Countee Cullen Poems - Cypress-Fairbanks High Schools and ...

Deen VIolent enough to threaten senously hiS populanty. In the North the
feeling has several times forced itself into words, that Mr. Washington's
counsels of submission overlooked certain elements of true manhood, and
that his educational program was unnecessarily narrow. Usually, however,
such criticism has not found open expression, although, too, the spiritual
sons of the Abolitionists have not been prepared to acknowledge that the
schools founded before Tuskegee, by men of broad ideals and self-sacrificing
spirit, were wholly failures or worthy of ridicule. While, then, criticism has
not failed to follow Mr. Washington, yet the prevailing public opinion of the
land has been but too willing to deliver the solution of a wearisome problem
into his hands, and say, "If that is all you and your race ask, take it."
Among his own people, however, Mr. Washington has encountered the
strongest and most lasting opposition, amounting at times to bitterness, and
even to-day continuing strong and insistent even though largely silenced in
outward expression by the public opinion of the nation. Some of this opposition
is, of course, mere envy; the disappointment of displaced demagogues
and the spite of narrow minds. But aside from this, there is among educated
and thoughtful colored men in all parts of the land a feeling of deep regret,
sorrow, and apprehension at the wide currency and ascendancy which some
of Mr. Washington's theories have gained. These same men admire his sincerity
of purpose, and are willing to forgive much to honest endeavor which
is doing something worth the doing. They cooperate with Mr. Washington
as far as they conscientiously can; and, indeed, it is no ordinary tribute to
this man's tact and power that, steering as he must between so many
diverse interests and opinions, he so largely retains the respect of all.
But the hushing of the criticism of honest opponents is a dangerous thing.
It leads some of the best of the critics to unfortunate silence and paralysis of
effort, and others to burst into speech so passionately and intemperately as to
lose listeners. Honest and earnest criticism from those whose interests are most
nearly touched---eriticism of writers by readers, of government by those governed,
of leaders by those led-this is the soul of democracy and the safeguard
of modem society. If the best of the American Negroes receive by outer pfessure
a leader whom they had not recognized before, manifestly there is here a
certain palpable gain. Yet there is also irreparable 10ss-a loss of that peculiarly
valuable education which a group receives when by search and criticism it
finds and commissions its own leaders. The way in which this is done is at
once the most elementary and the nicest problem of social growth. PIistory is
but the record of such group-leadership; and yet how infinitely changeful is its
type and character! And of all types and kinds, what can be more instructive
than the leadership of a group within a group?-that curious double movement
where real progress may be negative and actual advance be relative
retrogression. All this is the social student's inspiration and despair.
62 W. E. B. DuBois
Now In the past the Amencan Negro has had Instructive expenence
in the choosing of group leaders, founding thus a peculiar dynasty which in
the light of present conditions is worth while studying. When sticks and
stones and beasts form the sole environment of a people, their attitude is
largely one of determined opposition to and conquest of natural forces. But
when to earth and brute is added an environment of men and ideas, then
the attitude of the imprisoned group may take three main forms-a feeling
of revolt and revenge; an attempt to adjust all thought and action to the
will of the greater group; or, finally, a determined effort at self-realization
and self-development despite environing opinion. The influence of all of
these attitudes at various times can be traced to the history of the
American Negro, and in the evolution of his successive leaders.
Before 1750, while the fire of African freedom still burned in the veins
of the slaves, there was in all leadership or attempted leadership but the
one motive of revolt and revenge-typified in the terrible Maroons, the
Danish blacks, and Cato of Stono, and veiling all the Americans in fear of
insurrection. The liberalizing tendencies of the latter half of the eighteenth
century brought, along with kindlier relations between black and
white, thoughts of ultimate adjustment and assimilation. Such aspiration
was especially voiced in the earnest songs of Phyllis, in the martyrdom of
Attucks, the fighting of Salem and Poor, the intellectual accomplishments
of Banneker and Derham, and the political demands of the Cuffes.
Stem financial and social stress after the war cooled much of the previous
humanitarian ardor. The disappointment and impatience of Negroes
at the persistence of slavery and serfdom voiced itself in two movements.
The slaves in the South, aroused undoubtedly by vague rumors of the
Haytian revolt, made three fierce attempts at insurrection-in 1800 under
Gabriel in Virginia, in 1822 under Vesey in Carolina, and in 1831 again in
Virginia under the terrible Nat Turner. In the Free States, on the other
hand, a new and curious attempt at self-development was made. In
Philadelphia and New York color-prescription led to a withdrawal of
Negro communicants from white churches and the formation of a peculiar
socio-religious institution among the Negroes known as the African
Church-an organization still living and controlling in its various
branches over a million of men.
