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

Home , Chester Himes, George Schuyler, Jessie Redmon Fauset, Rudolph Fisher, William Attaway

UNITY OR DISSENSION? AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERARY PERSPECTIVES ON TWENTIETH-CENTURY INTERRACIAL ORGANIZATIONS AND RELATIONS

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

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

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

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.

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 back to slavery times through the Abolitionist

Movement. Unfortunately, just as Northern abolitionists met strong opposition from

white Southerners during slavery, white liberals of the 1920s garnered little support from

many white Southerners. In fact, white liberals possessed few allies in the 1920s: “Race

liberals . . . were an extremely isolated minority, and they knew it. They received little or

no encouragement for their views from the national liberal community; they were ignored

by the leadership of the two major parties.”5 White liberals played a major role in the

formation of the NAACP. Often led by Christian values, liberals within the organization often took a reserved and modest approach in addressing equal rights.6 White liberals

could also be found in the CPUSA or acting of their own volition.

Before discussing the specific purposes of the NAACP and the CPUSA, I will

outline these organizations’ approaches to the “Negro question” (i.e., racism, poverty,

education, lynching, working conditions, etc.) for a clearer picture of the role they play in the structure of the nation and occasionally the world. The categories of people within these organizations that affect the methods of securing equal rights for blacks, for this particular study, are as follows: reactionaries, conservatives, liberals, and radicals. In

George Soule’s “Radicalism,” he explains the specific meanings of these terms: “At the

extreme right are the reactionaries, who want to restore the discarded. Next to them are

5 John B. Kirby, Black Americans in the Roosevelt Era: Liberalism and Race (Knoxville: U of Tennessee P, 1980) x. Kirby uses the terms white liberal, race liberal, and liberal interracialist interchangeably.

6 Ibid., 11.

the conservatives, who wish to keep most of what exists. At their elbow are the liberals,

who are ready to examine new ideas, but who are not eager or dogmatic about change.

And at the extreme left are radicals, who want to change nearly everything for something

totally new.”7 Soule admits that this strict categorization of the four terms is problematic due to the amount of change a society may undergo at any given moment: “The radical

and the reactionary may be agreed on essentials; they both wish sudden change and closer

organization. The conservative may be liberal because he wishes to preserve an order in

which liberal virtues may exist. Or a liberal may be so cribbed and confined by an

unpleasant constriction of social tissue that he becomes radical in his struggle for

immediate release.”8 These terms, particularly conservative, liberal, and radical, are

useful in differentiating the processes of the organizations and observing their changes

within American society as the select African American authors view the effectiveness of

these organizations in promoting racial equality.

Jessie Fauset, George Schuyler, Rudolph Fisher, and Carl Offord render their

depiction of the NAACP in their novels. Historically speaking, the Springfield, Illinois

riots of August 1908 served as a precursor to the NAACP when Oswald Garrison Villard,

noted white liberal and grandson of William Lloyd Garrison, wrote an article in the New

York Evening Post vehemently rejecting the propensity for violence, particularly

7 George Soule, “Radicalism,” Civilization in the United States: An Inquiry by Thirty Americans, ed. Harold E. Stearns (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1922) 273-74.

8 Ibid., 273. Soule gives a description of the intricacies of society: “Society is not a car on a track, along which it may move in either direction, or on which it may stand still. Society is a complex, with many of the characteristics of an organism. Its change is continuous, although by no means constant. It passes through long periods of quiescence, and comparatively brief periods of rapid mutation. It may collect itself into a close order, or again become dispersed into a nebula. There is much in its development that is cyclical; it has yet undiscovered rhythms, and many vagaries.”

lynching, waged against blacks.9 Mary Ovington White, a white liberal and reporter, and

William English Walling, a wealthy white reporter who also openly opposed violence against blacks, began meeting in January of 1909 to address these issues, inviting Villard in February 1909.10 Eventually the meetings progressed into “A Conference on the

Status of the Negro” held May 31 to June 1, 1909.11 W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T.

Washington were both invited to this meeting, but only Du Bois attended.12 By 1910, the organization received its official name—The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)—with its goals of “legal aid, mass meetings, investigations of injustices, and publicity.”13 In the area of publicity, Du Bois was creator and editor of

The Crisis. Walling held the title of “chairman of the executive committee,” and Villard

was assistant treasurer.14

In contrast to the NAACP, the CPUSA opted for a more radical approach to assist

blacks; however, their interest in the “Negro question” failed to materialize until 1928, on

the verge of capitalist instability, which allowed the possibility of a revolution among all

9 Charles F. Kellogg, NAACP: A History of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Volume 1, 1909-1920 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1967) 9.

10 Kenneth W. Goings, ‘The NAACP Comes of Age’: The Defeat of Judge John J. Parker (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1990) 3-4.

11 Ibid., 5.

12 Ibid., 5-6. Goings discusses the opposition between Du Bois and Washington and the reason why Washington did not attend the 1909 conference: “By inviting both of them [Du Bois and Washington] and their supporters and hoping that only Du Bois would show up, white progressives were really signaling their displeasure and impatience with Washington’s accommodationist approach, while embracing Du Bois’s protest and agitation strategy. Washington, who had been the preeminent black leader through the turn of the century, had suffered a number of setbacks to his policies, including the continued violence inflicted upon blacks. . . . Villard wrote Washington inviting him to the conference but providing him with an excuse not to attend. Washington took the excuse and the matter was settled for the time being.”

13 Ibid., 7.

14 Ibid.

workers.15 Therefore, organizing blacks increased the chances of joining blacks and

whites to enact a more effective working-class revolution.16 Despite its radical approach,

the CPUSA also had members who exhibited acts of liberalism, as portrayed in Chester

Himes’ Lonely Crusade (1947) through the white Jewish character Abe “Rosie”

Rosenberg.17 In keeping with this idea of white liberals addressing the needs of blacks,

Memmi describes the power of the oppressor to control the destiny of the oppressed: “All

effectiveness and social dynamics . . . seem monopolized by the colonizer’s institutions.

If the colonized needs help, it is to them [the oppressors] that he applies.”18 For the

purposes of this study, the term oppressor can be broken into two categories, the white

majority and white liberals, the white minority. Those of the white majority who

discriminate openly against blacks are overt oppressors, whereas in the case of white liberals, they are seen as oppressors only because of their white entitlement. White

liberals possess the money and power to at least make their own voices heard (and the

voices of the oppressed).

One of the issues to be addressed in this project concerns the restrictions that may occur based upon the historical privilege of whites when white liberals and blacks interact with each other within the NAACP and the CPUSA. Rebecca Aanerud in “Now

More Than Ever: James Baldwin and the Critique of White Liberalism” defines white liberalism as “a social formation meant to designate those individual whites who want to

15 Fraser M. Ottanelli, The Communist Party of the United States: From the Depression to World War II (New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 1991) 36.

16 Harry Haywood, Black Bolshevik: Autobiography of an Afro-American Communist (Chicago: Liberator, 1978) 227-35.

17 Chester Himes, Lonely Crusade (1947; New York: Thunder’s Mouth, 1989).

18 Memmi, Colonizer, 103.

distance themselves from racism—who want to be viewed as not racist.”19 On the other

hand, Aanerud also acknowledges the flaw in this definition based on the continued

effects of history and the privileges reaped by whites as a result of this history.20 Memmi echoes this idea and takes it a step further. He articulates the impossibility of removing race and history from the minds of the colonizer and the colonized: “Who can completely rid himself of bigotry in a country where everyone is tainted by it, including its victims?”21 Therefore, within interracial organizations, there may be a certain level of

white superiority and black inferiority that hinders the progress of the organization’s

goals. In addition, Fanon points to this problem when he asserts that a black man’s

power can only be constructed in relation to the white man.22

These feelings that the black males internalize bring the discussion back to the

issue of class and region in relation to interracial organizations. In particular, the

NAACP and the CPUSA catered to different classes of people. According to Wilson

Record’s Race and Radicalism: The NAACP and the Communist Party in Conflict

(1964), the NAACP’s primary following were middle and upper class blacks, while the

19 Rebecca Aanerud, “Now More Than Ever: James Baldwin and the Critique of White Liberalism,” James Baldwin Now, ed. Dwight A. McBride (New York: New York UP, 1999) 60.

20 Ibid., 65. Aanerud discusses the flaw in the white liberal’s desire for separation from racists: “By regulating history as something over and done with, one can deny the ways in which white U.S. Americans continue to benefit from that history. Another response does not look at history as insignificant and dismissive but, on the contrary, constructs history as monumental and beyond redress. Daunted by the overwhelming injustices carried out in the name of the nation, the white liberal takes refuge in his or her status as a mere individual.”

21 Memmi, Colonizer, 23.

22 Fanon, Black Skin, 110. Fanon states, “For not only must the black man be black; he must be black in relation to the white man.”

CPUSA focused on organizing lower class blacks.23 Regardless of the separate class of blacks who were in these two organizations, the emotional strain felt among blacks working within the organizations with whites remains a prevailing thought in African

American literature that portrays interracial relationships. For example, in Rudolph

Fisher’s The Walls of Jericho (1928), set in and near Harlem, Fred Merritt, a wealthy black attorney who is a member of the General Improvement Association, professes his hatred for whites, and Agatha Cramp, a wealthy white woman who is also a member of the organization, believes that blacks have primitive ways and need to be educated.24

Fred and Agatha work in the same organization, but the likelihood that they can work together smoothly and productively is questionable, and ironically, the organization’s goal is to alleviate such dissension.

Similarly, in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man (1952), the protagonist comes from a

Southern town and a lower class family and travels to Harlem.25 When he first encounters Brother Jack, a white man from the Brotherhood, he is initially very distrustful of him and other whites he encounters in the organization. Though not fitting into the North/South dichotomy and set in California, Robert (Bob) Jones of Chester

Himes’ If He Hollers Let Him Go (1945) and Lee Gordon from Himes’ Lonely Crusade

(1947) both express their inherent fear of being black in a white society and constantly

23 Wilson Record, Race and Radicalism: The NAACP and the Communist Party in Conflict (Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1964). Record writes, “Without doubt, the CP influenced the NAACP in a number of indirect ways. . . . The shifts within the Association were in part a response to the party’s challenge; had they occurred sooner, the party’s influence, such as it was among Negroes, would have been even more limited. Negroes could be aroused and organized around immediate issues. It showed that racial discontent could be turned to political account, particularly when underscored by economic catastrophe. Although the party was unable to build a mass Negro following, it approached a stratum of the race frequently regarded by the NAACP as the middle-class Negro’s burden” (76).

24 Rudolph Fisher, The Walls of Jericho (1928; New York: U of Michigan, 1994) 107-9.

25 Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (1952; New York: Modern, 1994).

cling to feelings of distrust and suspicion in their associations with many whites.26

Though many authors give disparaging portraits of the inner workings of interracial organizations, a number of characters of both races make genuine and successful efforts to bridge the gap between blacks and whites in this common goal of equality. The issues of inferiority and superiority complexes do not dissipate, but various characters work to transcend these problems. Generally speaking, regardless of class and region, black males and females suffer the same kinds of oppression; however, individuals’ reactions to this oppression vary.

Chapter 1, “Panacea for Inequality? The NAACP, 1924-1943,” addresses texts that specifically depict the NAACP. Jessie Fauset’s There is Confusion (1924) illustrates a world in which racism requires an organization such as the NAACP. A black character named Philip Marshall, a Harvard graduate, decides to start an interracial group to work for “the suppression of lynching and peonage, the restoration of the ballot, equal schools and a share in civil rights.”27 He edits a magazine called The Spur, patterned after Du

Bois’ The Crisis. In The Walls of Jericho, Rudolph Fisher portrays interracial interactions in Harlem in the 1920s. The General Improvement Association, similar to

the NAACP, brings the two races together to foster healthy relationships and to break the color line. George Schuyler takes a more sarcastic approach when discussing the

NAACP in Black No More: A Novel (1931).28 Schuyler acknowledges the value of the

organization, in this instance the National Social Equality League (N.S.E.L.), but he also

26 Chester Himes, If He Hollers Let Him Go (1945; New York: Thunder’s Mouth, 1986).

27 Jessie Fauset, There is Confusion (1924; New York: AMS, 1974).

28 George S. Schuyler, Black No More: A Novel (1931; New York: Modern, 1999).

criticizes some of the methods used among the group to enact change. His comments on

W.E.B. Du Bois, referred to in Black No More: A Novel as Dr. Shakespeare Agamemnon

Beard, warrant particular attention because of Schuyler’s description of the character’s

way of conducting meetings and hiring only “mulattoes” to work for him.29 Carl Offord

presents the Colored Congress in The White Face (1943). Chris Woods has been arrested for allegedly killing his former employer, and Nella Woods is hoping the Colored

Congress can assist her in freeing him. Offord examines the legal power of the NAACP.

The next chapter, “Himes, Ellison, and the Red Answer to the Black Question,”

critiques the efforts of the CPUSA to address the “Negro question.” I juxtapose Lee

Gordon in Chester Himes’ Lonely Crusade (1947) with the Invisible Man (IM) in Ralph

Ellison’s Invisible Man (1952). These two black male characters each have particular

dealings with the CPUSA. Lee rejects the doctrine of the CPUSA, but since he is the first

official black organizer in the union, he works closely with the organization. IM is

initially skeptical of the Brotherhood, but as he moves up in the ranks of the organization,

he trusts that blacks will be adequately served through the organization, only to find out

later that the doctrine outweighs the needs of one person or any group of people.30 Lee and IM both suffer from identity crises as a result of racial oppression. Lee acknowledges his fear of the lack of acceptance in a predominantly white society, but he has difficulty trying to pinpoint ways to conquer this fear, whereas IM searches for a sense of purpose in his life, facing various situations that assist in his hopes of establishing his identity.

29 Ibid., 65-74.

30 The general consensus is that the Brotherhood represents the Communist Party.

Chapter 3, “White Money, Black Hope, and Capitalist Dreams,” examines interracial interactions in everyday life in the mid-twentieth century, focusing primarily on the role white liberalism and capitalism play in the development of African Americans within society. Ann Petry’s The Street (1946) and Richard Wright’s Native Son (1940) dramatize the struggle of a black female and male, respectively, as they encounter racial and economic obstacles within the capitalist system.31 In Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man

(1952), what motivates a white philanthropist’s donations to black colleges? Kristen

Hunter’s The Landlord (1966) presents a much more positive view of the white liberal and his usefulness in the advancement of African American society.32 These authors portray characters that embody inferiority and superiority complexes that foster racist assumptions, as well as those characters who desire cross-racial identification.

The final chapter, “Industrial War: African Americans in Industry during the World

Wars,” explores interracial interaction in the workplace. In William Attaway’s Blood on the Forge (1941), blacks, Irishmen, and Slavs work in the steel mills in Pennsylvania in

1919. Slavs join the union, while blacks and Irishmen steer clear of the union. This dissension causes serious problems in the mills and in interracial relations. Robert “Bob”

Johnson, in Chester Himes’ If He Hollers Let Him Go (1945), is promoted to leaderman, but because he is black, he fails to receive the respect he deserves from white workers, whom he outranks. In Himes’ Lonely Crusade (1947), Lee Gordon is a black organizer within the union. He receives a great deal of support from Smitty and Abe “Rosie”

31 Ann Petry, The Street (1946; Boston: Mariner, 1974). Richard Wright, Native Son (1940; New York: HarperPerennial, 1993).

32 Kristin Hunter, The Landlord (1966; New York: Avon, 1970).

Rosenberg, two white characters who embody liberal characteristics and reject the role of the white superior, but he encounters Louis Foster, who despises unions and blacks.

CHAPTER 1 PANACEA FOR INEQUALITY? THE NAACP, 1924-1943

No organization of this type [such as the NAACP] . . . had ever succeeded, because it became either a group of white philanthropists helping the Negro or a group of colored folk freezing out their white co-workers by insolence and distrust.

W.E.B. Du Bois1

The NAACP and African American Writers

Du Bois’ belief in the effectiveness and camaraderie within the NAACP may have been slightly embellished. In his autobiographical works, he admits to the dissension between him and various white members of the NAACP during his 24 years as editor of The

Crisis.2 Mary White Ovington and Oswald Garrison Villard both discuss the difficulties

as well as the triumphs of founding and maintaining an interracial organization.3

Founded in 1909 under the leadership of Villard, the NAACP’s primary purpose was to

provide legal assistance to those people whose rights had been violated. In addition, the

organization implemented “mass meetings, investigations, and publicity” to keep the

public aware of various injustices, particularly those waged against blacks.4 The Crisis,

1 Kellogg, NAACP, 103.

2 See W.E.B. Du Bois, The Autobiography of W.E.B. Du Bois: A Soliloquy on Viewing My Life from the Last Decade of its First Century (New York: International, 1968) and Dusk of Dawn: An Essay Toward an Autobiography of a Race Concept (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1940).

3 See Mary White Ovington, Black and White Sat Down Together: The Reminiscences of an NAACP Founder (1932; New York: Feminist, 1995) and Oswald Garrison Villard, Fighting Years: Memoirs of a Liberal Editor (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1939).

4 Kellogg, NAACP, 42.

13 14

the official publication of the NAACP, assisted with this publicity and became widely

distributed shortly after its inception.5

The NAACP’s The Crisis and the National Urban League’s Opportunity became tools

used to present a wide variety of black portrayals, not only to strengthen the pride within

the black community, but also to enlighten whites to the spectrum of black personalities

and classes.6 The writings in these publications paved the way for black authors to write

larger works, and the impact of these works created what is now known as the Harlem

Renaissance.7 In 1925, Alain Locke collected the writings of prominent blacks as a

proclamation that a “New Negro” had emerged.8 Locke defined the “New Negro” as a

person no longer mentally bound in society—someone who possessed a new sense of

self, acknowledging his/her rights and privileges as an American.9

In keeping with this idea of the self-sufficient black individual, Du Bois proved to be an active voice for the black intellectual during the early twentieth century. The Crisis, the

NAACP, and the Harlem Renaissance overlap in that many, if not all, of the black writers

had some type of connection with the organization and/or its publication.10 As black

5 Ibid., 51.

6 For more information on the National Urban League, see Guichard Parris and Lester Brooks, Blacks in the City: A History of the National Urban League (Boston: Little, Brown, 1971) 171-77. For more information on the writings of the Harlem Renaissance, see Margaret Perry, Silence to the Drums: A Survey of the Literature of the Harlem Renaissance (Westport: Greenwood, 1976) 9.

7 George E. Kent, “Patterns of the Harlem Renaissance,” The Harlem Renaissance Remembered, ed. Arna Bontemps (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1972) 30.

8 Alain Locke, The New Negro: Voices of the Harlem Renaissance (1925; New York: Touchstone, 1997).

9 Ibid., 3-16.

10 Carolyn W. Sylvander, Jessie Redmon Fauset, Black American Writer (Albany: Whitston, 1981) 70-76, 95. Jessie Fauset was author and literary editor for The Crisis and was author of There is Confusion, Plum Bun, The Chinaberry Tree, and Comedy: American Style. George S. Schuyler, Black and Conservative: The Autobiography of George S. Schuyler (New Rochelle: Arlington, 1966) 195, 198-201. George

intellectuals, these writers felt it was their duty to forge the way for blacks to develop a

greater acceptance into society by changing the common images and stereotypes usually

portrayed in literature. Most of the black writers of the Harlem Renaissance were well-

educated and from economically sound families. The privilege of these writers may

suggest their inability to represent a true picture of all classes of blacks.11 Fortunately,

though, Harlem Renaissance writing represented a plethora of blacks and addressed such

themes as discrimination, self-assertiveness, color consciousness, and peonage.12

Jessie Fauset, Rudolph Fisher, George Schuyler, and Carl Offord, a post-Harlem

Renaissance writer, all depict the work of the NAACP and the impact the organization’s work has on the community. Fauset focuses on the creation of the organization while

Fisher, Schuyler, and Offord address the organization’s development in the 1920s, 1930s, or 1940s. My aim in this chapter is to interpret what these authors, as representatives of the black population, felt about the NAACP and to compare their views with the goals and accomplishments of the organization. In addition, I will examine the sociological aspects implied by the authors, as well as their predictions for the social and economic future of blacks. The key approaches I will use to examine these texts involve employing the concepts of liberalism, Fanon’s and Memmi’s discussion of superiority and inferiority

Schuyler was writer and investigator for the NAACP and author of Black No More: A Novel. Rudolph Fisher published two short stories in The Crisis in 1925. Rudolph Fisher, “High Yaller, Part I,” Crisis 30 (1925): 281-86 and “High Yaller, Part II,” Crisis 31 (1925): 33-38.

11 Amritjit Singh, The Novels of the Harlem Renaissance: Twelve Black Writers, 1923-1933 (University Park: Pennsylvania State UP, 1976) 72. Singh states: “All the novelists of the Harlem Renaissance came from middle-class backgrounds, and most of them received college and graduate school education at prominent universities around the country.”

12 Perry, Silence to the Drums, 62-63.

complexes, class distinctions, and assimilationism as they relate to the role of the actual

NAACP in comparison to the portrayal of the organization that the authors provide.13

Jessie Fauset and the African American Elite

Jessie Fauset was heavily involved in the NAACP as a contributor to The Crisis beginning in 1912 and as literary editor for the magazine from November 1919 to May

1926.14 Fauset grew up in Philadelphia and earned her bachelor’s degree at Cornell

University and her master’s degree at the University of Pennsylvania as well as studied in

Europe.15 Her middle class upbringing and life experiences justify her choice to focus

primarily on the lives of Northern upper and middle class blacks. Though Fauset only briefly mentions the NAACP in her novel There is Confusion (1924), she depicts a world

in which racism requires such an organization. Fauset chronicles the Bye family history

that dates back to slavery and includes instances of miscegenation, establishing the

interconnectedness of blacks and whites. She also shows the ability of some blacks to

advance socially and economically. Representing social mobility, Fauset promotes

assimilation and integration as a possible solution to the race problem, particularly in the

case of the black middle and upper classes.16 I will critique Fauset’s view of the plight of

13 I am defining assimilationism as the process by which one group must mimic or incorporate the values and mores of another group in order to be accepted. Integration virtually requires assimilation, as one can specifically see through the actions of Joanna and Peter in There is Confusion.

14 Abby Arthur Johnson, “Literary Midwife: Jessie Redmon Fauset and the Harlem Renaissance,” Phylon 39.2 (1978): 145.

15 Sylvander, Jessie, 29, 32, 68. Fauset studied French at the Sorbonne and the Alliance Francaise.

16 Singh, Novels, 72. Singh pinpoints the way in which Fauset portrays the black middle class as very similar to whites: “The Harlem Renaissance novelist most dedicated to the depiction of the black middle class is Jessie Redmon Fauset. In her first three novels, Fauset pictures middle-class black Americans— their values, manners, emotions, activities, dilemmas—with conscious emphasis on similarities to their white counterparts, and on the absurdities of the color line that thwart the progress of her protagonists toward happiness, a goal they invariably attain.”

upwardly mobile blacks in conjunction with the necessity of forming a civil rights

organization.

The first depiction of racial superiority and inferiority complexes occurs early in There is

Confusion when Fauset describes the racial lineage of Peter Bye, one of the main

characters of the novel. There are two Bye families—the white Byes, who are Quakers,

beginning with the patriarch Aaron, and the black Byes, who were slaves freed by the

Quakers, beginning with the patriarch Joshua, Peter Bye’s great-grandfather. Both men

were fixed in their roles of white master and black servant. Joshua, who became free while still a child, knew no life other than servitude. He remained the servant of the

Quaker Byes.17 Joshua possessed great talent for agriculture, but was unable to reach his

full potential as an independent farmer: “ . . . Joshua had spent his life in making [the

Byes’] orchards what they were; a born agriculturalist, he had an uncanny knowledge of

planting, of grafting, of fertilizing. Many a farmer tried to inveigle him from Aaron Bye.

But although Joshua’s wages were small, he had inherited his mother’s blind, invincible

attachment for the Byes. His place was with Aaron.”18

In contrast to Joshua’s lack of ambition, his son, Isaiah, rejects any form of servitude when Meriwether, Aaron’s son, declares, “Your father and your father’s father were slaves. ‘Course your father’s free now but he’s just a servant. He’s not what you’d call his own man. So I s’pose that’s what you’ll be, a good servant. Tell you what, Isaiah, you can be my coachman. I’ll be good to you.”19 Meriwether had adopted the widely

17 Fauset, There is Confusion, 22-24.

18 Ibid., 24.

19 Ibid., 25-26.

accepted view of white superiority that Fanon discusses in Black Skin, White Masks.20

Isaiah refuses this proclamation, and with the moral support of his mother, Belle Potter

Bye, Isaiah opens a school for black children.21 Isaiah becomes a well-respected

Philadelphian, but his social success will always be measured in direct relation to the

perceptions of whites like Meriwether. As Memmi states in The Colonizer and the

Colonized: “The colonized’s self-assertion, born out of a protest, continues to define itself

in relation to it. In the midst of revolt, the colonized continues to think, feel and live

against, and therefore, in relation to the colonizer and colonization.”22

Another product of slavery is Joel Marshall, father of Joanna, Philip, Sylvia, and

Alexander. After years of working for others, Joel possesses the willpower to strike out

on his own. He becomes a well-known caterer in Virginia and New York, where he

eventually moves.23 His own entrepreneurial success fosters expectations of excellence

in his children, especially Joanna. Through Joanna’s character, Fauset exemplifies the price women must pay to achieve goals not commonly achieved by women of color during the early twentieth century.24 Fauset portrays a close relationship between father

and daughter versus the traditional father/son relationship. Usually a son is expected to

20 Fanon, Black Skin, 10. Fanon states, “White men consider themselves superior to black men.”

21 Fauset, There is Confusion, 28.

22 Memmi, Colonizer, 139.

23 Fauset, There is Confusion, 9-11.

24 Deborah E. McDowell, “The Neglected Dimension of Jessie Redmon Fauset,” Conjuring: Black Women, Fiction, and Literary Tradition, eds. Marjorie Pryse and Hortense J. Spillers (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1985) 87-88. McDowell asserts that many critics have overlooked the feminist thrust Fauset provides in her work: “ . . . Fauset explores the black women’s struggle for democratic ideals in a society whose sexist conventions assiduously work to thwart that struggle. . . . This concern with exploring female consciousness and exposing the unduly limited possibilities for female development is, in a loose sense, feminist in impulse, placing Fauset squarely among the early black feminists in Afro-American literary history.”

follow the lead of his father; Joel, instead, notices his daughter’s spark and determination to be her own woman, which in turn, positively affects her brothers.25 Early in Joanna’s

life, her father encourages her desire to empower herself, even listing phenomenal

women to whom Joanna can refer for inspiration—Phillis Wheatley, Sojourner Truth,

Harriet Tubman.26 Unfortunately, Joel’s words of support for Joanna’s aspirations fail to include some of the realities of being black and female in the early twentieth century, as noted by Deborah McDowell: “Her father’s success as a caterer has instilled in her the

American success ethic, and she mistakenly believes that any ambition is realizable if one is diligent and industrious. The success ethic doesn’t work for all, Joanna soon discovers, for when she isn’t plagued by occupational barriers because of her race, she is because of her sex.”27

Joanna sets the lofty goal of being a professional entertainer. Joanna could settle for

singing in church, where she first realizes her talent, or performing at a cabaret or juke

joint, but by virtue of her upbringing and economic status, she aspires to reach a larger

and more diverse audience. Having been educated in a racially integrated school, Joanna impresses her white teacher, Miss Shanley, and becomes her teacher’s favorite pupil.

Recalling Joel’s belief “that final perfection is built on small intermediate perfections,”

Joanna is confident and believes in racial equality, further enforced by the favor bestowed

upon her by her white teacher.28 As expressed in the conversation Joanna has with Peter

25 Sylvander, Jessie, 164-65.

26 Fauset, There is Confusion, 14.

27 McDowell, “Neglected Dimension,” 94.

28 Fauset, There is Confusion, 42.

Bye, Fauset wishes not only to express the reality of Joanna’s situation, but to show

Joanna’s determination to change the status quo:

“. . . . You know I’m to be a great singer.” “No, I didn’t know that. Perhaps you’ll sing in your choir?” Then Joanna astonished him. “In my choir—I sing there already! No! Everywhere, anywhere, Carnegie Hall and in Boston and London. You see, I’m to be famous.” “But,” Peter objected, “colored people don’t get any chance at that kind of thing.” “Colored people,” Joanna quoted from her extensive reading, “can do anything that anybody else can do. They’ve already done it. Some one colored person somewhere in the world does as good a job as anyone else,—perhaps a better one. . . .” Peter looked at her wistfully. His practical experience and the memory of his father inclined him to dubiousness. But her superb assurance carried away all his doubts. “I don’t suppose you’ll ever think of just ordinary people like me?” “But you’ll be famous, too—you’ll be a wonderful doctor. . . .”29

Joanna possesses confidence in her and other black people’s abilities to surmount racial barriers. Though Peter appears to have a more realistic viewpoint about the societal situation of blacks, even he is drawn into Joanna’s hope for the future.

More closely to Peter’s thinking is Madame Caldwell, the black singer who encouraged

Joanna to develop her gift of song when she was only ten. Madame Caldwell is amazed by the “liquid golden quality” of Joanna’s voice, but Madame Caldwell is also reminded of her own positive and negative experiences in the entertainment world: “She had won her own laurels through bitter experience in various studios, meeting insult, indifference and unkindness with an unyielding front, which brought her finally consideration, a grudging interest, sometimes a genuine appreciation.”30 Madame Caldwell knows the

struggles Joanna will face, and even though she has begun to wear down the obstacles for

29 Ibid., 45-46.

30 Ibid., 15.

Joanna and others, she knows Joanna’s road to success will be a difficult one.31 Joanna must soon endure the negative consequences of being a black person with dreams normally reserved for whites.

Mirroring Protestant work ethic and social responsibilities of the “Talented

Tenth,” Joanna declares her role in society will be to “build up colored art.”32 She plans

to do this in a more expansive way: “But I want to show us to the world. I am colored, of

course, but American first. Why shouldn’t I speak to all America?”33 The New Negro

states that art should combine black heritage with American ideals.34 In keeping with this

idea, Fauset views art as an expression of black feeling, skill, and hope instead of viewing

art as a specific tool to use in protest to whiteness and black injustice. Joanna wishes to

define her place in American art, but this definition is plagued with the concept of

blackness in relation to whiteness.35 Patricia Collins explains: “Why this theme of self-

definition should preoccupy African-American women is not surprising. Black women’s

lives are a series of negotiations that aim to reconcile the contradictions separating our

own internally defined images of self as African-American women with our

objectification as the Other.”36 Joanna must negotiate her space and assert her blackness, yet compensate for her color as a result of some whites’ limited thinking.

31 Ibid.

32 Ibid., 76.

33 Ibid.

34 Albert C. Barnes, “Negro Art and America,” The New Negro: Voices of the Harlem Renaissance, ed. Alain Locke (1925; New York: Touchstone, 1997) 23.

35 Fanon, Black Skin, 150.

36 Patricia H. Collins, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment (New York: Routledge, 1991) 94. Collins’ assertion about women mimics Du Bois’ notion of the veil or double-consciousness in The Souls of Black Folk.

Joanna’s role as the racial “Other” becomes even more evident when she searches for a

dancing coach. Peter is impressed when he learns that Joanna takes dancing lessons from

Bertully on Twenty-ninth Street, but he learns that she must segregate herself from white girls because of their refusal to attend classes with a black girl. Bertully, a Frenchman, does not wish to support racial segregation, but he is bound by the restrictions of white,

American society. To show his level of respect for blacks, he agrees to teach Joanna and other black girls in a separate class at night.37 Even more crushing to Joanna’s dreams is

her inability to get jobs because of her race. Though she trains with a renowned dance

instructor, when she participates in auditions, the managers say such things as, “With

Bertully recommending you as he does, you must be a wizard. But the white American

public ain’t ready for you yet, they won’t have you,” or another manager asks her if she

would be willing to be “corked up” since she is “too light,” though he “[c]ouldn’t make

any money out of [her]. America doesn’t want to see a colored dancer in the rôle of a première danseuse.”38 One manager even warns Bertully that he will “ruin [his] trade

teachin’ niggers.”39 These experiences only slightly shake Joanna, who finally receives

an opportunity to dance at the District Line Theater to perform the “Dance of the

Nations.”40 She portrays an American Indian, an African American, and eventually a

White American (using a mask). Joanna breaks the color barrier when the audience excitedly wishes to have Joanna unmask to reveal the incredible dancer they had just seen

37 Fauset, There is Confusion, 95-96.

38 The term “corked up” refers to the process in which cork is burned to create a black substance to blacken one’s face for a minstrel show. For a dramatization of this process, view Spike Lee’s Bamboozled (2000). Fauset, There is Confusion, 148.

39 Fauset, There is Confusion, 149.

40 Ibid., 227.

perform. When she unmasks, she gives an impromptu speech expressing her

“qualifications” as an American, based on the service of her ancestors in the protection of

the country’s freedom through military service, which impresses the audience and leads to her success—all the way to the Broadway stage.41

Fauset may agree that assimilationism may solve racial problems, but she does not

always depict this solution as one that will be an instant panacea for racial prejudice or a

smooth pathway to black acceptance. Just as Joanna struggled to prove her worth as a

skilled dancer and succeeded, Peter Bye, her love interest, also encounters several racial

injustices before becoming a doctor. At a young age, Peter views the integrated school as

a battleground between blacks and whites where blacks would be made to feel inferior:

“He did not like school,—too many white people and consequently, as he saw it, too

much chance for petty injustice.”42 This idea causes an inferiority complex in Peter.

After the death of his parents and under the guardianship of his Aunt Susan, Peter attends

the same school as Joanna. Peter enters the school with a feeling of being the “Other,”

and even though Miss Shanley supposedly holds no prejudice against blacks, she greets

him “without enthusiasm . . . because he was clearly a problem.”43 Joanna and Peter are

the only blacks in the class, and though Miss Shanley admires and commends Joanna’s

intellect and dedication to her studies, Miss Shanley exhibits her limited view of the

overall success of the black race as a whole by the way she treats Peter.

41 Ibid., 231-32.

42 Ibid., 40.

43 Ibid., 41.

Fanon explains the inevitable feelings blacks experience upon their encounters with

whites:

The Negro recognizes the unreality of many of the beliefs that he has adopted with reference to the subjective attitude of the white man. When he does, his real apprenticeship begins. And reality proves to be extremely resistant. But, it will be objected, you are merely describing a universal phenomenon, the criterion of maturity in fact adaptation to society. My answer is that such a criticism goes off in the wrong direction, for I have just shown that for the Negro there is a myth to be faced. A solidly established myth. The Negro is unaware of it as long as his existence is limited to his own environment, but the first encounter with a white man oppresses him with the whole weight of his blackness.44

Peter already feels the oppression of being in a predominantly white space, but in

reaching “maturity,” he must learn “adaptation to society” or as Fauset portrays in her

novel—assimilation. Peter realizes the only way to earn any kind of respect in class is to

prove his intellect. Having been well-versed in many things biological, under the tutelage of his father, Peter seizes the opportunity to explain the function of the digestive system, not “the way the others [would] say it,” but in his own personal, but correct, way.45 Miss Shanley continues to view Peter through her superior lense when he

volunteers to answer her question, thinking, “He looks intelligent,” and then expecting

him to fail before he even begins since he “didn’t know it her way.”46 To her surprise, he

knows more than the average pupil does about the digestive system. Fauset clearly wants

to exhibit the fact that blacks not only have the mental capacity to learn standard

information, but they can surpass this minimum requirement.

