Volume 4, Number 1 Bibliography Supplement Issue Spring/Summer 1995 Richard Wright-Black Boy Rounds Scholarly Conference Circuit by Kelley Norman the audience thalOnly the fllm medium could convey: the disparity between Before Richard Wright-Black Ihe powerful literary voice of Wright's Boy airs on PBS on September 4, the written works and the soft speaking first fi lm documentary of Ihe writer voice of Ihe writer, whom few people will have toured scholarly literary con­ have heard. ferences from the West coast to the Reilly explored Ihe social causa­ East tion of America's racial conditions re­ The documentary's first stop was vealed in Wright's work, which the Modem Language Association in shocked white readers at the time: San Diego, California where it was "When Wright challenges the racial well-received by an audience of more discourse by tapping into an alterna­ than 200. The panel members were tive racial discourse in his fiction, he director/wri ter, Madison Davis Lacy, presents us with the complexity of producerGuy Land,and Wright scholar African-American subjectivity." Keneth Kinnamon of Ihe University of Norlheastem University and the Arkansas. Panel ists talked about the Boston's Museum of Fine Arts col­ process of making the film and an­ laborated on the Boston premiere of swered questions for 45 minutes. Black Boy. Three screenings, one of Appearing as the sole panelist at which featured panelists Madison the Louisville Conference on 20th Davis Lacy, Maryemma Graham and Century Liter tur ,T dier Harris of Julia Wright, attracted an audience that Emory University made several criti­ totalled more than 400. cal observations, particularl y about the An enthusiastic audience took filmic interpretation ofW right's work. advantage of the opportunity to query In her opinion, allhough some drama­ the panelists: Lacy shared critical tizations distort Wright's work and lend moments in Ihe making of the fLlm ­ a false impression to first-time viewers getting an interview with Ralph Ellison, of the tex , Ihe teacher who takes on a [or xample. Graham noted the impor­ more active role as facilitatorcan make tance of reading and viewing biogra­ good use of Ihe film. phy-incl udi ng film biography- as DanielleTaylor-Gulhrie, who pre­ one of Ihe several ways to know an sented at the plenary session of the author, but discouraged heavy reliance National Association of Humanities on any single biography. Education conference in Cincinnati , "For a writer as important as Rich­ Ohio with fe llow panelist John M. ard Wright," she offered, "all biogra­ Reilly of Howard Uill ersity, Ihought phies are important and each offers us that the film 's intent-to reveal Wright somelhing we can leam about the au­ the man an d artist- wa also its thor Ihat the olher doesn't provide." slrenglh. The film should not be con­ Julia Wright'S forlhcoming Mem­ sidered a definitive source of li terary oirs will give us yet anolher under­ interpretation, he said. standing of Wright, distinguishing be­ Tay lor-Guthrie stated Ihat this film tween the voice of Wright critics and "lays Ihe groundwork and emphasizes herown personal voice which she n ted key points of Richard Wright's life was absent from previous biographies. wilhout sensationalizing aspects of it, MELUS chairperson Amritjit and reveal Wright's growth as a ma­ Singh arranged two film screenings at turing statesman and artist through his the annual conference in Providence, works Black Power, Pagan Spain and RI, and invited Julia Wright to his White Man , Listen!" She also noted undergraduate seminar class on Ricb- that an ironic element was presented to Continued on Page 2

, Spring/Summer 1995 Page 1 Film Biography, From Page 1 unable to give her. The contrast be­ Louisiana. tween Aunt Sue's death in Bright and Expecting both cntlclsm lind ani Wright and Toni Morrison. After Morning Star- and Bessie's death in praise of his documentary, Lacy be­ a reading of the murder of Bessie in Native Son gives us aclue to the quali­ lieves that academic conferences are Native Son, Julia Wright suggested a ties Richard Wright respected in "the most appropriate arena" for this "horizontal" approach to that excerpt­ women, Wright noted. kind of critical discussion: "Let the freely associating from it to other pages At the American Literature film get the slings and arrows it de­ and episodes in other Wright works, Association's meeting in Baltimore, serves, but I know I could be far more before referring "vertically" to critical Maryland a screening of the first half­ critical than any of the academics about or academic interpretations. hour of the film accompanied a session what I could have done because I know Involving Singh's students in a foc using on the fi lm. Panelist Keneth what I was striving for." creati ve, circular search for the author's Kinnamon surveyed the process of Like many other scholars and own intent in having Bigger kill Bessie, composing the film, noting that only a viewers, he believes the film to be a Wright highlighted two key episodes few pieces of live footage were avaiJ­ strong documentary based on sound in Black Boy: the killing of the kitten able to Lacy; John R eilly scholarShip and intended for a broad and Uncle Matthew's killing of his contextualized Wright's work; and audience. He explains that in any own girlfriend so that she would not Yoshinobu Hakutani of Kent State filmic effort something is lost in the " tell." The students themselves then University commented on the visual process of simplifying an abundance volunteered that the Bessi -like kitten power of the film to supplement the of material to fit within a specific timc­ symbolized the plaintive, inarticulate teaching of the autobiography, sug­ frame: "These kinds of films lack of independence and self-control gesting that Wright evoked poetic sen­ colloquialize the material because you which Jim Crow Eth ics had taught the sibility as he wrote about alienation want a broad audienc ,many of whom child, Richard, to kill within himself if and described character and scene. many not have heard of Wright, to gain he were to survive. Jerry Ward and Mary mma Gra­ access to the material and his life. And, Wright then submitted that it was ham introduced Richard Wright­ if after seeing this film, viewers are not Bessie 's sex Richard Wright feared Black Boy and held a freestyle discus­ motivated to read Wright's works then but her lack of strength and her near sion with 50 audience members at the the film has done its job, because ulti­ addictive need for a protection that annual meeting of the College Lan­ mately the film is not the end-all of Bigger as a powerless black male was guage Association in Baton Rouge, Wright's work; Wright's works are."

