transition in the american negro short story

8/7/2019 Transition in the American Negro Short Story

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Clark Atlanta University

Transition in the American Negro Short StoryAuthor(s): John Henrik ClarkeSource: Phylon (1960-), Vol. 21, No. 4 (4th Qtr., 1960), pp. 360-366Published by: Clark Atlanta UniversityStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/273981 .

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By JOHN HENRIK CLARKE

Transition in the American Negro Short StoryN egroes were great story tellers long before their first appearance inJamestown, Virginia, in 1619. The rich and colorful history, art andfolklore of West Africa, the ancestral home of most American Negroes,present evidence of this, and more.Contrary to a misconception which still prevails, the Negro wasfamiliar with literature and art for many years before his contact withthe Western world. Before the breaking up of the social structure of theWest African states of Ghana, Melle and Songhay, and the internalstrife and chaos that made the slave trade possible, the forefathers ofthe Negroes who eventually became slaves in the United States lived ina society where university life was fairly common and scholars were be-held with reverence.

There were in this ancestry rulers who expanded their kingdoms intoempires, great and magnificent armies whose physical dimensionsdwarfed entire nations into submission, generals who advanced thetechnique of military science, scholars whose vision of life showed fore-sight and wisdom, and priests who told of gods that were strong andkind. To understand fully any aspect of Negro life one must realize thatthe Negro is not without a cultural past, though he was many genera-tions removed from it before his achievements in American literatureand art commandedany appreciable attention.After the initial poetical debut of Jupiter Hammon and PhillisWheatley, the main literary expression of the Negro was the slavenarrative. One of the earliest of these narratives came from the pen ofGustavas Vassa. His was a time of great pamphleteering in the UnitedStates. The free Negro in the North and the Negro who had escapedfrom slavery in the South made their mark upon this time andawakened the conscience of the nation. Their lack of formal educationalattainments gave their narratives a strong and rough-hewed truth, morearresting than scholarship.The best known of these slave narratives came from the pen ofFrederick Douglass, the foremost Negro in the antislavery movement,His first book was the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845).Ten years later an improved and enlarged edition, My Bondage and MyFreedom, was published. His third autobiography, Life and Times ofFrederick Douglass, was published in 1881 and enlarged in 1892. Doug-

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THE AMERICAN NEGRO SHORT STORYlass fought for civil rights and against lynching and the Ku Klux Klan.No abuse of justice escaped his attention and his wrath.

It was not until 1887 that a Negro writer emerged who was fully amaster of the short story as a literary form. This writer was Charles W.Chesnutt. Mr. Chesnutt, an Ohioan by birth, became a teacher in NorthCarolina while still in his middle teens. He studied the traditions andsuperstitions of the Negroes of that state and later made this materialthe ingredient of his best short stories. In August 1887, his short story,"The Goophered Grapevine" appeared in the Atlantic Monthly. Thiswas the beginning of a series of stories that were later brought togetherin his first book, The Conjure Woman (1899). "The Wife of His Youth"also appeared in the Atlantic (July 1898) and gave the title to his secondvolume, The Wife of His Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line(1899). Three more stories appeared later: "Baxter's Procrustes" in theAtlantic (June, 1904) and "The Doll" and "Mr. Taylor's Funeral" inThe Crisis Magazine (April, 1912 and April-May, 1915).Chesnutt's novels did not measure up to the standards he had setwith his short stories, though they were all competently written. In1928 he was awarded the Spingarn Medal for his "pioneer work as aliterary artist depicting the life and struggle of Americans of Negrodescent."