44 Fanon, Black Skin, 149-50.

45 Fauset, There is Confusion, 43.

46 Ibid.

As Peter advances to medical school in Philadelphia, his encounters with racism

continue. While one professor acknowledges and encourages Peter’s medical talents,

another professor refuses to allow Peter to view an operation in a white hospital.47

Peter’s discouraging moments in medical school push him to explore other opportunities:

. . . I’m sick of the whole business,—college, my everlasting grind, my poverty, this confounding prejudice. If I want to get a chance to study a certain case and it’s in a white hospital you’d think I’d committed a crime. As though diseases picked out different races! I’m a good surgeon, I’ll swear I am, but I’ve got so I don’t care whether I get my degree or not . . . There’re plenty of pleasanter ways to earn a living. Why should I take any more of their selfish dog-in-the-manger foolishness? I can make all the money I want with Tom Mason. . . . Why shouldn’t I pick the job that comes handiest . . . ?48

Peter allows prejudice to dampen his passion for medicine, and he permits a sudden increase in wages to entice him to pursue a less challenging profession in music. Memmi

explains the frustration a colonized subject faces when confronted with his/her identity,

which now mimics that of the colonizer: “All that the colonized has done to emulate the

colonizer has met with disdain from the colonial masters. They explain to the colonized

that those efforts are in vain, that he only acquires thereby an additional trait, that of

being ridiculous. He can never succeed in becoming identified with the colonizer, nor

even in copying his role correctly.”49 Instead of rejecting these fixed perceptions and

limitations implemented by whites, Peter chooses to back away from his destiny.

Nevertheless, once he realizes the tensions between blacks and whites are omnipresent,

he decides to return to medical school.50 Memmi describes the colonized’s complete

47 Ibid., 143-44.

48 Ibid., 155-57.

49 Memmi, Colonizer, 124.

50 Fauset, There is Confusion, 184-88.

rejection of assimilation.51 Fauset, however, does not totally reject the idea of

assimilation, but through Peter’s character, she exhibits the rejection of racism and the personal triumph over whites who continue to impede black progress. In that respect,

Memmi’s notion of “the colonized’s liberation [being] carried out through a recovery of self and of autonomous dignity” fits here.52 Peter knows he must be a doctor; he has the

mental capacity and ability to do the job. He will continue to acquire the knowledge he

needs to surpass the expectations of whites and prove his worth in society.53

In conjunction with expressing the racial difficulties characters face, Fauset also presents

those characters who wish to fight racism on a larger scale, such as Philip Marshall and

Vera Manning. Philip, as self-determined as Joel Marshall, Joanna and Philip’s father,

believes that blacks will rise up and be noticed for the upstanding, intelligent citizens

they are: “We’ll make the whole world realize what colored people can do. Nothing

short of ‘battle, murder, or sudden death’ is to interfere.”54 At a young age, Philip

observes the dynamics of various black personalities and the ways in which his people

may be inspired to move. At church, he would analyze the techniques of the minister and

“always dreamed of a leader who would guide a whole race forward to the realization of

its steadily increasing strength.”55

He eventually puts this notion into action. Like W.E.B. Du Bois, Philip graduates from

Harvard with Phi Beta Kappa honors. He decides to found an organization like the

51 Memmi, Colonizer, 128.

52 Ibid.

53 Fauset, There is Confusion, 187-88.

54 Ibid., 79.

55 Ibid., 73.

NAACP that would be active in “the suppression of lynching and peonage, the restoration of the ballot, equal schools and a share in civic rights.”56 Fauset deviates slightly from

the actual organization’s founding that began with five whites.57 Du Bois, however, had

organized the Niagara Movement five years prior to the founding of the NAACP.58

Where Fauset states the organization will “favor primarily the interests of the country,” the actual organization focused on assisting blacks in fighting societal mistreatment and discrimination.59 Fauset does portray Philip as the editor of The Spur, just as Du Bois

edited The Crisis. Fauset’s rewriting of NAACP history may suggest her feelings

concerning the urgency of black people to pave their own way to freedom and equality as

much as they can without always depending on whites to assist them.

Fauset exposes another side of self-sufficiency and assimilation through the character

Vera Manning, a mulatto who passes in white society for many years. Vera had always

been plagued by her mother’s superior attitude regarding their family’s almost-white

skin. Vera loses the love of her life because of her mother’s disapproval of his dark

skin.60 Vera’s mother’s attitude emanates from post-Civil War notions of skin color that

were remnants of slavery: “To preserve their [mulatto] status this colored elite began to

segregate themselves into a separate community. In the process they actively

discriminated against their darker-skinned brethren. . . . The elitism that had begun before

56 Ibid., 129-30.

57 Kellogg, NAACP, 10-12. These five individuals were William English Walling, Charles Edward Russell, Henry Moskowitz, Mary White Ovington, and Oswald Garrison Villard.

58 Ibid., 23.

59 Fauset, There is Confusion, 129. Kellogg, NAACP, 13.

60 Fauset, There is Confusion, 198.

the Civil War became further entrenched after it . . .”61 Taking advantage of her skin tone, Vera decides to get a job in a white office and live her life as a white woman. She acknowledges the privileges that she possesses by passing:

You can’t imagine—I couldn’t—the almost unlimited opportunities that those people have for work, for pleasure, for anything. As a white girl I’ve seen sights and places, yes, and eaten food that I never even knew about . . . you can’t imagine the blessedness of no longer being uncertain whether you can enter such and such a hotel, or of getting a decent berth if you’re going traveling or of little things like that, not only that, of inconveniences.62

The Color Complex: The Politics of Skin Color Among African Americans discusses the power lighter complexioned blacks have historically held over darker complexioned blacks as a result of whites control in most areas of society.63 In contrast, Fauset portrays black people of all shades succeeding as doctors, lawyers, dancers, business men and women, etc. Fauset’s portrayals do express the difficulty of blacks achieving these professional feats, and once Vera hears of the injustices done against black soldiers, thinking of her former love who had been a soldier in World War I, she decides to use her act of whiteness as a tool to fight against racism in the South. She contacts Barney

Kirchner, one of Philip’s friends who helped him found the NAACP-like organization, and asks if she may help to investigate Southern crimes against blacks.64 Carolyn

Sylvander notes the similarity between Vera’s character and that of Walter White, noted

61 Kathy Russell, Midge Wilson, and Ronald Hall, The Color Complex: The Politics of Skin Color among African Americans (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1992) 24.

62 Fauset, There is Confusion, 199-200.

63 Russell, Wilson, and Hall, Color, 34.

64 Fauset, There is Confusion, 270.

freedom fighter and president of the NAACP from 1931-1955.65 Vera’s stand against

racism, like White, gives her a sense of purpose, and she happily proclaims she will

“devote the rest of [her] life to it.”66

One of the most admirable characters of the novel, who rejects the notions of his family’s

past racist actions, is Meriwether Bye. Meriwether and Peter meet each other during

World War I and instantly bond, not aware of their status as cousins. Fauset presents

Meriwether as a true liberal, one who views blacks as equals. Not only does he reject

racism, but he internalizes the past mistakes of his ancestors to the point of distraction.67

Meriwether’s declaration of guilt and even unwillingness to marry Mrs. Lea, a racist white woman, indicate his anti-colonialist attitude.68 Memmi explains the difficulty of

taking such a stand in a colonial state: “It is not easy to escape mentally from a concrete

situation [i.e., colonization], to refuse its ideology while continuing to live with its actual

relationships. From now on, he lives his life under the sign of a contradiction which

looms at every step, depriving him of all coherence and all tranquility.”69 Fauset wishes

to convey the stand that whites must take to fight racism even if this stand involves self-

conflict and abandonment of family and friends.

65 Sylvander, Jessie, 152.

66 Fauset, There is Confusion, 271.

67 Sylvander, Jessie, 153. Sylvander states that Meriwether possesses a “cumulative and incapacitating feeling of guilt and regret for his slave-holding Quaker ancestors and his inheritance of white wealth redolent of Black sweat.”

68 By virtue of his status as a part of the white majority, I label him a colonizer.

69 Memmi, Colonizer, 20.

Rudolph Fisher and the General Improvement Association

Like Fauset, Rudolph Fisher, in The Walls of Jericho (1928), depicts the black, university

educated, middle class. Fisher, however, gives a well-rounded picture of black life in

Harlem by including lower and middle class blacks in his novel as well. While some

have criticized Fauset’s novel for focusing primarily on upper class blacks, critics applaud Fisher for providing his readers with a “cross-section of Harlem showing every stratum of society and every shade of color.”70 Fisher employs satire in order to expose

misconceptions about interracial interactions, though the satire is not as biting as George

Schuyler’s, which will be examined later in this chapter.71 Fisher’s depictions of the

various classes of blacks, upper class whites, and the NAACP make a bold, but accurate, statement about the racial climate of the 1920s, particularly in Harlem.

Fisher illustrates the dynamics of color with the terms “dickty,” a light-skinned black person, and “rat,” a dark-skinned black person.72 Then he uses these terms to discuss

class conflicts between “shines” (Negroes).73 Among the characters who represent the

various classes of black people are Fred Merrit, J. Pennington Potter, Tod Bruce, and

Henry “Pat” Patmore representing the upper class; Joshua “Shine” Jones and Linda

Young representing the upwardly mobile and middle classes; and Jinx and Bubber

70 Melvin Tolson, The Harlem Group of Negro Writers, ed. Edward J. Mullen (Westport: Greenwood, 2001) 91. For more criticism on Fisher’s The Walls of Jericho, see Eleanor Q. Tignor, “Rudolph Fisher: Harlem Novelist,” The Langston Hughes Review 1.2 (1982): 13 and Singh, Novels, 84-85. For criticism on Fauset’s subject of upper class African Americans, see Robert Bone, The Negro Novel in America (1958; New Haven: Yale UP, 1965) and Arthur P. Davis, From the Dark Tower: Afro-American Writers: 1900- 1960 (Washington: Howard UP, 1974).

71 Darryl Dickson-Carr, African American Satire: The Sacredly Profane Novel (Columbia: U of Missouri P, 2001) 69.

72 Fisher, Walls, 298, 304.

73 Ibid., 297.

representing the lower class. Though each class is distinct in its manner of social grace

and occupation, Fisher accurately shows the ways in which these classes occasionally

interact with each other. Shine, Jinx, and Bubber frequent Pat’s pool parlor and serve as

movers for Fred; Linda works as a housekeeper for Fred; and all of these characters

attend the General Improvement Association Annual Costume Ball.74

Despite the gathering of people from all walks of life at the ball, interracial and intraracial

conflicts are major themes Fisher depicts in New York during the early twentieth century.

Fred holds extreme animosity toward whites. This bitter feeling may be partly attributed

to the fact that he is the illegitimate son of a white man whom he never meets. Like Peter

in Fauset’s novel, Fred uses the tools of the colonizer to thwart the plans of the colonizer.

He passes for white in order to move into an exclusive white neighborhood to agitate and

destroy racial discrimination in the area of housing. In other words, he passes for white

to assert his social rights.75 Nevertheless, it is this white appearance that causes

dissension between the rats and the dickties. Shine speaks of his dislike of dickties due to

their tendency to feel they are better than other blacks, so when Fred treats him with

respect, Shine feels a slight bit of guilt for disliking Fred, but still proclaims that “they

never was a dickty worth a damn.”76

These types of conflicts in the black community and between blacks and whites create the need for the General Improvement Association (GIA). Fisher’s introduction of the GIA

proves to be a very satirical moment in the novel. From Linda’s perspective, Fisher

74 Ibid., 5-15, 45-55, 74, 215.

75 Ibid., 37-38.

76 Ibid., 51.

provides a picture of the working class’ perception of the GIA’s effectiveness in the black

community. When Agatha Cramp, a wealthy white woman, asks what the organization’s

purpose is, Linda replies, “Well, they collect a dollar a year from everybody that joins,

and whenever there’s a lynching down south they take the dollar and send somebody to

go look at it. . . . Seems like they just want to make sure it really happened.”77 This is a

crude and rather unflattering picture of the NAACP-like organization. In actuality, the

NAACP would send people not only to “look at” the lynching, but to ensure that those

who were responsible for the victim’s death would be punished, though this punishment

often never took place. The organization also hoped this attention would serve as a

deterrent to those who may wish to lynch others. The proliferation of lynching during the

early 1900s greatly concerned the NAACP and caused the formation of an anti-lynching

campaign.78 One of Fisher’s aims may not have been to ridicule the NAACP, but he may have wanted to express the emotional distance and complacency of Northern blacks to the plight of Southern blacks, for Linda states that “nobody gets lynched here [i.e., in the

North or in New York].”79

The next picture of the GIA comes from the GIA Annual Costume Ball. Fisher uses this

occasion to comment on class and race issues. At the ball, clear distinctions are made

between those of low, middle, or upper class status, even though such a multi-class,

interracial ball should incorporate a kind of alliance between the various black and white

people:

77 Ibid., 66-67.

78 Kellogg, NAACP, 210-21.

79 Fisher, Walls, 67.

So swept the scene from black to white through all the shadows and shades. Ordinary Negroes and rats below, dickties and fays above, the floor beneath the feet of the one constituting the roof over the heads of the other. Somehow, undeniably, a predominance of darker skins below, and, just as undeniably, of fairer skins above. Between them, stairways to climb. One might have read in that distribution a complete philosophy of skin-color, and from it deduced the past, present, and future of this people. . . . Out on the dance floor, everyone, dickty and rat, rubbed joyous elbows, laughing, mingling, forgetting difference. But whenever the music stopped everyone immediately sought his own level.80

Though this stratification, as one critic comments, is “somewhat overdone,” Fisher exhibits the separation of these classes as they would normally manifest themselves in the

areas of living quarters, social interactions, and economic privilege.81 Twice, Fisher

comments, “One great common fellowship in one great common cause.”82 On the one

hand, he applauds the efforts of all the people who attend the ball for the purpose of

“Negro advancement,” and on the other hand, he views the dissension as a problem hindering this goal.83

Fisher exemplifies interracial and intraracial interactions in the above scene. My

focus is on the black/white upper class interactions. Fisher carefully describes this group

in order to confirm the inability of most whites to identify with blacks. J. Pennington

Potter, an upper class black man, believes that violence will not beget progress: “Progress

is by evolution, not revolution . . . And you may be sure that race progress is no

exception.”84 In addition to this statement is his belief in “[s]ocial admixture” being the

80 Ibid., 74.

81 Tignor, “Rudolph,” 15.

82 Fisher, Walls, 71, 74.

83 Ibid., 70.

84 Ibid., 36.

“solution to all the problems of race.”85 In theory, this concept may sound probable, but

once this theory is implemented into everyday affairs, the flaws are evident. Fisher states

that the few whites who do attend the ball and hold positions on the GIA Executive Board

are “professional uplifters, determined to be broad-minded about this thing” and the rest

of the whites attend either to observe and criticize blacks or to join in the entertainment

for the night.86 With these kinds of attitudes being held by whites, J. Potter’s theory

becomes null and void.

In Race Matters, Cornel West describes the belief system of liberal structuralists that

impairs their relationship with blacks:

[T]heir focus on structural restraints relates almost exclusively to the economy and politics. They show no understanding of the structural character of culture. Why? Because they tend to view people in egoistic and rationalistic terms according to which they are motivated primarily by self-interest and self-preservation. Needless to say, this is partly true about most of us. Yet, people, especially degraded and oppressed people, are also hungry for identity, meaning, and self-worth.87

The Potters, J. and his wife, frequently spend time with the Dunns. Noel Dunn, described

as the “the Nordic editor of an anti-Nordic journal,” and his wife would normally be

commended for their radical journal and friendship with the Potters, but the Dunns use

the Potters to enhance the success of the journal and to enjoy the “wealth of Harlem.”88

In return, J. Potter takes pride in his friendship with the Dunns. Though the Potters may

85 Ibid., 95.

86 Ibid., 73-74.

87 Cornel West, Race Matters (New York: Vintage, 2001) 17, 20. West defines liberal structuralists as “those who highlight the structural constraints on the life chances of black people. Their viewpoint involves a subtle historical and sociological analysis of slavery, Jim Crowism, job and residential discrimination, skewed unemployment rates, inadequate health care, and poor education.” Here I am using the terms liberal and liberal structuralist interchangeably.

88 Fisher, Walls, 100.

not feel they are “degraded and oppressed people,” they desire to satisfy their sense of

“identity, meaning, and self-worth” through their friendship with the white Dunns.

Unfortunately, what Potter describes as social admixture really means equal opportunism,

which in turn, does not translate into interracial understanding and cooperation.

Agatha Cramp appears to be a philanthropist in the novel, but Fisher’s portrayal

of Agatha’s “cramped” state of mind becomes both a blessing and a curse for blacks.

Agatha considers herself to be a liberal in the sense that she assists those who have been

marginalized and unfairly mistreated. Agatha donates her money to the causes that

represent the racial makeup of her maids—Polish, French, and Russian.89 Liberals, according to George Soule, are those “who are ready to examine new ideas, but who are not eager or dogmatic about change.”90 Agatha cannot comprehend that “Negroes might

be mankind” until fifteen years into her community service.91 This instantly speaks of

her inability to be a crusader for the black cause. She may donate her money and a bit of her time to blacks, but her mindset toward them indicates her inability to work toward a

solution to assist in equality for blacks. Her philanthropy masks her true feelings toward

blacks, viewing them as primitive beings that need to be educated. The fact that Agatha

formerly had placed blacks in the categories of “horses, mules, and motors” and now

feels they actually can be educated does not fully legitimate the motivation behind her assistance to blacks.92

89 Ibid., 59.

90 Soule, “Radicalism,” 273-74.

91 Fisher, Walls, 61.

92 Ibid., 62, 108-10.

Nick Ford describes the dilemma of having someone like Agatha Cramp in an interracial

organization: “Here we see a typical case of a white person who has no ill-will toward the

race, who is even willing to contribute financially to its uplift, but whose gift is merely

dead weight around the aspiring Negro’s neck. For what the Negro wants most of all are

friends who will try, at least, to understand his desires, his longings, and his

aspirations.”93 Fisher aims to prove his point about the inability of whites to assist blacks because of white privilege, whether this is a mental perception of superiority or by virtue

of their economic and political status. Early in the novel, Bubba states, “Fays don’ see no

difference ’tween dickty shines and any other kind o’ shines.”94 Once Agatha finds out that she had an intelligent conversation with Fred, a mulatto, she becomes totally disgusted with the idea that there is “A Negro on Court Avenue.”95 His status as an

affluent attorney makes absolutely no difference to Agatha, further proving her lack of

loyalty to the black race and its causes.

Intraracial conflicts. More devastating than liberals who sabotage the efforts of blacks

are those blacks who sabotage their own people. Fisher presents an intriguing, but

unfortunately realistic, twist in the novel with the resentment and animosity that Pat holds

toward Fred. Fred had brought charges against Pat for hitting a man with his car. In

order to prevent jail time, Fred forces Pat to pay him $10,000. Pat’s resentment at this

“waste” of money causes him to seek revenge. Pat knows he could have had what Fred

had—a nice house in a white neighborhood—or he may have been offered a payoff to

93 Nick Ford, The Contemporary Negro Novel: A Study in Race Relations (College Park: McGrath, 1968) 85-86.

94 Fisher, Walls, 8.

95 Ibid., 139-40.

leave the white neighborhood.96 Fisher presents these two upper class gentlemen—one

with education and the other with business expertise. Pat’s business includes legal and

illegal ventures, and his power lies in his ability to evade or befriend the authorities, even

when he is involved in such activities as drinking moonshine or gambling.97 In this

respect, Pat feels untouchable by the authorities when he burns down Fred’s house.

Shine later pummels Pat for his attempted rape of Linda.98 Though Fisher clearly wants

the reader to acknowledge the fact that “there is no room for Patmores,” he fails to show

adequate punishment for Pat’s crime.99

George Schuyler’s Satiric Message

Like Fisher, Schuyler’s use of satire in Black No More: A Novel (1931) is caustic and

seeks to expose the flaws of blacks and whites during the early twentieth century. Darryl

Dickson-Carr’s analysis of the purpose of African American satire may be employed here

to further understand Schuyler’s place in African American literature: “In African

American literature the voice of the satirist is often sorely needed (though not always heeded) to provide the critiques of his or her community that might otherwise be elided.”100 No one is beyond ridicule of the most scathing manner. Schuyler comments

on such organizations as the NAACP and the KKK and on such prominent figures as

W.E.B. Du Bois, Marcus Garvey, Walter White, and Madame C.J. Walker. The novel’s

primary storyline involves a black doctor, Junius Crookman, who has developed a

96 Ibid., 31-32.

97 Tignor, “Rudolph,” 14.

98 Fisher, Walls, 267-76.

99 Singh, Novels, 87.

100 Dickson-Carr, African American, 18.

method to turn black people white in three days and black newborns white in 24 hours.

Once this discovery becomes public knowledge, blacks line up by the thousands to have

the procedure done, and numerous problems ensue. My focus in this particular section of

the chapter is to examine Schuyler’s critique of the NAACP and its leaders and his

juxtaposition of Max Disher (Matthew Fisher in his white form) and Dr. Junius

Crookman in their views of the two races. Ironically, Schuyler actually implements

Fanon’s philosophy of black men wanting to be white and examines the effects of this

transformation.101

Before discussing the specifics of the novel and in order to adequately analyze it, I must weigh in on the debate of whether this text is motivated by assimilationism or nationalism. As stated earlier, Fauset views assimilation as one of the ways to alleviate racism in the U.S. Schuyler, at first glance, appears to support the view and employs an

essentialist model by making blacks appear white, though this ultimately fails.102 Even as whitened blacks enter into the white world, their socio-psychology remains culturally black. This aspect of the novel could work against any interpretation that Black No More

promotes racial assimilation.103 The argument that Black No More is a nationalist text

may be more plausible, though Schuyler blatantly rejects Marcus Garvey as an effective

leader for this cause. He presents Santop Licorice (Marcus Garvey) as a man who had

dedicated over fifteen years of his life “in favor of Negro racial integrity,” yet he

101 Fanon, Black Skin, 10. Fanon states, “For the black man there is only one destiny. And it is white.”

102 Stacy Morgan, “The Strange and Wonderful Workings of Science”: Race Science and Essentialism in George Schuyler’s Black No More,” CLA Journal 52.3 (1999): 347-52.

103 Bone, Negro, 91. Ann Rayson, “George Schuyler: Paradox Among ‘Assimilationist’ Writers,” Black American Literature Forum 12.3 (1978): 102-6. Bone states that Schuyler is an assimilationist, while Rayson refutes this point.

swindled blacks out of their money under the premise of migrating to Africa.104 In

addition, Licorice is never respected by other black organizations. He often feels alienated and impedes their pursuits for racial equality.105

Schuyler expresses his main resistance to Garvey’s plan of action against racism in Black

and Conservative: The Autobiography of George S. Schuyler. Schuyler believes that

since blacks are already in the United States, they must establish themselves in this

society and oppose racial discrimination. Schuyler writes: “Once we accept the fact that there is, and always will be, a color caste system in the United States, and stop crying

about it, we can concentrate on how best to survive and prosper within that system. This

is not defeatism but realism. It is tragic and pointless to wage war against the more

numerous and more powerful white majority, and so jeopardize what advantages we

possess.”106 This statement may appear to mimic Booker T. Washington’s ideas

concerning accommodation, but Schuyler’s work with the Socialist Party, the NAACP,

and other progressive race organizations complicates his full belief in this philosophy.

Schuyler’s nationalism is not similar to Garveyism, but the final result in Black No More

of darker skin as the accepted color in America and the immediate refusal of the skin-

whitening process of Black-No-More, Inc., exhibits Schuyler’s racial pride.107 Even so,

because of his many contradictions, not only in the novel but in his years of writing, I

104 Schuyler, Black No More, 74-75.

105 Ibid., 75. Licorice “had continued to attempt to save the Negroes by vigorously attacking all of the other Negro organizations and at the same time preaching racial solidarity and coöperation in his weekly newspaper, ‘The African Abroad,’ which was printed by white folks and had until a year ago been full of skin-whitening and hair-straightening advertisements.”

106 Schuyler, Black and Conservative, 121-22.

107 Schuyler, Black No More, 156, 178.

40 must agree with Ann Rayson’s assertion that Schuyler may be classified more ambiguously as “a raging, incomprehensible individualist.”108 In other words, Schuyler’s inconsistencies with blacks’ solution to racism confirm the difficulties of being black in the U.S. Schuyler’s statements also address the issue of masculinity as a force to keep

African Americans strong in their quest for equality.

The novel appears prior to Schuyler’s membership in the NAACP as an investigator and a writer for The Crisis.109 Therefore, his perception of the work of the NAACP may be slightly skewed, in that he writes as a distant observer rather than an active participant.

His use of satire reveals the NAACP and other race organizations’ flaws as he views them. Michael Peplow discusses the primary functions of satire: “Satire has a dual purpose. It attacks, on the one hand, ridiculing man’s folly and vice. Most satire is devoted to this attack. But buried somewhere in the invective is the satirist’s message to his fellow man.”110 In this respect, Schuyler wants his reader to be aware of the possible underhanded ways of these organizations. Arthur Davis acknowledges the positive use of satire that Schuyler employs by exposing the “excusable foibles and idiosyncrasies” of the race organizations, but he does find fault in the fact that in writing this satire for “one unforgivable and regrettable instance . . . he inadvertently drops his ‘tickler’ and takes up a bludgeon.”111 Davis never states what this one moment is, thereby confirming the idea

108 Rayson, “George,” 106.

109 Schuyler, Black and Conservative, 195-214.

110 Michael Peplow, George S. Schuyler (Boston: Twayne, 1980) 77.

111 Davis, “Black Satire,” 90.

that many moments in the novel may be misinterpreted. Du Bois also acknowledges the general population’s potential problem with understanding the point of satire.112

What criticisms does Schuyler want to make in his portrayal of the NAACP and its leaders? Arthur Davis and Hugh Gloster agree that Schuyler wants to present organizations, such as the NAACP, as self-serving and overly concerned with prestige and money.113 I contend that part of Schuyler’s criticism arises from his resistance to the

concept of class and the belief that class conflicts and/or class distinctions keep the lower

class from fully benefiting from the services the NAACP is supposed to be providing for

all. As Fisher illustrates through his character, Linda Young, the lower or working

classes do not always focus on the specifics of an organization’s purpose; instead, they

support an organization based on its name and the good they appear to provide for the

community.114 Interestingly, Jeffrey Tucker views Schuyler’s ridicule of the NAACP as

a “not-so-not-for-profit organization of cigar- and pipe-smoking black Europhiles and

‘white (men) of remote Negro ancestry’ who are both out of touch with and eyed

suspiciously by the people whose interests they are supposed to assert and defend.”115

Ministers, scholars, attorneys, doctors, entrepreneurs, and authors were the professions of

112 Du Bois states, “A writer of satire is always misunderstood by the simple.”

113 Davis, From the Dark Tower, 105-6. Hugh M. Gloster, Negro Voices in American Fiction (Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 1948) 190.

114 See pages 17 and 18 of this chapter.

115 Jeffrey Tucker, “Can Science Succeed Where the Civil War Failed?: George S. Schuyler and Race,” Race Consciousness: African-American Studies for the New Century, eds. Judith J. Fossett and Jeffrey Tucker (New York: New York UP, 1997) 143.

many of the black people who were a part of the organization between the years of 1919 and 1931.116

Of particular interest in Schuyler’s novel is Dr. Shakespeare Agamemnon Beard (W.E.B.

Du Bois) and his behavior as a black leader. Through this character, Schuyler portrays

Du Bois as a man fixated with education, words, and his non-black ancestry.117 Beard’s

contradiction in fighting for “the darker races,” yet only hiring octoroons to work for him,

and publicly “denouncing the Caucasians whom he secretly admired” depicts Du Bois’

self-conflict as a man of mixed heritage who strives to overcome the color barrier through intellectual means in an effort to help others.118 In The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual,

Harold Cruse discusses the difficulties the Negro intellectual encounters in an effort to

assist black people and to associate effectively with whites:

The Negro intellectual must deal intimately with the white power structure and cultural apparatus, and the inner realities of the black world at one and the same time. But in order to function successfully in this role, he has to be acutely aware of the nature of the American social dynamic and how it monitors the ingredients of class stratifications in American society. The American people, aside from the handful of power wielders in the upper levels, have very little social control over the economic, class, and political forces of the American capitalistic dynamic. They are, in fact, manipulated by them. Therefore the Negro intellectual must learn how one might control and channel such forces.119

Du Bois constantly struggled with allegiance to blacks and involvement with whites and the black elite. Despite his personal flaws and struggles, Du Bois’ contribution to the organization was invaluable. The fact that Du Bois and other prominent blacks of the

116 Langston Hughes, Fight for Freedom: The Story of the NAACP (New York: Berkley, 1962) 31. Kellogg, NAACP, 300-1.

117 Schuyler, Black No More, 65-66.

118 Ibid., 65.

119 Harold Cruse, The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual (1967; New York: Quill, 1984) 451.

NAACP possessed economic wealth and/or higher education should not diminish their

dedication to the organization. Furthermore, their ability to donate their time and money

to spearhead activities and programs benefited all blacks regardless of class. Up to 1931,

the organization led anti-lynching campaigns and involved itself in numerous court cases

that paved the way toward securing more rights for black people.120 The NAACP

commanded respect and fought against Jim Crow laws, discrimination in the military,

peonage, and other forms of racial discrimination.

In Black No More, Schuyler collapses race and, in some cases, class to prove that there is

little difference among people within these socially constructed notions. By contrasting

Max and Junius’ philosophies and lives, Schuyler uses their thoughts on race and class in

the black community as a way to create a better understanding of these concepts among

society as a whole. Max works as an insurance agent, while Junius is a doctor who

studied in Germany.121 Though from different economic and educational backgrounds,

these two men view race in the same manner—they both regard whiteness as the ideal.122

Junius feels the race problem can only be solved if race can be eliminated. When Max

hears of Junius’ process of whiteness “by electrical nutrition and glandular control,” he suddenly thinks of what he perceives to be the advantages of being white: “No more jim crow. No more insults. As a white man he could go anywhere, be anything he wanted to be, do most anything he wanted to do, be a free man at last.”123 As stated earlier, this

120 Hughes, Fight for Freedom, 72-73.

121 Schuyler, Black No More, 4, 9.

122 Ibid., 43. Schuyler writes, “As a boy [Max] had been taught to look up to white folks as just a little less than gods . . .” See note 129 for the origin of Junius’ beliefs about whiteness and blackness.

123 Ibid., 10-11.

concept of blacks wanting to be white mimics Fanon’s argument. The desire of the black

man to be white comes from the black man’s perception of the advantages of whiteness.124 Interestingly, Schuyler proves, through Max and Junius, that whiteness

fails to deliver the ideal they thought it held.

Once Max becomes white, he feels his problems will be eliminated, and he will lead a

much more happy and carefree life. Max decides to go to a white cabaret, but he finds

that it lacks the excitement of a black cabaret. He compares white culture to black

culture, admiring the blacks’ ways of doing things:

There was something lacking in these ofay places of amusement . . . The joy and abandon here was obviously forced. Patrons went to extremes to show each other they were having a wonderful time. It was all so strained and quite unlike anything to which he had been accustomed. The Negroes, it seemed to him, were much gayer, enjoyed themselves more deeply and yet they were more restrained, actually more refined. Even their dancing was different. They followed the rhythm accurately, effortlessly and with easy grace; these lumbering couples, out of step half the time and working as strenuously as stevedores emptying the bowels of a freighter, were noisy, awkward, inelegant. At their best they were gymnastic where the Negroes were sensuous. He felt a momentary pang of mingled disgust, disillusionment and nostalgia.125

After getting over this initial disappointment, he further learns that being white does not

necessarily guarantee a comfortable life, for he struggles to find a job. Max infiltrates the

Knights of Nordica (Ku Klux Klan) as an anthropologist in order to profit both in power

and money by spouting false allegations about white superiority and black inferiority.

124 Jane Kuenz, “American Racial Discourse, 1900-1930: Schuyler’s Black No More.” Novel: A Forum on Fiction 30.2 (1997): 170-92. Kuenz comments on the fact that “the desire for whiteness is made analogous to the hope for the kind of participation in the cultural, economic, and political affairs of the nation denied by definition in the racial discourse of the period; in short wanting to be white means wanting to be a free and democratic citizen of the nation, to be included in the conceptual realm of ‘America’ . . .”

125 Schuyler, Black No More, 22-23.

Max views this opportunity as a way “to keep from working.”126 Schuyler’s use of a

character like Max is twofold. On the one hand, Max can be looked upon as a shrewd

individual; on the other hand, he may be viewed as a trickster.127 Despite these two ideas about Max’s character, one thing remains clear—Max never forgets he is black.128

Junius’ attitude concerning essentialism stems from his upbringing of feigned prestige

and unrealistic ideas about human sensibilities toward race issues. Though he takes pride

in blackness and constantly seeks facts about blacks, he wants to “remove all obstacles in

their path by depriving them of their racial characteristics.”129 Fanon speaks of the way in which blackness in direct contact with whiteness creates a “certain uncertainty.”130

Junius wants blacks to avoid these feelings of inadequacy in the presence of whites. He does not undergo the whitening process himself, but he marries a woman who can pass, which further illustrates his belief that whiteness grants one privilege and freedom.131

These contradictions of pride in blackness and reverence for whiteness, like Beard (Du

126 Ibid., 43-44, 46.

127 Reilly 108. Peplow, George, 67, 69.

128 Peplow, George, 70.

129 Schuyler, Black No More, 34-35. Schuyler writes, “The son of an Episcopal clergyman, [Junius] had been born and raised in a city in central New York, his associates carefully selected in order to protect him as much as possible from the defeatist psychology so prevalent among American Negroes and given every opportunity and inducement to learn his profession and become a thoroughly cultivated and civilized man. His parents, though poor, were proud and boasted that they belonged to the Negro aristocracy. He had had to work his way through college because of the failure of his father’s health but he had come very little in contact with the crudity, coarseness and cruelty of life. He had been monotonously successful but he was sensible enough to believe that a large part of it was due, like most success, to chance. He saw in his great discovery the solution to the most annoying problem in American life. Obviously, he reasoned, if there were no Negroes, there could be no Negro problem. Without a Negro problem, Americans could concentrate their attention on something constructive.”

130 Fanon, Black Skin, 111.

131 Schuyler, Black No More, 35.

Bois) embodies, reflects his inability to reconcile reality and fantasy.132 Junius’ development of this whitening process confirms his dedication to the acceptance of blacks in society. However, instead of whites embracing the product of Black-No-More,

Inc., whites oppose the process because they can no longer be distinguished and reap the advantages of a society that is tailor-made for whites and openly opposed to blacks.

