The Literature of Slavery and Freedom

"The engendering impulse of African American literature is resistance to human tyranny. The sustaining spirit of African American literature is dedication to human dignity. As resistance to tyranny and dedication to human dignity became increasingly synonymous with the idea of America itself in the latter half of the eighteenth century, early African American writers identified themselves as Americans with a special mission. They would articulate the spiritual and political ideals of America to inspire and justify the struggle of blacks for their birthright as American citizens. They would also demand fidelity to those same ideals from whites whose moral complacency and racial prejudices hand blinded them to the obligations of their own heritage" (Gates et al. 151).

In his introduction to "The Literature of Slavery and Freedom" (Norton), Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. points out many of the key issues facing the earliest African American writers of the eighteenth century, who were courageous enough to commit their stories to the page. During this time, the young nation was gradually becoming unified under the philosophies of Enlightenment and Christian Humanism, while gathering momentum toward a War of Independence from British rule. Meanwhile, those who had been subjected to chattel slavery were summarily left out of this bid for independence and were denied recognition of their humanity.

This was the task facing the earliest writers of what has now come to be known as the Slave Narrative: the assertion of one's humanity. From the inception of slavery in the colonies, slaves (and former slaves) were not only discounted from regular citizenship, but mass movements toward Christianizing slaves surged and ebbed because of a lack of consensus as to whether slaves possessed eternal souls. The twin philosophies of self-determination and independence--and the claim to a soul--were the driving forces behind the early slave narratives of Olaudah Equiano, Venture Smith, Jupiter Hammon, David Walker, and later, Frederick Douglass. Each of these writers, to one extent or the other, engages Enlightenment philosophies of self-determination and humanity. Included is an example of his or her Christian faith as evidence of his or her intrinsic value. 

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Later narratives moved the genre from memoir to propaganda.  Frederick Douglass's 1845 Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, and William Wells Brown's Narrative of William W. Brown, a Fugitive Slave, were published and promoted to advance the cause of abolition. The Abolitionist movement took the biblical justification for a cause to new angles: the polemic was that Freedom was the true Christian cause. As a propagandist tract, These narratives began to assume a recognizable shape as they began by retelling  the horrors of being born into slavery, and the ways that the institution shaped the characters of whites as well as tormenting blacks. These tracts pointed out the hypocrisy of slave owners, and the subtle as well as overt indignities African slaves suffered under the lash.

In 1861, one of the first slave narratives by a woman was published. It was called Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. The novel began as a serial publication inspired by abolitionists, Amy and Isaac Post, and was later published as a single volume in which the perversions and special cruelties toward women in slavery were revealed. Jacobs' narrative bore the same conventions as many of her predecessors' narratives did, and with this addition, Incidents became another installment of a growing genre. 

Still, the slave narrativist had as his first task the evidence that he was capable of intellectual thought and literary production. The need for authentication was revealed in the titles of each narrative: "Written by Himself," as well as the presence of an Authentication Letter. This document was usually penned by a wealthy white progressive whose reputation carried sufficient weight to endorse the author's veracity. Other narrativists, like Sojourner Truth who could not write or read, relied on an amanuensis, or 'ghost writer,' to write their stories.

The Abolitionist's cause grew in popularity toward the middle of the nineteenth century, and the slave narrative became its centerpiece for the eradication of slavery. A set of marked qualities emerged among slave narratives, and scholars have compiled these features as the conventions of the slave narrative. A few of the most common are listed below:

1. Slave narratives are episodic. There is usually a brief summary of events at the start of each chapter. 

2. The phrase, "I was born..." marks the fact of the subject's birth, the place of his birth, but no certainty as to the date of his birth. 

3. The author recalls his parents or a grandparent who raised him. There are usually fond memories of a mother or grandmother, but only vague memories of a father. It is often the plantation owner who is the slave's father. 

4. The author describes the first abuse he receives and others that follows. Much attention is paid to women who suffer brutality.

5. The author recalls a new slave arriving to the plantation from Africa who is remarkably strong a strong-willed, and refuses to be whipped.

6. The author recalls the legalities and prohibitions against teaching a slave to read and write, observing this law as a means to keep slaves ignorant and unaware.

7. The author recalls a self-professed "Christian" slaveholder whose cruelty was worse than that of any others.

8. The author describes the living conditions of the slave: the quarters, the food, the clothing, the medical attention (if any) that slaves received.