Paul Laurence Dunbar, a contemporary of Charles W. Chesnutt, madehis reputation as a poet before extending his talent to short stories. BothDunbar and Chesnutt very often used the same subject matter in theirstories. Chesnutt was by far the better writer and his style and attitudediffered radically from Dunbar's.Dunbar's pleasant folk tales of tradition-bound plantation Negroeswere more acceptable to a large white reading audience with precon-ceived ideas of Negro characteristics. In all fairness, it must be saidthat Dunbar did not cater to this audience in all of his stories. In suchstories as "The Tragedy at Three Forks,""TheLynching of Jube Benson"and "The Ordeal of Mt. Hope" he showed a deep concern and under-standing of the more serious and troublesome aspects of Negro life.Collections of his stories are: Folks from Dixie (1898), The Strength ofGideon (1900), In Old Plantation Days (1903) and The Heart of HappyHollow (1904). Only one of his novels, The Sport of the Gods (1902), ismainly concernedwith Negro characters.Chesnutt and Dunbar in their day reached a larger general readingaudience than any of the Negro writers who came before them. Theperiod of the slave narratives had passed. Yet, the Negro writer wasstill an oddity and a stepchild in the eyes of some critics. This attitudecontinued in a lessening degree throughout the richest productive periodin Negro writing in the United States - the period called the NegroRenascence. The community of Harlem was the center and spiritual

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PHYLONgodfather and midwife for this renascence. The cultural emanicaptionof the American Negro that began before the first World War was nowin full force. The Negro writer discovered a new voice within himselfand liked the sound of it. The white writers who had been interpretingNegro life with an air of authority and a preponderance of error lookedat last to the Negro writer for their next cue. In short story collectionslike Jean Toomer's Cane (1923) and Langston Hughes' The Ways of WhiteFolks (1934) untreated aspects of Negro life were presented in an inter-resting manner that was unreal to some readers because it was new andso contrary to the stereotypes that they had grown accustomed to.In her book Mules and Men (1935), Zora Neal Hurston presented acollection of folk tales and sketches that showed the close relationshipbetween humor and tragedy in Negro life. In doing this she also fulfilledthe first requirement of all books - to entertain and guide the readerthrough an interesting experience that is worth the time and attentionit takes to absorb it. In other stories like "The Gilded Six Bits,""Drenched in Light" and "Spunk"another side of Miss Hurston's talentwas shown.

In the midst of this renascence two strong voices from the WestIndians were heard. Claude McKay in his books Ginger-Town (1932)and Banana Bottom (1933) wrote of life in his Jamaican homeland in amanner that debunked the travelogue exoticism usually attributed toNegro life in the Caribbean area. Before the publication of these books,Harlem and its inhabitants had already been the subject matter for agroup of remarkable short stories by McKay and the inspiration for hisbook Home to Harlem, still the most famous novel ever written aboutthat community.In 1926,Eric Walrond, a native of British Guiana, explored and pre-sented another side of West Indian life in his book Tropic Death, a nearclassic. In these ten naturalistic stories Eric Walrond concerns himselfmostly with labor and living conditions in the Panama Canal Zone wherea diversity of people and ways of life meet and clash, while each tries tosurvive at the expense of the other. Clear perception and strength ofstyle enabled Mr. Walrond to balance form and content in such mannerthat the message was never intruded upon the unfolding of the stories.

Rudolph Fisher, another bright star of the Harlem literary renas-cence, was first a brilliant young doctor. The new and light touch hebrought to his stories of Negro life did not mar the serious aspect thatwas always present. The message in his comic realism was more pro-found because he was skillful enough to weave it into the design of hisstories without destroying any of their entertainment value. His stories"Blades of Steel," "The City of Refuge" and "The Promised Land" werepublished in the Atlantic Monthly. "High Yaller" appeared in The CrisisMagazine. One of his last stories, "Miss Cynthie," appeared in Story