Memmi states that the colonial system ensures a better life for the colonizer at the expense of the colonized.133 By the end of the novel, Junius realizes that the power structure within society cannot totally be dismantled. In the role of Surgeon-General,

Junius declares that blacks who had undergone the whitening process are much lighter than authentic whites.134 The balance of power within society is reinstated, and Junius becomes aware of the futility of trying to eliminate prejudice by destroying the color line.135

Carl Offord’s View of the NAACP and Black Nationalism

While Fauset, Fisher, and Schuyler critique the formative years of the NAACP, Carl

Offord emphasizes the legal work of the organization during the 1930s and the early

1940s. Carl Offord’s novel, The White Face (1943), is set in the North and the South during World War II. Offord illustrates the difficulty black Southerners faced under the sharecropping system, as well as their hardships when relocating to the North. As a point of focus, I will examine the historical moments, such as the second slavery that Du Bois declares occurred in the South after emancipation, Northern idealism—the idea that the

132 Peplow, George, 80. Peplow discusses this issue more thoroughly.

133 Memmi, Colonizer, 11-12.

134 Schuyler, Black No More, 176-77.

135 Peplow, George, 81.

North is a kind of promised land for black people during the early and mid-twentieth century, and the rivalry between the Colored Congress (NAACP) and the Black

Nationalists that Offord portrays in the novel.

Part of Offord’s goal in this novel is to describe the relationship between blacks and whites specifically in Georgia and New York, in an effort to establish the need for an organization such as the Colored Congress. At the opening of the novel, the main characters, Chris and Nella Woods, are making preparations to leave Georgia to reside in the North as a result of ill treatment under the sharecropping system.136 Eighty years after Emancipation, black people were still plagued with oppression. Particularly in the

South, blacks found it difficult to become self-sufficient because of the restrictions made on their livelihood. In The Souls of Black Folk, Du Bois states that since blacks were trained as slaves, the transition from slavery to freedom was a great challenge for them.137

Offord illustrates the powerlessness Chris feels when he approaches Mr. Harris about the money he had earned. Harris claims that Chris actually owes him money. With no formal records, Chris is unable to dispute Harris.138 Du Bois tells of similar factual

136 Offord, White, 13-15.

137 W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (1903; New York: Penguin, 1996) 137. Du Bois describes the second slavery: “[W]orkingmen have been trained for centuries as slaves. . . . What the black laborer needs is careful personal guidance, group leadership of men with hearts in their bosoms, to train them to foresight, carefulness, and honesty. Nor does it require any fine-spun theories of racial differences to prove the necessity of such group training after the brains of the race have been knocked out by two hundred and fifty years of assiduous education in submission, carelessness, and stealing. After Emancipation, it was the plain duty of some one to assume this group leadership and training of the Negro laborer. . . . but I insist it was the duty of some one to see that these workingmen were not left alone and unguided, without capital, without land, without skill, without economic organization, without even the bald protection of law, order, and decency, — left in a great land, not to settle down to slow and careful internal development, but destined to be thrown almost immediately into relentless and sharp competition with the best of modern workingmen under an economic system where every participant is fighting for himself, and too often utterly regardless of the rights or welfare of his neighbor.”

138 Offord, White, 18-21.

48 injustices between white landowners and black sharecroppers.139 These instances of which Du Bois speaks occur prior to 1903; however, Offord shows the continuing trend of oppression Southern blacks face well into the twentieth century.

Like many blacks after Emancipation, Chris and Nella believe the North holds prosperity and equality: “We going to leave all this mess . . . We going to the North where they live in nothing but brick houses. We going where we could work when we want to, and get paid for the sweat we put out. We going where we going to be free for once.”140 The

North is seen as a place of refuge for black people, and part of this idealism comes from the fact that slavery had been eliminated in the North by 1830. Despite this progressive move toward freedom for blacks, laws and other limitations on personal freedoms were implemented.141 Chris and Nella quickly realize that Cousin May’s positive description

139 Du Bois, Souls, 139. Du Bois relays two stories about injustices waged against Southern blacks: “I have seen, in the Black Belt of Georgia, an ignorant, honest Negro buy and pay for a farm in installments three separate times, and then in the face of law and decency the enterprising Russian Jew who sold it to him pocketed money and deed and left the black man landless, to labor on his own land at thirty cents a day. I have seen a black farmer fall in debt to a white storekeeper, and that storekeeper go to his farm and strip it of every single marketable article,—mules, ploughs, stored crops, tools, furniture, bedding, clocks, looking- glass,—and all this without a warrant, without process of law, without a sheriff or officer, in the face of the law for homestead exemptions, and without rendering to a single responsible person any account or reckoning.”

140 Offord, White, 13.

141 Vincent Harding, There is a River: The Black Struggle for Freedom in America (1981; San Diego: Harvest, 1992) 117. According to Harding, “[b]y 1830, when official slavery had finally ended in the North, some 150,000 persons of African descent were living there. But what replaced chattel slavery was not freedom, justice, and equality for black people. Rather, the demise of legal slavery in the North had actually ripped the mask from the enduring blights on the land: self-righteous white racism, rapacious economic greed, and deep-seated, irrational fear of blackness. Although slavery no longer served its purposes, a society so fully committed to those terrible scourges needed to find some substitute arrangements for keeping blacks in their proper place. . . . With the end of slavery in the North, some whites were questioning the reason for a continuing black presence there. In that context, new legal and extralegal barriers to black equality and freedom had to be built, and new discouragements devised against the development of white conscience and humanity. By the time the most recent dark pilgrims from the South had arrived, the truly strange career of Jim Crow had already begun.”

of Harlem had been overstated.142 Kellogg describes the situations blacks encountered

when they went to the North:

[T]he opportunities for employment nowhere equaled the number of migrants flooding the cities in search of economic and social betterment and greater freedom. This led to the concentration of masses of Negroes in slums, with all the attendant poverty, disintegration of family life, and delinquency that slum life entails. Some Negroes became tools of corrupt politicians. All these factors led to the increased prejudice and increased racial tension in the cities.143

Chris and Nella fall into this category of migratory blacks.

Nella is able to find work as a housekeeper for the Wallmans, a wealthy Jewish family.

Chris searches for a job, but is unsuccessful. He becomes frustrated with his life in the

North and begins to take his frustrations out on Nella.144 Joining a great number of black

people who felt that the white patriarchal system hindered their right to prosperity, Chris becomes involved in a Black Nationalist organization that promotes anti-Semitism.145

Offord uses the depiction of this organization to reflect a more violent solution to equal rights than that of the Colored Congress. When Chris is apprehended for the murder of

Harris, his new militant behavior clouds his judgment. This attitude of rebellion against the system can be seen as a form of decolonization that Fanon explains in The Wretched of the Earth:

Decolonization is the meeting of two forces, opposed to each other by their very nature, which in fact owe their originality to that sort of substantification which results from and is nourished by the situation in the colonies. . . . Decolonization never takes place unnoticed, for it

142 Offord, White, 38, 50-51.

143 Kellogg, NAACP, 223-24.

144 Offord, White, 90-91, 113.

145 Ibid., 119-20. For more information on the tensions between African Americans and Jews, see Nat Hentoff, ed., Black Anti-Semitism and Jewish Racism (New York: Richard W. Baron, 1969).

influences individuals and modifies them fundamentally. It transforms spectators crushed with their inessentiality into privileged actors, with the grandiose glare of history’s floodlights upon them. It brings a natural rhythm into existence, introduced by new men, and with it a new language and a new humanity. Decolonization is the veritable creation of new men. But this creation owes nothing of its legitimacy to any supernatural power; the ‘thing’ which has been colonized becomes man during the same process by which it frees itself.146

Chris’ process of decolonization begins when he violently opposes Harris. Then Chris’

hope in the free life of the North is crushed by continued oppression and joblessness,

which only exacerbate his deteriorating mental state. Having been subjected to violence

and restrictions in the South, he views violence as the only way to conquer injustice.

Consequently, Black Nationalism helps to feed his belief in aggression as the only

solution to gain equality.

Nella disagrees with the philosophy and methods of the Black Nationalists. Once Chris

is arrested, she seeks the help of the Colored Congress to clear him. Offord’s picture of

the NAACP initially seems positive, but a more careful examination of the organization’s

stance within society proves to be less than satisfying to some blacks. Before enlisting

the help of the Colored Congress, Nella asks Aunty Ben what she knows of the group.

Aunty Ben replies, “They used to be a powerful organization. They used to be out on the

street all the time, marching. They helped to save some of the Scottsboro boys that time.

But I can’t say for now. You don’t see them on the street no more.”147 These comments

about the Colored Congress indicate a decline in visibility, which implies less

effectiveness in the eyes of the general public. Some characters oppose the Colored

Congress because of its involvement with whites; they feel this coalition diminishes the

146 Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (New York: Grove, 1963) 36-37.

147 Offord, White, 237.

black voice for justice.148 The NAACP, like the fictional Colored Congress, makes

litigation one of its primary tools in fighting injustices and changing discriminatory mandates.149

In the 1930s and 1940s, the NAACP worked to improve salaries for public school

teachers, to assist blacks in acquiring jobs in industry, and to eliminate discrimination in

the military during World War II, among other things.150 Part of Offord’s portrayal of the

NAACP illustrates its wide-ranging power. This power frees Chris from a life of imprisonment or worse. The Colored Congress is able to reach the governor of New

York, and though he had previously ordered Chris to be extradited to Georgia, the

investigative power of the members of the Colored Congress uncovers the fact that Chris

did not murder Harris. Upon this finding, the governor decrees that Chris be released.151

This triumph represents the power and respect the Colored Congress/NAACP has

obtained over the years. The irony of the situation is that even though Chris will now be

a free man, the weight of oppression drives him to death.152 Though I disagree, Noel

Schraufnagel asserts that Offord’s choice of a tragic ending lessens the Colored

148 Ibid., 240.

149 Hughes, Fight, 53. Hughes states, “The sending of competent investigators into troubled regions to gather facts on racial difficulties early became an established part of NAACP activities. Information so recorded was used not only to acquaint Congress and the public with contemporary happenings, but also as a basis for court cases, legal petitions, and appeals.”

150 Kellogg, NAACP, 82-109.

151 Offord, White, 285-305.

152 Ibid., 315-17. Noel Schraufnagel, From Apology to Protest: The Black American Novel (DeLand: Everett/Edwards, 1973) 37. Schraufnagel states that Chris is “transformed into a beast as an indication that the effects of racism are more potent than any particular point that can be won in a court decision.”

Congress’ effort to use this case as a steppingstone for others in similar situations.153

Offord values the power of the NAACP, but he also makes a statement about the group’s

nonviolent and nonaggressive approach to equal rights that can discourage blacks who

seek a more proactive solution to the race problem.

All of the authors acknowledge the contributions the NAACP has made toward

increasing the rights and privileges of black people. They have also effectively described

the environment that warranted the existence of such an organization. Each author

acknowledges the flaws of the NAACP, but some consider the flaws to be more

problematic than others. Fauset views assimilation through integration as a viable

solution to the race problem; yet, she rewrites the history with a black man as founder of

the NAACP. This adjustment in history may be seen as a statement of self-sufficiency to

blacks.

Fisher, Schuyler, and Offord possess a more blatantly negative view of the NAACP.

Fisher clearly examines the inferiority and superiority complexes and class differences

that hinder progress for black rights. He does propose a coalition of the classes of blacks

at the end of the novel, but his perception of interracial cooperation remains negative.154

Schuyler’s criticism lies primarily with the members of the black elite in the NAACP and their inability to focus on the immediate needs of blacks of all classes. He perceives the

153 Schraufnagel, From Apology to Protest, 36. Schraufnagel writes, “The victory of Nella and the Colored Congress is a hollow one. It cannot restore one’s humanity after a lifetime of oppression has worked to ‘brutalize’ an individual. A comprehensive change in the attitude of white society is necessary in order for an organization like the Colored Congress to do much good, and, of course, the time necessary to make any strides in this direction will not have much effect on people who have run out of patience and time.”

154 Fisher, Walls, 282-83. Fred buys a moving company and asks Shine to run it with an option to buy the business at a later time.

liberals of the organization as too conservative in the acquisition of black rights.155

Offord recognizes the power the NAACP has obtained with the courts and various

government officials. The problem with the NAACP stems from the inability to transfer

this power to the hearts and minds of all blacks and whites. Because of this lack of

enthusiasm, Black Nationalism and other militant groups are more appealing to some

blacks. The NAACP was and still is an organization that cares for the rights of all

mankind. Their process of working toward this end may have taken decades to evolve,

but without this organization, “liberty and justice for all” may have still been just a dream.

155 George S. Schuyler, “What’s Wrong with the NAACP?” Negro Digest 5.11 Sept. 1947: 29. Schuyler expresses his dissatisfaction with the NAACP: “Those who founded the organization, and whose philosophy still dominates and guides it, thought primarily in terms of defense and were zealous to do something for the Negro rather than teach the Negro to do something for himself. They regarded the NAACP as a policeman and lawyer rather than architect and builder. It could stir the group to hysterical complaint and yammering supplication, and so increase the hypersensitivity which hampers the initiation of a program for general advancement . . .”

CHAPTER 2 HIMES, ELLISON, AND THE RED ANSWER TO THE BLACK QUESTION

Confusion, civil war and economic paralysis being the means whereby the Communists hope to come to power in the United States as elsewhere, they began very early in their criminal career to cultivate the friendship and loyalty of the Negroes as one of the most effective instruments for bringing this about. The color problem has been the weakest link in American democracy and the most explosive element, and the Reds aimed to exploit it to the fullest. Being underprivileged, exploited and humiliated, the Negroes were expected to be easily corralled expendibles [sic] in the Communists’ nihilistic struggle for power.

1 George S. Schuyler

George Schuyler’s biting criticism of the CPUSA expresses the frustration he and

other black intellectuals felt toward the organization in the early and mid-twentieth

century. Chester Himes, Ralph Ellison, and Richard Wright echoed these sentiments

through their writings, though not all as strongly as Schuyler did. In particular, Chester

Himes’ Lonely Crusade (1947) and Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man (1952) specifically

address the workings of the CPUSA from the black perspective of the skeptic and the

Party member. Lee Gordon in Lonely Crusade and IM in Invisible Man are comparable in that they portray the black experience in the 1930s or the 1940s on the West Coast or the East Coast, not only within the CPUSA, but in society itself. Lee Gordon analyzes the motives of the union and the CPUSA; likewise, IM examines the goals and actions of

1 George S. Schuyler, The Communist Conspiracy Against the Negro (New York: Catholic Information Society, 1947).

54 55

the Brotherhood.2 These two characters learn a great deal about themselves and those around them through their interracial and intra-racial experiences within these

organizations.

The Black Male Identity Crisis

Lee and IM are both suffering from identity crises. Lee acknowledges his fear of the lack of acceptance in a predominantly white society, but he has difficulty trying to pinpoint ways to conquer this fear, whereas IM searches for a sense of purpose in his life, facing various situations that assist in establishing his identity. There are particular moments in Lonely Crusade and Invisible Man that transform Lee and IM from apprehensive, ill-defined shells to more self-aware, but scarred, human beings. Their encounters with individuals within and outside of the CPUSA/Brotherhood define their purpose within the organizations. Lee and IM experience betrayals by members of the

CPUSA/Brotherhood that are pivotal to their development. The question of working toward equality forces Lee and IM to confront their fears and find alternative ways to work within and outside of established organizations.

Lee’s job as union organizer is known as a “Negro First” and affords him a great deal of notoriety in the black community as well as the community at large.3

Unfortunately, as James Lundquist states, Lee’s “initial elation at being hired diminishes

when he realizes the harassment he will have to face in the predominantly white world of

2 Generally speaking, the Brotherhood represents the CPUSA.

3 Himes, Lonely, 3-4. The community views Lee’s position as a milestone: “Reporters and photographers from three Los Angeles Negro weekly newspapers had covered his appointment. . . . Various civic and church groups would invite him to address their meetings; social clubs would invite him to join. There were white people also—politicians, Communists, and members of various race-relations committees— who would realize the importance of this job to Negroes, from whom Lee would receive overtures of sorts.”

union structure and management.”4 Fanon’s acknowledgement of the black man’s

constant comparison to the white man confirms itself in Lee’s first interactions with

white union officials.5 When talking with Smitty and Joe Ptak, Lee knows he must live

up to what these men expect of him in order to integrate the union and impact the black

workers’ fate. A huge responsibility is placed upon his shoulders. Smitty, one of the

union organizers, picks Lee up to take him to Comstock Aircraft Corporation and stresses

the importance of organizing the workers and eventually impacting the world’s workers:

“Lee, you might say the fate of the working class of the world depends on us here. As

Comstock goes, the West goes. As the West goes, the nation goes. As the nation goes,

the world goes.”6

Joe Ptak, an aggressive union organizer and Lee’s new employer, boldly states the

immediate, desired result of organizing the workers at Comstock: “But we got to organize

‘em. We got to build up a strong local and do it fast. In a couple of months we’ll have a

labor board election. And we got to win it. It’s important from the long view. This

employment ain’t gonna last forever. If we don’t have a strong union when the war’s

over, there’s gonna be hell to pay.”7 Joe stresses the difficulty of organizing Southern

workers because of false information fed to them while living in the South, tainting their minds and swaying them against unions. He also warns Lee of the antics of the CPUSA and Louis Foster, vice president of Comstock. Stephen Milliken states that “Joe’s single-

4 James Lundquist, Chester Himes (New York: Frederick Ungar, 1976) 52.

5 Fanon, Black Skin, 110. Fanon states, “For not only must the black man be black; he must be black in relation to the white man.”

6 Himes, Lonely, 17.

7 Ibid., 24.

minded dedication to unionism amounts to monomania,” but Joe’s abrasive nature and

dedication bring Lee to his final act of reconciliation with himself.8

Contrary to the helpful information he obtains from Smitty and Joe, Lee receives

quite a different reception from Marvin Todd. The narrator describes Marvin as “a tall,

blond man with glassy blue eyes.”9 Smitty introduces Lee to Marvin, but when Lee

reaches out to shake his hand, Marvin forcefully says, “Hah!” and ignores Lee’s

gesture.10 Lee’s reaction to this blatant racism is not one of open and outright hostility.

Instead, Lee suppresses his feelings and internalizes this hatred.11 Gilbert H. Muller

comments that “Marvin Todd, a racist who is the chairman of the union local, signifies

for Gordon the possibility that the union could also become the essential enemy.”12 In conjunction with Marvin’s attitude, Lee feels insecure when he meets Benny Stone, “a short, curly-haired Jew with sharp dark eyes, who was acting financial secretary of the local.”13 Lee has reservations concerning Benny’s cordial welcome to him: “Benny’s

effusive greeting brought a recurrence of the old troubling question: On what side did the

Jew actually play? Was Benny’s effusion a slap at Todd or a pretense for Joe?”14 Lee’s feelings toward Marvin and Benny are problematic because according to Joe, Lee is

8 Stephen F. Milliken, Chester Himes: A Critical Appraisal (Columbia: U of Missouri, 1976) 129

9 Himes, Lonely, 18.

10 Ibid.

11 Ibid., 18. Lee inwardly reacts to Marvin’s racist action: “Slowly Lee withdrew his hand as silence again descended upon the room. Now it was not fear he felt, but a stricture of the soul, the torture of the damned, a shriveling up inside, an actual diminution of his organs and the stoppage of their functions.”

12 Gilbert H. Muller, Chester Himes (Boston: Twayne, 1989) 32.

13 Himes, Lonely, 19. See Nat Hentoff’s Black Anti-Semitism and Jewish Racism. This group of essays gives insight into the points of contention between African Americans and Jews.

14 Himes, Lonely, 19.

Marvin and Benny’s supervisor. Therefore, Marvin’s prejudice against Lee and Lee’s insecurity toward Benny undermine Lee’s authority. From the beginning, Lee’s authority is challenged, thereby diminishing the effectiveness of his purpose within the organization.

IM does not hold the same “Negro First” status, but his role as a speaker for the

Brotherhood can be looked upon as notable during the 1930s. IM feels compelled to speak for an elderly black couple he sees being evicted in Harlem. IM’s concern for this couple and his eloquence in speaking against their eviction sparks Brother Jack, leader of the Brotherhood, to approach IM. More importantly, the Brotherhood is looking for someone to attract more blacks into the organization. According to Fraser M. Ottanelli, the CPUSA took particular interest in blacks in Harlem during the early twentieth

century:

During the 1930s, Harlem was one of the Party’s major areas of concentration. As unemployment figures soared, reaching between one- and-a-half and three times those of the rest of the city, the Party increased its visibility as scores of young Communists converged uptown to help organize the unemployed movement. . . . Communists also placed great importance on working-class solidarity as the best and most effective means to help solve the community’s economic problems and to fight racial discrimination. . . . The Party’s all-out commitment to the solution of the community’s problems helped overcome some of its former isolation, and as blacks became more receptive to its appeals, helped establish it as a recognized force in Harlem.15

Based on the above history of the CPUSA, Jack’s insistence on making IM a

spokesperson within the Brotherhood makes sense. Jack states that IM just happens to fit a profile of what the Brotherhood has been searching for: “We’ve been waiting for you

15 Ottanelli, Communist Party, 37.

for months. Or for someone who could do what you’ve done.”16 Even Emma, Jack’s

girlfriend, questions whether IM is “black” enough.17 However, the question of what the

organization stands for becomes the primary issue.

When IM asks what purpose the Brotherhood serves, Jack responds, “What are we

doing? What is our mission? It’s simple; we are working for a better world for all people.

It’s that simple. Too many have been dispossessed of their heritage, and we have banded together in brotherhood so as to do something about it.”18 As was the case in IM’s early

life, he searches for a place where he can become a useful, productive person. In this

quest, he fails to observe the signs that this organization may not adequately serve his

needs, as Valerie Smith acknowledges: “[T]he Brotherhood tempts him irresistibly by

offering him a system of beliefs that both differs strikingly from the one that deceived

him and promises to restore meaning and thus quiet to his life.”19 Upon his decision to

join the organization, IM accepts his new name (never stated in the novel) and the fact

that he must distance himself from his family. He never questions Jack’s assertion that

the couple he speaks for represents what Jack refers to as “agrarian types” who “don’t

count.”20 Jack’s attitude toward the old couple mirrors his attitude toward IM. When

Jack provides IM with a new name, at that moment, IM is figuratively separated from his

heritage, which directly conflicts Jack’s claim of the organization’s purpose. Jesse Wolfe

16 Ellison, Invisible, 297.

17 Ibid., 296.

18 Ibid., 298.

19 Valerie Smith, “The Meaning of Narration in Invisible Man,” New Essays on Invisible Man, ed. Robert O’Meally (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1988) 36.

20 Ellison, Invisible, 284.

addresses this flaw of the Brotherhood: “[T]he Brotherhood (in keeping with the

materialist traditions of Marxist philosophy) prefers to historicize (if not entirely to

ignore) individual psychology.”21

This flaw fosters IM’s role as puppet for the Brotherhood. Early in IM’s dealings

with the organization, Jack states, “[I]t is only necessary that you work hard and follow

instructions.”22 As time progresses, this piece of advice permeates IM’s being and

permits the Brotherhood to mold him as they see fit. Their treatment of him directly

correlates with their treatment of his people. Rather than recognize the importance of

race and the injustices imposed on blacks because of history, the Brotherhood chooses to ignore history and create their own scientific doctrine. Jack asks IM, “Why do you

fellows always talk in terms of race.”23 IM responds accordingly, “What other terms do you know? . . . You think I would have been [at the eviction] if they had been white.”24

Jack initially assumes the evicted couple is related to IM. When he finds out otherwise, he is confused about IM’s passion for them. John F. Callahan explains that Jack

“misreads the complex, contingent relationship between audience and performer.

Because of his collectivist, scientific ideology, he refuses to recognize that a personal, emotional bond galvanizes IM and the other black individuals into a sense of community.

21 Jesse Wolfe, “‘Ambivalent Man’: Ellison’s Rejection of Communism,” African American Review 34.4 (2000): 630.

22 Ellison, Invisible, 301.

23 Ibid., 286.

24 Ibid.

To Jack, IM is nothing more or less than a black voice worthy only to serve the

Brotherhood’s program.”25

IM’s willingness to be led by the Brotherhood mirrors that of James W. Ford, a

major black leader in the CPUSA during the 1930s.26

[Ford was an] outstanding Negro in the Party itself [who] wrote copiously for the Daily Worker, the New Masses, the Communist and other publications. . . . He served on numerous special committees and directed the over-all Negro program, taking his cues from Browder. Ford was neither independent nor original, only a high-placed Party hack, always anxious to do as he was told. He shifted so completely to the united front line and followed Browder’s lead so faithfully that in non-Communist circles (and possibly within the Party itself) he was characterized as ‘Red Uncle Tom.’ His hat-in-hand acceptance of the handouts of the Communist boss-man in New York outdid that of even the most impoverished colored sharecropper in Alabama.27

IM becomes a puppet for the Brotherhood, just as Ford was for the CPUSA. Once IM is

comfortable with the Brotherhood and realizes that the community receives him well, he

overlooks the lack of concern the Brotherhood holds for race issues. The scientific

doctrine and personal power of Brother Jack/Earl Browder ultimately cancels out the

good that can be done for blacks. Similarly, Ford exchanges notoriety for his self-respect

and like IM ignores the negative impact this organization has on blacks.

25 John F. Callahan, “Frequencies of Eloquence: The Performance and Composition of Invisible Man,” New Essays on Invisible Man, ed. Robert O’Meally (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1988) 69.

26 Anthony Dawahare, Nationalism, Marxism, and African American Literature between the Wars: A New Pandora’s Box (Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 2003) 85. Dawahare describes Ford’s activities in the Communist Party: “James Ford, who by 1938 was the most important black leader in the Party, having become a member of the Political Committee, the National Committee, and the New York State Committee of the CPUSA, as well as its vice-presidential candidate since 1932, also capitulates to Popular Front politics.”

27 Ottanelli, Communist, 14. Earl Browder was “the Communist leader most closely associated with the Party’s activities during the 1930s through to 1945.” Record, Negro, 180-81.

Unlike IM, Lee had experience with the CPUSA prior to his encounter with Luther

and other CPUSA members.28 In the flashback, the narrator recounts the story of Lee’s

former job with the postal service and his eventual, but reluctant, membership in the

CPUSA under the premise that he work with the committee specifically formed to fight

job discrimination. After attending meetings with his wife where the topic always steered toward politics, Lee and Ruth became dissatisfied with the committee’s lack of effectiveness in concerning itself with issues of discrimination. Ottanelli highlights the

CPUSA’s tactic of using one particular goal to bring blacks to the organization: “In the

North and the South, Communist organizers soon realized that, like white workers, it was easier to mobilize blacks over specific issues than to recruit them into the Party and expect them to abide by its discipline.”29 Though this statement refers to the East Coast,

the fact remains that the CPUSA focused on organization, sometimes at the expense of

the people they purport to help. This fact holds true in Lee’s particular situation when

World War II arises and the CPUSA abandons him and the cause of equal rights.

Discrimination in the post office escalates, and Lee seeks the assistance of the

antidiscrimination committee. Learning of the committee dissolution and pushing them

to reorganize, Lee is confused by the former members who “flatly refused to have

anything to do with [Lee’s personal antidiscrimination case] . . . He felt a subtle

antagonism in the manner of them all. . . . [H]e was more bewildered than hurt; he could

28 IM is college age; Lee is 31 years old.

29 Himes, Lonely, 45.

not see the logic of their turning against the Negro.”30 Lee vows, “Never again will I

have business with a Communist.”31 It is with this feeling that Lee meets Luther.

Lee has just finished his first assignment as union organizer when Luther

approaches him. Lee should try to reach out to black people in his current capacity, but

upon seeing Luther, he immediately perceives Luther negatively, describing him in the

following manner: “ . . . his six-foot height was lost in the thickness of his torso and the

width of muscular shoulders that sloped like the ape’s, from which hung arms a good foot

longer than the average man’s. His weird, long-fingered hands of enormous size and

grotesque shape, . . . his flat-featured, African face seemed blacker than the usual

connotation of the word.”32 The derogatory description that Lee considers in reflection

emphasizes Luther’s dark skin and apelike features. When Lee thinks, “Maybe he’s a half-wit,” the reader is fully aware of Lee’s ill feelings toward a person of his own race.

Lee’s reaction may stem from his instinctual connection with Luther.33 In “The Use of

the Doppelganger or Double in Chester Himes’ Lonely Crusade,” Ralph Reckley

discusses the kindred spirits of Lee and Luther: “Physically, and on a narrative level . . .

Lee and Luther appear to be different, but the psychic similarities suggest that they share,

conjointly, the same thoughts, the same emotions. And it is these thoughts and emotions

which suggest that Luther is a decomposition. He is Lee’s opposing self.”34

30 Ibid.

31 Ibid., 28.

32 Ibid., 28.

33 Ibid.

34 Ralph Reckley, “The Use of the Doppelganger or Double in Chester Himes’ Lonely Crusade,” The Critical Response to Chester Himes, ed. Charles L.P. Silet (Westport: Greenwood, 1999) 97-98.

Lee’s apprehensions concerning Luther become justified later in the novel, but during their initial meeting, Lee disapproves of Luther because of his association with the

CPUSA. When Luther offers to take Lee home after work, and Lee becomes aware of

Luther’s affiliation, Lee’s thoughts toward the CPUSA are full of sarcasm: “The

Communists used to slide up to you on the street. Now they picked you up in a big automobile. That was prosperity for you. . . . To anyone but a Communist he would have felt a gratefulness. He was physically exhausted and emotionally depleted, and a ride home in the rain was a godsend. But he had such an antipathy for Communists he suspected a hidden motive in anything one did for him.”35 Nevertheless, as Lee and

Luther continue to work together, Lee develops a kind of respect and admiration for

Luther because he is a Communist, due to Luther’s savvy ways of approaching the concepts of the union using Marxist thought.36 Lee and Luther’s efforts to recruit blacks into the union prove to be rather taxing due to the prospective union members’ tendencies to live in the “eternal present where they had always been the safest,” and concepts of inferiority continue to permeate their thoughts.37 Black people’s willingness to accept

35 Himes, Lonely, 29-30.

36 Ibid., 58. Lee commends the CPUSA for Luther’s refinement: “But against his will he had to admire the Communists for the job they had done on Luther. They had taught him poise, restraint, the skill of adjustment, how to time a parry, the art of interviewing, and the value of retaining and restating and persisting in a contention, no matter how distasteful it might become to everyone, until it wore all opposition down. And they had taught him the subtle trick that was the trade-mark of the Communist— confusing the opposition with the disconcerting question, then holding forth the Marxist answer in all its pristine logic. All such insidious techniques of coercion were considered dangerous in the knowledge of the oppressed. The gall and effrontery no doubt had been Luther’s own, Lee conjectured, but he could see the fine hand of the Communists in the manner in which Luther now employed them. It was wormwood to admit, but Lee realized that within the short period of time he had known Luther, he had come to lean on him for emotional support. He found Luther’s company comforting even though it was annoying . . .”

37 Ibid., 61, 64. Lee is disappointed in the black internalization of inferiority: “It brought fear and hurt and shame to learn of the beaten, ignorant Negro laborer, so indoctrinated with the culture of his time that he accepted implicitly the defamation of his own character and was more firmly convinced of his own inferiority than were those who had charged him thus. But it was like tearing out the heart of reason to

defeat based on past ideas and concepts make the fight for union support appear to be an

uphill battle.

Similar to Lee, IM holds feelings of skepticism toward his first meeting with Tod

Clifton. These feelings may stem from IM’s uncertainty of Tod’s acceptance of him due

to his rapid advancement in the Brotherhood to Harlem district’s chief representative.

Tod leads the youth division of the Brotherhood, and IM describes him as “very black

and very handsome, and as he advanced mid-distance into the room, . . . he possessed the

chiseled, black-marble features sometimes found on statues in northern museums.”38 IM provides a more positive physical description of Tod than the narrator gives Luther through Lee’s perception. IM’s comparison of Tod’s features to the “chiseled, black- marble” of statues suggests a reverence for Tod’s “very black and very handsome” being.

IM soon realizes that Tod dedicates himself to spreading the organization’s doctrine and openly assists IM with any questions or concerns he may encounter.

In particular, Lee and IM make a concerted effort to represent their race in this struggle for equality in the workplace and society in general, yet opposition arises not only from whites, but also from those of their own race. Louis Foster’s position of power, “vice-president of the board of directors of Comstock Aircraft Corporation, one of the major stockholders, and general manager in charge of production in the plant,” allows him to sabotage the efforts of the union and the CPUSA with little or no consequence to himself.39 Louis narrowly perceives the definition of an American as white and male

learn of the Negro scholar who not only was convinced, himself, of his own inferiority, but went to great scholastic lengths to prove why it was so.”

38 Ellison, Invisible, 356.

39 Himes, Lonely, 164.

exclusively.40 His elitist attitude describes what Memmi categorizes as “the colonizer who accepts” oppression: “[A]ccepting the reality of being a colonizer means agreeing to be a nonlegitimate privileged person, that is, a usurper. To be sure, a usurper claims his

place and, if need be, will defend it by every means at his disposal.”41 In his role of

usurper, Louis uses his manipulation in hiring practices as part of his sabotage. Joe Ptak

states early in the novel that Louis hires just enough black workers to meet the quota.42

Charles, Louis’ assistant, discusses his hiring record and wishes to portray Louis as a man dedicated to fair labor practices; however, hiring and promoting more blacks than the bare minimum would exemplify a true benevolent nature. In Louis’ efforts to control the actions of blacks, he thereby relinquishes his own control. Memmi asserts that the colonizer is dependent on the existence of the colonized; therefore, “[t]he distance which colonization places between him and the colonized must be accounted for and, to justify himself, he increases this distance still further by placing the two figures irretrievably in opposition; his glorious position and the despicable one of the colonized.”43 Louis

thrives on the fact that he controls the fate of the workers in the plant, though he comes to

the realization that not all workers can be bought or bullied.

40 Ibid., 174-75. Louis Foster defines the term American as anyone “except women, whom he did not consider men’s equal; Negroes, whom he did not consider as men; Jews, whom he did not consider as Americans, and the foreign born, whom he did not consider at all.”

41 Memmi, Colonizer, 52.

42 Himes, Lonely, 25. Joe Ptak discusses Foster’s minority hiring practices: “There’s about three thousand colored workers. That’s Foster again. His even ten percent. Most of ’em are new workers, hired after the others. Most of ’em are doing labor—that’s because they’re new, see. Just enough been upgraded to prove there ain’t any discrimination.”

43 Memmi, Colonizer, 54-55.

Despite Louis’ effort to undermine the efforts of the union and the CPUSA, he takes particular pleasure in his attempts to control Lester, Lee, and Luther (the reader later realizes): “This was the second colored boy, he was thinking. First a worker at the plant, the Lester McKinley boy, and now this boy [Lee]. Either he was losing his touch or they were having too much war prosperity. But he would see, he would see.”44 Lester instinctively knows Louis’ racist and underhanded ways of doing business. When Lester approaches Louis about becoming an inspector, Louis ridicules him by mocking his college education and ignoring Lester’s request for a higher position in the company.

Louis knows Lester is more than qualified for the position of inspector, but he must continue to exert his power over the workers. Lester possesses a history of hatred of white men, and Louis becomes his latest target. Lester feels a maniacal urge to destroy

Louis in order to rid himself of this intense rage of being unable to control his own fate.45

Of the two responses to being oppressed, rebellion proves to be common among those who refuse to be bound by the constraints of the oppressor.46 Gilbert Muller asserts that

Lester “suffers from a homicidal mania induced by racial oppression,” and Lester “knows

44 Himes, Lonely, 182.

45 Ibid., 68-69. Lester has a specific plan to kill Louis: “Now McKinley sat devising a plan whereby he could murder Foster and escape punishment. But his attempt at concentration required a strenuous effort. For the blood-red lust to go to Foster’s home, break into his room, and cut his throat from ear to ear pulled at his mind and stirred a violence within his body that he could hardly control. . . . Only the two of them must know that it was murder—Foster and himself. Foster must know. In that interval before death he must realize that he was being murdered. McKinley told himself that if Foster did not know that he was being murdered by the man he had ridiculed, he, Lester McKinley, would become a maniac.”