In This Issue The last half year has been an rent and past history would have in­ unusually active one for the Richard vited Wright's interests were he still Richard Wrighl-Black Boy Rounds Wright Circle. While the source of alive. Publication and professional Scholarly Conference Circuit that activity has primarily been the conference activities continue to in­ by Kelley Norman page 1 national tour ofRich ~rdWrighl--Black crease, marking the anniversary of his Boy, other factors signal the extent to classic autobiography. If all this ap­ Letter from the Editors page 2 which the newsletter continues to ex­ pears to be unconnected, we are re­ plore various ramifications of our na­ minded that Wright was committed to For Mumia Abu-Jamal tional and intemational landscape. In dismantling the categories into which by Julia Wright page 3 the nation and in the world at large, we could place the knowledge about academic and literary concerns share experience and the human expression Recent Publications page 4 equal time with a complicated public of that knowledge. What is personal is discourse which reminds us that free­ political, what ill private is indeed pub­ McCullers R calls Wright dom from oppression is never to be lic, and it has become increasingly y Carlos L. Dews page 5 taken for granted. Contributors have more difficult to se the individual in offered new insights on the relation­ opposition to the social. Certainly Reflec tions on the Black Male of the ship between Wright and Carson Wright's art was characterized by a 'Twenties and 'Thirties McCullers, a white southern writer heallhy tension regarding these seem­ by Clarence Hunter page 6 whom Wright seemed to prefer to ing polarities, a tension that served as Faulkner. This topic and indeed a driving force in his life, and one that Bosnia: A R turn to the Tyranny of Wright's views on southern white lit­ we replicate with this, our largest issue the Majority erature remain a relatively unexplored to dale. by Ri h Heyman page 8 aspect of southern intellectual history. Readers will welcome the special re­ Maryemma Graham Abstracts from 1994 MLA port on Bosnia, a country whose cur- Jerry W. Ward, Jr. Conference page 10

Page 2 Richard Wright Newsletter real-life Biggers, and he paid particu­ pending execution on August 17. He IFOR MUMIA ABU-JAMAL I lar attention to the letters he received would of course have criticized the from black prisoners who identified McCarthyist overtones of Abu-Jamal's by Julia Wright wilh Bigger. With the help of Dr. trial. He would characteristically have Frederic Wertham, the reputed psy­ argued thatajoumalist like Abu-Jamal Mumia Abu-Jamal has lost his last chiatrist who bad written Dark Leg­ who is capable of using "words as appeal and is now sentenced to go to end, Wright saved one of those prison­ weapons" would not have needed to the electric chair on August 17. Many eIS, Clinton Brewer, from death row. use a gun in the I iteral sense. He would feel that he is being victimized because Michel Fabre even recounts in his bi­ have mused wryly Ihat a half a century of statements he made on behalf of the ography on Wright, The Unfinished after the execution of his own Bigger, Black Panther Party at age sixlef:n . Quest, that when Dr. Wenham and here is a black prisoner who, unlike His account of his experience is docu­ Wright visited Brewer in prison, the Bigger, has not been proved to be a mented in Live from Dealh Row, with prison guard tried to refuse entry to murderer, who is a humanist and a aprefacebyJ.E. Wideman. Ajournal­ Wright: "Doctor, we know you very writer,and who is articulately involved ist, Abu-Jamal's struggle to live has well and you have always behaved in the struggle for human rights and not been endorsed by Alice Walker, Whoopi reasonably but you should not go to only capable of telling his own story Goldberg, Sonia Sanchez , E .L. such trouble fora black man. Thereare but that of his fellow-prisoners . . . Doctorow, WilliamK unstler, EdAsner, no prejudic s here-we have as many And yet, for all these qualities and and others. black prisoners as white .. . " probably because of them, Mumia Abu­ That was back in 1941. Since Jamal is scheduled to die like Bigger. Fifty-five years ago, although Ri­ then, from both sides of the Atlantic, And so the double bind goes on. chard Wright had finished Native Son, olher writers have interceded on be­ Paris, June 26,1995 he couldn't get Bigger out of his mind. half of African-Americans on death Although Ihe jail door had clanged row: Ihere have been Norman Mailer's For rrwre information contact the Com­ shut leaving Bigger to face the electric rather media-prone, "radical chic" in­ millee to Save Mumia Abu-Jamal at: chair, Bigger's "faint, wry, bitter smile" terventions- Jean Genet's impas­ continued to haunt Wright- and us. sioned introduction to George 163 Amsterdam Ave. #115 Having laid Bigger uneasily to rest, Jackson's prison letters, an introduc­ New York, NY 10023 having written, in "How Bigger was tion which ended with these words: Ph. # (212) 580-1022 Born," that this symbolic figure of "And their eyes are clear. Not blue." American life "would hold within him I am convinced that my fa ther, The Richard Wright Newsletter sup­ the prophecy of our fu ture," Wright Richard Wright, would have taken on ports rellie wand in terJItntion i" coses felt a need to act out his concern for the challenge of Mumia Abu-Jamal's involving political prisoners.

