The Black Radical Tragic America and the Long 19th Century General Editors David Kazanjian, Elizabeth McHenry, and Priscilla Wald Black Frankenstein: The Making of an American Metaphor Elizabeth Young Neither Fugitive nor Free: Atlantic Slavery, Freedom Suits, and the Legal Culture of Travel Edlie L. Wong Shadowing the White Man’s Burden: U.S. Imperialism and the Problem of the Color Line Gretchen Murphy Bodies of Reform: The Rhetoric of Character in Gilded- Age America James B. Salazar Empire’s Proxy: American Literature and U.S. Imperialism in the Philippines Meg Wesling Sites Unseen: Architecture, Race, and American Literature William A. Gleason Racial Innocence: Performing American Childhood from Slavery to Civil Rights Robin Bernstein American Arabesque: Arabs and Islam in the Nineteenth Century Imaginary Jacob Rama Berman Racial Indigestion: Eating Bodies in the Nineteenth Century Kyla Wazana Tompkins Idle Threats: Men and the Limits of Productivity in Nineteenth- Century America Andrew Lyndon Knighton The Traumatic Colonel: The Founding Fathers, Slavery, and the Phantasmatic Aaron Burr Michael J. Drexler and Ed White Unsettled States: Nineteenth- Century American Literary Studies Edited by Dana Luciano and Ivy G. Wilson Sitting in Darkness: Mark Twain, Asia, and Comparative Racialization Hsuan L. Hsu Picture Freedom: Remaking Black Visuality in the Early Nineteenth Century Jasmine Nichole Cobb Stella Émeric Bergeaud Translated by Lesley Curtis and Christen Mucher Racial Reconstruction: Black Inclusion, Chinese Exclusion, and the Fictions of Citizenship Edlie L. Wong Ethnology and Empire: Languages, Literature, and the Making of the North American Borderlands Robert Lawrence Gunn The Black Radical Tragic: Performance, Aesthetics, and the Unfinished Haitian Revolution Jeremy Matthew Glick The Black Radical Tragic Performance, Aesthetics, and the Unfinished Haitian Revolution Jeremy Matthew Glick a New York University Press New York and London NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS New York and London www.nyupress.org © 2016 by New York University All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Glick, Jeremy Matthew. The Black radical tragic : performance, aesthetics, and the unfinished Haitian Revolution / Jeremy Matthew Glick. pages cm. (America and the long 19th century) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4798-4442-5 (cl : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-4798-1319-3 (pb : alk. paper) 1. Haiti—In literature. 2. Haiti—History—Revolution, 1791–1804— Drama. 3. Haiti—History—Revolution, 1791–1804—Literature and the revolution. 4. Blacks in literature. 5. Radicalism in literature. 6. Tragic, The, in literature. I. Title. PN56.3.H35G55 2015 809'.933587294—dc23 2015021342 References to Internet websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the author nor New York University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared. New York University Press books are printed on acid- free paper, and their binding materials are chosen for strength and durability. We strive to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials to the greatest extent possible in publishing our books. Manufactured in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Also available as an ebook A book in the American Literatures Initiative (ALI), a collaborative publishing project of NYU Press, Fordham University Press, Rutgers University Press, Temple University Press, and the University of Virginia Press. The Initiative is supported by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. For more information, please visit www.americanliteratures.org. In loving memory of Barry H. Glick, Ivan Van Sertima, and Amiri Baraka Contents Acknowledgments xi Introduction: The Haitian Revolution as Refusal and Reuse 1 Overture: Haiti Against Forgetting and the Thermidorian Present 25 1 Haitian Revolutionary Encounters: Eugene O’Neill, Sergei Eisenstein, and Orson Welles 54 2 Bringing in the Chorus: The Haitian Revolution Plays of C.L.R. James and Edouard Glissant 85 3 Tragedy as Mediation: The Black Jacobins 126 4 Tshembe’s Choice: Lorraine Hansberry’s Pan-Africanist Drama and Haitian Revolution Opera 170 Conclusion: Malcolm X’s Enlistment of Hamlet and Spinoza 198 Coda: Black Radical Tragic Propositions 214 Notes 223 Index 255 About the Author 267 Acknowledgments This book would have been impossible without the mentor- ship and encouragement of Brent Hayes Edwards, who saw me through the early stages of this project. Brent is a paragon of radical generosity. I am immeasurably grateful for seventeen years of his mentorship and con- sistent friendship. Time spent with Brent and Nora is the best thing about living in New York City. Fred Moten’s kindness and thoughtfulness is