46 Memmi, Colonizer, 127-29. Memmi writes, “[R]evolt is the only way out of the colonial situation, and the colonized realizes it sooner or later. His condition is absolute and cries for an absolute solution; a break and not a compromise. . . . Assimilation being abandoned, the colonized’s liberation must be carried out through a recovery of self and of autonomous dignity. . . . After having been rejected for so long by the colonizer, the day has come when it is the colonized who must refuse the colonizer. There can be no unconditional desire for assimilation if there is to follow a complete rejection of the model.”

that racism has made him mentally ill.”47 Knowing his problem, however, does not

minimize it; the problem just becomes more pronounced. Lester can no longer accept the

mocking nature of Louis; he has no choice but to move toward a complete annihilation of

Louis and the oppressive power that he represents.

Just as Lester feels rage because of oppression, Louis feels rage when his authority is threatened. Because of Lee’s position as the first black organizer, Louis feels threatened by Lee’s possible success with the union. Memmi describes the oppressor’s difficulty when faced with the strength of the oppressed: “The more oppression increases, the more the colonizer needs justification. The more he must debase the colonized, the more guilty he feels, the more he must justify himself, etc. How can he emerge from this increasingly explosive circle except by rupture, explosion? The colonial situation, by its

own internal inevitability, brings on revolt. For the colonial condition cannot be adjusted

to; like an iron collar, it can only be broken.”48 Louis’ “justification” moves to violence:

“He cannot help but approve discrimination and the codification of injustice, he will be delighted at police tortures and, if the necessity arises, will become convinced of the necessity of massacre.”49 Louis sends four crooked white policemen to brutalize Lee and

try to force him to take money to destroy the union. Lee is a man of principle and would

rather receive a beating from the officers than betray the union.

47 Muller, Chester, 35.

48 Memmi, Colonizer, 128.

49 Ibid., 55-56.

Invisible Man presents a different type of opposition, though this adversary proves

to be just as devoted to his cause. Ras, a Black Nationalist, despises the Brotherhood and

opposes any working with whites toward equality for blacks. One unnamed character

states that Ras “goes wild when he sees black people and white people together.”50

Sharing the philosophy of Marcus Garvey, Ras advocates Afrocentrism and blacks providing for themselves with no help from whites, particularly the Brotherhood, and he expresses these ideas to IM and Tod:

You my brother, mahn. Brothers are the same color; how the hell you call these white men brother? . . . You African. AFRICAN! Why you with them? Leave that shit, mahn. They sell you out. That shit is old- fashioned. They enslave us—you forget that? How can they mean a black mahn any good? How they going to be your brother? . . . What you trying to deny by betraying the black people? Why you fight against us? You young fellows. You young black men with plenty education; I been hearing your rabble rousing. Why you go over to the enslaver? What kind of education is that? What kind of black mahn is that who betray his own mama.51

Similar to Ras’ denunciation of the fictional Brotherhood, Garvey denounces the CPUSA

in “Lessons from the School of African Philosophy: The New Way to Education”:

Whenever any enemy or any person attempts to create prejudice against your organization with the government, take immediate steps to counteract the statement and reassure the government that you have no intention of doing anything not in keeping with the law. Always watch for this because the government can easily outlaw your organization and curtail or prevent your activities. Therefore, don’t join up with any movement that the government is not favourably inclined to tolerate, chiefly Communism. Let the Communists fight their own battles. Let other people carry on their own discords, have nothing to do with them. The more they carry on discords and you keep away from it, the better it will be for you in that by keeping your head, you will be able to see more clearly and get an advantage.52

50 Ellison, Invisible, 358.

51 Ibid., 363-64.

52 Robert A. Hill and Barbara Bair, eds., Marcus Garvey, Life and Lessons: A Centennial Companion to the Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers (Berkeley: U of California P, 1987)

A move toward self-reliance and unity among blacks is the goal of the staunch Black

Nationalist.

Ras and IM oppose each other on the role of history in this struggle for equality.

Ras only sees “Black allies. Yellow and brown allies” as part of his Black Nationalist

principles.53 He can only think within the constraints of certain dichotomies— oppressor/oppressed and white/black. By virtue of his West Indian status and his need to cling to history, Ras creates a black world, which Fanon describes as a result of refusing to accept an inferior role in society: “To many colored intellectuals European culture has a quality of exteriority. What is more, in human relationships, the Negro may feel himself a stranger to the Western world. Not wanting to live the part of a poor relative, of an adopted son, of a bastard child, shall he feverishly seek to discover a Negro

civilization.”54 Ras proves himself to be a “stranger to the Western world,” specifically

shown when he transforms himself from Ras the Exhorter to Ras the Destroyer: “A new

Ras of a haughty, vulgar dignity, dressed in the costume of an Abyssinian chieftan; a fur

cap upon his head, his arm bearing a shield, a cape made of the skin of some wild animal

around his shoulders. A figure more out of a dream than out of Harlem . . .”55 Though he

maligns the “black educated fool” who believes the words of the white man, he supports

258. Though I am showing a parallel between the philosophies of the fictional Ras and the actual Marcus Garvey, Ras’ character is only loosely based on Garvey.

53 Ellison, Invisible, 368.

54 Fanon, Black Skin, 230.

55 Ellison, Invisible, 547.

the “Negro civilization” and the benefits of an all-black movement.56 IM views Ras’

militant words and actions as a regression rather than progress toward equality:

“Thinking like that will get you lost in the backwash of history . . . Start thinking with

your mind and not your emotions.”57

Despite IM’s disapproval of Ras and his need to find “organization” through the doctrine of the Brotherhood, Ras is correct in his belief that the Brotherhood will betray blacks. Ellison finds little credence in the principles depicted by the Brotherhood or Ras.

In a 1960 interview with Harold Isaacs, Ellison expresses his particular problem with the push to force a specific connection between blacks and the continent of Africa:

To the question, what am I? . . . I answer that I am a Negro American. That means far more than something racial. It does not mean race, it means something cultural, that I am a man who shares a dual culture. For me, the Negro is a member of an America-bound cultural group with its own idiom, its own psychology, growing out of its preoccupations with certain problems for hundreds of years, out of all its history. The American Negro stock is here, a synthesis of various African cultures, then of slavery, and of all the experience of Negroes since. . . . The African content of American Negro life is more fanciful than actual . . . As long as Negroes are confused as to how they relate to American culture . . . they will be confused about their relationship to places like Africa.58

Ellison suggests here that one of the flaws in Ras’ Black Nationalist approach is his

leaning toward an ever-present connection with Africa as opposed to a kind of

assimilative relationship between America and Africa. In other words, Ras wants to

bring Africa to America instead of bridging the gap between the two continents to form a

medium between America and Africa. Ras’ belligerent Afrocentrism is a recipe for

56 Ibid., 369.

57 Ibid., 368.

58 Harold Isaacs, “Five Writers and Their African Ancestors,” Conversations with Ralph Ellison, eds. Maryemma Graham and Amrijit Singh (Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 1995) 69.

disaster. Once the riots are underway, Ras becomes even more incorrigible. His former

declaration of violence toward whites to compensate for “three hundred years of black blood to build this white mahn’s civilization” becomes black blood for black blood when

IM and Ras confront each other: “So when Ras yelled, ‘Hang him!’ I let fly the spear

and it was as though for a moment I had surrendered my life and begun to live again,

watching it catch him as he turned his head to shout, ripping through both cheeks, and

saw the surprised pause of the crowd as Ras wrestled with the spear that locked his

jaws.”59 Ras’ ranting, raving, and physical fighting result in death by his “brother” rather

than a solution for racial equality.

Ras’ animosity toward whites does have some justification when one considers the

continued physical and mental distinctions made between blacks and whites. For

example, in Lonely Crusade, the reader learns of Lee’s early experience with issues of

race. When Lee attends school in Pasadena where he is the only black student in his

class, he is constantly aware of his role as the Other. In his geography class, blacks were

depicted as “heathen savages, many of whom were cannibals.”60 As time goes on, Lee

begins to believe in black inferiority. His adoption of this belief and his curiosity in the

perceived difference between the two races eventually leads to him getting expelled after spying on white girls as they undress in the gym.61 These early experiences cause a

perpetuation of a number of fears to arise in Lee. He makes the decision to conquer these

fears instead of embracing them.

59 Ellison, Invisible, 369, 550.

60 Himes, Lonely, 32.

61 Ibid., 34.

One particular fear and a source of constant personal turmoil for Lee is his marriage. More than anything, Lee wants to provide for his wife, so she may stay home and care for the family’s needs. Lee’s jealousy concerning her ability to secure a better job than his causes him to physically abuse her. bell hooks comments on the ineffectiveness of black men to successfully maneuver in a white patriarchal society and

the effects this maladjustment has on black relationships:

Politically behind the times where gender is concerned, many black people lack the skills to function in a changed and changing world. They remain unable to grapple with a contemporary reality where male domination is consistently challenged and under siege. . . . Most black men remain in a state of denial, refusing to acknowledge the pain in their lives that is caused by sexist thinking and patriarchal, phallocentric violence that is not only expressed by male domination over women, but also by internecine conflict among black men.62

Speaking specifically of Lee and Ruth’s marriage, Muller states that since Lee garners

little support or satisfaction from the outside world, he projects his anger of non- acceptance toward his wife, not only because she is the closest person to him, but because

she becomes representative of the outside world.63 Unfortunately, instead of Lee making

an effort to openly and honestly discuss his concerns and fears with Ruth and her finding

some way to communicate with Lee, he turns to another woman—a white woman. Lee’s

acceptance of a white woman as a figure of comfort may also be seen as a way of

fulfilling the desire or curiosity of his childhood years.

62 bell hooks, Black Looks: Race and Representation (Boston: South End, 1992) 102.

63 Muller, Chester, 31. Muller discusses the conflict in Lee and Ruth’s marriage: “[Lee’s] relationship with [Ruth] is sadomasochistic, an enactment of fantasies of power and subjugation that are clearly denied him in the larger world. The act and language of violence, notably sexual violence, defining his relationship with Ruth, who is a somewhat disembodied figuration of the ‘good wife,’ make Gordon an inauthentic personality at a primary dimension of his being.”

Jackie Forks is the “white girl” Joe Ptak refers to early in the novel who will “make

friends with” Lee in order to impede his efforts to organize the union effectively.64 Even

Mollie, Luther’s mate, warns Lee to “[s]tay away from her. She’s bait.”65 The basis of

Jackie and Lee’s relationship is deception and sabotage on Jackie’s part and frustration

and jealousy on Lee’s part. Still struggling with his specific role in society, when he tries to feel a level of intimacy with Jackie shortly after meeting her, he mistakenly thinks his

actions should match those that society has created for black men. Lee feels pressured to

perform for Jackie—to be the stereotypical, virile black man.66 hooks comments on the perception of the power of “Otherness”: “Encounters with Otherness are clearly marked as more exciting, more intense, and more threatening. The lure is the combination of pleasure and danger. In the cultural marketplace the Other is coded as having the capacity to be more alive . . .”67 The situation is reversed in this particular instance in the

novel, for Lee believes he must embody the stereotype of the “more exciting, more

intense, more threatening” Other, whereas Jackie does not expect this of Lee.68 Their

relationship becomes nothing more than a space separate from his marriage. He uses this

64 Himes, Lonely, 25.

65 Ibid., 93.

66 Ibid., 104. Lee feels he must perform for Jackie: “‘I love you.’ Though he could say the words, he could not get the feeling. The vaunted burning lust Negroes are supposed to have for white women would not assert itself. He felt impotent and a fool and took his hand from her thigh. With the abruptness of a curse she snapped on the light. But he kept trying, because he thought it was expected of him and sooner or later it would have to come. For after all, he was a male.” Not only is he under the impression that he should embody this “vaunted burning lust,” but he also thinks being “a male” means his libido cannot forsake him.

67 hooks, Black Looks, 26.

68 Himes, Lonely, 109. Lee reflects on his behavior: “Now in his own mind it took the shape of truth. Welling from some deep subconscious source within him came the strange bewildering knowledge of his attitude toward her. From the very first he must have thought she wanted him to hurt her. . . . He felt lost and depraved and horrified by his own emotions and his own reactions, which were as strange to him as to anyone.”

space to compensate for his feelings of helplessness and shame derived from his inability

to care for Ruth, as he feels obligated to do.

In Sex and Racism in America, Calvin C. Hernton comments on black male/black

female relationships and the perception of black women in comparison to white women:

“A common expression among Negro males when anything goes wrong between them

and their women is to say that a white woman would act differently. Without ever having

associated with, let alone having been married to, a white woman, the black man asserts,

half-heartedly but significantly, that black women are hell to get along with.”69 Though

Lee has this attitude surrounding his situation, he later realizes that Jackie is “an empty

vessel, undeveloped in both mind and emotions.”70

The nature of their relationship makes itself quite clear when the narrator reveals

Jackie’s true thoughts about Lee and when Jackie betrays Lee to the police. Though

Jackie and Lee have appeared to become close, when Ruth actively begins to protest

Lee’s affair, Jackie’s genuine feelings toward Lee arise. First, Jackie has a fear and a false perception of Ruth that is based on her stereotypical beliefs about black women.

Based on “vague stories of the savagery of Negro women where their men were concerned,” Jackie envisions Ruth as a “huge, dark Negress of tremendous strength and possessed of a vicious temperament” who would cause her bodily harm.71 Second, Jackie

does not mind acknowledging Lee in the privacy of her own abode, but when it comes to

making their situation public, she refuses. In fact, she views her role in their relationship

69 Calvin C. Hernton, Sex and Racism in America (New York: Grove, 1965) 61.

70 Milliken, Chester Himes, 112.

71 Himes, Lonely, 301.

as that of a prostitute. Sadly, after pouring his heart out to Jackie about the situation, Lee

realizes he is nothing more than “a stud and a pimp to his white lover.”72 Once again, the

line between superior white and inferior black is clearly drawn.

IM finds an equally hurtful betrayal by someone to whom he feels close. IM

cannot understand Tod Clifton’s sudden abandonment of the Brotherhood. Ellison

foreshadows Tod’s downward spiral out of the Brotherhood and its doctrine into a

demeaning state that leads to his death. After Tod’s near-death experience at the hand of

Ras, Tod states that he “suppose[s] sometimes a man has to plunge outside history . . .

Plunge outside, turn his back . . . Otherwise he might kill somebody, go nuts.”73 IM perceives Tod’s statement as an endorsement of the goodness of the Brotherhood, but in light of Tod’s later actions, his words serve as a precursor to his awareness of the insincerity of the organization. The primary attempt at Ras’ and Tod’s reconciliation with themselves as human beings is their perception of history. According to Jim

Neighbors, Ras acknowledges his history, finds empowerment in the acknowledgement, and “works toward a resolution of his proper name.”74 In calling Tod a “black king,” Ras knows Tod’s place in his conceptual frame of history, but this designation only confuses things for Tod:75

72 Reckley, “The Use of the Doppelganger,” 97. Also see Himes, Lonely, 334. Lee realizes that Jackie’s commitment to him is minimal: “But now at last he realized that she would no more have given him an alibi than she would have appeared at a divorce trial against his Negro wife; that no matter what she might do in private, publicly she would always support the legend of her superiority—because in the end she would always find race her strongest emotion.”

73 Ellison, Invisible, 370.

74 Jim Neighbors, “Plunging (outside of) History: Naming and Self-Possession in Invisible Man,” African American Review 36.2 (2002): 234.

75 Ellison, Invisible, 365.

If you are the black king, then you have stepped outside of history: you can see historical progression; your name is visible, or perhaps you have created your own name. The conditions of your decision make your choice clear because you have reduced the potentially infinite activity of plunging the name of history to a binary condition. Either one goes mad by staying in an infinitely spiraling history, or one steps outside of mad history and into a blinded, and sanitized, concept of history. Ras’s sight is actually an occlusion of history.76

Neighbors’ assertion of Ras’ history as an “occlusion” suggests a rewriting of history— staking his own claim on the meaning of history and disregarding the oppressive implications of history. As a member of the Brotherhood, Tod supposedly works outside of history, but he eventually confronts the fact that he cannot escape the confines of history. Fanon comments on this dilemma: “The Negro, however sincere, is the slave of the past. . . . Face to face with the white man, the Negro has a past to legitimate, a vengeance to exact.”77 Ras already begins to exact this revenge and transcends the traditional interpretation of history, but Tod falls into despair.

After three years of service with the Brotherhood, Tod has been indoctrinated with

beliefs of nonviolence and leading people with no regard to race. Therefore, when Tod

faces Ras’ viewpoint about black truth in a white society, he becomes delirious. Jonathan

Baumbach states that once Tod’s eyes are opened by Ras, he experiences an impasse in

which he can no longer remain with the Brotherhood, nor can he join Ras.78 IM

continues to live in his world of obliviousness to the Brotherhood’s motives for assisting

76 Neighbors, “Plunging,” 234.

77 Fanon, Black Skin, 225.

78 Jonathan Baumbach, “Nightmare of a Native Son,” Ralph Ellison, ed. Harold Bloom (New York: Chelsea, 1986) 23. Baumbach writes, “Clifton is sympathetic to Ras’s motives, but he is nevertheless too civilized to accept his methods. The Brotherhood, then, with its cant of ‘historic necessity,’ represents to Clifton the enlightened alternative to racist violence through which the Negro can affect his protest. Entrapped by the Brotherhood through the commitment imposed by his integrity, Clifton becomes, even more than the narrator, a victim of the Brotherhood’s betrayal.”

black people, and when he witnesses Tod displaying the Sambo doll, he fails to realize

that this figure represents both him and Tod as puppets of the Brotherhood. IM’s concern

becomes that of whom Tod represents and the impact Tod’s actions will have on the

perception of the organization.79 Ironically, IM has yet to recognize that he is one of the

“empty Sambo dolls,” and he vows to “hold on desperately to Brotherhood with all [his] strength.”80 Tod’s “decision to sell Sambo dolls suggests that he has come to accept as inevitable the dehumanization and exploitation of black men,” and the only solution at which he can arrive is suicide.81 Tod knows his aggression toward the police officer will

result in his death. Tod’s personal revolt results from the fact that he “never succeeds in

corresponding with himself.”82

Both Lee’s battle with Jackie and IM’s confusion concerning Tod drive Lee and IM

closer to securing their identities. Yet, these situations suggest deeper betrayals than Lee

and IM can fathom. Because Louis spreads the rumor of a traitor in the union to cause

dissension among the union and the CPUSA, everyone is suspicious of each other. Lee

agrees to meet with a few members of the CPUSA at Jackie’s apartment to discuss Louis’

accusation. Bart, West Coast Chairman of the Communist Party, and Jackie reveal that

they have the name of a traitor (though they will not reveal the name at this time), and

79 Ellison, Invisible, 427. IM comments on Clifton’s defection: “What had happened to Clifton? It was all so wrong, so unexpected. How on earth could he drop from Brotherhood to this in so short a time? And why if he had to fall back did he try to carry the whole structure with him? What would non-members who knew him say? It was as though he had chosen—how had he put it the night he fought Ras?—to fall outside of history. . . . ‘To plunge,’ he had said. But he knew that only in the Brotherhood could we make ourselves known, could we avoid being empty Sambo dolls.”

80 Ibid.

81 Stephen B. Bennett and William W. Nichols, “Violence in Afro-American Fiction: An Hypothesis,” Ralph Ellison: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. John Hersey (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1974) 173.

82 Memmi, Colonizer, 140.

they want Lee to denounce this person at the next union meeting. Lee states he will only declare this person guilty if he is absolutely convinced the evidence is credible. Jackie states that she found evidence that money is unaccounted for in Louis’ files. Later the same day, when Lee goes to visit Lester, each thinks the other is guilty of treachery because of his contact with Louis.

The following day Lee discovers Luther to be the traitor. Lee and Luther ride to

San Pedro to pick up a truck for Comstock, but the trip turns to disaster when they are stopped by Louis’ four white deputies. As stated earlier, Lee refuses to take money from the officers to sell out the union, but they reveal that Luther had taken $500 from Louis.

Lee’s earlier admiration of Luther turns to amazement and disgust, confirming Lee’s suspicion of Luther during their initial meeting. Upon learning of Luther’s actions, Lee has conflicting emotions about himself, Lester, and Luther: “Lee’s first emotion was one of thankfulness to know that it was not Lester [who was the traitor], after all. And then looking from the black defeatism of Luther’s face to the red exultation of Paul’s, he went sick and utterly afraid. This was one time he hated being a Negro.”83 Luther drives Lee

to the union office after Lee is badly beaten by the deputies and eventually drives him to

the hospital (as directed by Bart). When Lee tells Steve Hannegan, the union attorney,

what transpired among himself, Luther, and the deputies, Luther refuses to corroborate

Lee’s story, and later when Lee, Smitty, and Steve go to the sheriff’s office to press

charges against the deputies, every attempt is made by the sheriff to thwart their efforts,

so they have no success.

83 Himes, Lonely, 220.

Lee, Luther, and Bart present an intriguing triad of black men. Lee’s inner

conflicts with his place in society are exacerbated by his awareness of Luther’s treachery

and Bart’s loyalty to the CPUSA. Once Bart discovers Luther’s acceptance of Louis’

money, he must decide whether to reveal Luther’s dishonesty or not. Luther’s work for

the union is well-known to the point that even when Lee informs Smitty, Joe, and Steve

what Luther has done, they only reply, “It’s hard to believe that about Luther, Lee. . . .

Well, it doesn’t sound like Luther. He’s been out there in the field working for the union for a long time and no one’s ever charged him with anything like this. We’ve always considered him very reliable. A few years back he was up at Bakersfield trying to organize the agricultural workers almost singlehanded, and he could have sold out then to the owners for plenty.”84 With this kind of reputation, Bart knows that declaring Luther a

traitor would be detrimental to the Party, and more importantly, to blacks, since Luther is

highly respected for his work.85 Luther may be a member of the CPUSA, but he believes

neither in Marxism nor communism. Despite this fact, Bart knows Luther will be

“valuable to revolutionary movement [because of] his simple antagonism toward

authority and his deep vicious hatred of white people. He would be a rebel in a socialist state also.”86 Though Bart recognizes the “simple” ways of Luther, he thinks that his

own rise to CPUSA leadership stems from his intuition and drive.87

84 Ibid., 230.

85 Ibid., 257. Luther “symbolized the Negro problem. To accuse him of betrayal or deceit would be to doubt the finest quality of the Negro people—their undying loyalty. Luther was known within the party and liked by all the Negro members. To expel him at this time might sever a vital link with the race.”

86 Ibid., 255-56.

87 Ibid., 256. Bart reflects on his rise to power in the CPUSA: “Bart had risen in the party more rapidly than any intellectual, for while the intellectual was plodding the devious paths of logic, Bart had made the

The other aspect of Bart’s advancement in the CPUSA may result from the

organization’s new focus. Historically speaking, in the early 1930s, the CPUSA

advocated a greater representation of black leaders:

In line with the creation of an interracial organization in the North, the Party set out to eliminate all racial barriers and to dispel any notion of racism within its own ranks. One way of demonstrating this commitment was by elevating blacks to positions of leadership. Significant in this sense was the nomination of James W. Ford as vice-presidential candidate on the Communist ticket in 1932. The national secretary of the ILD, William L. Patterson and one of the national leaders of the Young Communist League, Henry Winston, were also black, as were a growing number of Party officials.88

Through Bart, Himes wants to honor black CPUSA leaders since the 1930s. He also

wants to dramatize the inner conflict a leader of Bart’s stature may endure. When Lee first meets Bart, he is “amazed to find [Bart] so blatantly a worker and so black.”89

Bart’s blackness serves as both an advantage and a hindrance in his elevation in the

CPUSA. Though Bart considers himself a “good Marxist,” he recognizes his deviation in

his life philosophy from that of his upbringing:

[W]hen the long list of his acts as an executive of the Communist Party judged themselves in the light of Christian reason; when the voice of his Baptist mother could be heard in the night of his soul; when virtues such as honesty, loyalty, courage, and kindness, charity, and fair play had meaning and value; when his mind rebelled and could not follow the merciless contradictions of reality . . . [there were] times he did not admire himself. He felt no pride in the things he had done. For he had done so many things against his innate convictions. His Protestant, puritanical, Negro inheritance rose to torture him. And that severe division deep in his mind between right and wrong, vice and virtue, complicated his adherence

short cut of instinct, leaping to the decision before it had been reached by others, giving color to the legend of his brilliance as a leader.”

88 Ottanelli, Communist, 38.

89 Himes, Lonely, 208.

to revolutionary tactics and made it extremely difficult for him to rationalize what seemed at first to be political contradictions.90

Bart’s inner conflict mimics the arguments and thoughts of Tod in Invisible Man.

Like Tod, Bart must suppress his past and focus on the power of an organization to redefine himself. In fact, Bart, in his advanced age, may be seen as the person Tod would have become had he been able to view power as Bart did. Instead of succumbing to the pitfalls of the CPUSA’s occasional sacrifices and disregard for blacks, Bart uses the tools with which the CPUSA has provided and utilizes them for his own purposes. Bart refuses to accept inferiority, and he acts out against oppression, but within the confines of the CPUSA. Consequently, he is still limited emotionally while working in the organization and faces internal conflicts that will never cease, as Memmi describes:

“Before and during the revolt, the colonized always considers the colonizer as a model or as an antithesis. He continues to struggle against him. He was torn between what he was and what he wanted to be, and now he is torn between what he wanted to be and what he is making of himself. Nonetheless, the painful discord with himself continues.”91 When

Bart makes the decision to sacrifice Jackie, even though she has proven herself to be a loyal informant at Comstock, he views her dismissal from the CPUSA as “no great hindrance to the movement”; yet he recognizes that “self-revulsion was often the price he paid” for making such choices.92

90 Ibid., 254.

91 Memmi, Colonizer, 140.

92 Himes, Lonely, 253-254, 256. Himes writes, “And Bart was a good Marxist. He fully understood that in a revolutionary movement the objective must be attained by any means. As set forth in the Communist Manifesto, ‘In this struggle—a veritable civil war—are united and developed all the elements necessary for a coming battle.’ Therefore guilt and innocence were inapplicable in the moral sense. Revolutionary tactics were not to be interpreted in the light of bourgeois concepts, or defined by bourgeois terminology, but considered only in terms of preparation for the coming battle. Did not Marx write: ‘Law, morality,

While Bart deals with his personal demons, Lee learns that Luther’s animosity

knows no limits. After being beaten physically and mentally, Lee turns from all he

knows and loves. He joins Luther on what he thinks is a mission for Louis. Luther and

Lee end up at the house of one of the four deputies, Paul. Lee witnesses Luther’s ability

to change from a confident black man to a peon with an obsequious nature. Lee had once

admired Luther’s people skills, but at this moment he feels ashamed for disregarding his

own principles. After disagreeing with Paul over the money Lee and Luther should

receive for the job, Lee witnesses Luther’s transformation from faithful servant to cruel

master as he murders Paul. Lee can barely contain his panic, but Luther instantly works

to destroy any evidence. After the murder, Lee and Luther go to Mollie’s place. Luther

feels no remorse and even threatens to kill Mollie and Lee if they try to turn him in to the

police. Luther’s actions reflect the self-hatred he has developed over the years based on

the treatment he received within society: “Luther is unscrupulous. He is cunning. He is

anti-social. He hates society and he doesn’t hide his hate. Industry attempts to

manipulate him, but he outmaneuvers industry instead. He would brutalize and/or kill

anyone who threatens his well-being . . .”93 Most likely, Himes would not view Luther as

religion, are . . . so many bourgeois prejudices, behind which lurk in ambush just as many bourgeois interests.’ The guilty were those who hindered, obstructed, opposed, or were indifferent to the rise of the proletariat. In revolutionary terminology there was no such thing as neutrality. Those who were not for, were against. And those were also guilty who had to be spent, for in this continuous warfare of the proletariat no individual was beyond sacrifice for the ultimate aim. Had not the Soviets often found it necessary to execute the most loyal Communist to achieve an objective? he reminded himself.”

93 Reckley, “The Use of the Doppelganger,” 97.

a representative of the typical working class black individual, insofar as Luther represents

an extremist, similar to Ellison’s Ras as an extreme Black Nationalist.94

Luther’s actions match those of Ras in Invisible Man. Just as Ras has a deep

admiration for Tod, Luther cares a great deal for Lee:

[Luther] liked this kid. He had never liked anyone as he liked this kid, not even his own mama. And the simple son of a bitch didn’t even know that he was trying to help him. . . . Luther was the kind of black man who, accepting the fact that he himself was only a nigger, admired another black man whom he thought intelligent and smart, who could compete with white folks at their own game and outslick them at their own count. . . . All [Luther] knew was that he’d always liked the kid. And even now he did not fully understand exactly why—only that Lee was a nigger, and he was a nigger, too. If Lee had been one shade lighter Luther would have framed him from the start. . . . But Lee’s dark skin had saved him. He just could not frame a black boy for a white murder.95

Luther’s protection of Lee makes him Luther’s “black king.” Luther and Ras value blackness and the power and bond it should initiate between black people. The difference between Luther and Ras would be their approaches to conquering oppression in society. Though Luther and Ras value the power that violence gives them over individuals, Luther chooses to infiltrate organizations, such as the CPUSA and the union, whereas Ras creates his own Black Nationalist movement. Luther is a product of society, while Ras is an outsider bringing in a more militant and outspoken way of operating within society. Regardless of Luther’s status as a U.S. native, he, too, reaches his demise in a violent way, like Tod, at the hands of the police. Luther, Ras, and Tod find violence to be the only solution to their troubled existence within society.

94 Himes, Lonely, 257. Himes states that according to Bart, Luther “symbolized the Negro problem,” but based on the reader’s knowledge of Luther’s actions, Luther may represent the problem, but not the typical black person of the time.

95 Himes, Lonely, 324-25.

IM eventually realizes that his trust in the Brotherhood may not have been a wise

move. Before the final betrayal, Brother Wrestrum, another black Brotherhood member, accuses IM of trying to further his career at the expense of the organization. IM had been suspicious of Brother Wrestrum when he previously stopped by his office. IM describes

Brother Wrestrum as intrusive and is also unsure of his specific purpose within the organization. Brother Wrestrum fails to view IM’s influence over the people in Harlem as an advantage for the Brotherhood’s objectives. Instead of supporting IM’s success, the Brotherhood shifts him to another focus. IM fails to see this move as the demotion that it is. His naïve nature and innate need to be accepted cause him to view this situation in a positive light:

The new assignment was a challenge and an opportunity for testing how much of what happened in Harlem was due to my own efforts and how much to the sheer eagerness of the people themselves. And, after all, I told myself, the assignment was also proof of the committee’s goodwill. For by selecting me to speak with its authority on a subject which elsewhere in our society I’d have found taboo, weren’t they reaffirming their belief both in me and in the principle of Brotherhood . . .96

What IM does not consider is the fact that the accusation against him and his reassignment serves to weaken the black cause. Ellison is demonstrating how members of the Brotherhood are more fixated with the power of the organization than that of the assistance they can offer people.

The Brotherhood works under the guise of assisting the dispossessed, and they represent Memmi’s concept of “the colonizer who refuses” oppression: “Since his rebellion has closed the doors of colonization to him and isolated him in the middle of the colonial desert, why not knock at the door of the colonized whom he defends and who

96 Ellison, Invisible, 400.

would surely open their arms to him in gratitude? . . . let him adopt the colonized people

and be adopted by them.”97 In spite of this rally for the oppressed, the Brotherhood still

suffers from various constraints in their ways of thinking. They appear to be progressive

and willing to advance the black cause, but their deception proves to be particularly

damaging to the people they claim to be helping. In fact, the Brotherhood’s disregard for

personal history and race and their firm commitment to the doctrine of the Brotherhood

foster an oppressive situation.

Brother Jack and the Brotherhood’s role as oppressor finally becomes clear to IM.

He makes the connection between his demotion and the change in the Brotherhood’s

focus away from Harlem that results in a race riot. Wolfe views Brother Jack and the

Brotherhood’s actions as a part of a self-fulfilling prophecy.98 More specifically, the

Brotherhood manipulates IM and other blacks only as they feel these maneuvers will benefit the organization’s scientific ideology: “When the Brotherhood engineers a race riot in Harlem, it works with this model of historical change, exacerbating a contradiction

(an inequality) so that violence will ensue, and serve its own political agenda.”99 IM relays to Hambro, a white member of the Brotherhood and IM’s teacher of scientific ideology, his disbelief in the blatant disrespect for the black cause:

“Look at me! Look at me!” I said. “Everywhere I’ve turned somebody has wanted to sacrifice me for my good—only they were the ones who benefited. And now we start on the old sacrificial merry-go-round. At what point do we stop? Is this the new true definition, is Brotherhood a matter of sacrificing the weak? If so, at what point do we stop?”

97 Memmi, Colonizer, 22.

98 Wolfe, “‘Ambivalent Man,’” 635.

99 Ibid., 623.

Hambro looked as though I were not there. “At the proper moment science will stop us. And of course we as individuals must sympathetically debunk ourselves. Even though it does only a little good. But then,” he shrugged, “if you go too far in that direction you can’t pretend to lead. You’ll lose your confidence. You won’t believe enough in your own correctness to lead others. You must therefore have confidence in those who lead you—in the collective wisdom of Brotherhood.”100

IM’s return to Harlem, his witness of the riot, and his later revelation that Jack sent the

anonymous threatening note to warn him not to “go too fast” or run the risk of being “cut

. . . down” enable him to realize his lesser role to that of Brother Jack and the

Brotherhood.101

Once Lee and IM sort through their feelings of confusion about their identities and

have arrived at self-awareness, they know their next actions must reflect this renewal of body, mind, and spirit. Lee knows he must finish the task that he began as union organizer. Before returning to his duties, Lee perceives his place in society and arrives at an acceptance of this place: “[A] Negro is a Negro as he is an American—because he was born a Negro. He had no cause for apology or shame. . . . Lee Gordon, a Negro, was either normal or subnormal. And if he was normal, he would have to rise above the connotation America has given to his race. He would have to stand or fall as one other human being in the world.”102 Lee no longer accepts an inferior status. His need to “rise

above” the conceptions that some individuals had forced upon the character of black

people provides Lee with the strength to “defend his person and his citizenship

100 Ellison, Invisible, 497.

101 Ibid., 376, 558-59.

102 Himes, Lonely, 361-62.

courageously, and to unceasingly demand that justice be acceded him.”103 IM’s

uncovering of the Brotherhood’s treachery opens his eyes to his naïveté and his part in

the sacrifice of his race.104 Hambro reveals the necessity of the Brotherhood’s sacrifice

in order to maintain their duty to the doctrine. IM’s self-awareness takes the shape of

invisibility once he realizes that he exists only as a pawn for the Brotherhood and as a

mere object for the rest of society:

Here I had thought they accepted me because they felt that color made no difference, when in reality it made no difference because, they didn’t see either color or men . . . For all they were concerned, we were so many names scribbled on fake ballots, to be used at their convenience and when not needed to be filed away. It was a joke, an absurd joke. And now I looked around a corner of my mind and saw Jack and Norton and Emerson merge into one single white figure. They were very much the same, each attempting to force his picture of reality upon me and neither giving a hoot in hell for how things looked to me. I was simply a material, a natural resource to be used. I had switched from the arrogant absurdity of Norton and Emerson to that of Jack and the Brotherhood, and it all came out the same—except I now recognized my invisibility.105

The Black Male Solution to Inequality

Lee’s and IM’s final acts as self-aware individuals reflect a decolonizing of their

minds. Their former experiences as oppressed subjects advance them toward new

definitions for themselves. However, this new mindset leads to violence for Lee and

invisibility for IM. According to Fanon in The Wretched of the Earth, decolonization is

“the meeting of two forces, opposed to each other by their very nature, which in fact owe

their originality to that sort of substantification which results from and is nourished by the

103 Ibid., 362.

104 Ellison, Invisible, 498. IM states, “Sacrifice and leadership, I thought. For [Hambro] it was simple. For them it was simple. But hell, I was both. Both sacrificer and victim. I couldn’t get away from that, and Hambro didn’t have to deal with it. That was reality too, my reality. He didn’t have to put the knife blade to his own throat. What would he say if he were the victim.”