9. The author includes a description of the slave auction, with details of families, married couples, parents and children being painfully separated.

10. The author describes the fate of the runaway slave.

11. The author describes the benevolence of abolitionists/northerners.

12. The author describes his conversion to the Christian faith via his literacy.

13. The author assumes a new name, changing his address from "Smith's John" to "John Smith," or naming himself after a famous abolitionist or benevolent politician.

*Adopted from Source.

Below are the images of several famous abolitionists. The list is not comprehensive by any means:

Harriet Tubman

William Lloyd Garrison

Amy Post

Frederick Douglass

William Wells Brown

John Brown

Lucretia Mott

Lydia Marie Child

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Frances E.W. Harper

The Intrepid Voice of Civil Rights: James Baldwin: 1924-1987

 "All art is a kind of confession" (Gates, et al.).

James Baldwin was born in Harlem, New York, in 1924 at the height of the Harlem Renaissance. Religion had come with many African Americans from the Deep South into storefront churches along the main drags of Harlem. Born to an unmarried mother, however, James had a troubled childhood that was defined by poverty and want. When his mother married, it was David Baldwin, a lay preacher, who expounded on a gospel of a jealous and angry god. Though the boy did have a run at street preaching in his youth, he would ultimately renounce Christianity and find peace in books. The library was a quiet respite for the child whose home life had become chaotic. 

The time he spent with books in his youth would pay off, as he began a promising career as a teen. He wrote for a church newsletter, as well as for his school. He would later establish relationships with such notable figures as Countee Cullen and Richard Wright, who would help curate the young man's career as a published author. 

"Shackled to Myths"

As Baldwin matured as a writer, he found that it was his essays, not his novels, where he found most freedom of expression. His novels, including his first, Go Tell it on the Mountain received praise, and Baldwin met the demand in a succession of publications to follow. None of the novels he had written fared as well as his essays. Especially those collected in Notes from a Native Son, Baldwin's fiery passion would rise to be called the "the conscience of the nation" (392). 

It was Baldwin's own unwavering passion and self-assertion that would damage his relationship with Richard Wright. Baldwin's scathing criticism of the protest novel--the very genre Wright championed--was what eroded that mentoring relationship. For his own reasons, James Baldwin left the country soon after, spending his time in Paris.

By the time he returned to the U.S. in 1957, the Civil Rights struggle had compelled him to get involved. Reporting on school segregation in the South, Baldwin soon lent his literary talents to recording the events--and the relationships--that would shape the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. He was active in CORE (Congress for Racial Equality) and SNCC (Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee).

What might startle the casual viewer (or listener) of Baldwin's rhetoric is the surprising laser accuracy with which Baldwin disarms his opponents. The efficiency with which he exposes the inconsistencies, the anxieties, and the insecurities that lay beneath racism, often leaves his listener in mild shock. Baldwin could be particularly uncompromising as it applied to patrician white culture and its traditional attitudes toward sexuality and morality. Baldwin shrewdly asserts that the white man needs the black man as subordinate to project onto him all of the white's insecurities. In similar fashion, Baldwin is quoted in our text as saying that the "homosexual" is "created as outcast to shore up an enfeebled masculine identity." That in fact, "Macho men need 'faggots' whom they have created 'in order to act out a sexual fantasy on the body of another man and not take any responsibility for it" (392). Undeniably, Baldwin had an uncanny ability to deconstruct the myths America has perpetuated, despite the feebleness, shallowness, and hypocrisy of such myths.

Perhaps the most impressive example of James Baldwin's rhetorical power is demonstrated through his debate with William F. Buckley at Cambridge University, in the UK in 1965. Buckley was a staunchly conservative intellectual, debater, author, founder of The National Review and host of the program, Firing Line. The topic of the debate was "whether the American Dream had been achieved at the expense of African Americans" (1). 

According to the editors of our text, The Norton Anthology of African American Literature, though Baldwin renounced Christianity, it was the rhetoric of Old Testament sermonizing, and the themes of sin, redemption, absolution that shaped his own rhetorical style. Dr. Gates, et al. report that "the lyrics of the spirituals, blues, and gospel, [create] a prose that demands the reader's attentive ear as much as eye, for the pace, cadences, rhythms...often lost to print" (Gates, et al. 391). In this debate with Buckley, one hears the force of the pulpit through the voice of James Baldwin. The force, the passion from this man for whom words and language were his instruments. With stealth, grace, and enviable poise, he meets the challenges and barbs of Buckley's narrow views and triumphs. 