Walker's wild appeal against the trend of the times showed how the
world was changing after the coming of the cotton-gin. By 1830 slavery
seemed hopelessly fastened on the south and the slaves thoroughly cowed
into submission. The free Negroes of the North, inspired by the mulatto
immigrants from the West Indies, began to change the basis of their
demands; they recognized the slavery of slaves, but insisted that they
themselves were freemen, and sought assimilation and amalgamation with
Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others 63

Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others
Mr. Booker T. Washington. We have no right to sit silently by while the
inevitable seeds are sown for a harvest of disaster to our children, black
and white.
First, it is the duty of black men to judge the South discriminatingly.
The present generation of Southerners are not responsible for the past, and
they should not be blindly hated or blamed for it. Furthermore, to no class
is the indiscriminate endorsement of the recent course of the South
toward Negroes more nauseating than to the best thought of the South.
The South is not "solid"; it is a land in the ferment of social change,
wherein forces of all kinds are fighting for supremacy; and to praise the ill
the South is today perpetrating is just as wrong as to condemn the good.
Discriminating and broad-minded criticism is what the South needsneeds
it for the sake of her own white sons and daughters, and for the
insurance of robust, healthy mental and moral development.
To-day even the attitude of the Southern whites toward the blacks is
not, as so many assume, in all cases the same; the ignorant Southerner
hates the Negro, the workingmen fear his competition, the money-makers
wish to use him as a laborer, some of the educated see a menace in his
upward development, while others-usually the sons of the masters-wish
to help him to rise. National opinion has enabled this last class to maintain
the Negro common schools, and to protect the Negro partially in
property, life, and limb. Through the pressure of money-makers, the Negro
is in danger of being reduced to semi-slavery, especially in the country districts;
the workingmen, 'and those of the educated who fear the Negro,
have united to disfranchise him, and some have urged his deportation;
while the passions of the ignorant are easily aroused to lynch and abuse any
black man. To praise this intricate whirl of thought and prejudice is nonsense;
to inveigh indiscriminately against "the South" is unjust; but to use
the same breath in praising Governor Aycock, exposing Senator Morgan,
arguing with Mr. Thomas Nelson Page, and denouncing Senator Ben
Tillman, is not only sane, but the imperative duty of thinking black men.
It would be unjust to Mr. Washington not to acknowledge that in several
instances he has opposed movements in the South which were unjust
to the Negro; he sent memorials to the Louisiana and Alabama constitutional
conventions, he has spoken against lynching, and in other ways has
openly or silently set his influence against sinister schemes and unfortunate
happenings. Notwithstanding this, it is equally true to assert that on
the whole the distinct impression left by Mr. Washington's propaganda is
first, that the South is justified in its present attitude toward the Negro
because of the Negro's degradation; secondly, that the prime cause of the
Negro's failure to rise more quickly is his wrong education in the past; and,
thirdly, that his future rise depends primarily on his own efforts. Each of
Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others
these propositions is a dangerous half-truth. The supplementary truths
must never be lost sight of: first, slavery and race-prejudice are potent if
not sufficient causes of the Negro's position, second, industrial and
common-school training were necessarily slow in planting because they
had to await the black teachers trained by higher institutions-it being
extremely doubtful if any essentially different development was possible,
and certainly a Tuskegee was unthinkable before 1880; and third, while it
is a great truth to say that the Negro must strive and strive mightily to help
himself it is equally true that unless his striving be not simply seconded, but
rather aroused and encouraged, by the initiative of the richer and wiser
environing group, he cannot hope for great success.
In his failure to realize and impress this last point, Mr. Washington is
especiaily to be criticized. His doctrine has tended to make the whites,
North and South, shift the burden of the Negro problem to the Negro's
shoulders and stand aside as critical and rather pessimistic spectators; when
in fact the burden belongs to the nation, and the hands of none of us are
clean if we bend not our energies to righting these great wrongs.
The South ought to be led, by candid and honest criticism, to assert her
better self and do her full duty to the race she has cruelly wronged and is still
wronging. The North-her co-partner in guilt---eannot salve her conscience
by plastering it with gold. We cannot settle this problem by diplomacy and
suaveness, by "policy" alone. If worse comes to worst, can the moral fiber of
this country survive the slow throttling and murder of nine millions of men?
The black men of America have a duty to perform, a duty stern and delicate-a
forward movement to oppose a part of the work of their greatest
leader. So far as Mr. Washington preaches Thrift, Patience, and Industrial
Training for the masses, we must hold up his hands and strive with him,
rejoicing in his honors and glorying in the strength of this Joshua called of
God and of man to lead the headless host. But so far as Mr. Washington
apologizes for injustice, North or South, does not rightly value the privilege
and duty of voting, belittles the emasculating effects of caste distinctions,
and opposes the higher training and ambition of our brighter minds-so far
as he, the South, or the Nation, does this-we must unceasingly and firmly
oppose them. By every civilized and peaceful method we must strive for the
rights which the world accords to men, clinging unwaveringly to those great
words which the sons of the Fathers would fain forget: "We hold these truths
to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by
their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness."
