Where's the support for "contemporary" in (A)? That's what tripped me. In passage A, it only says "SOME cultural critics." We have no idea if they're contemporary or if they're from some bygone era.

I got this question right not because I felt good about (D) but because all others felt so much worse, and I think that's how you should approach this question instead of trying to justify the "1920s and 1930s" part. Where does the "1920s and 1930s" in (D) come from? All the justification attempted in the comments below seem tenuous at best from my standpoint, and you just have to go with (D) here on the basis that others are evidently, obviously wrong.

This period is not mentioned in the passage anywhere, and the fact that Ormes's comic strip that featured prominent black musicians was published in 1937-38 doesn't automatically mean that African American artists enjoyed great success and recognition in that decade and the one preceding it. For all we know, it could have been a nostalgic love letter to times two or more decades before that or whatever.

Being a fan, I knew that Duke Ellington rose to prominence in the 20s, but that's outside knowledge the test shouldn't require test takers to have. I had no idea what time Cab Calloway was situated in anyways.

Love it when an RC passage is on a subject I'm passionate about and would have read even if I weren't studying for the LSAT

(A), (B) - Sophocles's Antigone

(C) - Probably Euripides's Medea, though it could be Aeschylus's Oresteia too.

(D) - Aeschylus's Seven Against Thebes

(E) - Sophocles's Oedipus Rex