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THE AMERICAN NEGRO SHORT STORYMagazine during the hey-day of that publication and was later reprintedin the O'Brien anthology, Best Short Stories of 1934. Unfortunately hedied before all of his bright promise was fulfilled.The Harlem literary renascence was studded with many names.Those already mentioned are only a few of the most outstanding. Duringthe period of this literary flowering among Negro writers, Harlem be-came the Mecca, the stimulating Holy City, drawing pilgrims from allover the country and from some places abroad. Talented authors, play-wrights, painters and sculptors came forth eagerly showing their wares.Three men, W.E.B. DuBois, James Weldon Johnson and Alain Locke,cast a guiding influence over this movement without becoming a part ofthe social climbing and pseudo-intellectual aspect of it. W.E.B. DuBois,by continuously challenging the old concepts and misinterpretations ofNegro life, gave enlightened new directions to a whole generation. Aseditor of The Crisis Magazine he introduced many new Negro writersand extended his helpful and disciplining hand when it was needed.Following the death of Booker T. Washington and the decline of theBooker T. Washington school of thought, he became the spiritual fatherof the New Negro intelligentsia.James Weldon Johnson moved from Florida to New York. His di-versity of talent established his reputation long before the beginning ofthe New Negro literary movement. Later, as a participant in and his-torian of the movement, he helped to appraise and preserve the best thatcame out of it. In his books Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (1912),The Book of American Negro Poetry (1922), Black Manhattan (1930),and Along This Way, an autobiography (1933), James Weldon Johnsonshowed clearly that Negro writers have made a distinct contribution tothe literature of the United States. His own creative talent made him oneof the most able of these contributors.

Alain Locke is the writer who devoted the most time to the inter-pretation of the New Negro literary movement and to Negro literaturein general. In 1925he expanded the special Harlem issue of the magazineSurvey Graphic (which he edited) into the anthology, The New Negro.This book is a milestone and a guide to Negro thought, literature andart in the middle twenties. The objective of the volume, "to register thetransformation of the inner and outer life of the Negro in America thathad so significantly taken place in the last few preceding years," wasably achieved. For many years Mr. Locke's annual appraisal of books byand about Negroes, published in Opportunity Magazine, was an eagerlyawaited literary event.

Early in the Harlem literary renascence period, the black ghetto be-came an attraction for a varied assortment of white celebrities and justplain thrill-seeking white people lost from their moorings. Some wereinsipid rebels, defying the mores of their upbringing by associating with

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PHYLONNegroes on a socially equal level. Some were too rich to work, not edu-cated enough to teach and not holy enough to preach. Others weresearching for the mythological "noble savage" - the "exotic Negro."Some sophisticated and non-talented would-be Negro writers took ad-vantage of their gullibility and became professional "exotic Negroes."These professional exotics were generally college educated Negroeswho had become estranged from their families and the environment oftheir upbringing. They talked at length about the great books withinthem waiting to be written. Their white sponsors continued to subsidizethem while they "developed their latent talent." Of course the "greatbooks" of these camp followers never got written and eventually theirwhite sponsors realized that they were never going to write - not evena good letter. Ironically, these sophisticates made a definite contributionto the period of the New Negro literary renascence. In socially inclinedcompany they proved that a Negro could behave with as much attentionto the details of social protocol as the best bred and richest white personin the country. They could balance a cocktail glass with expertness. Be-hind their pretense of being writers they were really actors - and rathergood ones. They were generally better informed than their white spon-sors and could easily participate in a discussion of the writings of MarcelProust in one minute and the music of Ludwig Von Beethoven the next.As social parasites they conducted themselves with a smoothness ap-proaching an artistic accomplishment. Unknown to them, their conducthad done much to eliminate one of the major prevailing stereotypes ofNegro life and manners.Concurrently with the unfolding of this mildly funny comedy, thegreatest productive period in American Negro literature continued. Themore serious and talented Negro writers were actually writing theirbooks and getting them published.Opportunity Magazine, then edited by Charles Johnson, and TheCrisis, edited by W.E.B. DuBois, were the major outlets for the NewNegro writers.The Opportunity Magazine short story contests provided a provingground for a number of competent Negro writers. Among the prize win-ners you will find Cecil Blue, John F. Matheus, Eugene Gordon andMarita Bonner.