•••
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]20 HARLEM SPEAKS
that "Varna had based it on countless stories Josephine had told him
about America, which he had never visited and with which he was
fascinated." It was a reminder to the audience of her status as a star
expatriate in Paris and her love of her adopted city.
Baker made two major films in the 1930s. One was Zou,Zou
(1934), a light romantic comedy with Jean Gabin. Directed by Marc
Allegret and with music by Spencer Williams, this film used a great
deal of autobiographical material from Baker's own life. The young
heroine in the film, just like Josephine Baker, yearns for a successful
career on the stage. She becomes a star but is lonely because she has
no one with whom to share her life. The other film was Princess
Tam,Tam (1935), produced by Arya Nissotti, a Tunisian casino
owner. Shot in Tunisia, it was the tale of an Arab urchin who
became a social butterfly in the hands of a French nobleman. Of
these two films, Zou,Zou appealed to Baker and to audiences much
more than did Princess Tam'Tam. Baker also played the starring role
in Offenbach's operetta La Creole in 1934.
By the mid-1930s, Josephine had conquered Paris as dancer,
singer, and actress. It was time for her, after fourteen years, to return
to the United States and to bewitch Broadway audiences just as she
had done in Paris. In 1936, she went to New York to perform in the
Ziegfeld Follies, the American counterpart of the revues in Paris. In
the Winter Garden Theater, Josephine's voice could hardly be
heard. The reviews she received were devastating. In fact, of the
entire cast, she alone received totally negative comments. The New
York Times wrote that "Miss Baker refined her art until there is
nothing left of it." Baker needed a scapegoat for her failure and that
was Pepito, who could not endure Josephine's attacks and left her
alone in New York. He died in Paris a few months later. It would be
very hard for Baker to find another man who loved, supported, and
cared for her as much as Pepito had.
Upon the invitation of her old boss from the Folies,Bergere, Paul
Derval, Baker returned to Paris to star in the Folies-Bergere revue in
1937 at the age of thirty,one. She also opened a new Chez
Josephine, which attracted tourists who came to Paris for the Colo-
JOSEPHINE BAKER ]2I
nial Exposition. In the meantime, she fell in love with a multimillionaire
sugar broker, Jean Lion, and married him. The couple sepa,
rated within a year.
In 1939, Hitler attacked Poland and plunged Europe into war.
With the war, a new phase started in Baker's life. Her humanitarian,
ism replaced her self,indulgent behavior. When Germany occupied
Belgium, she became a Red Cross nurse, watching over refugees.
When Germany occupied France, she worked for the French resist,
ance as an underground courier. She performed with Maurice

"Black is Beautiful" postcard: "Overhearing the Kennecott sisters say that they
liked men who were tall, dark, and handsome, the guys figured to at least hit one
out of three."
Halloween costumes and black&ce, 1949: Nidus Dermand as AlJolson (11Iejazz
Singer) and Kathy' Dermand as Aunt Jemima. Reproduced counesy of Kathy
Starbuck.
Algona, Iowa, in 1949, the photographs demonstrate continued racial
insensitivity. Clearly, children became part of the white adults'
world of black misrepresentation and racial tension. Such deceptively
innocent black costumes signaled the larger task of black artists
to present blacks without stereotype and caricature.
NOTES
1. Cited in "Archie Bunker, Alive and Well: Stereotypes Die Hard,"
Newsweek (21 January 1991): 59.
2. Marlon Riggs, Ethnic Notions: Black Images in White Minds (San
Francisco: California Newsreel, 1987), Transcript #1.
3. Sterling B. Brown, "Negro Character as Seen by White Authors,"
Journal ofNegro Education 2 (April 1933): 201.
4. Henry Louis Gates Jr., "1V's Black World Turns-But Stays Unreal,"
in Diana George and John Trimbur, eds., Reading Culture: Contexts for
Critical Reading and Writing (New York: HarperCollins, 1992),468.
5. Alain Locke, "The New Negro," in The New Negro: Voices of the
Harlem Renaissance (New York: Atheneum, 1992),3-4.
6. Richard Wright, "Between Laughter and Tears," New Masses (5 October
1937): n.p.
7. Alain Locke, review of Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching
God, in Opportunity (1 June 1938). Quoted in Henry Louis Gates Jr.
and A. K. Appiah, eds., Zora Neale Hurston: Critical Perspectives Past
and Present (New York: Amistad, 1993), 18. See other reviews by Lucille
Tompkins (New York Times Book Review, 26 September 1937), Sterling
Brown (The Nation, 16 October 1937), Sheila Hibben (New York Herald
Tribune Weekry Book Review, 26 September 1937), and Otis Ferguson
(New Republic, 3 October 1937) in Gates and Appiah, Zora Neale Hurston,
pp. 18-23.