105 Ibid., 500.

situation in the colonies. Their first encounter was marked by violence and their

existence together—that is to say the exploitation of the native by the settler—was

carried on by dint of a great array of bayonets and cannons. The settler and the native are

old acquaintances.”106 The actions and demise of Luther, Tod, and Ras all reflect the violence necessary to fight the oppressive forces that constrain their basic rights as

human beings. Each of these men feels a need to utilize violence as a way of being

delivered from oppression. Lee embraces a possible violent end to his life in a quest of

liberation. When Lee joins the union rally that takes place in front of Comstock, Louis has deputy sheriffs patrolling Comstock to foil the rally. As the workers begin to line up and march, violence erupts. Lee and others witness Joe, the rally leader, being beaten to

unconsciousness. Lee can no longer remain passive; he “reached Joe Ptak, snatched up

the union banner, and holding it high above his head, began marching down the street.”107

A. Robert Lee describes the way in which Lee establishes his place in society by this final selfless act:

His own willingness to take up the union banner and to face out the pointed gun of a white policeman expresses a crucial, though by no means final, stage in Himes’ evolving embrace of Black Revolution. For Lee to confront the violence before him is for him to reach understanding of his psychological needs and to match, for the first time in the novel, the inner man in the outer identity. Lee’s posture, no doubt heavy with romanticism, points uncertainly to an answer to racism through revolution and union solidarity.108

106 Fanon, Wretched, 36.

107 Himes, Lonely, 398.

108 A. Robert Lee, “Violence Real and Imagined: The World of Chester Himes’ Novels,” Negro American Literature Forum 10.1 (1976): 16.

Though I agree with A. Robert Lee’s assertion concerning Lee’s new identity, Lee’s act of assisting Joe does not resolve the inequality in industry or in the U.S. that Lee and

other blacks face.

Prior to IM’s move underground, he feels angry with the Brotherhood and guilty

about his complicity in the riot: “I could see it now, see it clearly and in growing

magnitude. It was not suicide, but murder. The committee had planned it. And I had

helped, had been a tool. A tool just at the very moment I had thought myself free. By pretending to agree I had indeed agreed, had made myself responsible for the huddled form lighted by flame and gunfire in the street, and all the others whom now the night was making ripe for death.”109 Though IM does not advocate violence, he becomes self-

aware because of it. Once IM establishes his secluded existence, he processes all of the events that have occurred in his life. After a period of “hibernation,” IM considers his

prospective “socially responsible role” that he will now play in society.110 In a 1963

interview with Allen Geller, Ellison discusses what IM learns from his experiences:

“[IM] recognizes that had he not been so willing to do what other people wanted him to

do he would have been saved so much of the agony of his experience. So it implies that

when he gets back, doing whatever he’s going to do, he will be more himself. He will

not be so willing to be a good boy and he will have a better idea of how the individual

functions creatively in society.”111

109 Ellison, Invisible, 544.

110 Ibid., 572.

111 Allen Geller, “An Interview with Ralph Ellison,” Conversations with Ralph Ellison, ed. Maryemma Graham and Amrijit Singh (Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 1995) 74.

Lee’s and IM’s separate journeys through life result in “the veritable creation of new men.”112 Unfortunately, their new identities lead to destruction and isolation with

little hope of living fulfilling lives. Their experiences in the 1930s and 1940s include

racism, violence, and betrayal. From birth, they are plagued with the notion of blackness as inferior and whiteness as a symbol of advantage and prosperity—the goals of which to

aspire. Specifically, within the union and/or the CPUSA/Brotherhood, many of the same

barriers and prejudices follow blacks. Lonely Crusade and Invisible Man reflect Himes’

and Ellison’s dissatisfaction with the Marxist way of thinking. Himes finds the CPUSA

only assists blacks if a mutual benefit is derived: “I don’t believe that Communists have

ever really worked toward any solution to the Negro problem in the United States. I

think the whole strategy of the Communist Party had been to use the civil rights struggle

to help the cause of Communism. I think they had no interest in black political struggles unless they helped Communism.”113 Ellison states that he “rejected Marxism . . . because

it cast the Negro as a victim and looked at him through ideology.”114 Because these

authors’ attitudes toward Communism are based on their personal association with the

CPUSA, it would stand to reason that their works might reflect these feelings.

Regardless of this bias, their insights into the plight of black men during the 1930s and

1940s and their leftist interracial experiences indicate the oppressive atmosphere blacks

confronted within these types of organizations.

112 Fanon, Wretched, 36.

113 Willi Hochkeppel, “Conversation with Chester Himes, the American Crime Writer,” Conversations with Chester Himes, ed. Fabre and Skinner, 28.

114 John Corry, “An American Novelist Who Sometimes Teaches,” Conversations with Ralph Ellison, eds. Maryemma Graham and Amrijit Singh (Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 1995) 104.

CHAPTER 3 WHITE MONEY, BLACK HOPE, AND CAPITALIST DREAMS

To those of the white race . . . ‘Cast down your bucket where you are.’. . . Casting down your bucket among my people, helping and encouraging them as you are doing on these grounds, and to education of head, hand, and heart, you will find that they will buy your surplus land, make blossom the waste places in your fields, and run your factories. While doing this, you can be sure in the future, as in the past, that you and your families will be surrounded by the most patient, faithful, law-abiding, and unresentful people that the world has seen.

Booker T. Washington1

The growing spirit of kindliness and reconciliation between the North and South after the frightful differences of a generation age ought to be a source of deep congratulation to all, and especially to those whose mistreatment caused the war; but if that reconciliation is to be marked by the industrial slavery and civic death of those black men, with permanent legislation into a position of inferiority, then those black men, if they are really men, are called upon by every consideration of patriotism and loyalty to oppose such a course by all civilized methods, even though such opposition involves disagreement with Mr. Booker T. Washington. We have no right to sit silently while the inevitable seeds are sown for a harvest of disaster to our children, black and white.

W.E.B. Du Bois2

Washington vs. Du Bois

A little over a decade following the end of the Civil War, known as Reconstruction,

blacks as well as whites struggled with establishing a society in which both races could

co-exist in the newly established Union. Shortly after the turn of the twentieth century,

Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois published works that informed the public of

their opinions about black and white cooperation and black education. Whereas

1 W. Fitzhugh Brundage, ed., Up From Slavery, by Booker T. Washington (1901; Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2003) 143.

2 Du Bois, Souls, 47.

93 94

Washington called for blacks to compromise their civil rights in order to ease the tension

between the races, Du Bois believed cooperation between the races could be achieved

along with blacks’ acquisition of civil rights established in the U.S. Constitution. In

response to the continued frustrations of race hate and discrimination in the South,

thousands of blacks migrated to the North in hopes of finding less racial difficulties and

more educational and occupational opportunities.3 Unfortunately, these Southern blacks

found different forms of racism and inequality in the North, as Du Bois notes: “Driven

from his birthright in the South by a situation at which every fibre of his more outspoken

and assertive nature revolts, he finds himself in a land where he can scarcely earn a

decent living amid the harsh competition and the color discrimination.”4

The novels of Ann Petry, Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, and Kristin Hunter depict

the continuing conditions of which Du Bois speaks. Petry’s The Street (1946) and

Wright’s Native Son (1940) dramatize the struggle of a black woman and man,

respectively, as they encounter racial and economic obstacles within the capitalist system.

In Ellison’s Invisible Man (1952), a white philanthropist showers money on black

colleges, but what is his reason for providing this monetary gift? Hunter’s The Landlord

(1966) presents a much more positive view of the white liberal’s usefulness in the

advancement of the black community. These authors portray characters who embody

inferiority and superiority complexes that foster racist assumptions, as well as those

characters who desire cross-racial identification. This chapter will problematize the

above issues by analyzing black internalization of the white racist gaze, black emulation

3 John Hope Franklin and Alfred A. Moss, Jr., From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans, 8th ed. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000) 375-81.

4 Du Bois, Souls, 167.

95 of white success models, motives of white liberalism, and effects of capitalism on black progress.

A number of comparisons have been made between The Street and Native Son in the area of theme and genre.5 What is of most importance to me are the desires of Lutie, the protagonist in The Street; Bigger, the protagonist in Native Son; and other characters in the two novels to achieve success in a capitalistic society and the ways in which whites could, but sometimes do not, assist in this quest for socioeconomic success. Lutie always holds hope for the future; contrarily, Bigger only sees doom and despair for himself and his black counterparts. Furthermore, Lutie is in her late twenties and lives in Harlem and other parts of New York during the early 1940s, whereas Bigger is twenty and lives in

Chicago during the late 1930s. Though differences exist in these two characters’ gender, age, time period, and location, the final outcome of their lives is only slightly different.6

Lutie and Bigger: Victims of the White Capitalist Society

Lutie’s and Bigger’s views on life stem partly from those who do (or do not) influence them.7 Lutie’s optimism for the future comes from the great admiration she

5 There are a number of critics who compare The Street with Native Son. David Dempsey, “Uncle Tom’s Ghost and the Literary Abolitionists,” The Antioch Review 6.3 (1946): 445. Calvin C. Hernton, The Sexual Mountain and Black Women Writers: Adventures in Sex, Literature, and Real Life (New York: Anchor, 1987): 61-62, 64, 80. Günter H. Lenz, “Symbolic Space, Communal Rituals, and the Surreality of the Urban Ghetto: Harlem in Black Literature from the 1920s to the 1960s,” Callalloo 11.2 (1988): 332-33. Keith Clark, “A Distaff Dream Deferred? Ann Petry and the Art of Subversion,” African American Review 26.3 (1992): 495, 502. Hillary Holladay, Ann Petry, (New York: Twayne, 1996): 45. Heather Hicks, “‘This Strange Communion’: Surveillance and Spectatorship in Ann Petry’s The Street,” African American Review 37.1 (2003): 21.

6 Though The Street was written after Native Son, I have chosen to discuss it first because Lutie exhibits a rare sense of superiority and hope in her situation. Jeanne Noble, Beautiful, Also, are the Souls of My Black Sisters: A History of the Black Woman in America (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1978) 176. Noble discusses the groundbreaking characteristic of the novel: “The Street was the first novel written by a black woman that characterized a black woman struggling to exist in institutional racism of which slums are a direct result.”

7 Bigger lacks an adequate support system. This idea will be discussed later in the chapter. Alexander Nejako, “Bigger’s Choice: The Failure of African-American Masculinities in Native Son,” CLA Journal

holds for her grandmother. Each time she thinks of the problems she faces, she

remembers her grandmother and how wise she had been.8 Nellie McKay focuses on the

major influence Lutie’s grandmother had on her life: “Her grandmother had loved her

and in making that love known, had given her assurances that she could make her own

life. At an early age her grandmother had instilled in Lutie a Puritan sense of the values

of hard work, thrift, and morality.”9 As a result of this influence, Lutie gains a sense of

pride and strength. These qualities inspire her to the point of comparing herself to

Benjamin Franklin. She feels that “if Ben Franklin could live on a little bit of money and

could prosper, then so could she.”10 This attitude that Lutie possesses provides her with

the courage to take menial jobs while still maintaining her hope of overcoming her

circumstances. When Lutie’s husband, Jim, cannot secure work, Lutie finds a job as a

live-in maid for the Chandlers, a rich white family. Lutie has a grand notion of what will transpire in the daily lives of the Chandlers.

Once she begins working for them, she realizes two important facts. Though human nature is colorless, the barrier of race still exists between her and the Chandlers.

Lutie, the Chandlers, and their elite group of friends hold clouded views of the other

44.4 (2001) 430. Nejako comments on Bigger’s lack of male role models: “Not only does Bigger have no one in his family to use as a pattern for male adulthood, but there are also no African-American men in his community whose examples of manhood he can follow. There are few adult African-American men in the Black Belt with whom Bigger comes into contact.”

8 Petry, The Street, 75-76. Lutie reminisces about her grandmother: “Again she thought that every time she turned around there was a new problem to be solved. . . . Granny could have told her what to do if she had lived. She had never forgotten some of the things Granny had told her and the things she had told Pop. Mostly she had been right.”

9 Nellie McKay, “Ann Petry’s The Street and The Narrows: A Study of the Influence of Class, Race, and Gender on Afro-American Women’s Lives,” Woman and War: The Changing Status of American Women from the 1930s to the 1950s, ed. Maria Diedrich and Dorothea Fischer-Hornung (Providence: Berg, 1990) 133.

10 Petry, The Street, 64.

race’s behavior based on stereotypes. For example, during Lutie’s year with the

Chandlers, she sees infidelity and alcoholism, which can be found in any community, yet

she ignores their problems because she admires their wealth.11 Lutie becomes angry

when she overhears Mrs. Chandler’s friend making remarks about her possible sexual

promiscuity because Lutie strives to live a morally respectable life.12 This notion of the

promiscuous black woman originated during slavery: “A devaluation of black

womanhood occurred as a result of the sexual exploitation of black women during slavery that has not altered in the course of hundreds of years.”13 Mrs. Chandler’s

friend’s comments on Lutie’s good looks and the sexual desire of white men for black

women validate the friend’s belief in the previously mentioned black female/white male

relationships.14 Lutie faces the reality of her position as the maid when she and Mrs.

Chandler would occasionally ride the same train to different areas of New York. Not

only would Mrs. Chandler keep a marked distance between them, but Lutie knew people

observing the two would only see “the rich young woman and her colored maid.”15

The second fact Lutie learns during her stay with the Chandlers is that money and

happiness do not ensure a happy existence. Despite the continued racist situations Lutie

faces, which clearly exhibit the separation of the races, her desire and passion for success

and wealth do not wane. As Trudier Harris states in From Mammies to Militants:

Domestics in Black American Literature, Lutie acknowledges her past and hopes to gain

11 Ibid., 39, 44.

12 Ibid., 45.

13 bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism (Boston: South End, 1981) 53.

14 Petry, The Street, 45.

15 Ibid., 51.

information from whites in order to transcend her former financial failings.16 The more

she listens to the economic and investment conversations of the Chandlers, the more she

actually believes that hard work will lead her family up the ladder of success. Her

optimism makes her believe that she and Jim had been negligent in their quest for a better

life.17 What Lutie continues to disregard is the advantage the Chandlers hold by virtue of

being white and wealthy.

In Race: Science and Politics, published in 1940, Ruth Benedict describes whites’

power, but she also suggests the possibility that this trend does not always prevail:

The history of all civilizations, whether they are Caucasian or Malay or Mongol, shows periods of great vigor, and also periods of stability and even ossification. Since this is a general phenomenon, it is not necessary to invoke a special innate superiority of the White race to account for the present epoch of great Caucasian vigor. The particular direction white civilization has taken in the past centuries—successful control of the material world—has given it predominance in our times, but we do not know what the future will be.18

Lutie knows of the past, but refuses to fully accept the status quo. Her hopes hinge on the

“periods of great vigor” that may be forthcoming for blacks, particularly herself. She believes this prosperity can occur through the economic and investment information she acquires by listening to the Chandlers and through her ability to implement this knowledge to the betterment of her financial future.

16 Trudier Harris, From Mammies to Militants: Domestics in Black American Literature (Philadelphia: Temple UP, 1982): 90. Harris states, “What [Lutie] sees and appreciates in the white world, then, is set against what she knows is true in the black world, and she would use the former to set the latter right.”

17 Petry, The Street, 43. Lutie had hope for her and Jim’s financial future: “After a year of listening to their talk, she absorbed some of the same spirit. The belief that anybody could be rich if he wanted to and worked hard enough and figured it out carefully enough . . . She and Jim could do the same thing, and she thought she saw what had been wrong with them before—they hadn’t tried hard enough, worked long enough, saved enough. There hadn’t been any one thing they wanted above and beyond everything else. These people had wanted only one thing—more and more money—and so they got it.”

18 Ruth Benedict, Race: Science and Politics (New York: Modern Age, 1940) 134.

During Lutie’s employment with the Chandlers, her marriage falls apart. Lutie receives a letter from her father telling her that Jim is having an affair.19 Lutie returns

home only to find Jim unremorseful for his marital infidelities. Petry wishes to exhibit

the ways in which capitalism destroys the black family. Since Jim is “unable to compete

successfully for societal rewards—the attainment of which defines American males as

‘men,’” he feels the only way to exert his power is to turn to his sexuality, his ability to

satisfy a woman.20 When Lutie questions him, he “only shrugged and laughed.”21 This

reaction reflects Jim’s sense of helplessness and frustration against the whites who keep

him unemployed, against his capitalistic urge to acquire more though he has no means to

do so, and against Lutie, whom Jim feels has a better chance of achieving the goals to

which he aspires.

Lutie’s quest for a better life by way of financial success infiltrates the thoughts of

her eight-year-old son, Bub. Once Lutie and Bub move to 116th Street, he notices a

change in his mother. She always speaks of the need for money, but Bub does not know how to help his mother. Not having a suitable male role model (Jim never fully filled this

role), Bub takes his cues from others on the street and becomes a shoeshine boy. Bub is

surrounded by young black men who must find ways to support their families. Robert

Staples discusses the prevalence of black youth working in the early and mid-1900s: “. . .

Afro-American youths are catapulted early into the labor force because their income is needed for the support of their families. These young men will usually be without formal

19 Petry, The Street, 52.

20 Clyde W. Franklin II, “Black Male-Black Female Conflict: Individually Caused and Culturally Nurtured,” The Black Family: Essays and Studies, ed. Robert Staples, 3rd ed. (Belmont: Wadsworth, 1986) 110. Petry, The Street, 54.

21 Petry, The Street, 54.

100

educational credentials or job skills and experience. As a result they will have to accept

the most menial or low-paying jobs such as floor-washers, elevator operators, material

handlers, etc.”22 Though Bub has not quite reached this point of having to get a job to maintain the necessities of the household, he internalizes the inevitability of his condition. Lutie’s disgust with Bub’s accommodation causes her to slap him when he asks if he can shine her shoes.23

While Lutie works to instill confidence and pride into Bub, Bigger Thomas has no mentor to give him advice or inspire him to strive for a better life. In fact, Bigger’s mother constantly reminds him of his worthlessness.24 Because of Bigger’s deplorable living conditions and absence of parental support, he lacks the motivation to work, which could potentially improve his social and economic status. Bigger wants a shortcut to his fortune. In the absence of his father and as the oldest son, Bigger has the responsibility of caring for his mother and two siblings. However, Bigger, like Bub (who is twelve years younger than Bigger), does not embody the maturity necessary for this role. When he goes to the movies with Jack, his friend, he observes a strict contrast in the white image and the black image, and he wants to acquire the knowledge whites possess in order to amass wealth:

Was what he had heard about rich white people really true? Was he going to work for people like you saw in the movies? If he were, then he’d see a lot of things from the inside; he’d get the dope, the low-down. He looked at Trader Horn unfold and saw pictures of naked black men and women whirling in wild dances and heard drums beating and then gradually the African scene changed and was replaced by images in his own mind of

22 Robert Staples, Black Masculinity: The Black Male’s Role in American Society (San Francisco: Black Scholar, 1982): 22.

23 Petry, The Street, 66-67.

24 Wright, Native Son, 7.

101

white men and women dressed in black and white clothes, laughing, talking, drinking and dancing. Those were smart people; they knew how to get hold of money, millions of it. Maybe if he were working for them something would happen and he would get some of it. He would see just how they did it. Sure, it was all a game and white people knew how to play it.25

Juxtaposing the rich, civilized whites with the wild, uncivilized Africans only perpetuates

Bigger’s need to separate himself from that black image and move toward the success of

the whites, representing a more carefree and meaningful existence. In addition, like

Lutie, he feels that close contact with whites will somehow give him the knowledge and

power to acquire more money.

Before this opportunity to work for the Daltons, Bigger had numerous servile jobs

that he felt were unworthy of his time since they could not assist him in his dreams. bell

hooks comments on the black man’s refusal to take such jobs: “. . . despite the fact that

the American capitalistic economic structure forces many black men to be unemployed,

there are some black men who would rather not work ‘shit’ jobs with endless hassles and

little monetary reward if they can survive without them; these men do not have doubts

about their masculinity. To many of them a low paying menial job is more an attack on

their masculinity than no job at all.”26 hooks makes a direct correlation between black masculinity and employment. She generalizes black men by saying that men such as

Bigger and Lutie’s husband, Jim, are confident in their masculinity. In the case of these

two men, they use their sexuality or violence to compensate for their inadequacy in the

capitalist system. As previously mentioned, Jim has an affair with another woman to

25 Ibid., 36-37.

26 hooks, Ain’t I a Woman, 76.

102

assert his masculinity. Bigger, as will later be discussed, finds solace in violence against

women.

Taking on the chauffeuring job with the Daltons opens Bigger’s eyes to his own

insecurity in dealing with whites. Though Bigger had been eager to work for the Daltons

and know more about their lifestyle, once he encounters them, he confronts his

inferiority. Before, Bigger had acknowledged the power whites had, but when he enters

the Dalton neighborhood, he instantly realizes he is like a foreigner in a strange land, and

he begins to think of all the possible scenarios in which he could be looked upon as a

criminal: “Suppose a police saw him wandering in a white neighborhood like this? It

would be thought that he was trying to rob or rape somebody. He grew angry. Why had

he come to take this goddamn job? He could have stayed among his own people and

escaped feeling this fear and hate. This was not his world; he had been foolish in

thinking that he would have liked it.”27 This feeling of insecurity and intimidation is

exactly what Frantz Fanon proclaims will happen when the black man leaves his familiar space to confront the new territory: “As long as the black man is among his own, he will have no occasion, except in minor internal conflicts, to experience his being through others.”28

Further feelings of inferiority engulf Bigger when he comes face to face with Mr.

Dalton. Bigger remembers his mother instructing him on the way to present himself when facing whites. Bigger knows that Mr. Dalton will question him about his criminal record. Up to this moment, Bigger appears to have little remorse concerning these

27 Wright, Native Son, 49-50.

28 Fanon, Black Skin, 109.

103 crimes, but facing Mr. Dalton changes his perspective. Fanon tells, from his own experience, what a meeting with the dominant force will do to the “other”: “And then the occasion arose when I had to meet the white man’s eyes. An unfamiliar weight burdened me. The real world challenged my claims. In the white world the man of color encounters difficulties in the development of his bodily schema. Consciousness of the body is solely a negating activity. It is a third-person consciousness. The body is surrounded by an atmosphere of certain uncertainty.”29 For once, Bigger examines the actions of his past and appears to feel slight regret at the things he has done.30 This

moment of self-reflection is indicative of Bigger enacting what Du Bois calls double-

consciousness.31 For once, Bigger sees himself through a white man’s eyes.

Part of what Petry and Wright want to address in their novels is the fact that whites have the power to assist blacks. In The Street, Petry presents Junto as a contradictory figure. At first glance, Junto looks like a liberal, but a careful examination of his business ventures reveals a greedy and selfish individual. The picture of Junto as a man of no

29 Ibid., 110-11.

30 Wright, Native Son, 55. Bigger contemplates his past: “Yes, Goddammit! He knew what was coming. He would be asked about that time he had been accused of stealing auto tires and had been sent to the reform school. He felt guilty, condemned. He should not have come here.”

31 Du Bois, Souls, 2-3. Du Bois describes the concept of double-consciousness: “. . . the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world,—a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness,—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder. The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife,—this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self. In this merging he wishes neither of the older selves to be lost. He would not Africanize America, for America has too much to teach the world and Africa. He would not bleach his Negro soul in a flood of white Americanism, for he knows that Negro blood has a message for the world. He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American, without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows, without having the doors of Opportunity closed roughly in his face.”

104

prejudice is only slightly better than the Chandlers. There are two reasons one may draw

this conclusion: Junto’s suffering from poverty and his close relationship with Mrs.

Hedges, a black woman. Petry discloses information about Junto’s impoverished past in

chapter ten of the novel. When he and Mrs. Hedges first meet, they are on equal footing,

scavenging for food.32 This equality between them would suggest that Junto can identify

with some of the frustrations impoverished blacks may face. In addition, Petry makes a

point of showing Junto’s willingness to accept blacks.33 When Mrs. Hedges encounters

Junto in the alley, she is “surprised at the calm way he looked at her, showing no fear.”34

Junto and Mrs. Hedges build a strong friendship, which demonstrates his liberalism.

After Mrs. Hedges’ hair and body were badly burned in a fire at her apartment building, she feels her chances of having a relationship with a man will never materialize.35 Junto

visits her and offers to pay for Mrs. Hedges’ plastic surgery.36 She refuses and chooses to

remain scarred, both physically and emotionally. Mrs. Hedges’ self-confidence is so

battered that she cannot recognize Junto’s romantic gestures toward her. Heather Hicks

notes that the reader never knows the true thoughts and feelings of Junto.37 With this in

mind, Junto’s words and actions must be scrutinized to unmask his fondness for Mrs.

32 Petry, The Street, 242-43.

33 Hicks, “‘This Strange Communion,’” 29. Hicks also makes this argument: “On the most basic level, because Junto himself is represented as having had to struggle up from desperate poverty, it is possible to read his apparent fair-mindedness as an understanding of blacks arrived at through a similar class experience.”

34 Petry, The Street, 242.

35 Ibid., 244-46.

36 Ibid., 246.

37 Hicks, “‘This Strange Communion,’” 29. The reader must infer various qualities of Junto’s character from the text because, as Hicks states, “Junto is one major character in the text from whose eyes we never see events. We are denied the possibility of understanding him as a single, coherent consciousness.”

105

Hedges: “[Y]ou and me are the same kind of folks. We got to stay together after this.

Close together. We can go a long way. . . . You’re a wonderful woman.”38 Through Mrs.

Hedges’ eyes, she thinks Junto sees her only as “a man he regarded as his equal.”39 Junto

occasionally makes more romantic advances toward Mrs. Hedges, but she will not allow herself to be close to anyone in this way.40 Petry hopes to show Junto’s ability to care for

another human being, particularly a black person.41

Despite Junto’s care, concern, and sentiment for Mrs. Hedges, he proves to be

disrespectful to other blacks. Junto works his way out of poverty, with Mrs. Hedges’

help, but instead of using his money and power to assist blacks, he exploits them. Petry

describes the kind of influence Mrs. Hedges has on Junto’s decisions: “[Mrs. Hedges]

told Junto people had to dance and drink and make love in order to forget their troubles

and that bars and dance halls and whorehouses were the best possible investments.

Slowly and cautiously Mr. Junto had become the owner of all three, though he still

controlled quite a bit of real estate.”42 Junto can be labeled as a liberal based on the fact

that he trusts Mrs. Hedges’ judgment, yet he allows capitalism to rule his life with no regard for the ways in which some of his business ventures will contribute to the moral downfall of blacks.

38 Petry, The Street, 245-46.

39 Ibid., 246.

40 Ibid., 252-53. Mrs. Hedges is skeptical about opening up to anyone, even Junto: “Off and on during the years he had made timid, tentative gestures toward transforming their relationship into something more personal—gestures which she had steadfastly ignored. For she never intended to reveal the extent of her disfigurement to anyone—least of all to Junto who knew her so well.”

41 Holladay, Ann Petry, 58. Hilary Holladay mentions Junto’s soft side: “His conversations with [Mrs. Hedges] reveal that he is capable of admiration and tenderness, perhaps even love.”

42 Petry, The Street, 251.

106

In his dealings with Boots Smith, Junto gives a black American man a chance to use his musical talents to make an excellent living, but he later asks Boots for a favor as a result of assisting Boots. When Boots refuses to fight in World War II, Junto finds a way to keep him out of the armed services.43 Boots admires Junto’s attitude toward blacks and views him as a man of high character and an upholder of equality:

He didn’t feel the same toward [Junto] as he did toward most white men. There was never anything in Junto’s manner, no intonation in his voice, no expression that crept into his eyes, and never had been during the whole time he had known him, nothing that he had ever said or done that indicated he was aware that Boots was a black man. [Boots] had watched him warily, unbelieving, suspicious. Junto was always the same, and he treated the white men who worked for him exactly the same way he treated the black ones.44

The problem with Boots’ belief derives from the fact that Boots had never challenged

Junto’s authority up to this point. Boots also disregards Junto’s disrespect of black women, in particular, Lutie. When Junto orders Boots to stay away from Lutie, Boots views Junto’s desire to possess her as unacceptable only because he wishes to have her for himself.45 Junto’s exertion of his power over Boots becomes clear when Boots challenges Junto’s claim to Lutie. Junto quickly reminds Boots of his place: “I made you. If I were you, I wouldn’t overlook the fact that whoever makes a man can also

43 Ibid., 261. Junto solves Boots’ problem: “Junto had sent [Boots Smith] to a doctor who performed a slight, delicate, dangerous operation on his ear. ‘You’ll be all right in a month or so,’ said the doctor, ‘In the meantime mail this letter to your draft board.’ The letter stated that Boots Smith was ill and unable to report for a physical examination. And, of course, when he was finally examined, he was rejected.”

44 Ibid., 263.

45 Ibid. Boots Smith is not in love with Lutie. He just wants to own her: “It was simply that he didn’t like the idea of anyone possessing her, except of course himself. Was he in love with her? He examined his feeling about her with care. No. He just wanted her. He was intrigued by her. There was a challenge in the way she walked with her head up, in the deft way she had avoided his attempts to make love to her. It was more a matter of itching to lay his hands on her than anything else.”

107

break him.”46 Boots decides to try to sleep with Lutie anyway, unbeknownst to Junto, at

the same time maintaining his role as a pimp for Junto.47 Any kindness Junto shows Mrs.

Hedges becomes invalid when examining Junto’s actions toward Boots and Lutie. Junto

exhibits his views of his own superiority in relation to blacks by controlling Boots to get

to Lutie. Then Junto thinks Lutie will succumb to him based on his power, particularly

his economic status, reverting to tactics of the oppressor during slavery when many white

men overpowered black women. As Beth Day declares,

What is important to the picture of interracial sex in America is that the secret sexual drive of the white Anglo-Saxon male became focused on the black female. She was considered, from the colonial period on, to be not only an available object of lust, but the white lover also developed the self-congratulatory myth that she enjoyed it. The black woman, a nonhuman beast as her man was designated, was bestial in bed, ‘always ready’ according to the myth, always responsive (unlike white wives) and the ideal vessel for the discharge of purely genital sex.48

Whereas Junto’s character clearly contradicts the embodiment of liberalism, the

Daltons actually believe their actions reflect their liberal attitude toward blacks. The

Daltons support the NAACP and have donated millions of dollars to black schools.49

These efforts to uplift blacks are admirable on one hand, but Mr. Dalton’s ownership of

the South Side Real Estate Company counteracts his acts of kindness. Wright makes

comments, within the novel, concerning the uselessness of the Daltons’ kind gestures.50

He also acknowledges the blindness of the Daltons (Mrs. Dalton—both physically and

46 Ibid., 263-64.

47 Ibid., 423.

48 Beth Day, Sexual Life between Blacks and Whites: The Roots of Racism (New York: World, 1972): 32.

49 Wright, Native Son, 60, 63.

50 Ibid., 199. Wright states, “Even though Mr. Dalton gave millions of dollars for Negro education, he would rent houses to Negroes only in this prescribed area, this corner of the city tumbling down from rot.”

108

figuratively). Through Boris Max’s character, Bigger’s attorney, Wright condemns Mr.

Dalton’s donation of ping-pong tables as a means of assisting blacks.51 Mr. Dalton does

not wish to or cannot see his ineffectiveness in promoting black equality or acceptance in

mainstream society.

In “The White Self-Image in Native Son,” Louis Graham reflects on Mr. Dalton’s

altruism: “Mr. Dalton seems to be completely oblivious to his role in the very oppression

that Max is talking about and he therefore sees his gift not as recompense but as pure

benevolence.”52 Instead of being oblivious, Mr. Dalton’s actions may be intentional. Mr.

Dalton knows the current reality of blacks living in one area and whites living in another,

with no hope of blacks living in better housing.53 His motives behind his actions, though

subconscious, suggest his view of blacks as a threat to the current economic structure.

Ruth Benedict explains the self-preservation of whites:

. . . we [whites] concentrate on our own concerns. We look out for No. One, and we justify it morally, if at all, by some vague idea that private profit is public gain . . . We look upon our fellowmen and our minority groups as primarily competitors and those Americans who resent and fear the achievements and security of other groups are likely to get the upper hand. Those men and women who look upon other people as obstacles in their race for a job or for financial success necessarily fear any strength these others can muster.54

51 Ibid., 340. Max condemns Mr. Dalton for the ineffectiveness in the type of work he does for African Americans: “My God, man! Will ping-pong keep men from murdering? Can’t you see? Even after losing your daughter, you’re going to keep going in the same direction? Don’t you grant as much life-feeling to other men as you have? Could ping-pong have kept you from making your millions? This boy and millions like him want a meaningful life, not ping-pong. . . .”

52 Louis Graham, “The White Self-Image in Native Son,” Studies in Black Literature 3.2 (1972): 20.

53 Wright, Native Son, 288. Bigger acknowledges the inequality in white and black housing: “They keep us bottled up here like wild animals, he thought. He knew that black people could not go outside of the Black Belt to rent a flat; they had to live on their side of the ‘line.’ No white real estate man would rent a flat to a black man other than in the sections where it had been decided that black people might live.”

54 Margaret Mead, ed., An Anthropologist at Work: Writings of Ruth Benedict (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1959) 362.

109

Mr. Dalton values his status as a millionaire and refuses to allow a black person to reach

or even come close to his level of success and wealth.

Mary Dalton may initially be seen as a more liberal individual than Mr. Dalton

because of her apparent acceptance of Bigger as a human being; however, she still lacks

the ability to fully connect with blacks.55 Part of this lack of connection derives from her

privilege of being white and wealthy. As previously stated, when Bigger enters the

neighborhood where the Daltons reside, he instantly feels out of place and frightened for

his safety because of possibly being mistaken as a criminal.56 Considering this level of

trepidation that Bigger feels, the reader should not be surprised at his reaction to the

forward nature of Mary and her Communist friend, Jan Erlone. Bigger’s fear and anger

toward Mary and Jan’s welcoming him into their conversation derives from the

segregation he had been exposed to all of his life. Vincent Harding discusses the origin of Jim Crowism:

[Jim Crowism] emerged in the antebellum North, not in the post- Reconstruction South. It began there at that time because the North was the first settled area of the country to find itself without a total social, economic, and political system for the legal control and exploitation of black people. As a substitute for slavery a varied, uneven, widespread system of discrimination, segregation, and often cruel repression developed, which was eventually called Jim Crow . . .57

With this segregated and unequal structure, Bigger cannot accept Mary’s kindness. He

constantly suspects he may be drawn into some kind of ruse: “She was an odd girl, all

right. He felt something in her over and above the fear she inspired in him. She

55 I will be discussing Mrs. Dalton separately from Mr. Dalton because they approach the black problem differently.

56 Wright, Native Son, 49-50.

57 Harding, There is a River, 118.

110

responded to him as if he were human, as if he lived in the same world as she. And he

had never felt that before in a white person. But why? Was this some kind of game?