Announcelllents

Emmy for Lacy's Film Rite of Passage Picked King Cotton: Biography The 6th Annual Natchez Literary Madison Davis Lacy's film biogra­ Rite of Passage, published recently Celebration phy, Richard Wrighl--Black Boy, by HarperCollins for Young Adults won an Emmy on June 17 in Atlanta (see Richard Wright Newsletter, "Mississippi's MostSignificantAn­ for the best documentary over 30 Volume 3, Numbers 1 and 2), has nual Conferenc Devoted to Litera­ mi nutes to have aired in the South­ been included on th e Notable ture, History and Culture" was held east Region during 1994. TheEmmy Children's Trade Books in the Field on June 1-3,1995. Look fora report is awarded by the local National of Social Sciences for 1995 list, from Ihe Natchez Literary Celebra­ Association of Televi ion Arts and selected by a committee sponsored tion in the next issue of the Richard Sciences and is the highest award in by the National Council for the So­ Wright Newsleller. television. The film will be eligible cial Studies- Chi Idren 's Book for a national Emmy after it airs on Council. This list was published in PBS on September 4 , 1995, which is the April/May 1995 issue of Social the anniversary of Richard Wright's Educations. birth in 1908.

. . Spring/Summer 1995 Page 3 '" As True and Direct as a Birth or Death Certificate': Richard Wright on Jim Thompson's Now and on Earth." By Mark J. Madigan. Stud­ The Critical Response to Richard RichardWright: A Collectiono/Criti­ ies in American Fiction, Vol 22, no. 1 Wright. Edited by RobertJ. Butler. cal Essays. Edited by Arnold (Spring 1994): 105-110. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, Rampersad. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Madigan nOles Wright's previ­ 1995. Prentice Hall, 1995. ously unrecorded blurb for Jim Selections range from seminal Among the reprinted works are Thompson's novel Now and on Earth works by Blyden Jackson, James seminal essays by Kwame Anthony and concl udes, "Th convergence of Baldwin, and Keneth Kinnamon to Appiah, Abdul R. JanMohamed, Jack Richard Wright's and Jim Thompson's more recent works by a new genera­ B. Moore, and John M. Reilly. literary careers appears to have been tion of Wright Scholars. brief, but nevertheless noteworthy." "Richard Wright's Communisms: Communism inAmericanHunger with printing it unchanged in 1949. Textual Variance, Intentionality, "I Tried to BeaCommunist," themaga­ Comparison with the treatment of and Socialization in American Hun­ zine condensation of the same material Communism in The Outsider (1952) ger, 'I Tried to Be a Communist,' printed in the Atlantic Monthly in 1944 helps to explain Wright's action: the and The God That F aiJed "by Chris­ and reprimed in R.H.S. Crossman's sharply negative presentation in "I topher Z. Hobson. Text: Transac­ influential anthology The God That Tried" and The God That Failed is tions o/the Society/or Textual Schol­ Failed (1949). The comparison shows closer than American Hunger to arship 6 (1994): 307-44 that the condensed text presents a Wright's later view of Communism as harsher, more negaLi ve picture of Com­ expressed in this novel. This article reexamines the accep­ munism than Wright's original text; The article proposes that the tance of Wright's American Hunger, the change is brought about through American /lunger text should be re­ first published separately in 1977 and omitting qualifications, favorable re­ garded as a provisional rather than then in the Library of America's com­ flections of Communi m's historical definitive treatment of Wright's com­ bined edition of Black Boy (American potential, etc. Though such a situation munist experience, and that "r Tried"j Hunger) in 1991, as Wright's defini­ might suggest editorial interference The God That Failed should be viewed tive account of his experience with the with the author's intentions, in fact as authoritative articulations of Communist Party. The article makes a Wright accepted the condensed text Wright's evolving view of Commu­ detailed comparison of the material on and showed his approval of it by re- nism.

From Ebon Dooley's article in "7th disrupted the Congress, but unity pre­ Chronology of the Pan African Pan A/rican Congress: A Special Re­ vailed and al l parties agreed lhat the Congress Movement port," published by People's Tribune main enemy of the African people has 1900 London and Justice Speaks been and remains the imperialist pow­ 191 Paris (1st) The role of the IMF/World Bank ers of Europe and the United States. 1921 London and Brussels (2nd) and the various structural adjustment OneobjectiveoftheCongress was 1923 London and Lisbon (3rd) programs they demand was the major to construct "an institutional frame­ 1927 New York (4th) topic of discussion throughout the work wilhin which the diversity of 1945 Manchester (5th) Congress. African organizations can build unity, 1958 Accra, Ghana (All African Some attempts were made to dis­ social progress and democracy." To Peoples Congress) tinguish between "Black Africa" and this end, the Congress voted t estab­ 1963 Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (Organi­ "Arab Africa" and discussions of con­ lish a permanent secretariat in Kampala, zation of African Unity) flicts such as the armed struggle be­ Uganda and to hold the 8th PAC in 1974 Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (6th) tween North and South Sudan almost Tripoli, Libya in 1997. 1994 Kampala, Uganda (7th) To order copies of the Special Report from the 7th Pan African Congress or for information on the 7lh PAC Speakers Bureau, contact: People's Tribune Justice Speaks P .O. Box 3524 or P.O. Box 1339 Chicago, IL 60654 Rocky Mount, NC 27802 Ph. # (312) 486-3551 Ph. # (9 19) 446-1307