Writers like Walter White, Jessie Fauset, Wallace Thurman, NeilaLarsen, George S. Schuyler, Sterling A. Brown and Arna Bontemps hadalready made their debut and were accepted into the circle of the ma-tured.The stock market collapse of 1929 marked the beginning of the de-pression and the end of the period known as the Negro Renascence. The"exotic Negro," professional and otherwise, became less exotic nowthat a hungry look was upon his face. The numerous white sponsors and

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THE AMERICAN NEGRO SHORT STORYwell-wishers who had begun to flock to Harlem ten years before nolonger had time or money to explore and marvel over Negro life. ManyNegroes lived and died in Harlem during this period without once hear-ing of the famous literary movement that had flourished and declinedwithin their midst. It was not a mass movement. It was a fad, partly pro-duced in Harlem and partly imposed on Harlem. Most of the writers as-sociated with it would have written just as well at any other time.In the intervening years between the end of the Negro literary re-nascence and the emergence of Richard Wright, Negro writers of genuinetalent continued to produce books of good caliber. The lack of sponsor-ship and pampering had made them take serious stock of themselves andtheir intentions. The Crisis, organ of the National Association for theAdvancement of Colored People, and Opportunity Magazine, organ ofthe National Urban League, continued to furnish a publishing outlet fornew Negro writers. The general magazines published stories by Negrowriters intermittently, seemingly on a quota basis.During this period writers like Ralph Ellison, Henry B. Jones, MarianMinus, Ted Poston, Lawrence D. Reddick and Grace W. Thompkins pub-lished their first short stories.In 1936 Richard Wright's first short story to receive any appreciableattention, "Big Boy Leaves Home," appeared in the anthology, The NewCaravan."The Ethics of Living Jim Crow; An Autobiographical Sketch"was published in American Stuff, anthology of the Federal Writers Proj-ect, the next year. In 1938 when his first book, Uncle Tom's Children,won a five hundred dollar prize contest conducted by Story Magazine,his talent received national attention. With the publication of his phe-nomenally successful novel, Native Son, in 1940, a new era in Negroliterature had begun. Here, at last, was a Negro writer who wrote con-siderably better than many of his white contemporaries. As a short storycraftsman he was the most accomplished Negro writer since Charles W.Chesnutt.

After the emergence of Richard Wright the double standard for Ne-gro writers was over. Hereafter Negro writers had to stand or fall by thesame standards and judgments used to evaluate the work of whitewriters. The era of the patronized and pampered Negro writer had at lastcome to an end. The closing of this era may in the final analysis be thegreatest contribution that Richard Wright has made to the status of Ne-gro writers and to Negro literature.When the United States entered the second World War, the activeNegro writers, like most other writers in the country, turned theirtalents to some activity in relation to the war.The first short stories of Ann Petry began to appear in The CrisisMagazine. The Negro Caravan, the best anthology of Negro literaturesince Alain Locke edited The New Negro sixteen years before, had al-

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PHYLONready appearedwith much new material. Chester B. Himes, a dependablewriter during the depression period, managed to turn out a number ofremarkable short stories while working in shipyards and war industriesin California. In 1944he received a Rosenwald Fellowship to complete hisfirst novel, If He Hollers Let Him Go. In 1945,Frank Yerby won an O.Henry Memorial Award for his excellent short story "Health Card"which had been published in Harper's Magazine a year before.A new crop of post-war Negro writers was emerging. In their storiesthey either treated new aspects of Negro life or brought new insights tothe old aspects. Principally, they were good story tellers, aside from anymessage they wanted to get across to their readers. The weepy sociologi-cal propaganda stories (so prevalent during the depression era) had hadtheir day with the Negro writer and all others. There would still be pro-test stories, but the protest would now have to meet the standards ofliving literature.Opportunity and The Crisis Magazine, once the proving ground for somany new Negro writers, were no longer performing that much neededservice. The best of the new writers found acceptance in the generalmagazines. Among those are James Baldwin, Lloyd Brown, Arthur P.Davis, Owen Dodson, Lance Jeffers, John O. Killens, Robert H. Lucas,Albert Murray, George E. Norford, Carl R. Offord, John H. Robinson,Jr., John Caswell Smith, Jr. and Mary E. Vromon.With the rise of nationalism and independent states in Africa and therapid change of the status of the Negro in the United States, the materialused by Negro writers and their treatment of it will, of necessity, re-flect a breaking away from the old mooring.

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