Talk About Literature in Kansas is a program for every Kansan who loves to read and discuss good books. For
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African-American Perspectives
What does it mean to be black in twentieth-century America?
According to Cornel West, it
means “being part of a rich culture and community.” But what is this culture and community, what
are its values, its difficulties, its struggles?
The six writers represented here help us answer these
complex questions.
One way of looking at the titles chosen for this series is by focusing on the variety of
experiences represented.
Here we read about people who dwell in both rural and urban
environments, who are both poor and moderately wealthy, who try to understand themselves as
distinctly female or male, and whose life experiences span all the years of the twentieth century. In
spite of these differences related to identity, however, there is a common thread:
these are all
African-American perspectives, and, as one of the chosen titles states, race matters.
Another way of viewing this series is through the common themes that run through these
works. The African-American search for identity is one such theme; another, related to identity, is the
deeply-felt need to understand the past. Questions related to both identity and history bring up a
third question – the question of how to understand the relationship between white and black
America. Sometimes subtly, sometimes overtly, each author here has something to say in answer to
that question as well.
The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1925-1965)
Malcolm X’s life story falls into four stages, during each of which he was known by a different
name. Born Malcolm Little in Omaha, Nebraska, the son of a Baptist minister, Malcolm was only six
when his father was murdered. The family slowly fell apart after Earl Little’s death, and Malcolm went
to live in Boston with his older sister. The teen-aged Malcolm, now known as Detroit Red, became a
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hustler, drug dealer, and thief. While in prison for these activities, he discovered the teachings of the
Honorable Elijah Muhammad. Becoming a “Black Muslim” changed Malcolm X’s life, and he began a
serious program of reading in order to educate himself. Upon release from prison he entered into
his most famous public role as spokesperson and minister for the Nation of Islam. Later, after he had
traveled to Mecca on a pilgrimage, he renounced Elijah Muhammad and his teachings, became ElHajj Malik El-Shabazz, and committed himself to worldwide human rights.
This autobiography,
dictated to Alex Haley and published after Malcolm’s murder in 1965, has been popularized by
filmmaker Spike Lee. 527 pp.
The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin (1924-1987)
The Fire Next Time (1962) is comprised of two long essays. The shorter essay, “My Dungeon
Shook,” is a letter to Baldwin’s nephew and namesake who, on the one hundredth anniversary of the
Emancipation Proclamation, is fourteen years old.
Baldwin’s basic message to his nephew is that
despite all of the racial injustice he has already experienced in his young life, he must learn to accept
white people with love. This point becomes part of a larger argument that Baldwin makes in the
second essay, “Down at the Cross:
Letter from a Region in My Mind.”
Beginning with his own
experiences as a young born-again Christian preacher, he explains both the appeal of the church and
the reasons he left it. Ultimately, Baldwin appeals to the “relatively conscious” whites and blacks who
are honest and sensitive enough to discuss race relations in this country and who could end the
“racial nightmare” and change the world. While it is important to keep the historical context of the
early 1960s in mind when reading these essays, they are by no means dated, and speak very
eloquently to the problems of American identity and racial difference today. 106 pp.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou (1928- )
While most recently recognized for the poem she recited at the 1992 presidential inauguration,
Maya Angelou is best known for her autobiographical writing. This, her first autobiography, tells the
story of growing up in St. Louis and Stamps, Arkansas.
Perhaps the most memorable character
presented is “Momma,” Angelou’s grandmother who raised her in Stamps. Momma is full of old-time
wisdom and Angelou’s attitude toward her is respectful.
One of the most significant incidents in
Caged Bird involves “Sister Flowers,” who lends Angelou books and encourages her to begin speaking
again after a full year of silence due to emotional trauma. Through language rich in the vernacular
tradition, Angelou tells us honest stories about her childhood that are sometimes heart-rending but
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always, ultimately, both instructive and uplifting. 256 pp.
Praisesong for the Widow by Paule Marshall (1929- )
Praisesong for the Widow is a magical story about returning home through an unexpected visit
to a West Indian island. The central character, Avey Johnson, is a sixty-four year old, middle-class,
recently-widowed black woman. The opening of the novel finds her on a cruise ship with two of her
friends, determined, because she cannot stand the pretentiousness of her vacation, to return home to
White Plains, New York. Instead, through a series of adventures, she finds herself joining the “Outislanders” going from Grenada to Carriacou for a ritual two- or three-day excursion.
During the
course of this excursion, Avey Johnson comes to terms with her life and her identity, and commits
herself in new and revealing ways to her family. 256 pp.
Race Matters by Cornel West (1953- )
This 1994 bestseller by Cornel West, Professor of Afro-American Studies and the Philosophy of
Religion at Harvard University, is a collection of essays about the meaning of race and race relations
in the contemporary United States.
West reminds us that W.E.B. DuBois wrote in 1903 that “the
problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line,” and that this is as profoundly true
in our day as it was in his. West writes about events such as the 1992 Los Angeles riots, Supreme
Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s 1991 confirmation hearings, and the 1991 murder of Yankel
Rosenbaum in Crown Heights, New York.
He also analyzes – and helps us understand – current
twists on topics ranging from attitudes toward affirmative action, to the new black conservative, to
divisive black-Jewish relations, to the nihilism in black America. With passion and eloquence, West
argues for revitalized “public conversation about race” that will allow us to confront our problems
and move away from the despair and cynicism which marks so many of our social actions and
political decisions. 105 pp.
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960)
A classic of black literature originally published in 1937, Their Eyes Were Watching God was
“rediscovered” by Alice Walker in the early 1970s and has since continued to receive high critical
acclaim. Set primarily in an all-black Florida town which parallels the place where Hurston herself
grew up, the novel focuses on Janie Mae Crawford, a young woman struggling to come into her own
identity and find love.
Janie must confront the legacy handed down to her by her grandmother,
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Nanny, who told Janie that “de nigger woman is de mule uh de world so fur as Ah can see.” After a
series of marriages, Janie returns home knowing she has found what she had been looking for.
Because Hurston is also a noted folklorist and anthropologist, this novel brims with folk tales and
expressions of speech that add a playfulness with language both delightful and moving. 195 pp.
Suggestions for Further Reading
Angelou, Maya. Heart of a Woman. New York: Random House, 1981.
_______. Gather Together in My Name. New York: Bantam Books, 1986.
Baldwin, James. The Price of the Ticket: Collected Nonfiction, 1948-1985. New York: St. Martin’s,
1985.
Black Scholar, ed. Court of Appeal: The Black Community Speaks Out on the Racial and Sexual
Politics of Thomas vs. Hill. New York: Ballantine, 1992.
Hacker, Andrew. Two Nations: Black and White, Separate, Hostile, Unequal. New York: Scribner’s,
1992.
McMillan, Terry, ed. Breaking Ice: An Anthology of Contemporary African-American Fiction. New
York: Viking, 1990.
Marshall, Paule. Daughters. New York: Penguin Books, 1991.
Morrison, Toni. Beloved. New York: Knopf, 1987.
Shockley, Ann Allen. Afro-American Women Writers 1746-1933: An Anthology and Critical Guide.
New York: Penguin Books, 1988.