The myth of Solomon/Sugarman, "the Flying African," is based on a Yoruba folktale that originated among African storytellers and was brought to the United States by free Africans sold as slaves. The story, which centers on a witch doctor or conjure man who empowers enslaved Africans to fly back to Africa, became popular among slaves on the isolated Sea Islands off the coasts of Georgia and South Carolina; for them, the story symbolized a means of escaping the cruelties of slavery.
Originally titled "All God's Chillun Had Wings," the story was first recorded in Drums and Shadows: Survival Studies among the Georgia Coastal Negroes, a book produced in the early 1900s by the Federal Writers' Project, an organization committed to, among its other projects, documenting the stories of African Americans that had been passed down to them by their ancestors, many of whom had been slaves. The story also appeared in The Book of Negro Folklore, a collection of folktales compiled by Langston Hughes and Arna Bontemps, two African-American writers best known for their works published during New York's famous Harlem Renaissance (1915-35). A revised, contemporary version of the story, "People Who Could Fly," appears in Julius Lester's Black Folktales, published in 1969.
With its powerful imagery of overcoming and transcending the societal limits of race, sex, and class, flying is a central, symbolic element that reverberates throughout the novel. Song of Solomon alludes to numerous flights that highlight historical events or symbolize pivotal points in the characters' development. In feminist literature, flight is also a major theme that often includes images of broken-winged birds and crashing planes, symbolizing women's thwarted attempts to transcend their limited boundaries. In most cases, their efforts are thwarted by men and by their own lack of faith in their abilities. Although Song of Solomon features a male protagonist, it also focuses on the experiences of its female characters. Thus it is decidedly a "womanist" — the African-American equivalent of "feminist" — novel.