Page 4 Richard Wright Newsletter . • Mentions of Richard Wright in raphy of Carson McCullers (127-9 , Finecke (Isak Dinesen)] and Dick Carson McCullers's Unfinished 220,224,282-3,290-1,394). were. I met him in the house in Autobiography "Illumination and In her unfinished autobiography Brooklyn when he moved in with Night Glare" "nIumination and Night Glare," on his wife and baby. As usual there which McCullers worked during the were no decent places for negroes Carlos L. Dews final four months of her life, Richard to live. Later, we resumed our Department of English and Foreign Wright is mentioned in two passages. friendship in Paris where he Lived Languages The first, wh ich appears on page 62 of until his sudden death. His death University of West Florida McCullers's 128-pageautobiographi­ always gives me a sense of the cal work, details one of McCullers's great fragility of human life. Dick, Before meeting Carson debilitating strokes whi h occurred apparentl y perfectly well, had just McCullers, Richard Wright wrote a during August 1947, while she was in gone to the doctor for a routine review of The Hearl isaLonelyHunler Paris: check-up. The doctor saw nothing for the August 5, 1940 issue of The alanning, but that very afternoon New Republic. This review includes left L' Anc ienne Presbyter he died of heart failure. Dick and I Wright's discussion of McCullers's [McCullers's name for the farm often discussed the South, and his ability to "treat negroes and white house she and her husband pur­ book, Black Boy, is one of the fin­ peoplewiththesarneease" Dews 156): chased in the countryside outside est books by a Southern negro. He of Paris] for a few days to recover said of my work that I was the one To me the most impressive my balance and to visit myoid Southern writer who was able to aspect of "The Hearl is a Lovely friends, Richard and Ellen treat negroes and white people with Hunter" is the astonishing human­ Wright, in Paris and while there, the same ease. I was so appalJed by ity that enables a white writer, for alone in the house, this final stroke the humiliation that being a negro the first time in Southern fiction, happened. I was just going to the in the South automaticall y entailed to handle Negro characters with bathroom when I fell on the floor. that I lost sight of the gradations of as much ease and justice as those At first it seemed to me that the respectability and prestige within of her own race. This cannot be left side of my body was dead. I the negro race. accounted for stylistically or po­ could feel the skin clammy and When Reeves and I were liv­ litically; it seems to stem from an cold with my right hand. I ing in a terribly run-down apart­ attitude toward life which enables screamed, but no one answered, ment in Paris, without private toi­ Miss [sic] McCullers to rise above no one was there. I Lay on the lette and conve n i~nces, Dick, who the pressure of her environment floor, helpless, from about eight was moving from his own apart­ and embrace white and black hu­ in evening all through the nig ht ment and had paid for the cle manity in one sweep of apprehen­ un til dawn, when finall y my [French for key] of an elegant apart­ sion and tenderness. (195) screams were heard. (Dews 114) mem also in Pari , suggested that we move into his finedu-plex. The Carson McCullers and Richard This stroke occurred in the home of woman who owned and lived in Wright first met in the summer of 1941 McCullers's friends Ira and Edita the other apartment was a dope when Wright. his wife Ellen, and their Morris, not in the Wrights' home, as addict, and he didn't want his child infant daughter Julia, moved into an the autobiographical passage seems exposed to the sight of addiction apartment in the house McCullers to suggest. Carr details this stroke in even at second hand. Of course we shared with George Davis and other her biography of McCullers (291 -2). moved in and the place was indeed artists on Middagh Street in Brookl yn. The second passage regarding charming; an open flre-place in the Their friendship continued in France Wright appears on pages 101 through living room and the luxury of a where McCullers and her husband 103 of McCullers's text: complete dining room. Reeves visited Wright and his fam ily When I suffered the stroke that in Paris in 1947. Details of Carson and Another writer who was par­ paralyzed me on the left side, Dick Reeves's friendship with Richard and tic ularly dear to me is Richard was in Nice and he chartered a Ellen Wright are included in Constance Wright. Nothing could be more plane to take me to Paris and to W ebb's RichardWrighl: A Biography of a contrast than Tania com fort me there. [Handwritten (194-6,269-73); and in Virginia Spen­ [M Cullers's nickname for her emendation in the manuscript of cer Carr's The Lonely H unler: A Biog- friend Baroness Karen Blixen- Continued on Page 6

. Spring/Summer 1995 Page 5 McCullers Recalls Wright "art" in this sentence.] among olhers, not only because of the From Page 5 As everybody knows it is not contributions and recognition they gave easy to leave the Communist Party to her work bul, perhaps more impor­ McCullers ' s autobiog raphy once you're involved, and Dick tantly, because of the much needed changed the "me" in this sentence had many uneasy nights and fear­ help they provided during some the to "him," and "take me to Paris" to ful days; it is easier to join the darkest moments of her life. "visit me at the American Hospi­ Party than to get out. (Dews 155- tal."] His mother, he told me, had 8) Works Cited suffered a similar stroke and brought up a number of children Webb describes Wright's reaction to Carr, Virginia Spencer. The Lonely in spite of it McCullers's description of her stroke Hunter: A Biography of Carson Before out friendship in and provides further details of Wright' s McCullers. Garden City: Brooklyn Dick had become en­ helping Reeves and Carson following Doubleday, 1975. langled with the Communi st Party . the stroke in her biography of Wright Dews, Carlos L. "Illumination and A native negro, intensely verbal, (269-73). Night Glare": The Unfinished and an intellectual, was just their Carson McCullers, writing during Autobiography of Carson meal. They did not understand the final months of her life, despite McCullers. Diss. U of Minne­ Dick's compJete absorption in his constant pain and paralysis due to her sota,1994. art, and when the Party started to numerous strokes, remembered those Webb, Constance. Richard Wright: A dictate to him what to write, like who were most important in her life Biography. New York: G.P. school assignments, he was furi­ and to her work and included them in Putnam's Sons, 1968. ous and quit the Party. her autobiography. McCuIJers chose Wright, Richard. "Inner Landscape." [McCullers's manuscript was ed­ to include details of her friendships The NewRepublic4August 1940: ited to include "nor his indepen­ with Richard Wright, lsak Dinesen, 195. dence either" following the word Tennessee Williams, and John Huston,

