This Is Her Century This Is Her Century: A Study of Margaret Walker’s Work By Doaa Abdelhafez Hamada This Is Her Century: A Study of Margaret Walker’s Work, by Doaa Abdelhafez Hamada This book first published 2013 Cambridge Scholars Publishing 12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2013 by Doaa Abdelhafez Hamada All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-4808-5, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-4808-4 To The Memory of My Father CONTENTS Abstract ...................................................................................................... ix Acknowledgements .................................................................................... xi Introduction ................................................................................................. 1 The Most Famous Person Nobody Knows Chapter One ............................................................................................... 17 Margaret Walker’s Literary Heritage Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 49 Margaret Walker and Communism: The Thirties and the Forties Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 89 Margaret Walker and the Civil Rights Movement: The Fifties and the Sixties Chapter Four ............................................................................................ 125 Margaret Walker and the Women’s Movement: The Seventies and the Eighties Conclusion ............................................................................................... 169 Works Cited ............................................................................................. 173 ABSTRACT This book is a study of the works of Margaret Walker (1915-1998) in a chronological order in the social and intellectual context of twentieth century America. Material presented in this study is based on research on available criticism published on Walker’s work. It is also based on research on the social, intellectual, and political aspects of twentieth century America. This text also incorporates information derived from the researcher’s close reading of Walker’s work. It argues that issues of race, gender, and class are always connected in twentieth century America and in Walker’s work as reflective of this century in America. It also argues that Walker’s feminist consciousness develops from one work to another until it reaches its peak in her later poetry. Chapter one investigates Walker’s literary heritage to understand the factors that shaped her creativity and contributed to the formation of her voice as a writer. It examines how far she was influenced by white and black literary traditions in her writings. Chapter two approaches Walker’s early poetry, represented in For My People (1942) in the context of 1930s and 1940s America. This volume is discussed in relation to Communism and Marxist thought to know how far Walker fell under their influence during that time. Chapter three examines Walker’s next publication, Jubilee (1966) in the context of 1950s and 1960s America. It focuses specifically on the Civil Rights Movement and how Walker’s novel reflects on its events and main debates. Chapter Four explores Walker’s later poetry: Prophets for a New Day (1970), October Journey (1973), Farish Street (1986), and This Is My Century (1989) in relation to 1970s and 1980s America. It explores how far these works show the influence of the Women’s Movement and Black Feminism on Walker’s perceptions. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I first acknowledge God because the completion of this work is blessing from Him. I owe a tremendous credit to the guidance and support of Dr. Emman Parker and Dr. Sarah Graham, University of Leicester. I also owe a special debt to Prof. Gina Wisker, University of Briton for her encouragement and precious advices. I acknowledge with appreciation the University of Leicester and the staff of David Wilson Library for locating the material needed for this book. I acknowledge with gratitude my deceased father, my mother, and my husband for their unflagging love and consideration all the time. Last but not least, I particularly acknowledge Cambridge Scholars Publishing for taking good care of this book. INTRODUCTION THE MOST FAMOUS PERSON NOBODY KNOWS Always I am determined to overcome adversity, determined to win, determined to be me, myself at my best, always female, always black, and everlastingly free. I think this is always what the woman writer wants to be, herself, inviolate, and whole. Shirley Chisholm, who is also black and female, says she is unbossed and unbought. So am I, and I intend to remain that way. Nobody can tell me what to write because nobody owns me and nobody pulls my strings. I have not been writing to make money or earn my living. I have taught school as my vocation. Writing is my life, but it is an avocation nobody can buy. In this respect I believe I am a free agent, stupid perhaps, but me and still free. (Walker, On Being 8) These strong, assertive, and defiant sentences are the ones that Margaret Walker (1915–1998) chose to identify herself with. They indicate how the desire for freedom to be herself was her essential asset. Walker’s emphasis on words like “agent,” “free,” and “me,” regardless of how “stupid” that might be, points out the way she preferred to live and write: counter- mainstream. This quotation also suggests that the interrelatedness of race and gender informed Walker’s everlasting quest for intellectual and artistic freedom. Race and gender shape Walker’s literary practice and vision. Her work mainly focuses on African Americans’ past and present in America and specifically in relation to African American women. That is not the only reason for Walker’s importance as a writer whose work deserves to be read and analyzed. Margaret Walker is a significant author because she forms part of a matrilineal line of African American women writers from the first African American woman writer, Phillis Wheatley, to younger generations of African American women writers like Toni Morrison, Nikki Giovanni, and Alice Walker. Moreover, Margaret Walker is an overtly political writer who engages directly with the politics of her time. She differs from her female literary contemporaries and successors in that she is not only involved in gender politics but in all kinds of political affairs reflecting on every important issue of her time and place. 2 Introduction Furthermore, Walker was the first female writer to question the authority of important male writers like Richard Wright and Alex Haley. She challenged the norms of her time and dared to psychoanalyze Wright’s life and work and was not afraid to assert counter-mainstream views of Wright as a genius. Walker also challenged Alex Haley when she sued him for taking parts of her novel Jubilee (1966) to use in his novel, Roots (1976). In fact, Walker was the first writer to turn slave narratives into fiction through her innovative text; however, Haley took credit for what she did. Jubilee is a remarkable achievement that should be incorporated into the American canon of great literature like Richard Wright’s Native Son (1940), Alice Walker’s The Color Purple (1982), and Toni Morrison’s Beloved (1987). In spite of this obvious importance of Walker as a writer, she has not received enough credit for her literary achievements and authentic accounts of twentieth-century America. Walker is a writer who is really known by name for her works; however, very little criticism is written on her literary contributions. Maryemma Graham gives an example: “Although widely anthologized − over two hundred appearances to date − Walker is too often recognized among academic critics as the author of the extraordinary ‘For My People,’ while the novel Jubilee (1966) is far more widely read than it or its author is discussed” (Fields xi). If this is the case with a popular novel like Jubilee, it is worse with Walker’s later poetry. Graham notes the obvious lack of criticism on Walker: “I had incorrectly assumed in my naiveté that someone with such a love for language and who thrived on intense intellectual debate would be better represented and viewed in the world of literary criticism” (introd. to How viii). However, this is far from being the case with Walker. In 1998, in an advertisement for the first documentary film on Walker by Judith McCray, Nikki Giovanni lamented the fact that though Margaret Walker “singlehandedly turned poetry upside down with her declaration of love and her challenge to the future of her people,” she remained outside the canon of African American literature. Giovanni called Walker “the most famous person nobody knows” (Nikki Giovanni, qtd. in Graham, Fields xi). These words are most suitable for describing Margaret Walker’s status in literary circles during the twentieth century. Before the documentary film, Walker used to be excluded from the major literary guides such as Donald B. Gibson’s Modern Black Poets (1973) on the basis that Walker was a well-known writer but on whom there is “very little or no writing” (167). Trudier Harris ascribes this critical negligence to