The guarded feeling of freedom he had while listening to her was tangled with the hard

fact that she was white and rich, a part of the world of people who told him what he could

or could not do.”58 Instead of drawing closer to Mary because of her act of kindness,

Bigger feels more threatened, more suspicious.

Further confounding Bigger, Jan presents Bigger with Communist ideology.

Bigger already holds a negative perception of the Communist Party, so when he meets

Jan, who begins to discuss the revolution and the importance of blacks joining this fight,

Bigger cannot relate.59 He feels the added burden of being “Red” will only hinder his

efforts toward reaching his goals in life. Bigger spent his formative years in the South,

and he knows the penalty of rejecting white authority or fraternizing with whites through

the death of his father and the case of the Scottsboro boys.60 Mary and Jan, in their own

heartfelt way, want to include Bigger and other blacks in their quest to provide equal

opportunities for the working class, but their own privilege and their inability to take black historical and present oppression into account cause them to fail.61

58 Wright, Native Son, 74.

59 Ibid., 73-75.

60 Ibid., 73, 85-88.

61 Various critics have also acknowledged the inadequacy of Mary and Jan’s outreach to Bigger. Edward Margolies, Native Sons: A Critical Study of Twentieth-Century Negro American Authors (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1968) 84. Margolies states, “For Mary and Jan, Bigger is an abstraction—a symbol of exploitation rather than someone whose feelings they have ever really tried to understand.” Schraufnagel, From Apology to Protest, 31. Schraufnagel states, “Mary Dalton and Jan Erlone, idealistic young radicals, try to lure Bigger into accepting their concept of universal brotherhood, and, at the same time, show their prejudices concerning Negroes.” Eileen Boris, “‘Arm and Arm’: Racialized Bodies and Colored Lines,” Journal of American Studies 35.1 (2001): 14. Boris states that “Mary and Jan turn into types just as [Bigger] was a type to them. The culture of segregation taught even in the North that Mary should remain

111

Bigger’s feelings of fear, discomfort, and confusion, as a result of oppression, contribute to the conditions under which Mary is murdered. Had he felt comfortable in explaining why he was in Mary’s room and not succumbed to the pressure and weight of black male/white female taboo, Mary would likely have lived.62 Jan and Max realize the

grave error Bigger has made with the murder of Mary, but they know that Bigger is not

entirely responsible for his actions. Noel Schraufnagel questions Jan and Max’s motives

for assisting Bigger.63 I believe that Jan and Max become an integral part of Bigger’s

self-awareness and self-acceptance, regardless of their roles as Communists. Jan’s

willingness to befriend Bigger even after Bigger had killed his girlfriend and pulled a gun

out on him reflects selflessness on Jan’s part. Jan may have been insensitive and ill- informed about the black plight when he and Mary met with Bigger earlier in the novel, but Jan’s later actions reflect his sincerity to the black cause and is not indicative of the generally accepted notion of Communist exploitation.64 Jan steps beyond the idea of

exploitation and genuinely seeks to assist Bigger, not only for Bigger, but for other blacks

who have the potential of becoming victims of the capitalist system.

apart from Bigger, to regard him as ‘a kind of beast’ and avoid him, and that Bigger, ‘under the penalty of death,’ should avoid Mary.”

62 Schraufnagel, From Apology to Protest, 23. Schraufnagel states, “In Native Son the spark that sets off the explosion in Bigger Thomas is provided by the taboo that is associated with a relationship between a black male and a white female. Bigger’s knowledge of the taboo against being seen in the company of a white girl precipitates a series of catastrophic events.”

63 Ibid., 31. Schraufnagel proclaims that Jan, as well as Mary, are “idealistic young radicals, [who] try to lure Bigger into accepting their concept of universal brotherhood, and, at the same time, show their prejudices concerning Negroes. Boris Max, despite his sincerity, exploits the plight of the young Negro for the benefit of Marxist ideology.”

64 Margolies, Native Sons, 84. A. Philip Randolph, “March on Washington Movement Presents Program for the Negro,” What the Negro Wants, ed. Rayford W. Logan (Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 1944) 148. Schraufnagel, From Apology to Protest, 29.

112

In direct opposition to the argument of Communist exploitation of blacks, Max

seeks to understand Bigger. Initially, both Bigger and Max are unsure of how they can

benefit each other. Bigger wonders why anyone would be willing to help him, and Max

admits he has two reasons for defending Bigger: “I’m defending this boy because I’m convinced that men like you [Buckley] made him what he is. His trying to blame the

Communists for his crime was a natural reaction for him. He had heard men like you lie

about the Communists so much that he believed them. If I can make the people of this

country understand why this boy acted like he did, I’ll be doing more than defending

him.”65 Not only does Max wish to clarify the validity and reputation of the CPUSA, but he also wants to express the misfortune of blacks in society. Max, as one critic declares,

“is thinking of the social implications of the situation.”66 Just as Jan realizes, Max knows

that Bigger is one of many young black men frustrated with the status quo, needing

opportunities for education and work for a meaningful and prosperous future.

Analyzing the friendship between Max and Bigger becomes important in understanding what Wright wishes to convey in the novel. Schraufnagel claims that Max

defends Bigger to promote “his own potential advancement [and by] catering to the prejudice of the public he hopes to make a name for himself at the expense of Bigger.” I disagree with Schraufnagel and see Max as a lawyer and a friend to Bigger. Max becomes the primary person with whom Bigger can confide and express his feelings.

Robert A. Bone describes Max as “Bigger’s father confessor . . . [who] comes closest to

65 Wright, Native Son, 335, 337.

66 Donald B. Gibson, “Wright’s Invisible Native Son,” Twentieth Century Interpretations of Native Son: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. Houston A. Baker, Jr. (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1972): 97.

113

establishing a human contact with him.”67 The problem that arises in their friendship is

the fact that Max still holds a level of power over Bigger because of his status as a Jewish

man and as an attorney. Bigger puts his life in Max’s hands. In many ways, Bigger’s

close relationship with Max allows Bigger to surpass the inferiority/superiority complex

structure to which he had been bound for so long. Interestingly, Wright still wants the

reader to acknowledge the full lack of connection between Max and Bigger. At the end

of the novel, Bigger pours his heart out to Max, explaining his need to kill being directly associated with his feeling of life. When Bigger makes the final declaration and makes peace with what he has done, “Max’s eyes were full of terror.”68 Max can only

empathize with Bigger up to a certain point. Lloyd W. Brown and Donald B. Gibson

both assert that Max positively influences Bigger’s life, but Bigger’s acceptance of

himself as a human being must come from within.69

African Americans and Education

In lieu of and in conjunction with working for whites, education becomes a

possible solution for better economic opportunities for blacks. Petry, Wright, and Ellison

present the ways in which various blacks and whites perceive the importance of

education. Whites generally view education in a positive manner, but inferiority and

superiority complexes and fear can cloud some whites’ judgment. Likewise, the

usefulness of education varies among blacks. In The Street, Lutie initially believes that

education can be an effective tool for her to achieve economic security. When Jim

67 Robert A. Bone, “Richard Wright,” Twentieth Century Interpretations of Native Son: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. Houston A. Baker, Jr. (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1972): 80.

68 Wright, Native Son, 501.

69 Lloyd W. Brown, “Stereotypes in Black and White: The Nature of Perception in Wright’s Native Son,” Black Academy Review 1 (1970): 44. Gibson, “Wright’s Invisible Native Son,” 105.

114

cannot find a job and Lutie knows she must try to acquire one, she writes to the

Chandlers. She acknowledges the wisdom her father exhibited when encouraging her to

finish high school because her education has allowed her to write a grammatically correct letter.70 After she quits her job with the Chandlers, Lutie attends night school and

eventually becomes a file clerk. Lutie sees the significance of education, and she wants

Bub to get a good education as well.71

Because Lutie is fixated on economic aspirations, including a higher-paying job to provide her and Bub with a better domicile and more opportunities, she is unaware of

Bub’s lack of progress in school. Bub’s white teacher, Miss Rinner, shirks her duty as instructor to Bub and his classmates and allows her prejudice and stereotyping to prevent her from providing them with the rudimentary skills they need. She views the class as incorrigible and refuses to teach them because she sees this job as a “hopeless task.”72

Instead, Miss Rinner gives the children tedious jobs to keep them quiet until their departure at the end of the day. Miss Rinner’s perception of the black children as violent and unkempt beings clouds her desire to fulfill her duty as a teacher. Her rejected requests to teach at other schools where she envisions “blond, blue-eyed little girls” only serve to make her more miserable.73 She has been “teaching” in Harlem for ten years, promoting children whether they learned or not. Holladay states that Miss Rinner’s

“undisguised loathing inevitably makes her a destructive presence in the classroom.”74

70 Petry, The Street, 30-31.

71 Ibid., 55-56, 67.

72 Ibid., 330.

73 Ibid., 329, 330.

74 Holladay, Ann Petry, 59.

115

Consequently, not only are Bub and his classmates being deprived of proper education, but so have ten years’ worth of other black children. Miss Rinner believes her attitude of

nonchalance is accepted by the administration since she is in Harlem. She bases this

belief on her ability to promote or retain the students as she pleases.75

In We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity, bell hooks asserts that this trend of

deprivation of adequate education was and is common for blacks, particularly black

males: “More than any other group of men in our society black males are perceived as

lacking in intellectual skills. Stereotyped via racism and sexism as being more body than

mind, black males are far more likely to be affirmed in imperialist white-supremacist

capitalist patriarchy for appearing to be dumb . . .”76 Petry presents Bub as an average

eight-year-old boy who is not properly stimulated by education, so he must find other

ways to occupy his time; in this case he strives to acquire more money for himself and his

mother. At the end of the novel when Bub is in a children’s shelter, as a result of the

superintendent’s mail scam, and Lutie is on her way out of town, Lutie recalls the

discouraging voice of her former teacher saying, “Really . . . I don’t know why they have

us bother to teach your people to write.”77 Lutie loses hope that education will advance

the lives of her and Bub. What Lutie had once viewed as a way to improve her

socioeconomic level now becomes yet another obstacle blacks must overcome in their

constant uphill battle for success in society.

75 Petry, The Street, 330. Miss Rinner’s actions are not monitored by the administration, so she has complete power over the fates of the students: “Because the school was in Harlem she knew she wasn’t expected to do any more than this. Each year she promoted the entire class, with few exceptions. The exceptions were, she stated, unmanageable and were placed in opportunity classes. Thus each fall she started with a fresh crop of youngsters.”

76 bell hooks, We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity (New York: Routledge, 2004) 33.

77 Petry, The Street, 435.

116

In contrast to Miss Rinner, Mrs. Dalton in Native Son enthusiastically promotes education for blacks. Most critics group Mr. and Mrs. Dalton together as “blind” white liberals, but I would like to consider Mrs. Dalton’s more positive and realistic approach in assisting blacks.78 On Bigger’s first day at the Daltons, Peggy, their housekeeper,

reveals that the former man who had worked for them had been successfully educated

and acquired a nice job: “[Green] took a job with the government. Mrs. Dalton made him go to night school. Mrs. Dalton’s always trying to help somebody” [italics mine].79

Critic Louis Graham proclaims Mrs. Dalton’s view of Bigger as “just another welfare

case, another chauffeur.”80 I agree with the fact that Mrs. Dalton making or ordering

Green to go to school suggests a master/servant relationship between the two; however, the result of Green leaving the domestic position and getting a job with the government benefits both parties. Mrs. Dalton satisfies her need to help someone, and Green becomes more economically stable. As Bigger listens to Peggy marvel over Mrs. Dalton

and Green, he declares, silently, that he will not be attending school. Bigger admits to

Mrs. Dalton that he only completed the eighth grade.81 Bigger and Mrs. Dalton view

education in different ways. In Bigger’s world, basic economic survival is more

important than education, as hooks explains: “In a post-slavery Jim Crow world, black

folks had to struggle for the right to educate themselves. And even when that right was

gained, the immediate need for material survival often disrupted the efforts of black

78 Margolies, Native Sons, 84. Schraufnagel, From Apology to Protest, 27, 31.

79 Wright, Native Son, 62.

80 Graham, “White Self-Image,” 19.

81 Wright, Native Son, 69.

117

males to acquire education.”82 On the other hand, Mrs. Dalton offers Bigger an

opportunity to work and get an education, which will, in turn, provide him with the

possibility of greater economic stability.

IM vs. Mr. Norton

In contrast to Petry and Wright’s focus on basic education, Ellison depicts the

black, post-Reconstruction, technical college, in particular, Booker T. Washington’s

Tuskegee Institute. Instead of the black college being a site of educational freedom and a

steppingstone for equality, the institution depends on white funding, therefore limiting

educational opportunities to those deemed important to whites. Houston A. Baker, Jr.

pinpoints Ellison’s goal of including the black Southern college in his narrative: “. . .

Ellison’s Tuskegee was not a land of shining cadets and fruitful business aspiration. . . .

[He] explores the ‘outlands’ of Alabama. He maps—in outlaw and subversive fashion—

the metastructures of Tuskegee ‘power.’ He knows what is implied when Negro Higher

Learning is ‘held in trust’ by ritual fantasts like those white millionaires who buzz about

sweet black honey in the Alabama rock in the springtime.”83

Mr. Norton, the northern white philanthropist, dutifully assists the black

community, but his motives and the spirit of his altruism must be examined. Ellison

portrays Norton as the quintessential Northern white father, who wants to assist in the

progression of the black college.84 He believes in the connection of his destiny with

82 hooks, We Real Cool, 34.

83 Houston A. Baker, Jr., “Meditation on Tuskegee: Black Studies Stories and Their Imbrication,” Journal of Blacks in Higher Education 9 (1995): 52-53.

84 Ellison, Invisible Man, 37. Ellison writes, “A face pink like St. Nicholas’, topped with a shock of silk white hair. An easy, informal manner, even with me. A Bostonian, smoker of cigars, teller of polite Negro stories, shrewd banker, skilled scientist, director, philanthropist, forty years a bearer of the white man’s burden, and for sixty a symbol of the Great Traditions.”

118

those of the blacks of the time.85 Norton opens his mind to the possibility of a shared destiny, but no matter how much he hopes to connect with blacks, history limits his ability to identify fully with and properly advance the black cause. Thomas Schaub describes this limitation: “[Norton is] a figure for the liberal, governed by too simple an idea of control, and whose good intentions disguise—especially from themselves—the persistence of racist assumptions.”86 Ellison provides verbal cues to support this notion

of lack of identification when Norton states,

[After emancipation,] [y]our people did not know in what direction to turn and, I must confess, many of mine didn’t know in what direction they should turn either. But your great Founder did. He was my friend and I believed in his vision. So much so, that sometimes I don’t know whether it was his vision or mine . . . I mean that upon you depends the outcome of the years I have spent in helping your school. That has been my real life’s work, not my banking or my researches, but my first-hand organizing of human life.87

Norton feels compelled to help blacks, but the mixed “vision” and the “organizing of

human life” suggest power over another rather than working “with” others, as well as a

dangerous subsuming of the black by the white man’s identification.

While receiving a tour of the campus by IM, Norton subconsciously discloses the primary reason for his philanthropy—his deceased daughter. Prior to Norton’s encounter with Trueblood, Norton gives the impression that his altruism stems from a deep-seated desire to see black people succeed, yet careful examination reveals a different shared destiny and a different purpose for assistance. As opposed to sharing a common

85 Ibid., 42. Norton proclaims, “[I]t was because I felt even as a young man that your people were somehow closely connected with my destiny.”

86 Thomas Schaub, “Ellison’s Masks and the Novel of Reality,” New Essays on Invisible Man, ed. Robert O’Meally (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1988) 138.

87 Ellison, Invisible Man, 38, 41.

119 progressive destiny with black people, Norton identifies with Trueblood’s digressive sexual obsession with his daughter. Several critics have discussed the sexual nature of

Norton’s relationship with his daughter, which explains why Norton has such a violent bodily reaction to Trueblood’s story.88 Norton’s principal motive for becoming involved with the black cause is the internalized guilt over his daughter:

Norton thinks that he is primarily impelled to support the school by his wish to commemorate his late daughter’s memory. The words the narrator attributes to Norton betray his incestuous attraction to her, however, and imply strongly that his generosity may well be an act of atonement for a sin he fails to recognize. When Norton speaks of his daughter, his tone is more that of a bereaved lover than of a father. In addition, he says that he was never able to believe that she was his own, and he expresses an undefined sense of guilt about her.89

This obsession with his daughter’s memory diminishes the principle of Norton’s philanthropy.90

The last piece of evidence that proves Norton’s insincerity toward the black cause occurs in the Epilogue, when Norton and IM meet again after many years. Norton fails to recognize IM and even when he hopes to jog Norton’s memory by mentioning “destiny,”

88 Russell G. Fischer, “Invisible Man as History,” CLA Journal 17.3 (1974): 343-44. Smith, “The Meaning of Narration,” 49.

89 Smith, “The Meaning of Narration,” 49.

90 Fischer, “Invisible Man,” 345. David Leverenz, Paternalism Incorporated: Fables of American Fatherhood, 1865-1940 (Ithaca: Cornell UP, 2003) 121. Fischer and Leverenz discuss the incestuous nature of Norton’s relationship with his daughter. Fischer states, “The irony of Trueblood’s situation is that after having committed incest he has never before been so materially well off. When Trueblood confronts white men with the account of his incest, the whites, because of their repressed incestuous desires, identify with him; like Mr. Norton, they pay Trueblood because he has, in effect, committed incest for them while allowing the white men to feel morally superior.” Leverenz proclaims, “Intriguingly, the Boston banker is nameless until he becomes ‘Mr. Norton’ when he approaches Jim Trueblood’s cabin. As he hears Trueblood’s lengthy story of how the black man fathered a child with his own daughter, Mr. Norton’s mask of Emersonian respectability shatters. ‘His face had drained of color,’ and his self-blackening desires become indirectly exposed through his horrified, shameful whiteness. Implicitly, Trueblood’s talk mirrors the banker’s implied incest with his too-much-loved daughter, who died because of it, perhaps because of pregnancy. This, Ellison implies, is the hidden dynamic of capitalistic paternalism.”

120

no recognition occurs.91 This lack of recognition could be attributed to memory loss or

senility; however, something more is suggested here. Earlier Norton had combined black

and white destiny. Here, when he seeks IM’s counsel while on the subway, IM wields a

certain power over Norton, for IM, at this point, knows where he fits within the scheme

of society. Norton, on the other hand, remains disillusioned about his role, as Ellison

symbolically narrates in this scene in the Epilogue, and IM acknowledges Norton’s

dislocation: “. . . Mr. Norton, if you don’t know where you are, you probably don’t know

who you are.”92 IM is no longer the naïve young man Norton had formerly looked upon

as a charity case. IM rejects Du Bois’ concept of double-consciousness. At this moment

in the novel, IM does not need to feel “his two-ness;” he clearly knows who he is.93

White Help and Black Hope

The economic disadvantages, racial discrimination, and white liberalism that Petry,

Wright, and Ellison depict of the 1930s, 1940s, or 1950s take a slightly different turn in the 1960s, as portrayed by Hunter in The Landlord. The early to mid-1960s brought about widespread open rebellion against the discrimination of the past: “The 1960s was a time of revolution among blacks in the U.S. . . . The sit-in movement, the freedom riders, the marches and demonstrations and the voter registration drives, supported by untold numbers of whites as well as blacks, suggested that an entirely new and thoroughly effective approach to race relations was in the making.”94 In conjunction with this idea of

black/white solidarity, Hunter uses comic prose to show the ways in which a white liberal

91 Ellison, Invisible Man, 569.

92 Ibid.

93 Refer to note 31.

94 Franklin and Moss, Jr., From Slavery to Freedom, 549.

121

of the 1960s makes a difference in the lives of blacks and vice versa. Elgar Enders, the

white son of a millionaire, strives to assert his place within society. He utilizes his

father’s money, but does not flaunt his wealth. I contend that this novel represents the

hope for black progress and genuine white assistance to that end. Before Elgar can be of

utmost support to blacks, he must first come to terms with his own identity.

In order to understand Elgar’s character and his transformation from immature

playboy to responsible citizen, we must examine Elgar’s perception of himself. The

novel opens with Elgar establishing himself as a landlord.95 The reader also learns that

Elgar hates his father; lives in the same apartment as his uncertified therapist; settles for

second-rate items in his life, including his current place of residence; and attempts suicide

more than once.96 Elgar is the youngest of three sons. His brothers had become successful businessmen, but Elgar wants more out of life and is “suffering from a

constitutional inability to shape himself along cubical lines, knew of his future what he

had always known: he could not stand to be like them.”97 Elgar initially makes future

plans to ask the tenants to leave and remodel the apartments into his personal home, but

Elgar’s indecision and uncertainty about his life make it easy for his tenants to manipulate him.

This manipulation may be due in part to his status as a liberal. Though Elgar has trouble defining his role in society, his liberal nature allows him to be vulnerable, and his black tenants sense this vulnerability. It may appear that Elgar is a one-dimensional

95 Hunter, The Landlord, 7.

96 Ibid., 8, 10, 33, 58.

97 Ibid., 54.

122

individual, but he possesses contradictory traits that make labeling him a liberal

questionable. As part of Elgar’s assertion and discovery of his identity, he seeks to

separate himself from those who embrace notions of prejudice or discrimination. For

example, Elgar silently scoffs at his real estate agent for referring to blacks as “those

people,” and in his mind he differentiates himself from the agent: “And I suppose, since slimy reptiles like you also come under that classification, we are expected to have

everything in common.”98

Yet, when he first meets the tenants of his building, and Marge, whom Elgar

describes as “the darkest, most massive woman he had ever seen. About six feet tall and

four wide,” approaches him, he thinks of her as “an enraged hippopotamus who probably

couldn’t read.”99 His eagerness to define her as ignorant initially seems like a racial slur

(although Marge does admit she only completed the ninth grade), but a closer

examination of the reason for his thoughts reveals his past feelings of inadequacy among

those who surround him.100 Elgar feels intimidated by Marge, not only because of her

size, but because of the fact that she pulls a gun out on him. Thereafter, he must prove to

his own tenants that he is their new landlord. Having to validate his claim as landlord

further frustrates his efforts to establish himself as a competent businessman in his own

right: “It had been like this all his life. No one ever recognized Elgar. Everyone refused

to grant him an identity. . . . He again had to prove that he existed.”101

98 Ibid., 12.

99 Ibid., 17.

100 Ibid.

101 Ibid., 18.

123

Hunter uses Elgar’s lack of identity to reverse the historical records that reflect

housing problems for blacks in the mid-twentieth century. John Hope Franklin and

Alfred Moss, Jr., discuss the unfair housing practices blacks were subjected to in the

early 1960s:

African Americans were greatly embittered to discover that they were being exploited by landlords and real estate brokers who took their rents but refused to comply with the minimum housing and health standards established by the city and state. As they paid high rents for rat-infested slums, they discovered that such neighborhoods offered inferior education, few job opportunities, and few if any public facilities. What was even worse, they discovered that cities were unwilling to enforce their own antibias housing codes. This discovery led blacks in New York City in 1963 to launch rent strikes against slumlords . . . 102

Instead of Elgar qualifying as the typical white slumlord, he gets conned by his tenants.

When he goes to the apartment to collect rent, the tenants give him excuses for not

having it and assure him that they will each have the rent at different times.103 Elgar

becomes highly frustrated with his tenants, so they decide to throw him a rent party,

though he has to pay to get in. His parents unexpectedly show up at the party and exhibit

their racist beliefs by expressing their disappointment with him “[c]avorting with low

types. Swilling cheap spirits. Indulging in poor investments,” and by insulting one of his

tenants, referring to her as a “kitchen girl” and a “naked black hussy.”104 Elgar finally

stands up to his parents by making them leave the premises. By refusing to accept his

parents’ racist behavior, Elgar comes slightly closer to becoming his own person and further proving his liberal status.

102 Franklin and Moss, Jr., From Slavery to Freedom, 543.

103 Hunter, The Landlord, 52-53.

104 Ibid., 75.

124

Elgar defies his parents’ ideas for him, but he still becomes a pawn in the game the

tenants are playing with him. Nevertheless, Elgar may not be as naïve as the tenants

believe him to be. During Elgar’s sessions with his pseudo-therapist, Borden, Elgar

reveals the improvement in the relationship with his tenants since the rent party.105 Elgar wants to surround himself with people who will accept him, and he feels his tenants serve this purpose, regardless of whether or not they pay their rent: “Now that I hang around the place all the time, I naturally get hungry. Well, Marge cooks for me. . . . And every night before I leave, DuBois and I have a brandy. . . . I just don’t nag them about the rent any more. It’s worth it. I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my life, Borden. I feel better around these people than I ever did with my family. I’m at home with them. I tell you,

I’ve become a colored man, at least inside.”106 Elgar’s declaration that he is “a colored

man” and that he feels “at home” with “these people” does not hold merit. In exchange

for not paying rent, the tenants have, in essence, become his servants, and this situation

only becomes worse when Elgar decides to move into the apartment that the Cumbersons

vacate.

Furthermore, Elgar begins sleeping with Fanny, Charlie Copee’s wife.107 Fanny

uses her feminine wiles to seduce Elgar. Elgar knows Charlie has mental issues, but instead of resisting her, he gives in to her advances. In Sex and Racism, Calvin Hernton

comments on white male/black female sexual relations:

105 Ibid., 199-200. Borden later reveals he is a certified therapist, but his certification was destroyed in Vienna.

106 Ibid., 97.

107 Lesley Brown, ed., The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles, vol. 1 (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1993) 916. In the late nineteenth century, fanny meant “female genitals.” Hunter may have been using a play on words here.

125

Specifically, the white supremacist’s (or racist’s) concept of the Negro female is that all of them are sluts and prostitutes; at best, they are objects of open sexual lust. In the mind of the racist, the northern ghettos are viewed as jungles of smoldering black flesh against which the prejudiced white man can act out his lewd concept of the sex act. Certainly, racism in America has affected the sexual morality of both races towards one another. But it seems to me that it is the white man, the white racist, who exemplifies the more pornographic emotions when he thinks of or actually sees a Negro female. To the majority of white men the mere thought of sexual relations with a black woman is either pruriently disgusting or obscenely exciting.108

Hunter clearly portrays Elgar as a white liberal, not a white supremacist or racist. Yet,

Elgar allows his lust for Fanny to override his respect for Charlie or the sanctity of

marriage. Though Elgar wants to separate himself from the beliefs of white racists,

including some of the ideas his parents hold, he openly admits his perception of the black

woman when he initially tries to reject Fanny’s sexual advances: “ . . . I am a product of a

different culture. More formal than yours. Less free.”109 His statement reveals his

clouded perception of black sexuality and suggests that his “[m]ore formal” culture is

more appropriate than hers. Fanny acknowledges Elgar’s white power by seducing him

and convincing him to provide for her family, both emotionally and financially.110 Still misinterpreting manipulation as acceptance, Elgar accepts this role.

Part of what Hunter wishes to convey in the novel is how interracial interactions affect the perceptions one race has of the other. Elgar desires acceptance, but his status as a white man and as a landlord makes it difficult for his black tenants to trust and embrace him. Past historical racial conflicts complicate interracial relations, as Charlie

108 Hernton, Sex and Racism, 90.

109 Hunter, The Landlord, 78.

110 Ibid., 93-99.

126

relates to Elgar: “You have no right to expect me to be pleasant, mister. After three

hundred years of using us to make your fortunes and keep your lives running smoothly

and pleasantly, you should not expect us to love you. The best there can be between us is

respect. . . . If you knew where you belonged, you would not have moved in here with us.

You lack a sense of your own history . . .”111 Elgar’s ill-defined identity affects his sense

of reality when it comes to blacks, but his reaction is not uncommon among white

liberals. In Voluntary Servitude: Whites in the Negro Movement, Charles J. Levy

discusses one of the problems white liberals sometimes encounter: “The divergence

between the effect that the White wants to have on the Negro and the effect he does have

is a consequence of not yet knowing the extent to which he is seen as White.”112 Up to this point in the novel, Elgar believes that if he makes his tenants happy, they will accept him, but their plan is to appease him in order to avoid paying rent. Their plan backfires, so when he moves into the building, they make it clear to Elgar that they want a landlord, not a “brother.”113

In order to make a relationship between the two races work, perceptions must be

changed. As earlier stated, Elgar’s tenants see him as a white landlord, but Elgar views himself as a human being, refusing to focus on his color. The moment Elgar decides to act as his tenants want him to, a crisis occurs. V.S. Phosdicker, a white community leader, spearheads a plan to tear down Elgar’s building and other apartment complexes to begin an Urban Renewal Project.114 This decision devastates Elgar and his tenants. This

111 Ibid., 104, 138.

112 Charles J. Levy, Voluntary Servitude: Whites in the Negro Movement (New York: Meredith, 1968) 32.

113 Hunter, The Landlord, 138-40.

114 Ibid., 122.

127

crisis changes their relationship and also allows Elgar to support a cause he truly believes

in. When the tenants see that Elgar cares about them and their future, they look past his

color. Previously, the tenants viewed him as similar to other white men: “The reason why his tenants had mistrusted him was, after all, concrete. They had thought he was part of the machinery of dispossession.”115 Now they are able to view him as an

individual.

Elgar’s concern for the welfare of his tenants fosters a self-confidence within him

that manifests itself in his plan to thwart the efforts of Phosdicker. Elgar shows his

dedication to blacks and his belief in their prosperity by proposing affordable apartment

buildings for them along with a playground for the children. Since Elgar finally

constructs a plan that will assist the black community and provide him with a profit,

Elgar stands up to his father and fixes the rift between them. Elgar’s father agrees to give

him a loan for his present endeavor.116 In addition to financing this proposal, Elgar

finances the dreams of his tenants: DuBois’ college, Marge’s latest album, and Fanny’s

beauty saloon. Elgar embodies the qualities of what the true white liberal should be. In

The Negro Mood and Other Essays, Lerone Bennett, Jr. delineates the qualities and actions of white liberals: “White liberals must stand now, wherever they are, in their offices, in their unions, in their neighborhoods, in their churches, and declare what gods they serve and what visions they have seen. . . . If white liberals confronted the Negro- white situation in its totality of horror, they would perforce move forward into radical

115 Ibid., 172.

116 Ibid., 219-21.

128

action or collapse in a moral spasm.”117 As before, Elgar separates himself from other

whites, but this time he suffers with his tenants and feels their fear. Bennett also

discusses the fact that the insincerity of white liberals arises when they must choose

between their white counterparts and blacks.118 Elgar chooses the side of blacks against

his own race, even though in the end all will benefit from his decision.

Petry, Wright, Ellison, and Hunter each address the issue of interracial interactions and the effects of capitalism on the lives of both races. In The Street, Lutie carefully plans her future, hoping to make an improvement in her financial situation in order to give her and Bub a better life. Instead, not only is her environment against her, but blacks—Mrs. Hedges, Boots, Jim—and whites—the Chandlers, Miss Rinner, and

Junto—enter into the equation to unravel her plans and contribute to her lack of success.

Likewise, Bigger, in Native Son, wants many things in life, but his circumstances serve to dampen his spirit, making him feel helpless in the achievement of his goals. The Daltons,

Jan, and Max want to help Bigger, but by virtue of their status in society, they, particularly Mr. Dalton and Mary, only exacerbate Bigger’s feelings of inferiority.

Part of the success or downfall of blacks is in the hands of whites, particularly white liberals. White liberals are willing to stand up and acknowledge that blacks need help.

The problem arises in either the method or the extent of their assistance. Mr. Dalton and

Mr. Norton donate large sums of money to schools, but other actions or behavior they

exhibit toward blacks contradict the good their money can do for blacks. Mary Dalton

wants to embrace blacks, but her approach is counterproductive. Mrs. Dalton views

117 Lerone Bennett, Jr., The Negro Mood and Other Essays (New York: Ballantine, 1964) 134, 148.

118 Ibid., 130.

129

education as the answer to saving blacks, but she forces her employees into what she sees

as the solution to their problems. Junto does not claim to be a liberal, but his interaction

with blacks exhibits the characteristics of a liberal. Junto also has shared some of the

plight of blacks due to his formerly impoverished status; nonetheless, once he breaks

through this low economic barrier, his need for vices, such as sex and blackmail, keep

him from effectively rallying the black cause for equality. The most positive white

liberal figures presented in the novels are Jan, Max, and Elgar. Each of these characters

must clear their minds of their own views of themselves and of blacks and sacrifice their

own feelings of comfort and stability to assist blacks.

Most of these authors give a dim view of black progress under the white capitalist

system. Money and power are the driving forces that allow people within society to

survive. According to these four authors, whites primarily possess those tools of

American survival. Blacks oftentimes do not possess these resources and because of

discrimination and prejudice cannot acquire them. If we return to Booker T.

Washington’s Atlanta Exposition Speech, at that particular point in time (almost the turn

of the twentieth century) a coalition between blacks and whites needed to be established

for the still-struggling blacks, but not at the expense of black rights, as W.E.B. Du Bois

proclaims. Seventy-two years later another great orator, Martin Luther King, Jr.,

expressed his view of interracial interactions: “In the final analysis, the white man cannot

ignore the Negro’s problem, because he is part of the Negro and the Negro is part of him.

The Negro’s agony diminishes the white man, and the Negro’s salvation enlarges the

white man.”119 I strongly believe the authors, based on their novels, would agree that if

119 Coretta Scott King, The Martin Luther King, Jr., Companion: Quotations from the Speeches, Essays, and Books of Martin Luther King, Jr. (New York: St. Martin’s, 1993) 6.

130 all Americans trusted in the principle proclaimed in the above statement, more blacks of the twentieth century would have been given the opportunity to become educated and achieve economic success and social acceptance within American society

CHAPTER 4 INDUSTRIAL WAR: AFRICAN AMERICANS IN INDUSTRY DURING THE WORLD WARS

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

Martin Luther King, Jr.1

All of the main characters in William Attaway’s Blood on the Forge (1941) and

Chester Himes’ If He Hollers Let Him Go (1945) and Lonely Crusade (1947) face

challenges in which they must make crucial and sometimes split-second decisions while

working in industrial occupations. These men sometimes encounter hostile working

conditions, not only with the actual work they undertake, but also with the attitudes of

their white co-workers. Blood on the Forge is initially set in Kentucky in 1919, but a

terrible disagreement with a riding boss results in the Moss brothers—Big Mat, Melody, and Chinatown, who are black men—having to leave town abruptly. They are recruited by a white Northerner to work in the Pennsylvania steel mills. In If He Hollers Let Him

Go, Robert (Bob) Jones works as a leaderman in a shipyard in 1941, and Lee Gordon in

Lonely Crusade is a union organizer at a war industry plant in 1943; both black characters live in Los Angeles, California.2 The setting of Attaway’s novel may be at an

1 Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength to Love (1963, Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987) 31.

2 Philip B. Gove, ed., Webster’s Third New International Dictionary (Springfield: Merriam-Webster, 2002) 1283. A leaderman is “a subforeman in a shipyard.”

131 132

earlier time than Himes’ novels, but I argue that there is little difference in the racial

attitudes of whites and/or white immigrants toward blacks in the workplace.

