SOURCE: "James Weldon Johnson's God's Trombones as a Source for Faulkner's Rev'un Shegog," in CLA Journal, Vol. XXXVI, No. 1, September, 1992, pp. 24-30.

In the following essay, Fleming suggests the influence of Johnson 's God's Trombones on William Faulkner's southern black preacher in The Sound and the Fury.

Studies of Faulkner's relationship to the black race have usually treated his depiction of black characters, his position on civil rights questions, the place of African Americans in Faulkner's South, or Faulkner's influence—positive and negative—on later black writers from Ralph Ellison to William Melvin Kelley.¹ It has generally been assumed that Faulkner, as a Southerner, needed no sources for his successful black characters. He grew up among black people and had ample opportunity to observe their speech and mannerisms. However, comparing the Easter service at Dilsey's church with James Weldon Johnson's book of African-American sermons in verse, God's Trombones...