Music of the Harlem Renaissance

Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington, 1899-1974: Band leader, composer, pianist, and perhaps one of the best-known and beloved figures of his time. Ellington was responsible for over one thousand compositions that surpassed the generic boundaries of blues, pop, and jazz. He is credited with having been instrumental in elevating jazz to an art form.

"Gladys Bentley [1907-1960] was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the daughter of American George L. Bentley and his wife, a Trinidadian, Mary Mote. She appeared at Harry Hansberry's "Clam House" on 133rd Street, one of New York City's most notorious gay speakeasies, in the 1920s, and headlined in the early thirties at Harlem's Ubangi Club, where she was backed up by a chorus line of drag queens. She dressed in men's clothes (including a signature tuxedo and top hat), played piano, and sang her own raunchy lyrics to popular tunes of the day in a deep, growling voice while flirting outrageously with women in the audience" (1).

 Billie ("Lady Day") Holiday (1915-1959): Known for her unique vocal style, Billie Holiday's name is synonymous with jazz diva. Many of the songs on which she collaborated have evolved as jazz standards, including "Don't Explain," and "God Bless the Child." Her song "Strange Fruit" is a haunting protest to lynchings that were prominent in the American South during her reign.

Ethel Waters (1896-1977): Waters' career took her from Baltimore, to Chicago, to Atlanta, where she worked with Bessie Smith. Smith's objection to Waters' "competition" relegated the singer to performing "ballads and popular songs" (2). Later Waters moved to Harlem, where she built a following as a premiere blues singer at a club called Edmond's Cellar. Her best known and most beloved recordings include "Stormy Weather," "Heat Wave," and "His Eye is on the Sparrow." Waters was also an Academy Award-winning actress, starring in Member of the Wedding, a film based on the novel by Carson McCullers.

Bessie Smith (1894-1937): By the age of nine, Bessie Smith had lost both her mother and father, and one older brother, leaving an older sister, Viola, to raise the impoverished young family. While still a child, Bessie and another brother earned money by "busking" on the streets of Chattanooga: performing musical numbers as a team. Bessie would sing and dance while her sibling accompanied her on guitar. Smith began recording in 1923, and by the time she relocated to Philadelphia, she had earned a national following. Her record label dubbed her "Queen of the Blues."

Josephine Baker (1906-1975): Known otherwise as "Creole Goddess," and "Bronze Venus," Josephine Baker began her singing and dancing career at an early age. By 15 she performed her first St. Louis vaudeville show in 1924, and the next year performed as a chorus girl in Harlem. Baker later performed in Paris at the Theatre des Champs Elysees to overwhelming success.
Jacob M. Appel describes Baker's legacy in his online biography of the dancer, writing that "[o]n stage, Josephine Baker epitomized the flamboyant and risqué entertainment of the Jazz Age. Her overtly erotic danse sauvage, her exotic costumes of feathers and bananas, and her ability to replicate the rhythms of jazz through contortions of her body made the young African American dancer one of the most original and controversial performers of the 1920s. From her Parisian debut in 1925, Baker rocked middle-class sensibilities and helped usher in a new era in popular culture. In the words of newspaperwoman and cultural critic Janet Flanner, Baker's 'magnificent dark body, a new model to the French, proved for the first time that black was beautiful.' Off stage, Baker's decadent antics and uncanny ability to market herself helped to transform her into one of the first popular celebrities to build an international, mass appeal which cut across classes and cultures" (3).


A recording of Bessie Smith's "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out":

William Wells Brown: First African American Novelist

William Wells Brown was born into slavery in Lexington, Kentucky in 1814. His mother, known only as "Elizabeth," was the slave of a prominent physician there named Dr. Young. Elizabeth had a total of seven children: Elizabeth, Leander, Benjamin, Joseph, Solomon, Milford, and William. Bought and sold several times before the age of twenty, William Wells Brown spent much of his young adulthood in St. Louis, where he was forced into work in the slave trade along the Missouri River. Finally in 1834, Brown escaped slavery and headed North. After gaining his freedom, Brown married Elizabeth Schooner and the couple had three children. Between 1834 and 1845, Brown relocated to Buffalo, New York where he served as a conductor on the Underground Railroad. He worked as a steam boatman on Lake Erie, where he would ferry escaped slaves to Canada (1).