STUDY QUESTIONS
1. What was the Harlem Renaissance, what were its philosophical Ideals,
and who were its primary writers?
2. Research the roles of music, art, and theater dUring the Harlem Renaissance.
3. To what extent does racial privilege allow Hurston to present blacks
in ways that white authors could not without causing serious social
and political repercussions?
4. Discuss the validity of the arguments presented in Richard Wright's
critique of lora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God.

4 Understanding Their Eyes Were Watching God
Literary Analysis
5
thought, reconceptualization ofan African past, and communal cel·
ebration, he nevertheless attacked Hurston's novel as "oversimplification,"
full of "these pseudo-primitives whom the [white]
reading public still loves to laugh with, weep over and envy."7 It
is precisely this redefinition of African American social protest and
African American identity that Hurston presents in Their Eyes Were
WatchIng God. Through an exploration of Ufe and death, romance,
family relations, violence, and laughter, Hurston raises the folklore
and folk art of African Americans to high culture.
Published in 1937, Zora Neale Hurston's TheIr Eyes Were Watch­
Ing God is a heterosexual love story textured by a general feminist
consciousness and a distinctly African American consciousness. It
is the story of janie, who longs to exen herself as a free, thinking
woman in a society of men and women bent on defining her realities
in theIr selfish terms. janie's is not a quest for self-identity
but rather a journey toward freedom to be herself and to accept
responsibility for the choices she makes in search of physical and
spiritual self-satisfaction. As janie tells her story, Hurston celebrates
the life of a black woman who is able to accept what she cannot
control or understand. While janie is exalted in Hurston's eyes for
her experiential wisdom, janie herself is humbled by her life experiences,
especially the death ofTea Cake, her third and youngest
husband, ultimately at her own hand.
janie first endeavors to appease her grandmother, whose ideas
about black women leave janie no room for independent thought
or action. Nanny can only see janie's emotional and psychological
maturity through her own experiences as a former slave controlled
by white men. According to Nanny, a black woman ought to want
a man with property and the ability to provide for her-hence
Nanny's arrangement of janie's marriage to an older man, Logan
KiIIicks. Bent on making janie a fieldhand or work animal, when
janie does not obey his demands and commands Logan presents
himself in behavior and word like a slave master with insults and .
threats of violence.
janie's relationship with jody Starks is initially one of intense
romance, full of rhyme and rhythm. jody, seemingly very different
from janie's first husband, Logan, is a businessman intent on creating
a community of black folk under his official guidance and
charge. A man with money, power, and organizational skills, jody
seeks to place janie atop a pedestal as the mayor's wife without
any concern for her wants or needs. For jody, janie's role is to
move according to his direction and to speak according to his
script, one that centers him and seeks to publicly silence janie.
While janie's resistance to Logan is vocal and ultimately results in
her decision to abandon hlm, her resistance to jody's dominance
and rules is internal and thoughtful. Tbat ultimate defiance comes
when she challenges and insults his manhood before an audience
of his male peers. His death after twenty years of marriage to janie
almost immediately follows his public embarrassment.
In the beginning of janie's third romance, Tea Cake-fifteen
years younger than janie-seems her ideal companion. He allows
her freedom to experience life as she sees fit without feeling intimidated.
As janie and Tea Cake live as partners and soulmates participating
in life harmoniously, their relationship is the envy and
curiosity of gossipers and onlookers. They fish, go to baseball
games, play checkers, cook meals together. He even teaches her
how to shoot a gun. The nosy intraracist, Mrs. Turner, tries to pull
janie away from the "too dark" Tea Cake to consider a romance
with her brother. janie resists the temptation as Tea Cake is all she
has ever wanted. In fact, her intense passion for Tea Cake leads
her to battle Nunkie, who is allegedly trying to romance Tea Cake.
janie's life with Tea Cake becomes an emotional rollercoaster. He
takes her money and stays out all night, then comes home with
few or no explanations for his actions. He even hits janie to signal
for curious onlookers and for himself his own constructed masculinity.
Yet the depth of janie's love for Tea Cake sustains her
through these moments of emotional duress, for Tea Cake has
made her feel the vulnerabilities of love and passion, something
she never experienced meaningfully with her two previous husbands.
Tea Cake's sickness and subsequent death remind janie of
the precious nature of life and of the dignity necessary to accept
what cannot be explained or controlled. As janie reflects on her
experiences in her testimony to her best friend, Phoeby, she does
so without regret of love lost but with integrity and strength from
love experienced.
Dealing with romance, community rituals, race relatiOns,
women's identity, women's sexuality, and individual and communal
performance rituals, TheIr Eyes Were WatchIng God celebrates
the complexities of African American people generally and of Af­