a model of radical com- mitment. I am so thankful for his friendship. Bruce Robbins’s and Michael McKeon’s concern and guidance (in both scholarly and personal matters) continue to sustain me after twenty years. I have so much love for these guys. When I am at my best, I hope I’m achieving a fraction of their contributions. Sampada Aranke read every word of this book in manuscript form. The only thing that surpasses Sam’s dedication to Black radical thought and praxis is the warmth of her smile. Richard Dienst kindly suggested key formulations to this book’s prefa- tory sections. In a profound sense, we will need to build another world to adequately appreciate the brilliance and urgency of his scholarship. What Brecht said about Benjamin’s “On the Concept of History” easily applies to the entirety of Richard’s thought: One thinks “with horror about how few people there are ready even at least to misunderstand something like this.” Thanks to my students and colleagues at Hunter College for helping to clarify my priorities and understanding. Thanks to Thom Taylor of the Hunter English Department—for everything, really. This book was written mainly in Brooklyn, New York, but also ben- efited from the generosity of two friends’ willingness to share both their families and homes: Peter Bratsis (Kasos, Greece) and Marlene Hennessy (St. Andrews, Scotland). Selma James makes the world less dangerous. I am grateful for her fellowship. xii Acknowledgments Mike Ladd’s artwork from his album The Infesticons: Bedford Park (photographed by Nathalie Mourout) graces the cover of this book. Mike’s friendship and our thirteen years as part-time roommates span two bor- oughs and two continents. It sustains me creatively and in many respects made this book possible. Thank you to the anonymous readers at NYU Press for their sage criti- cisms and commentary. To Alicia Nadkarni at NYU Press—an absolute pleasure to work with. Salute to my dear friend David Kazanjian and to Elizabeth McHenry and Priscilla Wald for their belief in this project. Heartfelt thanks to Jennifer Backer for the stellar copyediting. Thank you to Marilyn Bliss for the stellar index. And Dhoruba Bin Wahad for letting me use epigraphs. I am profoundly grateful to the following professors, friends, and com- rades: Donald B. Gibson, Carter Mathes, and his family for always making me feel welcome, Shannon Mathes, the Mathes youth, Samantha Ander- son, Elin Diamond, Wesley Brown, Ibrahim Noor Shariff, Cheryl Wall, Matthew Buckley, Chuck D, Mohamed Haroun, Maha Haroun, Carolynn Williams, Ed Cohen, Mutulu M1, Stic, Divine, and Tahir, María Josefina Saldaña-Portillo, Brian Rourke, Billy Galperin, Daphne Lamothe, Aldon Lynn Neilsen, William J. Harris, Leonard Bethel, Edward Ramsamy, Karla Jackson-Brewer, Elaine Chang, John McClure, Miguel Algarin, Cheryl Robinson, Phil Rosenfelt, Belinda Edmondson, Clement Price, Barbara Foley, Tzarina Prater, Anantha Sudhakar, Hortense Spillers, David Scott, Rachel Kranson, Brett Singer, Michael Daniel Rubenstein for his friend- ship, unconditional support, razor-sharp humor, and insight, Kelly Baker Josephs, Susie Nakley, Gary Zeitlin, Nikolas Sparks, Nick Mitchell, Yumi Pak, Anna Abramyan-Bagramyan, Eric Berger, Sommer Dowd, Anna Posner, Aryn Schwartz, Edwin Whitewolf, Matt Behrens, Nora Barrows Friedman, John P. Clark, Bill DiFazio, Kazembe Balagun, Sumayya Kas- samali, Sonali Perera, Sara Salman, and Tanya Agathocleous; my chairs Cristina Alfar and Sarah Chinn for seeing me to and through the tenure process; Nijah Cunningham, Rupal Oza, Jennifer Gaboury, Harriet Luria, Kaiama L. Glover Dylan E. Rodriguez, Joi Gilliam, and Trauma Black; my man Cecil Brown; Barbara Webb, Tony Alessandrini, Daniel Vukovitch, Heidi Bramson and Ryan Joseph, Bill Germano, Sohnya Sayres, Man- thia Diawara, Christopher Winks, Soyica Diggs Colbert, Ryan Howard, Rick Vitucci, Herman Bennett, Robert Reid-Pharr, Amiel Alcalay, Ashna Ali, Hillary Chute, Candice Jenkins, my friend Michael Pelias, and Stan- ley Aronowitz; the Situations Study Group; Alison Dell, Evie Shockley, Acknowledgments xiii Tony Bogues, Ronald A. T. Judy, Meg Havran, Paul Bové, Nick Nesbitt, Margo Natali Crawford, Andy Hsiao, Jacob Stevens, Kristin Wartman, Brian Norman, Robert A. Hill, Christian Høgsbjerg, Rachel Douglas, Raj Chetty, Kamel Bell, Russell Shoatz III, Ankh Marketing, my dear friend Alan Vardy and the entire Vardy La Familia, my brothers Mario Ramirez- Hardy Africa and Siidiq “Creech” Booker; Rob “Sonic” Smith, Jun, Fred Ones, Thomas DeGloma, Sarah Jane Cervenak, Janet Neary, Robert Schnare, Minkah Makalani, Edgar Rivera Colon and Lillian, Samuel San- chez and Nancy Nevarez, Yuri Kochiyama, Elombe Brath, Bernard White, Darryl Scipio, Tinaya Wos, Dax Devlon-Ross, Ahi Baraka and Chumma, Mike