By Clarenc Hunter was, as you read Wright and similar of the istory Department at Howard Archivist, Coleman Library authors who wrote during this period, University from 1942 until 1964, re­ Tougaloo College you begin to draw analogies between ferred to this period as the nadir of the characters and situations that he black existence in the United States. Delivered at UTougaloo College Reads creates and those that you met during AND IT WAS !! ! The Plessey vs. Richard Wright: A Symposium to your childhood. When I read about Ferguson decision of 1896 created a Honor lhe F iftiet hAnniversary ofBlack Nathaniel Wright in Black Boy, I see segregated society in the South which Boy" on March 9, 1995 at Tougaloo my father and his friends. I sense the was not dissimilar to that of South College, Tougaloo, Mississippi. kind of frustration, anger, disillusion­ Africa. It was a closed society, so ment and fear that they must have felt closed and so racially structured that I welcome the opportunity to re­ bUl could not express openly. (3) There each person had to know his or her flect on some of the issues faced by has been a great hue and cry about the place or suffer the consequences: early black Americans during the frrst half black male becoming an endangered on you learned how to acto- primarily o this century and how those issues species, yet when you review the lives as a male you learned how to act in the can be seen in the writings of Richard of the black males of this period, you presence of a white woman. Listen to Wright. To me many of Wright's geta sense of resilience, a type of quiet Wright in Black Boy: works epitomize the American di­ courage, a determination to survive lemma more than an analysis, socio­ despite the obstacles. This is a sense "Do you want this job?" the logical study, or editorializing can do. that we should remember. Remember woman asked. I have chosen as my topic: "Re­ that the black male survived the holo­ "Yes ma'am," I said afraid to fections on the Black Male of the ·caust of slavery, the poverty of serf­ trust my own judgement . . . all 'Twenties and 'Thirties." I have cho­ dom on the tenant farm, the inhuman a ll ntion. sen this topic for the following rea­ oppression of the American apartheid "Do you steal?" she asked me sons: (1) Much of Wright's writings and yet continues to survi ve. Let us not seriously. capture the frustration, hardship, toil, forget that when we speak of endan­ I burst into a laugh, then and fears of the black male during this gered species. checked myself. period as he attempts to negotiate the These two decades were indeed a "What's so damn funny about oppression that existed in this society. most trying period. Rayford Logan, (2) If you were born in this period, as I the prominent black historian and Chair Continued on Page 7

Page 6 Richard Wright Newsletter company he worked for had no hard­ ness and humanity despite the Reflections on the Black Male ware orders. They kept my father on blows of death from the Bosses of From Page 6 the work rolls, because he was a good the Buildings. that?" she asked. worker. My father was beholden to the "Lady. if I was a thief. 1'd white man. He could feed his family Yet not every man who venturedNorlh never tell anybody." and keep us together. He sacrifIced his was successful. "What do you mean?" she dignity, but he performed his duty. Many found solace on the comer blazed with a red face. Even in these hardest times rac­ or in alcohol. Many were forced into I had made a mistake during ism reared its ugly head and thwarted menial jobs far below their abilities. my fIrst fIve minutes in the white the efforts of the Federal Government Many squandered their earnings on world. I hWlg my head. to meet many of the needs of black worthless ~nkets and fell into a life of "No ma'am." 1 mumbled. "I people. In his allempt to feed his crime-wasting their lives away in don't steal." family. to hold his community together, prison. Many like Nathaniel Wright to maintain some sense of individual­ returned to the South and the soil, to This closed society unleashed the ity and human di gnity. the black man Iiveouttheirdrearns in poverty. Wright twin furies of physical violence and was hard pressed on all sides. Picture wrote of his father in Black Boy: psychological intimidation. The KKK Reverend Taylor in "Fire and Cloud": and their cohorts preyed on black A self-made man,a leaderofhis people, Far from beyond the horizons that people and clubbed them into submis­ respected by mostofitsmembers, strug­ bound this bleak plantation there sion. Lynching became routine. The gling to meet the needs of his congre­ had come to me through my Ii v ing courts offered no assistance. This was gation; yet the society demands that he the knowledge that my father was the era of the Scottsboro Boys where pay fealty to the Lords of the Land. He a black peasant who had gone to nine black boys were accused of rap­ is a boy to racist sheriffs, a pawn in the the city seeking life, but whose ing a white tramp on a train and spent hands of the white mayor, accosted by life had been hopelessl y snarled in most of their lives on death row or in policemen and reared by white women. the city and who had at last fled rat infested cells. Wright captures the He is consumed by anger, tormented the city- the same city which had character of the time in Twelve Million by confusion, and paralyzed by fear. lifted me in its burning arms and Black Voices: The physical oppression, the eco­ borne me toward alien and un- nomic d privati n, an the total injus­ dreamed of res of knowing. And we cannot fight back; we tice of the period was supported by the have no arms; we cannot vote; and philosophy of social Darwinism which In 1992 I returned home to Wash­ the law is white. There are no was supposed to gi ve some credence to ington' D.C. on the very day that black policeman. black juries. the action of a white society and cul­ Thurgood Marshall died. Since this black jailers. black mayors. or ture. For social Darwinism pictured was to be the longest period that I was black men anywhere in the gov­ black people as inferior and the force to remain at home, I focused my jour­ ernment of the South. The Ku of the oppression was necessary to nal on recalling Thurgood in all the Klux Klan attacks us in a thousand keep black people in their place. places that he and I had shared- he as ways. driving our boys and girls Yet black men survived during a j urist. I as a child, student and man. off the jobs in the cities and keep­ this period through various ways. Some My last place that I visited was Arling­ ing us who live on the land from fled the South and found opportunities Lon Cemetery where Thurgood is bur­ protesting or asking too many in the North. Some joined those orga­ ied, where my father-in-law is buried. questions. nizations which defended the rights of where Medgar Evers is buried, and blacks and worked toward an uplifting where my parents are buried. In my Aside from outright violence there of the spirit- SUCh as the Garvey Move­ journal I wrote, "This is a beautiful were economic structures as weU. In ment, the NAACP, the Urban League, day, like the day when Daddy and I 1928-9, the year when Martin Luther the Association of Sleeping Car Por­ stood here." He would only live an­ King and I were born. the world was ters, the Woodson Negro History Clubs, other month and he knew it. His last convulsed in a great depression. Ev­ and above aU the church. The church words to me were "I'm proud of you eryone suffered. yet the poor suffered became the hul wark of the black com­ son, you've done well with your life. I more. The black male suffered the munity and the place where the black wish I could've been of more help, but worst, there was always a need for the male could restore some of his dignity. I did the best I could with what I had." black woman to wash the clothes, to Again let us listen to Wright in Twelve Richard W right was writing of my cook the meals, to nurse the children. Million Black Voices: father when he wrote in Twelve Mil­ yet the black male- particularly those lion Black Voices: "We ask you to without any skills- suffered dearly. Our churches are where we dip grant us nothing. We are winning our My mother worked as a domestic; my our tired bodies in cool springs of heritage, though our Loll in suffering is father could not find work because the hope, where we retain our whole- great"

