a bandleader and arranger with a prolific recording ensemble who later worked at Radio City Music Hall and composed orchestrations for Broadway shows. The sheet music was published by Handy Brothers Music Company, the publishing company of musician, musicologist, and “Father of the Blues” W. C. Handy. Handy donated 100 copies of “We Are Americans Too” to Martin Luther King, Jr., to raise money for the Montgomery Improvement Association.[1]

Razaf’s lyrics for the song proclaim African Americans’ patriotism and roles in the US’s major wars, from the American Revolution to World War I; the cover art shows Black soldiers marching together in Revolutionary War, Civil War, and WWI-era uniforms. At the time of writing, the US was deep in the Jim Crow era; African Americans during World War II served in segregated units, were mostly excluded from officership, and were treated poorly at home and abroad. Razaf writes: “None have loved Old Glory more than we. / Or have shown a greater loyalty, / Bunker Hill to the Rhine, / We’ve been right there in line, / Serving the Red, White and Blue, / All our future is here, / Everything we hold dear, / WE ARE AMERICANS TOO.”

We find four copies on OCLC.

[1] Martin Luther King, Jr. to Lovie M. Rainbow, July 10, 1956, The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/lovie-m-rainbow.

Price: $350.00