By 1849, Brown traveled abroad to England, where he became a prominent speaker on the issue of Prohibition, and later, abolition. In keeping with the popular moral attitudes of the time, Brown often favored the tactic of moral suasion over violence to change the public's attitude. This approach for Brown was effective to denounce the U.S. definitions of democracy as they pertained to African Americans. He attended the International Peace Congress, bringing his three daughters with him. By 1854, he and his wife had separated, and later divorced: an event that drew some negative attention from critics. Nonetheless, despite his personal difficulties, Brown continued his abolitionist campaigning. He delivered over one thousand anti-slavery speeches and published the first travelogue--and the first novel--to have been published by an African American author. His own narrative of his life in slavery, Narrative of William W. Brown, a Fugitive Slave was outsold by only one competitor, Frederick Douglass. A contemporary of Douglass's, the two shared a tense, even rancorous relationship throughout their respective careers (1).

Clotel, Brown's 1854 fictionalized account of the biracial daughter of Thomas Jefferson, is a significant work for a number of reasons. As mentioned above, it is considered the first novel to have been written by an African American. In Clotel, Brown introduces the 'tragic mulatta/mulatress': a woman who was "distinguished by her beauty, her idealism, her barely traceable African ancestry" who "proves herself an active and combative figure by the end of her story" (317). A marked consequence of the Tragic Mulatta's vexed social positioning is that her disappointments in life and in love drive her to suicide.

*From Documenting the American South (www.docsouth.com)

One may extrapolate that Brown, among others, engaged such a character to appeal to a broader range of readers that included the civic-minded and reformist society matrons of the North, as did such writers as Harriet Jacobs, to further the cause of abolitionism. The "Tragic Mulatta" exudes the characteristics of physical beauty that is designed to mirror her interior virtue, moral purity, and religious piety. Brown's employment of such a literary tactic, one concludes, is that this figure serves to underscore the multitude of ironies and hypocrisies of the slave trade. One notes this passage from "The Negro Sale" in which Clotel is waiting on the auction block to be sold, that the narrator observes, "There she stood, with a complexion as white as most of those who were waiting with a wish to become her purchasers; her features as finely defined as any of her sex of pure Anglo-Saxon; her long black wavy hair done up in the neatest manner; her form tall and graceful, and her whole appearance indicating one superior to her position" (Brown 329). In such a passage, Brown emphasizes that the woman situated on the auction block is no different in manner, physical aspect, or demeanor, than the daughters of the slave-traders themselves; yet because of her tenuous ties to African slavery, she is reduced to human chattel.


The Tragic Mulatta

The term is associated with the system of concubinage--or 'placage'--in which mixed race women of color would be placed in common-law marriages with males of European descent. Some who were fortunate might be later freed by their male purchasers. Quadroon balls were prevalent across the lower South, but mostly in New Orleans, LA., where the planter aristocracy had thrived well enough to support this system of "placement" (1). The term placage was derived from the French term placer, or 'to place.' Though the system did not last long (only from approximately 1760s to 1803), the system did allow women of mixed parentage to maintain some measure of control over their destinies and economic freedom; however the race- and gender-based exploitation of this tradition were obvious.

In some cases, women involved in placage were able to acquire significant social standing within their respective societies. One such woman was the noted 'voodoo queen' of Louisiana, Marie Laveau.

Despite the occasional success of 'mulatto' and 'quadroon' women who parlayed their circumstances as placees into lucrative careers, the literature that appeared later in the century would lead one to believe that the system was a deleterious one. The figure of the "Tragic Mulatta" was, since Brown, and a recurring theme in African American literary tradition. She reappears in such work as Francis E.W. Harper's Iola Leroy; Charles Chesnutt's The Marrow of Tradition, and in Nella Larsen's novellas Quicksand and Passing; and in Jean Toomer's Cane as an instrumental figure through which the author examines the nature of race and racial construct in the American imaginary. As with many literary tropes that assume the nature of convention, the "Tragic Mulatta" has evolved to convey some or all of the following traits:

-Exceptional beauty

-She suffers early separation from her mother and family

-She is sold to a gentleman, either through slave auction or ‘fancy girl’ ball

-She is abandoned by her purchaser shortly after she gives birth

-She is neither accepted fully by black or white society

-She passes for white for a time, but when her true parentage is revealed, she is disgraced

