nd argues that blacks have the same hopes, human feelings, and sensibilities as whites and ought to be seen as human kin, not as fearsome criminals and beasts. The novel further develops Dunbar's vision of the new black man, which he first developed in the strong-limbed twenty-year-old, ragged, barefoot son of a contraband slave he had depicted in The Fanatics. In Berry Hamilton, he sees the emergence of this new black man, full of pride and dignity, who recognizes his right to be free and independent, a man struggling against ignorance and white oppression in an effort to offer his children the "best education in town" and his family a "neat cottage." In his concept of this new black man, Dunbar touches upon an idea that is treated more fully by writers of the Harlem Renaissance, who stressed a new black awareness in America nearly twenty years after the appearance of Dunbar's novel.
             The Sport of the Gods, Dunbar's major achievement in fiction, was reviewed in the leading newspapers and magazines across the country. Some critics cal
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