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African American Literary Perspectives on Twentieth-Century Interracial Organizations and Relations

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African American Literary Perspectives on Twentieth-Century Interracial Organizations and Relations UNITY OR DISSENSION? AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERARY PERSPECTIVES ON TWENTIETH-CENTURY INTERRACIAL ORGANIZATIONS AND RELATIONS By WASHELLA NEURETTE TURNER A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2005 Copyright 2005 by Washella Neurette Turner ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank God from whom all blessings flow. Thanks go to the members of the dissertation committee, Dr. Mark A. Reid, Dr. David Leverenz, Dr. Amy A. Ongiri, and Dr. Gwendolyn Z. Simmons, for encouraging me and believing in my writing. I would also like to thank my family and friends for keeping me in their thoughts and prayers. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ................................................................................................. iii ABSTRACT....................................................................................................................... vi INTRODUCTION ...............................................................................................................1 CHAPTER 1 PANACEA FOR INEQUALITY? THE NAACP, 1924-1943...................................13 The NAACP and African American Writers..............................................................13 Jessie Fauset and the African American Elite ............................................................16 Rudolph Fisher and the General Improvement Association.......................................30 Intraracial conflicts..............................................................................................36 George Schuyler’s Satiric Message............................................................................37 Carl Offord’s View of the NAACP and Black Nationalism.......................................46 2 HIMES, ELLISON, AND THE RED ANSWER TO THE BLACK QUESTION ....54 The Black Male Identity Crisis...................................................................................55 The Black Male Solution to Inequality.......................................................................88 3 WHITE MONEY, BLACK HOPE, AND CAPITALIST DREAMS.........................93 Washington vs. Du Bois .............................................................................................93 Lutie and Bigger: Victims of the White Capitalist Society ........................................95 African Americans and Education............................................................................113 IM vs. Mr. Norton.....................................................................................................117 White Help and Black Hope.....................................................................................120 4 INDUSTRIAL WAR: AFRICAN AMERICANS IN INDUSTRY DURING THE WORLD WARS .......................................................................................................131 The Moss Brothers’ Journey from South to North ...................................................132 Bob Jones and the Difficulty of Middle Class Life ..................................................144 Black Male Power vs. White Male Power................................................................146 CONCLUSION................................................................................................................168 iv REFERENCES ................................................................................................................179 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ...........................................................................................193 v Abstract of Dissertation Presented to the Graduate School of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy UNITY OR DISSENSION? AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERARY PERSPECTIVES ON TWENTIETH-CENTURY INTERRACIAL ORGANIZATIONS AND RELATIONS By Washella Neurette Turner December 2005 Chair: Mark A. Reid Major Department: English Various literary texts written by African American authors, specifically from the 1920s through the 1960s, portray the purposes and effectiveness of blacks and whites working in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA), and individuals who promote interracial fellowship and equal rights. I contend that historical oppression—the psychological aftereffects of slavery on both blacks and whites—plays both subconscious and conscious roles within these individuals, thereby limiting their ability to work together effectively. In support of this idea, I engage Frantz Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks and Albert Memmi’s The Colonizer and the Colonized to discuss inferiority complexes among blacks and superiority complexes among whites. Other factors that affect interracial coalition for equality are capitalism, white liberalism, intellectualism, and assimilationism. Jessie Fauset’s There is Confusion, Rudolph Fisher’s The Walls of Jericho, George Schuyler’s Black No More: A Novel, and Carl Offord’s The White Face vi depict the effectiveness of the NAACP as a vessel to assist blacks in securing equal rights in the United States. Chester Himes’ Lonely Crusade and Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man comment on the methods the CPUSA uses to increase black membership in the organization in order to give the impression of fostering black equality. I also examine interracial social situations and educational opportunities for blacks in Ann Petry’s The Street, Richard Wright’s Native Son, Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, and Kristin Hunter’s The Landlord, as well as interracial working conditions in William Attaway’s Blood on the Forge and Chester Himes’ If He Hollers Let Him Go and Lonely Crusade. vii INTRODUCTION Various literary texts written by African American authors, specifically from the 1920s through the 1960s, portray the purposes and effectiveness of blacks and whites working in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA), and individuals who promote interracial fellowship and equal rights. An analysis of race relations must be considered in order to effectively examine the interracial relationships formed. I contend that historical oppression—the psychological aftereffects of slavery on both blacks and whites—plays both subconscious and conscious roles within each individual. More often than not, this historical oppression causes friction in such racially integrated organizations as the American labor force, social betterment organizations, and national political parties, as well as among individual crusaders. I will analyze the literary texts by engaging Frantz Fanon’s and Albert Memmi’s discussions of inferiority complexes among blacks and superiority complexes among whites. In Black Skin, White Masks (1967), Frantz Fanon addresses the psychological effects of oppression on blacks, whereas Albert Memmi, in The Colonizer and the Colonized (1965), categorizes the various types of colonizers and addresses the colonized subjects’ responses to interactions with the colonizers.1 In addition, I will delineate such 1 Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks, trans. Charles Lam Markmann (1952; New York: Grove, 1967). Albert Memmi, The Colonizer and the Colonized (Boston: Beacon, 1965). 1 2 terms as radical, reactionary, liberal, and conservative to assist in understanding the general differences among the NAACP, the CPUSA, and the workings of various individuals as portrayed in the literary texts. Fanon reveals that black men constantly view themselves in direct relation to white men. Therefore, under the colonial model, because “[w]hite men consider themselves to be superior to black men” and white men possess land, money, and power, black men not only are eager to free themselves from bondage, but would like to enjoy the amenities of this freedom.2 William Attaway’s Blood on the Forge (1941) and Carl Offord’s The White Face (1943) reveal the oppressive nature of the sharecropping system.3 Big Mat in Blood on the Forge and Chris Woods in The White Face work diligently in an effort to provide for their families, yet they suffer continuously by being berated and are often cheated out of their rightful wages. This depiction of another oppressive system limiting black progress and occurring in the South fifty to eighty years after emancipation makes it difficult to fathom a unity fostered among blacks and whites.4 The question of class and region must be addressed because of the nature of race relations in the North versus those of the South. Attaway and Offord depict the interactions of lower class Southern blacks with middle class Southern whites. How do these authors’ depictions differ from the historical interactions of Northern, educated, middle and upper class blacks with the same status and class of whites? 2 Fanon, Black Skin, 10. 3 William Attaway, Blood on the Forge (1941; New York: Collier, 1970). Carl Offord, The White Face (New York: American Book-Stratford, 1943). 4 The setting of Blood on the Forge is Kentucky and Pennsylvania in 1919. The setting of The White Face is Georgia and Harlem in the early 1940s. 3 One way to answer this question is to discuss one group in particular—white liberals. An examination of the historical role of white liberals provides insight into their depiction in African American novels. White liberals have always been key figures in the struggle for equal rights, dating
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