Other works in popular culture that feature the Tragic Mulatta:

“The Quadroons” (1842), a short story by Lydia Marie Child

“Slavery’s Pleasant Homes” (1843) also by Lydia Marie Child

The Marrow of Tradition a novel by Charles Chesnutt

Clotel: Or, the President’s Daughter, a novel by William Wells Brown

Iola Leroy (1892) a novel by Frances E.W. Harper

The House Behind the Cedars (1900) a novel by Charles Chesnutt

Passing (1929) a novel by Nella Larsen

Light in August (1932) a novel by William Faulkner

Imitation of Life (1933) a novel by Fannie Hurst

“Mulatto” a poem by Langston Hughes

To Kill a Mockingbird (1960) a novel by Harper Lee

As we read the excerpted text from Clotel and then other, later works, think about how this figure comments on, critiques, or challenges the contemporary conceptualizations of race--and gender--in 19th century society.

Zora Neale Hurston: Genius of the South

Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) was perhaps one of the most prolific of the Harlem Renaissance writers, but she was also the most polarizing. To some of her contemporaries she was 'disconcerting'; to others, 'eccentric,' and even boastful and outrageous. As if a subtle critique, author Wallace Thurman cast her as  "Sweetie Mae Carr," an effete, egotistical would-be artiste in  Thurman's satiric novel, Infants of the Spring. To others, however, Hurston was a trail-blazer, an iconoclast, and later for Alice Walker, a 'spiritual mother.' 

No matter her reputation among Harlem Literati, she was one of the earliest African American female scholars to venture into post-Occupation Haiti to gather invaluable cultural material for her compilation, Tell My Horse. Later she would expose African American folklife to U.S. audiences in Mules and Men. Hurston was an intrepid and rigorous preserver and conveyer of Africana folklife and folk culture.

Born in Eatonville, Florida, the first incorporated all-African American town, Hurston was the daughter of John and Lucy Hurston. Her parents and the folk of Eatonville made an indelible mark on the author. John Hurston, a preacher in the Sanctified Church and mayor of Eatonville, loomed large in her memory and became the basis for many of the male characters in her writing, principally of Hurston's semi-biographical novel, Jonah's Gourd Vine. Her mother, Lucy, was the first to tell Zora to "Jump at the sun...you may not reach it, but at least you'll get off the ground." Lucy Hurston's words and memory resonate throughout the pages of Hurston's novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God."

Most notable in Hurston's novels and short stories like "Sweat," the townsfolk of Eatonville recur and assume shape as characters in themselves. "Porch talk," and "Mouth Almighty" become terms familiar to Hurston scholars to describe and dramatize the ways in which the community comments on individual lives and characters. Further, the townsfolk of Hurston's fictional renderings of her hometown explore the folk within an insular context in which blacks were free to be themselves and express their hearts, minds, loves and relationships liberally. Gates comments that "[i]n her view, the absence of whites not only kept Eatonville free of racism but also freed blacks to express themselves without reservation" (Gates 1019). This freedom revealed the true character of the folk, and Hurston's novels depicted the lives of these characters with honesty and compassion.

Always the iconoclast, Hurston's "How it Feels to be Colored Me" reveals the author's assertive--even brazen--character that some relished, and others deplored. The latter because of her apparent and unapologetic refusal to politicize her art. Even today, this essay resonates with some critics as complicit, even accommodationist. Even her ardent admirer Alice Walker was critical. In her compendium of Hurston's essays, Walker described the author of "Colored Me" as Hurston at her "most exasperating." Still, there are other readers of Hurston's work who see the author's effective resistance to racial discrimination. How shall we judge this essay? From a historicist view that observes Hurston within her social and historical context (of the Renaissance, as a southern transplant); or, from presentist perspective that views Hurston as a comparatively softer, less relevant voice of protest? Or must we view her art as having a protest role? Again we cannot help but find ourselves confronted with the potentially political role of art and the artist. 

Alice Walker discusses Hurston's portrayal of her people in Their Eyes Were Watching God:

The Cult of Domesticity

The Cult of Domesticity--or, more pejoratively--The Cult of True Womanhood, refers to adherents of unwritten rules of social, sexual, and moral propriety regarding women's behavior in the 19th Century from 1820 until 1860. By referring to this set of beliefs as creating a "cult" reveals the depth of their impact on women's lives. It was Catherine Beecher, sister to Harriet Beecher Stowe, who identified the four pillars of virtue that would hold women to behavioral convention and keep them under masculine control.  