Spring/Summer 1995 Page 7 =

Richard Wright was fascinated by In­ When a dri ver in a UN armored vehicle Canadian, is on the line. The shells are donesia, Spain, and Af rica. From his changes g ars on the other side of the falling in his neighborhood near the non-fiction travel books, Pagan Spain, city, you can hear it from here. Chunky hospital where Radovan Karadzic, The Color Curtain, and Black Power, whit and grey clouds speed past the leader of the Bosnian Serbs, used to andfrom his work as a journalist in the narrow valley, as if they don' t want to practice psychiatry. We arrange to '40's, we can only extrapolate what his linger too long over this place of form r meet him for lunch at the UN cafeteria reaction to the warin theformer Yugo­ glories and current horror . in the lOwn center, near the shopping slavian might have been, had he lived. Exposed on this balcony, I am district and the old Mu lim bazaar. And although it is true that Wright died skittish, and I jump back against the Despite the morning's bout of 29 years bef ore the end of the Cold wall as soon as I hear the first whoosh helling, this week has been one of the War and the inception of the Yugoslav followed quickly by a dull thud, indi­ quietest in the city's two-year long crisis, the war there foregrounds the cating a mortar detonation. The Serbs siege. Both sides seem to be waiting very issues ofm ulticulturalism Wright are shelling at the front line across the for the Pope to announce whether he would have def ended today. In Sep­ valley, visi Ie through the rising mist, will be making a visit here next week. tember 1994 Rich Heyman, Editorial winding its way up the grassy hill The quietnes and the warm Sunday Assistantfor the Richard Wright Circle, opposite as if haphazardly cut with sun have brought oUl many residents, travelled to theformer Yugoslavia and pinking shears, then disappearing into who stroll the car-less streets. After spent several days in the Bosnian capi­ the trees at the summit. A few seconds lunch we join them. Women have on tal, Sarajevo. He filed this report for pass, and then another whoosh-pause­ make-up and dress fashionably, older the Richard Wright Newsletter. thud. This time the Bosnian army fires men wear jackets and ties, though many back with the babt-babt-babt-babt of people wander with vacant looks on Sunday morning after a thunder­ heavy machine-guns. Though the their faces . A few cafes and shops arc storm. A warm day, and I stand with mortars are landing several mi les away, open. Most people simply move along my brother and ano her UN official, a I can feel the shock wave of the d.etona­ the broken sidewalks. At the cafe French woman, on the balcony of her tion pass though my body. I look tables sitlhe few young men, missing aparunent in the former Olympic Vil­ across the valley but can se no sign of limbs, smoking cigareltes rolled in lage looking out over the city center. the exchange. After several minutes new print. A UN truck gentl y works Quiet notes from a neighbor's piano in each side has another tum, and they its way up the narrow street carrying a the aparunent above descend through continue lazily for the next couple of fuel bladder, destined for some power the humid air. From up here, you can hours exchanging mortars for machine generator. still glimpse the former beauty of gun rounds every ten minutes or so. I Every building is riddled with Sarajevo, a mixture of modem Europe soon calm down, with reassurances bullet holes, and plastic tarps bearing and ,its Muslim past, evidence of from Jeff and Patricia that we are not in the insignia and name of the UNHCR Sarajevo's unique and historic posi­ the line of fire. So quickly that I am (Uni ted Nations High Commission for tion, literally at the crossroads of trad­ almost shocked when I realize it later, Refugees) have replaced glass in most ing routes linking Europe, the Middle I stop noticing the detonations. I listen windows. Some buildings have been East, Asia, and Africa, making it the instead to the piano player, who has hit directly by larger shells and, com­ meeting point of different cultures and continued to play throughout the inci­ pletely gUlled, stand as gaping husksof religions: Roman Catholic, Eastern dent. How quickly we learn to shut shopping centers and banks, rubble Orthodox, Islam, Judaism. High-rises things out, to find ways of ignoring the piled neatly at their comers. Dogs and minarets jut up from the valley horror around us. loiter and nip at the e.dges of trash floor, and if you aren't looking too Patricia's phone rings, and I am heaps, which burn openly on less closely you might miss the dark shell amazed that it works because in crowded streets. holes splattered on the sides of every Sarajevo there is no running water, no But on this quiet Sunday, among building and the many minarets that electricity, no mail, no garbage collec­ the ruined buildings and lives, a pal­ have been clipped off near the top. It is tion, not even any currency (all trans­ pable urgency for normality is in the quiet, too quiet for such a magnificent actions are in German Marks or Dol­ atmosphere. Behind the unfocused city that was once home to more than lars, sometimes in a mixture of the eyes lhere is a determination not to 500,000 people. Whole street and two). Chuck, one of their ft:ll ow work­ leave this city or abandon the motorway systems lie eerily unused. ers from the UN Radio Unit and a Continued on Page 9