This idea holds true because blacks and whites limit themselves based on the

psychological aftereffects of slavery. In the case of the Moss brothers, the treatment they

received in the South remains constant in their minds and also affects their bodies while

working in Pennsylvania. As a leaderman at Atlas Shipyard, Bob Jones faces daily

challenges because he is black. Lee Gordon has been appointed organizer of the union at

a nearby plant, a position that has never been occupied by a black person, so he begins his job as a racial trailblazer and as a person who may be rejected because of his race. In an attempt to describe the sociopsychological effects of integrating blacks into positions formerly held by whites, this chapter will examine how the various novels present the dynamics of personal and professional politics between blacks, whites, and/or white immigrants in the workplace. I will also show how each novel portrays the treatment black characters receive in their workplace environments and the effect this treatment has on their personal interactions outside of the workplace.

The Moss Brothers’ Journey from South to North

In the beginning of Blood on the Forge, Attaway depicts the tension in the working relationship between blacks and whites in the South. Although blacks had been free for

54 years up to the point of the setting of this novel, Attaway’s depiction of Kentucky’s sharecropping system closely resembles what Du Bois calls a “second slavery.”3 Big Mat

works to provide for his wife and two brothers. The oppression of their situation is

constantly on their minds. Chinatown sums up the blacks’ status under the sharecropping

3 As stated in chapter one concerning the working conditions of Nella and Chris in Georgia in Carl Offord’s The White Face, the sharecropping system is just another form of slavery. Du Bois, Souls, 137, 139.

133

system: “We jest niggers, makin’ the white man crop for him. Leave him make his own

crop, then we don’t end up owin’ him money every season.”4 Big Mat optimistically

believes his hard work will eventually yield a greater reward. When Big Mat has the job

of slaughtering sick hogs, he hopes to be permitted to take one of the hogs home for his

family, but Mr. Johnston, the landowner, only allows him to take some intestines of the

hogs. During the conversation between Big Mat and Mr. Johnston, Mr. Johnston’s

remarks express his views that blacks are inferior beings who are comfortable with their

lowly status: “Mat . . . you know I don’t have nothin’ but niggers work my land. You

know why? . . . Well they’s three reasons: niggers ain’t bothered with the itch; they knows how to make it the best way they kin and they don’t kick none. . . . You kin take along a bag of them guts when you go. Throw the rest of them back to the other hogs.”5

Mr. Johnston not only values the submission of blacks, but his gesture of giving Big Mat

the “guts” and asking him to “[t]hrow the rest of them back to the other hogs” confirms

his belief that blacks are no better than swine.

Even though Mr. Johnston and other Southern whites believe blacks are resigned to

and accepting of their inferior status, the incident in which Big Mat loses his temper with

the riding boss exhibits the limits of this idea. After the death of the Moss brothers’

mother in a mule accident, Mr. Johnston grants Big Mat permission to use one of his

mules for plowing. The riding boss is unaware of what Mr. Johnston has promised Big

Mat, so he chastises Big Mat when he sees him around the mules instead of working. Big

Mat knows the racial hierarchy, but he makes a distinction between Mr. Johnston’s status

4 Attaway, Blood, 5.

5 Ibid., 15.

134

in society and the riding boss’ status: “Mr. Johnston had always been a landowner, but

the riding boss had been a poor white share cropper.”6 Big Mat reminds the riding boss

of their former social ties and similar economic status, “Us used to play together when

your folks was sharecroppin’ next to mine.”7 Big Mat feels this statement will soften the

riding boss; instead, the riding boss “turned and slashed the quirt across Big Mat’s face.”8

After this, Big Mat apologizes for speaking boldly because he knows this one moment could affect whether he and his family will eat or not.9 The riding boss shares the racial

superiority of Mr. Johnston, yet the riding boss feels he must overcompensate because of his formerly low economic status, nearly equivalent to Big Mat’s. Unaware of or not

caring about Big Mat’s extreme anguish over his mother’s death, the riding boss states

that the mule Big Mat killed had more worth than his mother’s life.10 Though Big Mat

had always reacted to situations within the confines of his oppressive environment, his

anger overtakes him in this situation, and he beats the riding boss into a state of unconsciousness.11

When a Northern agent comes along to recruit blacks for industrial work in the

North, Big Mat and his brothers feel that they must take the opportunity, for fear of losing

6 Ibid., 12.

7 Ibid., 27

8 Ibid. Gove, Webster’s, 1867. A quirt is “a riding whip used esp. in the western U.S. and consisting of a short handle (as of wood or leather) to which is attached a rawhide lash.”

9 Ibid., 27-28.

10 Ibid., 6-7. The novel suggests that the Moss brothers’ mother died from years of hard labor: “[B]efore sunup Maw [was] out pushing that one-mule plow . . . She had dropped dead between the gaping handles of the plow. The lines had been double looped under her arms, so she was dragged through the damp, rocky clay by a mule trained never to balk in the middle of a row. The mule dragged her in. The rocks in the red hills are sharp. She didn’t look like their maw any more.”

11 Ibid., 28.

135 their lives over the assault of the riding boss. In Farewell—We’re Good and Gone: The

Great Black Migration, Carole Marks discusses the use of agents to recruit blacks from the South: “In the Great Migration, the initial line of communication was established by agents of northern companies, acting as intermediaries between employers and potential labor migrants. Agents were paid a fee for each worker they were able to produce. . . .

Agents were surprisingly selective of their recruits, considering they received a flat rate for each, favoring men over women, young over old, and healthy over infirm.”12 Big Mat had already been warned by Mr. Johnston about “some jacklegs” trying to persuade blacks to leave the South to work in the North.13 The warning that Mr. Johnston gives

Big Mat about the agents becomes the Moss brothers’ salvation.

The most obvious reason for the Moss brothers’ departure is the incident with the riding boss, but James O. Young mentions another reason for their departure: “Aside from the immediate necessity of escaping white retaliation, their flight has another level of meaning for Attaway. They are leaving the land because it has become infertile. It is worn out, incapable of sustaining the black folk any longer.”14 The land’s infertility

12 Carole Marks, Farewell—We’re Good and Gone: The Great Black Migration (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1989) 21. Dennis Dickerson, Out of the Crucible: Black Steelworkers in Western Pennsylvania, 1875-1980 (Albany: SUNY, 1986) 33. Dickerson also discusses the Northern agents: “Once railway transportation became readily available, Northern industrialists used the services of labor agents to stimulate the Black migration further. They hired men, both Black and White, to go South to recruit Black workers. In many cases, these agents were already company employees.”

13 Attaway, Blood, 16. Florette Henri, Black Migration: Movement North, 1900-1920 (Garden City: Anchor/Doubleday, 1975) 62. Henri discusses the panic that the Northern agents caused white Southerners: “Alarm spread throughout the white South as farm laborers and city menial and domestic help drifted off in twos, twenties, and two hundreds. State laws and city ordinances were passed to oust or curb the agents who were taking most of the workers. . . . Force was not infrequently used to prevent the taking of blacks North . . . Labor agents were arrested. Trains carrying migrants were stopped, the blacks forced to return, and the agents beaten. Blacks might be terrorized or lynched on suspicion of trying to leave the state.” Dickerson, Out of the Crucible, 49. Dickerson gives a few instances where efforts were made by Southern whites to curb the migration of blacks.

14 James O. Young, Black Writers of the Thirties (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1973) 227.

136

represents the deterioration of the blacks’ tolerance of ill treatment from whites. Taking

Young’s idea a step further, just as the land will one day be capable of yielding crops, blacks (but not the Moss brothers) in the South will one day be treated with the respect they deserve. Leaving Hattie, Big Mat’s wife, behind with the promise of sending for her later, the Moss brothers take a train to Pennsylvania. In the introduction to the 1970 edition of Blood on the Forge, Edward Margolies compares the Moss brothers’ journey in the “dark womblike box car” to the slaves’ trip on the ships in the Middle Passage.15

Once the Moss brothers arrive in Pennsylvania and emerge from the boxcar, they are reborn into “the valley of death,” i.e., the industrial world.16

The Moss brothers find that conditions in the North, both racial and occupational, are only a slight improvement over conditions in the South. Since the Moss brothers must unexpectedly leave to go to the North, they do not possess the typical dream of most black Southerners migrating there, in that they will experience greater freedom, equality, and economic power. According to Florette Henri, blacks migrated to the North because of the continued disregard for their right to equality, through such actions as Jim Crow laws, disfranchisement, and violence against blacks by whites.17 The North presents a

different set of problems for blacks. More than racial prejudice, the Moss brothers must

deal with hatred because of issues concerning the union.

15 Edward Margolies, introduction, Blood on the Forge, by William Attaway (1941; New York: MacMillan, 1970) xvi. Margolies states, “The cycle of recurring death is mirrored in the very structure of the novel as the brothers flee one kind of death at the beginning of the narration and another at the end. In addition their arrival North suggests ironically a kind of rebirth as the dark womblike box car in which they have been traveling, huddled and jammed with other black migrants, disgorges them in the valley of death. Was Attaway possibly thinking of a similar journey their ancestors had taken centuries before in the darkened holds of slave ships?”

16 Ibid.

17 Henri, Black Migration, 52-53.

137

When they arrive and decide to walk around to explore their new environment, they

face what appears to be a racial attack: “A rock whizzed between Melody and

Chinatown. The two men halted, confused. In the eyes of all the Slavs was a hatred and

contempt different from anything they had ever experienced in Kentucky. Another rock

went past. Chinatown started to back away.”18 They see whites, in this case Slavs, and

think that just as a situation like this occurring in Kentucky would be racially motivated, the same would be true here. However, Bo, a black foreman, informs them that they have been brought in as a warning to those who may wish to strike.19 The Moss brothers’ lack

of knowledge of Northern labor issues was not uncommon during the early twentieth

century. In The Black Worker: The Negro and the Labor Movement, Sterling D. Spero

and Abram L. Harris note some Southern blacks’ ignorance of unions and industrial

work:

The Negro’s willingness to break the white man’s strike is partly traceable to his slave time distrust of white labor and his dependence on the white master class. Primarily, however, the Negro’s availability as a strike breaker has been done to his complete ignorance not only as to what a strike or a union was, but even of what a factory was. Most of the colored labor used to break strikes came straight from the farms without any previous industrial contacts.20

The Slavs appear to be the most resistant to blacks entering the industrial

workplace, but Zanski, an older Slav, befriends the Moss brothers, particularly Melody.

Attaway reveals a shared sense of displacement between Zanski and the Moss brothers.

18 Attaway, Blood, 47.

19 Ibid., 51. Bo states, “You been havin’ trouble? . . . Everythin’ be smooth in a coupla weeks . . . Always hate new niggers round here. . . . Well, company bring them in when there strike talk. Keep the old men in line.”

20 Sterling D. Spero and Abram L. Harris, The Black Worker: The Negro and the Labor Movement (New York: Atheneum, 1969) 129.

138

Zanski knows the importance of being grounded and establishing some semblance of a stable home-life.21 Robert A. Bone compares and contrasts the African American-Slavic situations:

Counterposed to the Moss brothers is the figure of Zanski, an old Ukrainian steelworker who represents a superior adjustment to the new industrial environment. Confronted with similar problems of acculturation, the transplanted Ukrainian peasants have been quicker to put their roots down than the Negro migrants. Zanski, knowing instinctively that no peasant can be happy unless he is growing things, insists at least upon having kids growing in his yard.22

The attitude Zanski possesses is wise on his part; his slower reflexes, due to his advanced age, and the danger of the mills cause him to get hurt during a mill accident, after which he is unable to work. Melody ponders the fact that Zanski’s dismissal from the mill will give him time to cultivate his home-life, relax, and “sit in his courtyard and watch his kids and his kids’ kids go to work in the mills.”23

Zanski is the voice of reason in the Moss brothers’ new industrial world, whereas

Smothers’ manic ravings about the evils of the steel mills prove to be a link to their past.

Smothers, a black man, had formerly been an able-bodied steelworker in the mill, but a mill accident caused him to lose his legs.24 Just as the brothers were able to farm the land, thereby utilizing their natural resources, Smothers believes any reconfiguration of natural resources causes a backlash that destroys mankind: “It’s wrong to tear up the ground and melt it up in the furnace. Ground don’t like it. It’s the hell-and-devil kind of work. Guy ain’t satisfied with usin’ the stuff that was put here for him to use—stuff of

21 Attaway, Blood, 82-83.

22 Bone, Negro Novel, 138.

23 Attaway, Blood, 125.

24 Ibid., 67.

139

top of the earth. Now he got to git busy and melt up the ground itself. Ground don’t like it, I tells you. Now they’ll be folks laugh when I say the ground got feelin’. But I knows what it is I’m talkin’ about.”25 Smothers’ declarations may hold some truth since several accidents occur at the mill. The last accident will blind Chinatown and kill Smothers,

along with fourteen other men.26

Further corroborating his link with the Moss brothers’ Southern way of life,

Smothers acknowledges the inability of the brothers to produce farm goods as they had in the South: “A guy make money—sure—but it jest fade away. Come Monday, ever’ dollar he sweat gone away.”27 Smothers knows that some black Southerners are unaware

of ways to use their money to improve their economic status. In many ways, working in

the mills gives the Moss brothers a chance to escape some forms of racial prejudice and

receive admiration for their hard work in the form of monetary rewards and sometimes

verbal praise.28 Big Mat ponders his current working and living status and decides that

even though the mill work requires long hours and hard work, he still feels there is a

greater advantage to being in the North than in the South.29 Cynthia Hamilton comments

25 Ibid., 53.

26 Ibid., 160.

27 Ibid., 63.

28 Ibid., 90-92. In the novel, Big Mat saves O’Casey, a supervisor in the mill, from being hit with a shovel by one of the white workers. One of the Irishmen compliments Big Mat: “Never had a colored helper work better on the hearth. He’s strong as an ox—do everythin’ the melter tell him to do and take care of the work of a whole crew if he ain’t held back.” As a term of admiration, O’Casey calls Big Mat “Black Irish.”

29 Ibid., 176-77. Attaway writes, “For a man who had so lately worked from dawn to dark in the fields twelve hours and the long shift were not killing. For a man who had ended each year in debt any wage at all was a wonderful thing. For a man who had known no personal liberties even the iron hand of the mills was an advancement.”

140

on the Southern migrants’ movement from a rural environment to an urban one and the

ways in which this move changes their lives:

[T]he past of the displaced rural migrants has failed them, for they can draw from it no models for defense in the urban setting where old values and behavior are dysfunctional. Therefore, we watch them struggle to create new models. . . . These rural migrants were the men industry feared precisely because of their strength and work knowledge; their sense of loyalty and commitment was threatening because it was a possible source of workers’ independence. Therefore the new organization of industry replaced all other compensation for work with material compensation. Workers were encouraged not to be concerned with the end product of their labor but to become specialists at some minute task, like attaching a nut to a bolt ten to twelve hours a day. For efficiency and high productivity, money was to be the reward for workers.30

Big Mat, Melody, and Chinatown cannot utilize their past, nor do they have the inclination to prepare for their future. The Moss brothers’ new urban life may not be an ideal way of living, but their slightly better social and economic standing in the North is

an improvement over their lives in Kentucky.

Bo and Big Mat both desire respect and upward mobility in this industrial setting,

but their means of achieving these aspects of power differ.31 In the novel, Bo is the only

black man in a management position.32 According to historian Dennis C. Dickerson,

placing a black person in such a position was a strategic move on the part of white supervisors to reduce problems in the workplace: “To alleviate the problem of prejudiced

White foremen, several steel managers hired Black foremen or straw bosses to head

predominately Black labor gangs and track crews. Some of these groups included

30 Cynthia Hamilton, “Work and Culture: The Evolution of Consciousness and Urban Industrial Society in the Fiction of William Attaway and Peter Abrahams,” Black American Literature Forum 21.1/2 (1987): 153, 158.

31 Hamilton, “Work and Culture,” 160. Hamilton also notes the difference in their approach to power.

32 Attaway, Blood, 148.

141

foreign-born Whites. Nonetheless, these straw bosses worked under White superiors, so

they could not entirely shield Blacks from discriminatory employment practices.”33 Bo struggles with the two sides of himself: one side that wants to assist blacks and the other side that, to keep his job, betrays all of the workers who are in the union. As stated

earlier, Bo assists the Moss brothers by informing them of the tensions between

strikebreakers and unions. At the same time when Chinatown asks for more information

about the strike, Bo curtly says, “I don’t know nothin’ but my job,” though he does give

Chinatown a brief apology shortly thereafter for being so abrupt.34 Another example of

Bo’s contradictory behavior occurs when he fails to use his authority to assist Smothers

when one of the workers impedes Smothers’ movement by taking away his walking

sticks. Chinatown asks Bo to help Smothers, but Bo wants to avoid showing favoritism

to blacks since he is the only black supervisor.35

Bo knows the complicated nature of his status in the plant. He explains to Melody that his position is one requiring him to be in a constant state of trepidation: “I got to show no favorites and be eight times as good as the next man. . . . Somebody all the time gunnin’ for me. Don’t like to see a nigger in my job. . . . If it wasn’t for trouble wouldn’t be no niggers in the mills at all.”36 The problem with Bo having such a position is that he

must compromise his principles to maintain it. He becomes an informant, providing

information to upper management about those workers who are part of the union and may

strike.

33 Dickerson, Out of the Crucible, 53.

34 Attaway, Blood, 51.

35 Ibid., 147-48.

36 Ibid., 126.

142

One day, after Zanski and other Slavs join the union, the Moss brothers find Bo

beaten up. Some of the workers in the mill find out that Bo is a “stool pigeon,” so they

attack him.37 Bo admits to the brothers that he is responsible for the termination of the union men’s jobs: “Maybe them guys was fired ‘cause I said I seen ‘em goin’ in the union place. But hell! I got to keep my job. I got to do what they say. Don’t forget I’m the only nigger in the mill got micks under him.”38 In three specific instances in the

novel, Bo emphasizes the fact that he is the only black person supervising whites.39 His need to remind others of his stature confirms his insecurity, but this continual declaration also gives insight into his need to do anything he can to stay in his position. He assures the brothers that they are all on the same side; the brothers, however, want nothing to do with his way of doing things. For as long as they can, they try to work without becoming involved in the political side of the mill business.40

Unfortunately, the Moss brothers’ efforts to avoid politics fail, particularly for Big

Mat. Big Mat is similar to Bo in that he is forced to take the side of the mill owners.

When the union and the mill owners reach an impasse, the union members threaten to walk out if their demands are not met.41 Unaware of the current political situation, Big

37 Ibid., 174-77, 181.

38 Ibid., 181.

39 Ibid., 126, 148, 181.

40 Ibid., 182. Attaway writes, “Big Mat and Melody were vastly different men. But both of them approached the world alike. Ideas of union and nonunion could only confuse them until that time when their own personal experience would give them the feeling necessary for understanding. So they went home and did not listen to any more talk. There were other meetings and other speakers, both for and against the union, but the Moss boys stayed by themselves. They kept away from the bunkhouse and its arguments. On the job there was whispered talk between spells, but they kept their ears closed against it. They no longer stopped at the lunch wagon. There was no good greeting for them at that place. They did not even walk in the town—the town was hostile to the point of danger.”

41 Ibid., 187.

143

Mat encounters a few of the new deputies brought into town to maintain order.42

Attaway uses this meeting between Big Mat and the deputies to return to an earlier theme of signifying blacks as animals. Previously, Mr. Johnston had likened Big Mat and other blacks to swine. Attaway describes the deputies’ view of Big Mat as “a giant black man strolling along the river front, balancing a great rock in one hand.”43 The men’s fearful reaction seems to be more appropriate for a bear or a gorilla instead of a large man. The sheriff wants to swear Big Mat in as a figure of intimidation against the union, not as a respected deputy: “Deputize this man. Assign him his hours. He won’t need a club. Just give him a couple of boulders. He’ll earn his four dollars on Monday . . . Sure is a mean trick to play on the union.”44 Once again, Big Mat becomes an object to be ridiculed, not a man to be taken seriously.

Two particular issues make Big Mat’s new status as a deputy problematic. The first issue relates to Big Mat’s subjection to mistreatment by whites. Johnston and the riding boss are the controlling figures who keep him sharecropping and working to their advantage while the Moss brothers are in Kentucky. Thereafter, the Northern labor agents need Big Mat and his brothers to receive money from the mill owners. Once Big

Mat and his brothers are employed, they may be used as potential strikebreakers. Now the deputies and the sheriff want Big Mat’s strength and physique to intimidate union members. The argument can be made that in each of these situations, Big Mat has no choice but to succumb to the authority of these white figures. In addition, the one time he

42 Ibid., 190-93.

43 Ibid., 191.

44 Ibid., 192.

144

does thwart the system while in Kentucky in a fit of anger, his life becomes threatened.

Attaway depicts a realistic situation in which white authority becomes the oppression that

never wanes.

Another issue surrounding the problem of Big Mat’s new position involves the

psychological effects of him being a deputy. All of his life, he experiences the crushing

weight of being submissive or obedient. Before becoming a deputy, he had never had the

opportunity to know what it felt like to be an authority figure. Instead of perceiving his

new authority in terms of deputies and mill owners versus union members, he instantly

sees the conflict as black versus white:

All of his hatreds came back and added flame to his feeling. He had been called “nigger” since childhood. “Nigger, nigger never die . . .” was the chant. The name that they gave to him had become a badge signifying poverty and filth. He had not been allowed to walk like a man. His food had been like the hog slops, and he had eaten. In the fields he had gone to the branch and gotten down on his belly. He had drunk his water like a dog left too long in the heat. They had taken his money and his women. They had made him run for his life. They would have run him with dogs through the swamps. They would have lynched him. He would have been a twisting torch. And he had escaped the South. Now here in the North he was hated by his fellow workers. He was a threat over their heads. The women covered their faces at the sight of him, the men spat; the children threw rocks. Always within him was that instinctive knowledge that he was being turned to white men’s uses. So always with him was a basic distrust of a white. But now he was a boss. He was the law. After all, what did right or wrong matter in the case? Those thrilling new words were too much to resist. He was a boss, a boss over whites.45

Bob Jones and the Difficulty of Middle Class Life

A span of 22 years separates the settings of Blood on the Forge and If He Hollers

Let Him Go, yet one specific aspect remains the same in the Pennsylvania steel mills and the California shipyards—racism. Bob Jones, like Lee Gordon of Lonely Crusade,

45 Ibid., 196-97.

145

becomes the first black person to hold a leadership position.46 The settings of all three

novels take place during war years, but Bo of Blood on the Forge supervises white and

black workers, while Bob of If He Hollers Let Him Go only supervises blacks.47 Before trouble with the impending strike, workers of both races respect Bo, whereas Bob never receives the respect of white workers. Bo’s status as stool pigeon diminishes his credibility as a champion for blacks; Bob’s willingness to uphold his honor as a black person costs him his job, but represents the pride he holds for himself and his people.

Further parallels between the two novels reveal that Big Mat sees only in black and white, and even though Bob would like to view his job surroundings in an aspect other than race, this desire is not possible. Bob migrates from Cleveland to Los Angeles in

1941, hoping to find bigger and better opportunities. Like the Moss brothers, he appreciates the monetary reward of working in an industrial occupation, but also like them, Bob realizes that racism, or in the Moss brothers’ case hostility toward outsiders, still permeates white minds.48 Kevin Leonard explains the hopes and difficulties blacks

face in California during the Second World War:

World War II attracted African Americans to Los Angeles and allowed both newcomers and long-term residents access to jobs from which they previously had been excluded. But it did not dramatically improve all aspects of life for blacks. Most African Americans continued to face discrimination in the workplace, even if they were making much more money than before. In most war-production plants, managers refused to

46 Himes, If He Hollers, 3.

47 Attaway, Blood, 126. Himes, If He Hollers, 17.

48 Schraufnagel, From Apology to Protest, 53. Schraufnagel states, and I agree, that the hostility against the Moss brothers has more to do with class and strikebreaking than with the fact that they are black.

146

promote African Americans into supervisory positions over white workers . . .49

Even though Bob has been promoted to leaderman, nothing else has changed. No attitudes of the white workers have been altered to ensure his success. Bob’s own supervisor, an Irishman, vehemently opposes Bob’s promotion.50 Bob cannot secure white workers to assist him with some of the tasks he needs done to complete his part of the work project. Therefore, when Mr. MacDougal, the department superintendent, comments about Bob being promoted partly to keep the tension down between blacks and whites, this statement borders on the absurd.51

Black Male Power vs. White Male Power

The question that needs to be answered here is why the white workers, specifically white men, so adamantly oppose working peacefully alongside black men. One way to answer this question would be to examine the economic implications of black mobility.

Beginning at the turn of the century, black migration from the South to the North and

West opened up new opportunities for higher education and better jobs. Being a product of this growing trend of black industrial employment that emerged during World War II,

Bob knows greater economic stability and consumer power than many of his predecessors. Bob’s education and new supervisory position can only be a threat to the white workers because he now holds part of the American Dream that white workers always felt would be reserved for them. Now that blacks begin to have an equal footing

49 Kevin Allen Leonard, “‘In the Interest of All Races’: African Americans and Interracial Cooperation in Los Angeles during and after World War II,” Seeking El Dorado: African Americans in California, ed. Lawrence B. de Graaf, Kevin Mulroy, and Quintard Taylor (Los Angeles: Autry Museum of Western Heritage, 2001) 312-13.

50 Himes, If He Hollers, 17.

51 Ibid., 29.

147

or better in the job market because of education, whites’ economic advantage becomes

threatened. Even though Bob is a leaderman, his power is limited because of the need to continue to suppress black power. As Joseph R. Washington, Jr. states, the problem with the prospect of continued black mobility is some whites’ need to retain control of all aspects of American society:

The problem and solution lie in the past and the present “subjective attitudes of whites.” Whites generally do not want equal opportunity for everyone. . . . [O]ur society has the resources, the precedents, the laws, and the economic growth, the stability, the intelligence, the managerial capacity, and the technical capability to achieve civil rights ethically and effectively. One thing and one thing only is lacking: the will of the people, the will of the white majority.52

Another issue of hostility between blacks and whites that Himes points to is that of

a physical fear the white man has of the black man. Edward Margolies gives a

compelling description of this fear:

Not only does white society emasculate [the black man], but it tends simultaneously to regard him as an envied symbol of sexual strength from which white women must be protected. Implicit here is Himes’s view that the sexual insecurity of the white American male impels him to suppress the Negro in order to bolster his shaky masculine ego. . . . In suppressing the Negro, the white man attempts to suppress what he most fears about himself.53

In Blood on the Forge, when Big Mat encounters the sheriff and the deputies, they show

a visible fear of Big Mat. In contrast, the fear manifests itself in the shipyard by

impeding the progress of black workers and sometimes by using violence against them.

More specifically, Bob is an educated black man who is now in a leadership position.

His status as an educated professional threatens both the uneducated and the educated

52 Joseph R. Washington, Jr. Black and White Power Subreption (Boston: Beacon, 1969) 14, 18.

53 Margolies, Native Sons, 91.

148 whites at the shipyard. Bob needs a tacker, but when he goes to Hank, a white man from

Georgia who is also a leaderman, Hank deliberately denies Bob assistance, claiming all of his tackers are unavailable.54 Bob knows this tactic is just an excuse he uses to keep white tackers from working for him.55

Bob is bombarded with uncooperativeness that devalues his supervisory power and the reputation he is trying to uphold with his black crew. Furthermore, Bob has no recourse when his fellow workers fail to cooperate with him:

I couldn’t go down to Kelly and say, ‘Hank said he ain’t got any tackers’—even if I would have, which I wouldn’t. He’d look at me as if I was nuts and say, ‘Why, goddamn, why tell me?’ I turned away thinking. The white folks win again, trying to laugh it off. But it stuck in my craw. If I couldn’t get the work done I’d have to take Kelly’s riding; and in order to get it done I had to eat everybody else’s. I had my usual once-a-day urge to tell them to take their leaderman job and shove it. . . . I couldn’t go down and tell Red that Hank wouldn’t give me a tacker, either; they’d [the black workers would] get down on me too.56

Bob works to fight against the forces pulling him toward the abyss of failure. This fight involves psychological and physical warfare. Frantz Fanon delineates a black man’s difficulty to assert and incorporate himself into society: “If the white man challenges my humanity, I will impose my whole weight as a man on his life and show him that I am not that ‘sho’ good eatin’’ that he persists in imagining. I find myself suddenly in the world and I recognize that I have one right alone: That of demanding human behavior from the

54 Gove, Webster’s, 2326. A tacker is “one that fastens wet hides onto boards to dry in leather working.” It can also be defined as “one that joins metal parts temporarily by welding at a number of spots along the edges” or “a sewer that makes bar tacks.”

55 Ibid., 25.

56 Ibid., 26.

149

other.”57 Each day Bob wants to quit, but he knows the consequences of such an act: an admission of blacks’ inability to work in a white world.

Even during the leisure times at the job, Bob faces hostility from whites. The same day Bob looks for a tacker and has no luck securing one, he decides to play a crap game with some of the workers—twelve white men and two black men—during his break.58

When Bob is winning and tensions get heated, the word “nigger” arises and Bob, who had dealt with more than his share of racial enmity in one day, fights with a few of the white men.59 Bob gets knocked out by a white man named Johnny Stoddart, but instead

of letting the situation go, Bob decides to kill him.60 At this point, Bob chooses to give

life to Fanon’s words by “impos[ing] [his] whole weight as a man on [Johnny’s] life.”

Bob’s revenge against Johnny has little to do with the fact that this man knocked him out;

it has much more to do with the frustration of inequality and the inability to live a free

life in a world that does not allow for such a right. Bob says to himself,

I wanted to kill the son of a bitch and keep on living myself. I wanted to kill him so he’d know I was killing him and in such a way that he’d know he didn’t have a chance. I wanted him to feel as scared and powerless and unprotected as I felt every goddamned morning I woke up. I wanted him to know how it felt to die without a chance; how it felt to look death in the face and know it was coming and know there wasn’t anything he could do but sit there and take it like I had to take it from Kelly and Hank and Mac and the cracker bitch because nobody was going to help him or stop it or do anything about it at all.61

57 Fanon, Black Skin, 229.

58 Himes, If He Hollers, 31.

59 Ibid., 32-34.

60 Ibid., 35-36.

61 Ibid.

150

There appears to be a fear among both whites of blacks and blacks of whites.

However, whites’ fears severely cripple blacks physically and economically, while blacks

must find different ways to express their fear.62 Bob reasons that in order to gain the

confidence he so desperately desires and to suppress his frustrations and daily trepidation,

he must impart fear and helplessness into Johnny’s life. Hereafter, Bob follows Johnny

home and parks in front of his house so Johnny and his family can see him. Once Bob

can see the terror and panic on their faces, he feels he has accomplished his goal: “I

didn’t have to kill him now, I thought. I could kill him any time; I could save him up for

killing like the white folks had been saving me up for all these years.”63 Like Big Mat,

Bob holds former injustices inside that he would exact through the murder of Johnny.

Effect of Women on Black Men’s Lives

Margolies’ statement concerning sexual competition of white men and black men

can be seen in the conflict between Bob and Madge Perkins, a white woman from Texas.

During four encounters between Bob and Madge, Himes illustrates four examples of

societal beliefs or patterns that further demoralize and/or emasculate Bob. Bob first

meets Madge when Don, a white man who appears to sympathize with Bob’s frustrations,

permits her to help Bob.64 Once Don allows Bob to use Madge for the tacking job, “the

white mechanics give [Don] a dirty look.”65 Then when Madge exclaims, “I ain’t gonna

work with no nigger” and Bob calls her a “cracker bitch,” she looks to two white men

62 Refer to Margolies’ Native Sons on page 91. Here he discusses the white male’s fear of black males, but in turn there is a more intense and increasingly frustrating type of anxiety among black males when dealing with whites on an everyday basis.

63 Ibid., 44.

64 Ibid., 26-27.

65 Ibid., 27.

151

who are working nearby to come to her aid. One of the men does make a motion to assist

her before Bob walks away.66 Calvin Hernton asserts that white men have always been protectors of the “sacred white womanhood” of Southern women and perpetuators of the idea that white women approve of the lynching and castrating of black men.67 Madge is accustomed to a white woman’s honor being upheld by white men in the South, so she expects nothing less from white men in the West.

The next encounter reveals Madge’s attraction to Bob. Bob sees Madge and Elsie,

Madge’s sister-in-law, together at lunch. When Bob approaches Madge, she acts as if nothing negative has previously transpired between them. She flirts with Bob when he declares he will stop by her place later that night and even slyly reveals her breasts to him before going back to work. Madge’s attraction to a black man, as Hernton would explain it, would be impossible according to the mores of the Old South:

White people in general say that it is the Negro male who is attracted to white women; the reverse is flatly denied. The white woman, they say, is in no way sexually aroused by black men—and this in the face of the stereotype of Negroes being endowed with certain qualities of physical dexterity and bodily finesse which, it seems to me, ought to make the Negro downright sexually irresistible. On the contrary—the whites say— while these ‘primitive’ qualities are the subject of much condescending admiration and even envy, they arouse only disgust and revulsion on the part of white women. . . . [T]he black man in the South cannot express his desire for a white woman in any way whatever. It would mean much more than—as in the case of white men and Negro women—mere ostracism and reprimand; nine chances out of ten it would mean the Negro’s death. This in turn means that in any situation involving attraction between white women and Negro men, it is the women who must make the advances.68

66 Ibid.

67 Hernton, Sex and Racism, 15, 19. Fanon also discusses black male/white female issues in chapter three of Black Skin, White Masks.

68 Ibid., 20-21.

152

Though Bob approaches her still angry about the incident, Madge manipulates him by instantly dismissing his anger and saying, “Don’t take it so hard . . . Lotta folks fight. I think it’s ‘cause they like making up so much.”69 Bob becomes relaxed and even sits with her during lunch. Madge knows that once she can diffuse his anger and make him feel comfortable, she possesses power over his emotions, especially the emotion of lust.

This lust leads to the third meeting between Bob and Madge. Bob arrives at

Madge’s hotel room, and she regresses to her former hostility toward him, or at least she pretends to, and threatens to call the police. She finally lets him into her room, and she teasingly resists him while simultaneously telling him what would happen to him if they

were together in Texas as they are in the hotel room. Madge fits the common stereotype

of the white Southern woman who desires to be raped by the black man: “Just as it

became necessary for the white man to project the image of the Negro as a savage rapist

to soothe his guilt, it was equally imperative that the white woman accept this image as a

means of proving to herself that she was sexually attractive, if not to white men, at least

to black ‘savages.’ Indeed, the southern white woman grew more ‘rape conscious’ than a

great many of the men.”70 Madge plays up this “rape fantasy,” but once she mentions the

word “rape,” Bob completely shuts down. Before talking to Madge in the canteen, Bob

still holds extreme animosity toward her. This animosity leads to thoughts of raping her because he feels “[t]hat’s what she wanted.”71 Nevertheless, when he is confronted with the prospect of actually raping her, he is terrified.