Piety: As Victorian society was divided into separate spheres--that of men (exterior world of business and work); and that of women (the home), 19th century women were thought to represent the 'heart' of the Victorian home, and therefore were believed responsible for embodying Christian asceticism, faith, modesty, and were entrusted with the religious instruction of children.

Purity: 19th century women were to exude moral chastity in mind, body, and soul.

Submission: Women were to submit to the head of household--the husband, the father--and to remain childlike in a condition of perpetual naivete.

Domesticity: As women were the denizens of the home, they were charged with providing a haven for their husbands from the stressors of the outside world. Many of their duties included overseeing the activities of the household, including the duties of servants, maintaining correspondence with social networks and the social roster, and to prepare as immaculate and idyllic domestic scene to further the reputation of her husband.

Scholars note that women's domestic duties were not considered 'work' in the classical sense, but "effortless" demonstrations of their innate nurturing natures.  Work for women outside the home was rare and limited: Protective labor laws further delimited jobs for women in the 19th century as governmental policy deemed that professional work for women encroached upon their domestic duties, so work hours were limited to a spare few during the day, while evening work was prohibited (1). Teaching eventually became widely acknowledged as suitable for females, as the classroom was considered to be an extension of the home, and teaching an extension of spiritual instruction for children. Catharine Beecher (sister to Harriet Beecher Stowe) was early educator who championed the inclusion of Kindergarten in early childhood education.

African American women in the 19th century were not subjected to the same criteria. Thought to be amoral and wanton, the African American woman's body was consistently objectified and sexualized by white males. While white females were heralded as sainted mothers, the black woman could not ascend to "true womanhood" and therefore felt no pangs of grief when separated from her children. These social mores were situated in place to ensure the control of the white male in Victorian society: such strategic social structuring ensured his dominion over two spheres of femininity in the household and put in place a complex network of social dynamics most visible between white and black women in the 19th century.

Below are some references to further reading on the topic of the Cult of True Womanhood, and to other related topics:

JSTOR: "The Cult of True Womanhood: 1820-1860" by Barbara Welter
America in Class: The Cult of Domesticity
"Cult of True Womanhood" by Jeanne Boydston/PBS.org
Gwin, Minrose. "Green-Eyed Monsters of the  
   Slavocracy: Jealous Mistresses in Two Slave
   Narratives." Conjuring: Black Women Writers and   
   Literary Tradition. ed. Marjorie Pryse and Hortense
   Spillers. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1985.

Modernism, Realism, Naturalism: New Directions for African American Art

Richard Wright (1908-1960)

"Generally speaking, Negro writing in the past has been confined to humble novels, poems, and plays, prim and decorous ambassadors who went a-begging to white America. They entered the Court of American Public Opinion dressed in the knee-pants of servility, curtsying to show that the Negro was not inferior, that he was human, and that he had a life comparable to that of other people. For the most part these artistic ambassadors were received as though they were French poodles who do clever tricks" (Blueprint for Negro Writing: The Role of Negro Writing...1403).

When Richard Wright penned these words, he embarked on two distinct, yet interrelated projects: first, the writing of "the past" to which he refers here was clearly an indictment of the artists of the Harlem Renaissance and their widespread dependency on white patrons. Second, Wright's call for a new theory of African American writing was germinating: it was a theory that envisioned the African American writer not as an individual determined to prove himself against the literary models of a white public, but to carve out his own aesthetic in representing lived experience. With these twin projects, Richard Wright instantiated himself as one of the preeminent thinkers and contributors to a changing role of the black author, and the emerging character of black writing.

Raised in desperate poverty in Natchez, Mississippi, Richard Wright was passed from relative to relative when his mother became ill. He spent a good portion of his boyhood with his grandmother and an aunt, whose deeply religious household left him hostile to spiritual life (Gates, et al 1399). In fact it was during these years that Wright's ambivalence toward the folk as the literary subject began to develop. He, like African American writers and scholars before him, felt a certain suspicion toward representations of folklife as bordering on minstrelsy.

