PoppaGator,

I agree with you comments about self-segregation in public nightclubs. There's a funny/sad scene from the movies Animal House where the White fraternity guys and their dates traveling on the road & seeing a sign announcing that the Black band that recently played at the fraternity party where at this club. The guys & their dates walk in and all talk & action stops as they realize that they are the only White people there. If you haven't done so, watch the movie and see what else happens...

You wrote:
"Blacks in the US created a folk culture of their own, rooted in the shared experience of being taken straight from Africa, in large numbers, to the plantation South"

I think that it is good to summarize the points, but may I tweak your points about African Americans a bit just for more historical accuracy?

I would say that African Americans [Blacks] created folk cultures. Also, all people of African descent who came to the United States were not enslaved, some had been enslaved in the North, and some in the South did not live on plantations... In addition, all enslaved African Americans were not taken directly from Africa, but went first to the Caribbean.

See my post in the thread on contemporary Black folk music for the passages that I excerpted from the web on two African American cultures that [I believe] most African Americans are quite unfamiliar with: Zydeco music & Mardi Gras Black Indians. There are a number of sub-sets of African Americans whose lifestyles and music is shaped by their ancestor's nations of origin, and their regions, religions, political beliefs, and economic status etc.

However, if I understand you correctly, are you saying that pre-20th century, Black people in the USA exerted a highly significant influence on that nation's culture, but prior to the 20th century emigration to the UK of Africans & Caribbean people, the cultural influence of Black people in the UK can't be documented?