ston Hughes says, "Humor is laughing at what you haven't got when you ought to have it. Of course, you laugh by proxy. You're really laughing at the other guy lacks, not your own. That's what makes it funny-The fact that you don't know you are laughing at yourself. Humor is when the joke is on you but hits the other fellow first-Because it boomerangs. Humor is what you wish in your secret heart were not funny, but it is, and you must laugh. Humor is your unconscious therapy" (Hughes, 1966) Laughter for centuries has been the medicine that has helped to ensure the survival of African Americans.
             "Herded together with others with whom they shared only a common condition of servitude and some degree of cultural overlap, enslaved Africans were compelled to create a new language, a new religion, and a precarious new lifestyle." (Joyner, 1984) As Africans were unloaded by boat and placed onto plantations, slave masters were completely enthralled by the way they spoke, moved, and danced. Out of slavery emerged a culture that would influence America's mainstream culture for infinity. Slavery created bondage for Africans and when it looked like they were going nowhere fast; they laughed, sang, and amused one another with riddles, jokes and animal tales from the homeland. Slave masters could not conceive why slaves in such a miserable state were so joyous, what they did not know was many of the songs, jokes and riddles were more than surface deep and many times about the master. The slaves made the best of the circumstances through humor and by laughing at the way the slave master treated them and their reaction to this treatment. They were laughing at the slave master and at the same time laughing at themselves. However, it did not take long before slave masters made slave merry-making public. Many times slaves were called upon to entertain master and their guests. Slave merry-making was also encouraged because it also increased the price of ...