Wright's novels were largely influenced by his interest in Marxist Communism: an ideology that sought to empower the proletariat. Wright further drew from the writing of Marcel Proust, Theodore Dreiser, and other writers of the Naturalist school. Naturalism, like Realism, endeavored to portray life in all its aspects with emphasis on verisimilitude. However, Naturalism went a step further to focus on the particularly brutal sides of living--particularly the harsh realities and "pathologies of life in an urban ghetto" (1400). "The Ethics of Living Jim Crow" is one such sample of Wright's devotion to depicting--with focused determination--the horrors of the segregated South with brutal frankness. In so doing, Wright contributed to a type of early protest writing. In his much acclaimed novel, Native Son, Wright expands his focus to deliver a painstaking and troubling depiction of the realities faced by the African American male in a metropolitan setting. This novel in particular entered Wright into a sociological dialogue concerning social determinism--for which he acknowledged the Chicago School of Urban Sociology; and galvanized a literary genre known as Urban Realism. 

Wright's literary (and sociological) study of the impact of society's structures upon the African American male, and his scathing criticism of racism in  the U.S. garnered him the auspicious role of progenitor of the Black Arts Movement that arose during the 1960s (1401). His work, as well as his philosophies, supported Black Nationalism; and though he broke with the Communist Party in the 1940s, a Marxist attitude pervaded his literary production. 

Additionally, Wright's work has been categorized in part as Modernist in terms of the ways the author depicted the workings of the mind,

and the depiction of spaces--both physical and psychological. As you consider "Ethics", note the way Wright portrays how race and racial hierarchies are often articulated through physical space and firmly drawn margins. Choose a passage or a line from "Ethics" that most vividly portrays racial hierarchy in terms of physical space or boundaries.

Nella Larsen: Madame X of the Harlem Renaissance

Nella Larsen (1893-1964). Born to a Danish mother and a West Indian father, Nella Larsen didn't begin her professional life as a writer: instead, she attended the Nurse Training School at Tuskegee, and then headed north to work for the New York Health Department. In 1921, Larsen left the nursing profession to work at the New York Library. By this time, she had already become a fixture in the Harlem literary scene, appearing at events, and publishing short fiction pieces, essays, and magazine reviews (Gates, et al., 1079). Referred to as "Madame X" for the scarcity of details about her personal life, Larsen's fiction tells volumes about life as a woman navigating the boundaries of race in the modern world.

However varied her professional life may have been, it was her parentage, one surmises, that had the greatest influence on her writing. While many writers shrink at the notion that their work might have some autobiographical nuance, it seems clear that Larsen's background launched her into a quandary over the subject of race. Her first novella, Quicksand, examines the unique social placement of individuals of mixed parentage--and the morality of passing. Her protagonist in Quicksand, Helga Crane, bears a striking resemblance to a modern tragic heroine in the sense that her European ancestry places her in the privileged circles of Europe, while her African American ancestry is somewhat of an anathema. 

Quicksand explores, perhaps more trenchantly, the experience of race from this vantage point in a way that had been previously ignored and Passing extends the examination of the performance of race and social class. In what ways does the experience of writers like Larsen continue to evolve? That is, how has the social acceptance of mixed-race individuals changed, altered, matured, or otherwise continued in this day in age?

It's About Time.

The Vernacular Tradition

Hoodoo Priestess Marie Laveau (photo credit).

"In African American literature, the vernacular refers to the church songs, blues, ballads, sermons, stories, and, in our own era, hip-hop songs that are part of the oral, not primarily the literate (or written-down) tradition of black expression. What distinguishes this body of work is its in group and, at times, secretive, defensive, and aggressive character: it is not, generally speaking, produced for circulation beyond the black group itself (though it sometimes is bought and sold by those outside its circle)" As Gates' definition suggests, the Vernacular encompasses the cultural creations of African Americans not simply as a form of catharsis or self-expression, but as a means of resistance. African American folk expression has been defined by scholars as "double-voiced," indicating that folk songs, sermons, jokes, and other modes of expression retained a meaning for the culture--and a separate meaning for the outside world. Slave songs, such as "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," and "Wade in the Water," served as coded messages to other slaves as they plotted escape, or an uprising. Other forms of expression coded messages for covert meetings, religious gatherings, or simply to express the longings and sufferings of the slave. The Vernacular Tradition would prove to be, in many ways, the grounding principle of an emerging literary tradition, harkened to by writers well into the 21st century. 
Gates continues, saying "This highly charged material has been extraordinarily influential for writers of poetry, fiction, drama, and so on. What would the work of Langston Hughes, Sterling A. Brown, Zora Neale Hurston, and Toni Morrison be like without its black vernacular ingredients?" (Gates, et al. 3).