Page 8 Richard Wright Newsletter Bosnia, From Page 8 deliberate targeting of the Library to decadence of the Jews and justify his the destruction ofhundreds of Mosques, finaJ solution. The Bosnian Serbs, multiethnic ideals that it stands for and the Serbs have not only tried to drive however, In their fever of that Bosnia once stood for as well. the Muslims out, they have also tried to ethnonationalism justify the removal Scattered crews are taking down wipe out all traces of their culture, not of the Muslims from Bosnia by ex­ UNHCR tarps and replacing the glass j ust in Sarajevo, but all over Bosnia. punging all evidence of the culture and in many windows. Sidewalks are be­ Serbs routinely and systematically bull­ history of these people in this area. By ing swept. Shops and cafes are open. doze destroyed mosques, dig up their destroying the markers of Muslim cul­ Trams are running on a limited circuit foundations, remove every last bit of ture, the logic goes, the Serbs have around the downtown area. Even the proven that the Muslim people have no Sarajevsko brewery continues to make claim to the land, that the land is purely beer. And here and there, people are Serb. The Bosnian Government is sitting and drinking beer, coffee, and Behind the unfocused fighting against this notion of racial soda. In the Bazaar two Bosnian Gov­ and ethnic and cuLtural purity. The ernment soldiers in camouflage and eyes there is a conflict cannot simply be chalked up tennis shoes stop for an ice cream determination not to to the "ancient hatreds" we hear so At a Catholic church, painters are leave this city or much about. Rather, it must be seen in readying the building for the Pope. the context of a struggle between the The building is nearly untouched by abandon the multiethnic ideals of tolerance and purity, between the war, except for neglect of upkeep; ideals that it stands for multiethnic states and ethnonational­ while down the street at the mai n and that Bosnia once ism, between multiculturaljsm and the Mosque, scaffolding had to be erected stoodfor as well. tyranny of the majority. And it is a to hold the building up. Today, despite struggle that is faced not only by the fact that the Mosque has repeatedly Bosnians and Serbs and Croats, but by been targeted by the Serbs, some wor­ Americans too shipers have to pray in the doorways After our tour of Sarajevo's because it is so crowded inside. It is the building form the site, and level the "sights," I run across the tarmac at the not difficult to imagine what they, ground it on e tood on. The Bosnian dangerousl y ex 0 ed airport wearing a kneeling outside on the hard concrete Government,on the other hand, is fight­ powder blue helmet and flak jacket, facing Mecca, are praying for. ing to preserve what Bosnia once was: lucky to be able to leave this place so After a drink in a cafe in the old "a country of tolerant nations and reli­ easily. As the Ru sian plane climbs town square, we wander down to the gions," in Bosnian President Alija steeply over the Serb heavy weapons riverside to see the spot where the lzetbegovi 's words. The Churches on the mountain tops around the city Serbian nationalist, Princip, stood when and Synagogues in Government-held and on towards UN headquarters in he gunned down Archduke Francis territory, like the onc being painted in Zagreb, Croatia, I feel relief and guilt Ferdinand in 1914. The slab of con­ Sarajevo, have not been subj cted to at my safe escape. Then I look along crete bearing his footprints has been Government aggression. In many the benches lining the cargo bay of the removed from the sidewalk for safe­ places, especially in Sarajevo and in plane at the mostly French soldiers keeping during the war,leaving a dirty Tusla (one of the UN-declared safe who will Likely be returning to Sarajevo square absence. Down the block we areas in the north of the country), Serbs, soon. Away from the alertness and come to the astonishing shell of Croats, Jews, as well as Muslims are awe generated by a city under siege Bosnia's once-magnificent National the besieged inhabitants Karadzic and and isolated by the roar of the engines, Library. Formerly the repository of his army are fighting. While the I feel emotional for the first time. I am Muslim culture in Yugoslavia, the Li­ Bo nian Serbs are fighting for a Serb­ enveloped by a great sadness for the brary building now slands open to the only Sla te, the Bosnian Government is people of Sarajevo, for the young sol­ sky, four stories above, its interior clut­ not fighting for an all-Muslim country; diers from so many parts of the world tered by a huge pile of broken masonry rather, they are fighting for the ideal of who are living under such danger, and and collapsed arches. Like the Mosq ues tolerance- protection of minority for us. Because, as I fly out over the of Bosnia, this building too has been rights- and against the tyranny of the Adriatic, r find myself thinlcing that I one of the Serbs' favorite targets. majority. too li ve in a place where tolerance is The story of Bosnia can be read in And in this battle, culture mallers. under attack. I wonder if I have the contrast between the Mosques and Hitler deliberately preserved artifacts glimpsed in Sarajevo the return of the the Muslim Library on one hand and of Jewish culture for a museum in tyranny of the majority as an ideal. the Churches on the other. From their Prague that he planned would show the