69 Himes, If He Hollers, 129-30.

70 Hernton, Sex and Racism, 19.

71 Himes, If He Hollers, 126.

153

Bob’s feeling of disgust stems from the intricacy of racial and sexual matters within society dating back to slavery: “In the mind and the life of the Negro man the white woman symbolizes at once his freedom and his bondage. She is made into an object of temptation and repulsion, love and hate. . . . The Negro, like everyone else, hates what he cannot love; he wants what he cannot have; he degrades and mutilates that which humiliates and deranges him.”72 Rather than Bob getting another chance to degrade and

mutilate Madge, either physically or verbally, Madge further humiliates Bob during their fourth encounter by screaming rape when they accidentally end up alone in a room together at work.73 Madge clearly wants to portray herself as the damsel in distress that as stated above, “deranges” Bob. She initiates the contact, but Bob receives the punishment. Addison Gayle, Jr., states that Madge “comes to symbolize Jones’s powerlessness as both man and leaderman.”74

The main woman in Bob’s life, who should complement him and bring strength to

his life when he is away from work, proves to be almost as destructive to Bob’s psyche as

Madge is. Alice Harrison, Bob’s mulatto girlfriend, comes from an upper middle class family. One would think that Alice’s status and her family’s success within society would serve as a positive example for Bob, considering his hope for a better life in Los

Angeles than he had in Cleveland. On the contrary, he finds their accommodation to white standards appalling and unacceptable. Alice and her parents are strong proponents

72 Hernton, Sex and Racism, 66.

73 Himes, If He Hollers, 177-82.

74 Addison Gayle, Jr., The Way of the New World: The Black Novel in America (Garden City: Anchor/Doubleday, 1975) 182.

154

of higher education and the benefits it brings to blacks, much like W.E.B. Du Bois.75

Like Booker T. Washington, however, they believe that rights should be earned by

blacks, not automatically given to them by virtue of being an American citizen.76 When

Bob speaks of “get[ting] even with the white folks” and says that whites owe him nothing, Mrs. Harrison, Alice’s mother, replies,

Bob, you frighten me. You’ll never make a success with that attitude. You mustn’t think in terms of trying to get even with them, you must accept whatever they do for you and try to prove yourself worthy to be entrusted with more. . . . How can you expect them to do anything for you if you’re going to hate them? . . . White people are trying so hard to help us, we’ve got to prove it to them. You know yourself, Bob, a lot of our people are just not worthy, they just don’t deserve any more than they’re getting. And they make it hard for the rest of us. . . . We can’t get everything we want overnight and we can’t expect the white people to give us what we don’t deserve. We must be patient, we must make progress.77

Mrs. Harrison’s solution to the race problem will only impede and postpone blacks’ right

to equality. There are those whites who will openly reject the status quo and treat blacks as equals, but until all whites are mandated to do so, the majority will not voluntarily render blacks equal, and even then mechanisms, such as intimidation or uncooperativeness, are in place to make blacks’ lives difficult. Bob observes this

behavior on his own job on a regular basis, so he knows the reality and ineffectiveness of

such a concept.

Alice’s belief in her parents’ philosophy becomes clear through her conversations

with Bob. When Alice drives Bob’s car on Santa Monica Boulevard at ninety miles per

75 W.E.B. Du Bois, Souls, 74-90.

76 Brundage, Up From Slavery, 141-51. Gayle, Jr., The Way of the New World, 184. Gayle also mentions that the Harrisons’ philosophy mirrors Washington’s.

77 Himes, If He Hollers, 51-52.

155

hour, two white policemen stop them. After being referred to as “coons” by one of the

policemen and taken down to the station, Alice realizes the vulnerability of being black.

She contends that her father’s status as a well-known doctor should protect her from any racism: “I never had anybody talk to me like that . . . People have always respected me.

My father’s known all over California.”78 Even though Alice gets a firsthand glimpse of

Bob’s constant struggle with racist attitudes, she still holds firm to her accommodationist

viewpoint.

Alice’s stance against the pressure of racial prejudice involves either ignoring the

problem or finding ways to circumvent it, if possible. One of her tactics in avoiding

racism involves passing. Alice is light enough to pass, so when she decides she wants to

go to a nice restaurant or any event where blacks are prohibited or unwelcome, she

passes. Alice makes this point to Bob when they go to a nice restaurant, are treated

shabbily, and receive a note at the end of dinner, telling them not to return.79 Since Alice

possesses this ability to pass, how can she fully empathize with Bob’s plight, and

furthermore, what would motivate Alice to want to change the status quo? Alice answers

both of these questions when she declares to Bob what she looks for in a mate:

I’m ambitious and demanding. I want to be important in the world. I want a husband who is important and respected and wealthy enough so that I can avoid a major part of the discriminatory practices which I am sensible enough to know I cannot change. I don’t want to be pulled down by a person who can’t adjust himself to the limitations of his race—a person who feels he has to make a fist fight out of every issue—a person who’d jeopardize his entire future because of some slight or, say, because some ignorant white person should call him a nigger—.80

78 Ibid., 64.

79 Ibid., 55-61.

80 Ibid., 97.

156

Alice resists the idea that one person can make an impact in the fight for equal rights.

She gives up the fight without ever beginning it. Alice instructs Bob to apologize to

Madge, with the prospect of her father using his power to reinstate Bob to his former

position.81 She later informs Bob of her own struggles not to be just a “figurehead” at

work. Her status as a social work supervisor affords her the right to give only suggestions, not orders.82 She becomes frustrated with this practice, but accepts the

limitations, stating, “But that is simply one of the conditions of life.”83 James Lundquist

comments on the difficulty of Bob and Alice’s relationship: “Alice tells [Bob] that he is

maladjusted, that he must learn to accept actual conditions. Bob feels like a machine

being run by whites; they push all the buttons and he responds every time. Alice explains that he must be content with the control he can exert within his own pattern. The argument is too tedious, too much to get into, and Bob has gone through too much . . .”84

Lundquist implies that their divergent views will continue to drive a wedge between them.

This wedge widens when Alice’s flirtation with homosexuality threatens to further emasculate Bob. After the encounter with the police, Bob and Alice ride to the cottage of one of Alice’s friends. While they are there, Bob witnesses intimate behavior between

Alice and a woman named Stella. Bob becomes hysterical and physically abusive to

Alice and knocks out a man named Chuck who is there. He drives off, leaving Alice.85

81 Ibid., 97-98.

82 Ibid., 168.

83 Ibid.

84 Lundquist, Chester Himes, 40.

85 Himes, If He Hollers, 63-68.

157

Richard Yarborough acknowledges the correlation between Alice and Bob’s relationship

and Bob’s masculinity: “His most precious source of masculine pride and the situation

that most convinces him that he has a foot up on the ladder to American middle-class

prosperity is his relationship with Alice. While Bob is an inveterate flirt with most of the

black women he encounters, he believes that Alice Harrison is something special.”86

I would like to take this idea a step further and consider the reason for Bob’s extreme anger toward Alice and homosexuality. Since Bob, as Yarborough states, regards Alice as “something special,” Alice becomes his exclusively. Seeing Alice with another man would be easier than seeing her with another woman, only because in Bob’s mind, Alice’s need to reach out to another woman discredits the power of his sexuality when he is with Alice. He experiences a sense of virility and manhood when he thinks of

Alice. The weight of Bob’s occupational struggles becomes compounded with the weight of Alice and Bob’s failing relationship, leading to Bob’s difficulty in asserting his masculinity. A few days after the episode with Alice and Stella, Bob goes to see Alice.

Bob admits his confusion and frustration with their relationship; he is no longer confident in their bond after the incident: “Baby, I wish you’d try to understand, . . . I don’t want to think about [the incident] either. Goddamn, it hurts me too. Probably more than you.

Can’t you understand that? I feel like a damn simple fool. . . . Every time I kiss you now

I’m scared you might be laughing.”87 Bob’s faith in their relationship fades because he is

unsure of his ability to satisfy her. Bob and Alice’s differences, ultimately, will end their

relationship.

86 Richard Yarborough, “The Quest for the American Dream in Three Afro-American Novels: If He Hollers Let Him Go, The Street, and Invisible Man,” MELUS 8.4 (1981): 39.

87 Himes, If He Hollers, 93.

158

The Moss brothers also seek comfort from a woman. Anna, a teenager from

Mexico, moves to Pennsylvania upon the request of her aunt, Sugar Mama. Sugar Mama

sends for Anna solely for the purpose of profit from prostitution.88 Anna desires the

material wealth that men and money can offer her. When she first meets Melody, she

tells him, “I guess sometime I get a man who will make love all the time and spend his

money for high-heel shoes and grand things. . . . He will be a big man with muscles like a

bear on the mountain.”89 This big man whom Anna desires becomes Big Mat in reality.

One night at a dogfight, Anna tries to save Son, the defeated police dog, from being killed by his owner after a loss. When she jumps in the pit, Bob Dank, the dog’s owner,

hits Anna. Big Mat comes to her rescue, and she is eternally grateful.90 Hereafter, Big

Mat abandons his promise to send for Hattie and becomes involved with Anna.

Though the brothers expect Anna’s role to be one of matronly comfort, as Hattie’s

role had been, Anna’s fixation with materialism jeopardizes the level of assistance she

gives to the brothers, particularly Big Mat.91 During Anna and Melody’s first meeting,

he treats Anna with more respect than any man has and even pays her two dollars just to

talk. Anna gets angry and calls Melody a sissy.92 Once Big Mat and Anna are involved,

he gives her money, allowing her to shop for the clothes she wants. Attaway describes

the lunacy in Anna’s longing for grandeur:

88 Attaway, Blood, 70, 75.

89 Ibid., 76.

90 Ibid., 95-97.

91 Ibid., 184-86. Anna befriends Melody and takes care of Chinatown after his accident in the mill.

92 Ibid., 72-77.

159

So Big Mat came and got all the money he had been saving. Anna went into the stores and came out with rhinestone shoes and dresses like the hostesses wear in the dance halls. The rhinestones did not glitter after one trip down the slushy road. The dresses were heavy around the bottoms where they dragged in the mud. Still, Anna wore her new clothes every day and paraded through the Mexican part of town like an overseer’s wife.93

Anna later relates to Melody her experiences of watching Americans in Mexico.94 When she sees the American women’s cars and shoes, she believes she will have the opportunity to acquire such things if she moves to the U.S. Attaway points out Anna’s passion for purchasing temporal things that represent her concept of American success, as opposed to using the money from Big Mat to improve their quality of life.

Like Bob, Big Mat cannot find the solace that a woman can give. He searches for some of the stability that he had with Hattie and sacrifices his past with Hattie for happiness with Anna. This sacrifice may be attributed to the fact that he wants to make a clean break from the past. Big Mat’s frustration with the day-to-day rigors of industrial life begins to manifest itself in the physical abuse he directs toward Anna. Before living together, Anna foresees their relationship as one in which she will receive money for garments and shoes, and the two of them will enjoy each other’s company while out at various events. However, Anna learns of Big Mat’s serious nature and the fact that, as

Chinatown tells her, “Mat jest ain’t the kind to have no fun.”95 Anna’s discontent with

Big Mat’s lack of sociability and his abusive behavior leads to her infidelity. When Big

Mat discovers Anna’s unfaithfulness, he also discovers why she disrespects him: “. . . I

93 Ibid., 104.

94 Ibid., 113-14.

95 Ibid., 117.

160

do it for money to go from peon like you! . . . In Mexico peon on ground. Here peon

work in mill. . . . You are a peon . . . I will not live with peon. . . . You are not

Americano. Americano live in big house back in hills. . . . Americano have big

car. . . .They are not peon like you.”96 Anna’s disappointment in Big Mat does not appear to be racial. She is displeased with his lack of concern for her happiness and his inability

to continue to uphold the lifestyle of which she dreams.

Big Mat responds to Anna’s behavior and hateful words through violence, beating

Anna with a belt.97 Similar to Bob’s feelings of a personal attack against his masculinity,

Big Mat asserts that he must use more violence to maintain his sense of control and reject

Anna’s diatribe: “Only new violence could strengthen him, restore his feeling of power.

That feeling must come quickly, or the cracks that Anna had cleaved would widen until

he was nothing but the pieces of a man.”98 bell hooks explains why black men participate

in sexual oppression and violence against women and discusses the ways in which non-

blacks view black men as enfeebled human beings:

Exaggerated emphasis on the impact of racism on black men has evoked an image of the black male as effete, emasculated, crippled. And so intensely does this image dominate American thinking that people are absolutely unwilling to admit that the damaging effects of racism on black men neither prevents them from being sexist oppressors nor excuses or justifies their sexist oppression of black women. . . . Many black men who express the greatest hostility toward the white male power structure are often eager to gain access to that power. Their expressions of rage and anger are less a critique of the white male patriarchal social order and more a reaction against the fact that they have not been allowed full

96 Ibid., 222-23.

97 Ibid., 223.

98 Ibid., 225.

161

participation in the power game. In the past these black men have been most supportive of male subjugation of women.99

hooks focuses on the oppression of black women by black men, but this oppression can

be extended to other women, in this particular instance Hispanic women. The violence

that leads to Big Mat’s demise results from his inability to control his environment.

Whether in Kentucky or in Pennsylvania, Big Mat’s freedom and manhood cannot be fully recognized or affirmed.

Lee Gordon and the Kindness of White Liberals

Facing some of the same issues as Big Mat and Bob, Lee Gordon differs in that he

has two people in his life who offer their sentiment and understanding to him. Smitty, a

white union worker, assists Lee in his new job as union organizer. Himes presents Smitty

as a man who makes every effort to understand and show concern for blacks. Like Bob,

Lee has trouble trusting whites, so when Lee first meets Smitty, he likes him, but the next

day Lee has suspicions about him.100 This suspicion quickly dissipates, however. On

Lee’s first day at work, Smitty introduces him to the union workers, but Marvin Todd, the

“tall, blond man with glassy blue eyes” and “acting chairman of the local” refuses to

shake Lee’s hand.101 Lee notices Smitty’s expression of disappointment and disgust, as a

result of such a blatant disrespect for Lee.102 This moment sets the tone for Lee and

Smitty’s working relationship.

99 hooks, Ain’t I a Woman, 88.

100 Himes, Lonely Crusade, 14.

101 Ibid., 18.

102 Ibid.

162

With all of Smitty’s good qualities, Himes still proclaims that, in a very important

way, white liberals, represented by Smitty in the novel, cannot participate in the

emotional plight of blacks. At Lee’s first official union meeting, he and other blacks are

unaware of their basic power and basic rights within the union. Instead of sitting at the front table with the rest of the union organizers, Lee chooses to sit with the black workers, who had inadvertently segregated themselves from the whites.103 This oversight

causes some commotion, and Lee and Smitty argue about this fiasco after the meeting.

Smitty blames Lee for the possible misconception that black workers will have about the

union as a Jim Crow organization. What Smitty cannot comprehend is the fact that no

matter what measures the union tries to make, “discrimination had become a way of life

[for blacks]. They had accepted it as a part of the role they lived, as a condition of

existence, beginning with the ability to think—and never ending. They had resigned

themselves to expect no better.”104 Smitty fails to take into account the ways in which

discrimination will still be used to prevent black workers from fully reaping the benefits

of unionism, such as the last hired/first fired policy or seniority, which allows white

workers to be paid more and promoted more often.105

Even in the above cases, Smitty would still proclaim his love and admiration for blacks, yet, in his mind, he would have to uphold the principles of the union. This lack of

understanding reminds Lee of former liberals who have failed in their quest to help

blacks:

103 Ibid., 134.

104 Ibid., 139.

105 Ibid.

163

Lee had met this kind of liberal . . . and had always been frightened by them. They were the kind of white people who were honest and sincere in their regard for Negroes, who would eat and sleep with them, marry them and live with them on a social level, who might fight ceaselessly and valiantly to bring about a solution for their oppression, who might even become martyrs for their cause and bleed and die for them—as did “brave men, living and dead who struggled here. . . .” But from the beginning to end they could not accept the proposition for which they died, and could never live in equality with those for whom they had fought so heroically to have considered equal—simply because deep inside of them inequality was a fact.106

Lee wants to believe in Smitty’s sincerity toward blacks, but Lee’s past prevents him

from fully accepting Smitty’s good-natured efforts for Lee and his people. Himes further

complicates Smitty’s character by showing Smitty’s extreme sense of loyalty and trust in

Lee. When Lee is arrested for the murder of Paul Dixon, a deputy who had stopped Lee

and Luther one day and had beaten Lee up, Smitty sacrifices his job and the jobs of eight

other workers to provide Lee with a false alibi. In showing this side of Smitty, Himes

paints a picture of turmoil and conflict that whites may encounter and the sacrifices they

are willing to make. Smitty justifies his actions, stating that, based on the principles by

which he lives, he would take the risk, not just for Lee, but for anyone.107

Interestingly, Himes adds a note to assert that Smitty’s reasons for assisting Lee

may be unknown even to Smitty: “[Smitty] would not have done this for anyone but a

Negro or some other underdog, but he did not know this about himself. All he knew was that he believed in a guy and was doing what he could to help him.”108 It appears that

Himes wants the reader to experience the genuine nature of Smitty’s actions. Critic

106 Ibid., 142.

107 Ibid., 347.

108 Ibid.

164

Stephen Milliken finds Smitty’s compassion for Lee a bit far-fetched. Milliken likens

Smitty’s admiration for Lee to a father’s admiration for his son: “A father could do no

more for an idolized son, yet Smitty scarcely knows Lee.”109 It may be true that Smitty

and Lee do not know each other very well, but Smitty makes it clear that he highly

respects blacks.110 Himes portrays Smitty as a man who holds a spirit of altruism for

anyone who is treated unfairly, regardless of color. In this instance, Smitty assists Lee,

who just happens to be black.

The second person to have a major impact on Lee’s life is Abe “Rosie” Rosenberg, a Jewish Communist. Lee and Rosie spend time outside of the workplace debating various issues. Himes declares, in a 1970 interview with John A. Williams, that black/Jew relations are strained, and this tension derives from their equal need to survive virtually independent of whites, who at times discriminated against both groups.111 In the novel, Himes clearly explains Lee’s reasons for feeling animosity toward the Jewish culture. During the second year of Lee and Ruth’s marriage, they temporarily move into a white friend’s house while he visits his son in Pennsylvania. Not knowing this is a temporary situation, neighbors warn Lee and Ruth that Jewish people are encouraging

109 Milliken, Chester Himes, 129.

110 Himes, Lonely Crusade, 141.

111 John A.Williams, “My Man Himes: An Interview with Chester Himes,” Conversations with Chester Himes, ed. Michel Fabre and Robert E. Skinner (Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 1995) 75. Himes says, “[W]here the black man and the Jew are concerned, the Jew has always taken the black man as a customer. Because the Jew has always been in business, and he found out that in a basically anti-Semitic country like America the most available market for a poor Jew on the lower rung of business was the black man. That was his market. He could rent them houses and he could sell them food. Well, because the blacks were ignorant and the descendants of slaves, the Jewish merchants and landlords misused them. Where blacks might have been creative in other ways, in the ways of the commercial world they were babes in the woods. They were pigeons; anyone could take advantage of them who wanted to, so the Jewish merchants did— and the Jewish landowners (the ghettos were owned by Jews).”

165

whites to force them to move out of the neighborhood because of a possible decrease in

the property value. After seven sleepless nights, Lee and Ruth move out.112

Despite this bad experience Lee has with one set of Jewish people, he learns to

value his friendship with Rosie. The first meeting between Lee and Rosie begins with a

debate that pits them against each other in the areas of Communism and the answer to equality.113 This debate serves as a tool for both Lee and Rosie to work through the issues plaguing both groups. During lunch together, Rosie explains the difficulties some Jews encounter with wanting to separate themselves from the oppressed to move closer to the white majority, therefore sacrificing or severing their common bond with blacks.114

Rosie attempts to inform Lee that not all Jews discriminate against or dislike blacks.

After lunch, Lee holds a new respect for Rosie and a sense of forgiveness for the Jew: “A

funny Jew, Lee Gordon thought, walking back toward the union shack. And how much

of what he said was true? And how much was Communist propaganda? And how much

just plain Rosie? But it softened Lee’s tendency toward anti-Semitism to know that the

Jew also was afraid.”115 Himes proves, through this fictional encounter, that

communication can open the mind of even the most staunchly negative person who has

experienced terrible wrongs against him/her.

Though Rosie is a Communist, he demonstrates his loyalty to Lee by joining him

during his meeting with Bart and Maud, who are Communists, to refute Luther’s claim

112 Himes, Lonely Crusade, 123-27.

113 Ibid., 86-90.

114 Ibid., 155, 160.

115 Ibid., 162.

166

that Lee had provoked the deputies to the point of them physically abusing him.116

According to Marie Syrkin, Jews are not obligated to assist blacks, but as an oppressed group themselves, their support can yield positive results:

[W]hile I do not believe that Jews have a special duty rising out of their history, I accept the idea that their special experience has given Jews a unique understanding of the role of a minority in a given society, and that this understanding enables them to differentiate with some authority between the possible and impossible, legitimate and illegitimate, goals that a minority may set itself. Of course, Jews have no business to offer unwanted counsel, but insofar as they espouse the Negro struggle they should determine on the basis of their expert knowledge which of its aspects invites their support. Precisely because they are so thoroughly acquainted with the whole spectrum of prejudice they can permit themselves a critical evaluation rather than a blanket endorsement, and they can do so without fearing that they fail in sympathy or comprehension.117

At a time when Rosie should be depressed, since he has been expelled from the

Communist Party for supporting Lee and not Luther, his own comrade, Rosie comforts

Lee and encourages him to fight for what he believes in at all costs, even his own life.

In Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?,

published in 1967, he proclaims, “A good many observers have remarked that if equality

could come at once the Negro would not be ready for it. I submit that the white

American is even more unprepared.”118 This statement delineates the difficulties blacks

and whites confronted in all aspects of their lives in the early and mid-twentieth century.

With people spending more time at work, particularly during wartime, than with their

families, cooperation and harmony among workers become crucial for a productive

116 Ibid., 244-46.

117 Marie Syrkin, “Untitled,” Negro and Jew: An Encounter in America, ed. Shlomo Katz (New York: Macmillan, 1967) 118.

118 Martin Luther King, Jr., Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? (New York: Harper and Row, 1967) 9.

167

workplace. The Moss brothers, Bob Jones, and Lee Gordon all encounter resistance in

the workplace. The Moss brothers’ situation differs slightly from Bob’s and Lee’s situations mainly because workers resist the brothers and other blacks in opposition to strikebreaking, not necessarily race. Nevertheless, race still enters into the minds of blacks and whites and cannot be ignored. Bob and Lee are both educated individuals, and this fact makes things difficult for them. These men want to be respected for their abilities, while most whites only process them as black men to disparage or frustrate.

Despite the perpetuation of difficulties by whites against blacks, Attaway and

Himes also acknowledge those whites who view blacks as human beings who should be treated fairly, just as whites are. Before the difficulty between the union and the mill in

Blood on the Forge, Zanski befriends the Moss brothers and offers them advice. Even when workers begin to get fired at the mill, on one particular occasion Zanski gives the

Moss brothers a warning to help protect them. If He Hollers Let Him Go briefly shows a good-hearted white man named Don, who gives Bob what he requests. Smitty and Rosie in Lonely Crusade not only befriend Lee, but they take risks that could hurt themselves professionally, politically, and/or socially.

CONCLUSION

The African American authors presented in this work provide a number of

depictions of blacks and whites and their ability to work toward the common goal of

equality. Ultimately, failure occurs because the two groups cannot find a common

method or system to achieve this goal. The problems, I contend, are the inability of

whites to identify with the black plight within society and the inability of blacks to trust

the whites’ motives for assistance. The major issues that these authors find to be points

of contention between blacks and whites are capitalism and intellectualism,

assimilationism in conjunction with integration, radicalism, and white liberalism.1

Capitalism and intellectualism, as well as assimiliationism in conjunction with integration, affect the lives of black and white characters in the works examined. Several authors pit Washington’s philosophy against Du Bois’ to test what measures black success and what means blacks should take to acquire success. Washington knew that, particularly in the South, blacks would need to cooperate with whites in order to survive.

Blacks needed to make themselves invaluable to participate in the capitalist system through the most convenient ways possible—technical and agricultural work. Du Bois understood Washington’s ideas, but he felt blacks had a right to choose between technical

1 For the definitions of assimilationism and integration, see page 14 of chapter one. For the definition of white liberalism, see page 6 of the introduction. Gove, Webster’s, 332, 1174, 1872. Capitalism is “an economic system characterized by private or corporation ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision rather than by state control, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly in a free market.” Intellectualism is the “devotion to the exercise of intellect of intellectual pursuits.” Radicalism is the “will or the effort to uproot and reform that which is established.”

168 169

and agricultural education and professional degrees.2 Various characters in the novels are

highly educated, but they are still unable to participate in the intellectual arenas available

to whites with the same level of education.

The earliest novel examined in this project, Jessie Fauset’s There is Confusion

(1924), describes the difficulty blacks had in trying to coexist with whites in the

nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Fauset presents characters with ancestors who had

been slaves. The characters born two generations after slavery become lawyers, doctors,

caterers, and artists, but their educational and professional pursuits are constantly being challenged and discouraged. Most of the authors agree that assimilationism along with integration will not work for blacks, at least not as long as the negative attitude of some whites persists. Characters such as Peter Bye in Jessie Fauset’s There is Confusion

(1924) and Lee Gordon in Chester Himes’ Lonely Crusade (1947) attend secondary schools with whites, but never feel that they are completely accepted there. Peter Bye,

Lee Gordon and Lester McKinley, in Himes’ Lonely Crusade (1947), and Bob Johnson in

If He Hollers Let Him Go (1945), all black males who have higher education, prove they

possess the knowledge and intelligence to work with and/or supervise whites, but some

whites still refuse to dispense with their discriminatory ideas and practices. Fred Merritt,

a wealthy black attorney portrayed in Rudolph Fisher’s The Walls of Jericho (1928),

temporarily moves to an exclusive white neighborhood, but his presence there is heavily

resisted. Fisher proves, through the black character J. Pennington Potter, that social

2 Du Bois, Dusk of Dawn, 69-75.

170

integration of wealthy whites and blacks does not solve the problem of the color line;

social integration simply glosses over the problem.3

Two authors specifically speak out against assimilationism and integration in their work. George Schuyler, in Black No More: A Novel (1931), provides a form of assimilation that involves blacks becoming white in color, but they remain black in spirit.

When it would seem that everyone becoming white would solve the color line problem, whites become enraged with this occurrence because capitalism suffers as a result of the absence of privilege and classism.4 In If He Hollers Let Him Go (1945), Chester Himes presents Alice Harrison and her parents as staunch accommodationists who agree with

Booker T. Washington’s philosophy of waiting for whites to give blacks the equal rights that they deserve, if and when they deserve them. When Alice and Bob get stopped and

harassed by two white policemen, however, she begins to understand Bob’s complaints

about the state of black rights. She also admits that even though she holds a supervisory

position at her place of employment, she is not permitted to make decisions that a white

person in her position could.

Several authors comment on the inability of black characters to function

successfully in the capitalist system. While in the South, the Moss brothers in William

Attaway’s Blood on the Forge (1941) and Chris and Nella Woods in Carl Offord’s The

White Face (1943) work under a sharecropping system that leaves them constantly in

debt and bound to their white employers. Once they all escape to the North, the Moss

brothers work for decent wages, but suffer death and disability under the capitalist

3 In this particular situation in The Walls of Jericho, wealthy whites and blacks are portrayed, but the same problems with social integration can occur between whites and blacks of any class.

4 Classism is the stratification of class that occurs under a capitalist system.

171

system. Likewise, Nella finds a job, but when Chris cannot find work, he becomes an

irrational, violent individual, which leads to his demise. Lutie Johnson and Boots Smith

of Ann Petry’s The Street (1946) make honest livings, but for Lutie, the money is still not

enough to give her son, Bub, the security and advantages he needs to surpass their current

economic status. Boots Smith’s occupation as a musician pays well, but he becomes a pawn in Junto’s plot to sleep with Lutie. Boots is murdered as a result of his arrangement with Junto. Jim, Lutie’s husband, searches for a job for months, but when Lutie finds a job away from home, Jim feels helpless as head of the household. He turns to another woman as a scapegoat for his feelings of inadequacy as a husband and a father, ending his marriage to Lutie.

A number of other black characters, who are unable to legally participate in the capitalist system, opt to make money illegally. Bigger in Richard Wright’s Native Son

(1940) acquires an honest job as a chauffeur for the Dalton family, but prior to this job, he pulls off various heists with his friends. After he accidentally murders Mary Dalton, he plans to make money by getting ransom from the Dalton family. In Petry’s The Street

(1946), Lutie’s father cannot find a job, so he sells homemade liquor out of his apartment.

Three characters make their money from prostitution. Mrs. Hedges in Petry’s The Street

(1946) and Sugar Mama in Attaway’s Blood on the Forge (1941) lure girls into their prostitution business to make money. Mrs. Hedges is not a prostitute herself, but Sugar

Mama is, and she even brings her teenage niece, Anna, from Mexico to join the business.

Anna uses her share of the money to buy fancy clothes and shoes in an effort to mimic the whites she had previously seen visiting Mexico.

172

Chester Himes and Ralph Ellison reject Marxism and the CPUSA as a viable

solution to black inequality. While still a dedicated member of the CPUSA, Richard

Wright fully supported the efforts of the CPUSA to assist blacks. Once he experiences

the CPUSA’s rejection of intellectualism and disloyalty to African American causes, he

writes of his change in attitude toward the organization in a 1944 essay entitled “I Tried to be a Communist”: “I remembered the stories I had written, the stories in which I had assigned a role of honor and glory to the Communist Party, and I was glad that they were down in black and white, were finished. For I knew in my heart that I should never be able to write that way again, should never be able to feel with that simple sharpness about life, should never again express such passionate hope, should never again make so total a commitment of faith.”5

Though the CPUSA is considered radical, this radicalism tends to exclude

assistance for equal rights for blacks. In Himes’ Lonely Crusade (1947), Lee Gordon

joins the CPUSA with the hope of eliminating job discrimination. He quickly realizes

that the CPUSA is more concerned with other issues, and the organization eventually

refuses to address Lee’s job discrimination issues and duties. Also in the novel, Bart, a

black man who holds a prestigious position in the CPUSA, must deal with self-conflict

between his blackness and the CPUSA principles. Luther, a black member of the

CPUSA, is being used by the organization to increase the membership of lower and

middle class blacks. To Luther’s credit, his conniving spirit affords him the opportunity

to manipulate people in the name of the CPUSA. In Ellison’s Invisible Man (1952), IM

and Tod Clifton hope to assist blacks with the help of the Brotherhood. IM and Tod are

5 Richard Wright, “I Tried to be a Communist,” The Atlantic Monthly Sept. 1944: 56.

173

led by the Brotherhood’s doctrine, but they later realize that the doctrine does not always encompass black needs. Once Tod accepts this fact, he loses his sanity and is shot by a white policeman. IM is falsely accused of advancing his own agenda and is demoted. By the time IM realizes the Brotherhood’s deception, chaos breaks out in Harlem, and he becomes so frustrated with the state of blacks in society that he becomes a hermit.

Another form of radicalism that African American authors depict is Black

Nationalism. Generally speaking, Black Nationalism refers to “the feeling on the part of black individuals that they are responsible for the welfare of other black individuals, or of black people as a collective entity, simply because of a shared racial heritage and destiny.”6 George Schuyler, Carl Offord, and Ralph Ellison depict various forms of

Black Nationalism that have developed since the nineteenth century.7 In Schuyler’s

Black No More: A Novel (1931), he presents Marcus Garvey (Santop Licorice) as a con

artist, who swindles blacks and whites out of their money under the premise of migrating

to Africa. Ellison’s Invisible Man (1952) presents a Garveyite named Ras, who promotes

violence to achieve black equality, but his violence leads to his accidental death at IM’s

hand. Carl Offord presents a different picture of Black Nationalism in The White Face

(1943). Black Nationalism becomes an alternative to the Colored Congress (NAACP),

but it is also portrayed as anti-Semitic and anti-white. These three portrayals of Black

Nationalism in the 1930s and 1940s provide a view of the inadequacy of the radicalism of

Black Nationalism as a tool to solve black inequality.

6 Wilson J. Moses, The Golden Age of Black Nationalism, 1850-1925 (Hamden: Archon, 1978) 20.

7 Ibid., 59-82.

174

As opposed to the practice of excluding whites that many Black Nationalist

organizations followed, various authors comment on the role white liberals play in

assisting blacks in their fight for equal rights. The NAACP is known for its interracial

membership. W.E.B. Du Bois, the first African American director of the NAACP, often

felt hindered by white liberals’ inability to identify with all of the specific needs of

blacks. Though the purpose of the NAACP was to assist in the change in attitudes and

rights of blacks, Oswald Garrison Villard, grandson of William Lloyd Garrison, had trouble dealing with Du Bois’ methods of agitation.8

The African American authors in this project present an array of white liberal

characters that range from pacifists to extremists. In the case of white liberals in the

NAACP, in The White Face (1943), Carl Offord shows an interracial group working

together to win court cases that further the cause of equal rights for blacks. A different

view of the assistance of white liberals is shown in Rudolph Fisher’s The Walls of

Jericho (1928). Agatha Cramp, a wealthy white woman, contributes money to the

General Improvement Association, but she still views blacks as inferior beings who will

never reach the status of whites. Similarly, Mr. and Mrs. Dalton in Wright’s Native Son

(1940) are members of the NAACP who profess that they want to assist in the uplift of

blacks, yet they own black slums. Mrs. Dalton differs slightly from her husband, in that

she knows education will benefit blacks and improve their sociability and economic

status, but her approach to this solution mimics a white patriarchal spirit. Wright also

shows some Communist sympathizers or members of the CPUSA as white liberals. Mary

Dalton and Jan Erlone want to be active in fighting for equality for blacks, but instead

8 Kellogg, NAACP, 92-104.

175

they exploit and alienate blacks, particularly Bigger Thomas. Boris Max, the Jewish

attorney for Bigger, comes very close to connecting with Bigger. Max gives Bigger

someone to confide in, and Bigger finally trusts a white person, but Max can never fully

comprehend Bigger’s feelings of alienation, rejection, and inferiority as a black male.

A number of characters appear to be white liberals, who want to help blacks, but

the authors show a flaw or cast doubt upon their loyalty. In Petry’s The Street (1946),

Junto, a Jewish man, shows love and concern for Mrs. Hedges and provides Boots Smith with a job. Later, the reader sees Junto belittling Boots and taking all of the credit for

Boots’ success in order to manipulate Boots into persuading Lutie to have sexual relations with Junto. At times, Junto possesses a kind spirit; at other moments, he is reminiscent of a slave master manipulating his slaves. In addition, in the novel, Miss

Rinner, a white teacher in Harlem, has been working at Bub’s school for ten years. Since

Miss Rinner has been teaching at the school for such an extended period of time, one would think she is dedicated to the students and the school. In actuality, Miss Rinner not

only fears the students, but she also teaches them nothing and feels that the way she

conducts her classes is acceptable by school board standards because she has the power to

promote and retain black students as she sees fit.

In Ellison’s Invisible Man (1952), Mr. Norton, a white philanthropist, donates

money to a Southern black college. His motives appear to be genuine until he later

reveals his donations are connected to the guilt he feels over the death of his beloved

daughter, with whom it is suggested he may have had an incestuous relationship. In

Himes’ If He Hollers Let Him Go (1945), Don, a white worker, appears to cooperate with

Bob Johnson’s request to have a tacker, but when Don assigns Madge, a white tacker, to

176

help Bob, her racial prejudice feeds into Bob’s antagonism, which eventually leads to his

demotion. After giving the situation some thought, Bob wonders if Don was being kind

and respectful of his request for a tacker or was setting him up to fail. Don denies any

allegation of ill will or any plan or plot to undermine Bob’s authority.