As our text points out, the Vernacular as a study has raised specific questions and controversy concerning how scholars should interpret the role of the vernacular in the literary canon. Richard Wright argued against the "romanticization"of the folk--that is, presenting vernacular forms to be appreciated merely for their quaintness as simple expressions of an unsophisticated folk while overlooking their decidedly political function. Indeed, when we speak of "the folk," we refer to that demographic that represents the lived experience of individuals outside the academy: the average, every-man. The genius located in the vernacular forms of sermon, dozens, field hollers, spirituals, and so on, that was brilliantly underscored by Hurston, was the ability to militate against oppression while still emphasizing cultural and familial ties that were strengthened through tradition. When observed in this light, the folk and the vernacular tradition demonstrate their historical role as a means of survival and persistence. 

Slave narrativist Frederick Douglass took pains to re-present the "Sorrow Songs" of the plantation slaves--those soulful utterances that many white planters convinced themselves were sonorous evidence of the slaves' "happiness." Douglass would argue that, such an assessment was proof of white ignorance to the double meaning, the double-voiced nature of the songs that were, in truth, expressions of grief and of hope for deliverance in the afterlife.

The folk songs and narratives that are featured in our text were gathered and transcribed by Zora Neale Hurston in the 1930s and published in her collection entitled Mules and Men. In this volume, Hurston is careful to point out the cultural threads that connect African American folkways to elements of Caribbean and continental African folk expression. The syncretic religious practices of Haitian Vodu and Jamaican Obeah persist in the practices of the Sanctified Church and of the Ring Shouters of the Georgia coast, partially because of the ring-formation made during worship. 

The trickster, for instance, bears many of the same characteristics throughout the folktales of Haiti, Jamaica, West Africa, and Louisiana. In Haitian Vodu, a syncretic religion that combines West African gods with Catholic saints, features a trickster alternately called Papa Ghede or Baron Samedi. He is thought to be the corpse of the first man who ever died. He is also the god of fertility and of death, a psychopomp thought to usher souls to the afterlife. While he is considered heroic to Haitian peasants, he is a fearsome character to outsiders.

The lineage of the trickster can be traced to Esu-Elegbara of Yoruba tradition--the messenger god who translated the prayers of mortals to the gods, much in the same fashion as did Hermes of Greek tradition. 

Female Esu Ayagi (Lot 3).

In Haiti, Esu is translated as Papa Legba; in Cuban Santeria and Candomble, he is Eshu, Exu, Echu. In New Orleans Voodoo, he became Papa LaBas. Trinidad and Tobago recognize a similar trickster, the Midnight Robber, who makes his appearance annually at Carnivale. 

 Photo Credit

The trickster figure is often created by cultures as one that performs a cautionary function: he teaches younger generations what human foibles to avoid. However, in Africana folklore--particularly that of the Caribbean, the trickster is much more cunning and wily. In African American folklore, often a slave named John outwits his master tells a tale of his exploits in a way that underscores his cleverness while pointing out the greed and stupidity of Master. 

In large part, the Vernacular has been the source of inspiration and creativity for contemporary African American authors, as it represents the resilience of a culture to tyranny and persecution. For others it is a source of consternation in the light of other cultural forms and forces that sought to condemn or ridicule. As we read the selections in our text, think about how these songs, spirituals, and stories give evidence to the strength and persistence of African Americans. And, think about how Folklore and the Vernacular produce a distinctly African American literary form. 

"...Indeed, the vernacular is not a body of quaint, folksy items. It is not an exclusively male province. Nor is it associated with a a particular level of society or with a particular historical era. It is neither long ago, far away, nor fading. Instead, the vernacular encompasses vigorous, dynamic processes of expression, past and present. It makes up a rich storehouse of materials wherein the values, styles and character types of black American life are reflected in the language that is highly energized and often marvelously eloquent" (4).

Zora Neale Hurston, the acclaimed ethnographer, certainly saw the rich meaning behind many of these vernacular forms. During her time collecting folklore for Mules and Men, she recorded--and often sang "Lining Songs"--those that chain gangs sang to pass the time and move the work along.