Spring/Summer 1995 Page 9 "Bigger Thomas at the Movies" to make itanswer more producti vely to Fund Studies of MOlions Pictures and his needs and desires. In the present Youth of the same period. These stud­ Like many critics today, Richard paper, this scene of Bigger at the mov­ ies were concerned with young people Wright often took the act of reception ies is compared to a more or less sym­ in urban America whose deracination, of mass culture-most usually, the act metrical scene in B lackPower, in which as the sociologists saw it, both led of fllm spectatorship-to typify the a movie audience in Accra watches an them to and was encouraged by the condition ofsubj ectivity in the modem unidenti fied American cowboy movie. movies. As urban sociologists like world. Thus among many scenes of Wright frequently met young Africans Herbert Blumer saw it, the movie the­ radio-listening, newspaper-reading, during his trip to the Gold Coast in ater was a space in which young people and movie-going in his wri tings- in 1953 whose minds had regrettably been became dangerou Iy alienated from such wOrksasLawdToday!, "The Man colonized (as he thought) by Holly­ local traditional culLures, but at the Who Lived Underground," and Native wood movie culture; but he doesn't same time it was a place in which they Son- Bigger Thomas's attendance at tend to credit them with much critical could become oriented beneficially a movie theater in the latter novel is resistance to American mass culture's toward a wider public sphere. The notable for its dramatization of a warped representations. danger or benefi t appears for W righ tto charged encounter between a socially hinge specifically on whether such film dislocated black youth and a starkly There are both differences and simi­ viewers are competent in understand­ racist product of the Hollywood fUm larities between the scenes of movie­ ing the formal conventions of filmic industry (Le. Trader Horn, 1931 ). In going in Native Son and Black Power, narrative. These are the issues that that scene, Wright credits Bigger with but in both texts the terms in which Wright explored wi th subtlety in both at least a nascent critical resistance to Wright thinks about fi lm spectatorship, Native Son and Black Power. the movie's blatant derogation of Afri­ juvenile delinquency, and critical re­ cans. As he depicts Bigger's mostly sistance seem to have been borrowed Christopher Looby inattentiveactof spectatorship, a white­ from the work of the Chicago School University of Chicago supremacist film narrative is in effect of sociologis of the 1930s, and r­ reconfigured by and for Bigger's eyes haps more specifically from the Payne

"Richard Wright as Ethnogra­ aspects ofW right's readi ng of Spanish writing, and my essay links Wri ght to pher: The Conundrums of culture. Wright is compared to Zora that tradition and its curious history, Pagan Spain" Neale Hurston, his usual adversary, which often has intertwined with eth­ whose training in anthropology nography. My speCUlations employ When Richard Wright's meditation on equipped her to observe and interpret the recent work of Mary Louise Pratt Spanish Iife and cullure was published cultures, and not only her own; her and William W. SLOwe, who investi­ in 1957, everyone-including Wright book Te ll My Horse, like Pagan Spain, gate the ideological and even imperial and his publi her~xpected it to be limns the contours of foreign cultures. aspects of such writi ng in the Euro­ controversial. As Richard Strout, one Wright had had extensive contact with pc~n tradition, which Wright, after all, of the early reviewers aptly put it, professional interpreters of culture, the is heir to, although in certain respects "There are so many waysofmisunder­ sociologists of the "Chicago School," he appears LO be confronting it. This standing this vivid book of travel-jour­ such as Robert Park, William Issac lauerclaim is investigated here through nalism that it is likely to kick up a Thomas, Ernest Burgess, and Lou is a brief digest of ethnographic aspect controversy- a Negro writing about Wirth. The latler tw o used reali t and of Wright's preceding fiction, and the whites, a man of Protes tan t background proletarian li terature to illustrate so­ techniques of two books that precede appalled by the degradation of a quasi ciological principles. Wright shared Pagan Spain, Black Power and The Church-state, an expatriate drawing their interest in usi ng scholarl y research Color Cu.rtain. Finally, the essay situ­ upon his native land for occasional for didactic purposes in his fiction ,and ates Wright's unusual project with the comparisons, an ex-radical describing had no difficulty extending this ap­ discourse recently mounted on "Writ­ Franco's Falange." proach to the kind of writing he pro­ ing Cultures" by James Clifford and posed to do in Spain. others. This essay investigates the various conundrums suggested by Strout's re­ At the same time, the book definitely John Lowe marks, focusing on the ethnographic still fits certain parameters of travel Louisiana State University

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