Negro Digest - Freedom Archives

80
move to live with others . Spirituality is not necessarily meant in terms
of biblical reference, as Norman Jordan points out in "Sinner" :
I got high
last night
alone
I had an urge to
express myself
So I started talking
to the Bible
and it kept telling
me to Die
Blackwriting is life, is being life ; not merely existing . Brother Lebert
Bethune displays that ability to live in his "Harlem Freeze Frame" :
This gleaming wrinkled blunthead old sweet-daddy
smiles a grim smile
as he hears a voice of Harlem scream
"WE ALL SUPPOSED TO BE DEAD BUT
WE AINT"
And his slow strut moves him on again .
Reality is personified in a poem by Stanley Crouch . Brother Crouch
understands that reality is whatever is real to you ; whatever controls
your pure and unpure actions . He understands where he's at and
where he's going :
Around then, sent east, got guns
and dog tags
knew no one bowed our way
shot europeans who peed in Jacob's face
and another menace was yellow (closer
to us, but also shot at)
BUT JOHN WAYNE WON THE WAR
and we took our purple hearts,
to the unemployment office
Run on home, blackpeople . The only way to be is to be. And unlike
the French-Africans, black writers are not trying to address themselves
to white people . Senghor and others wrote firstly for the Frenchman,
not for the African people . Black poetry/writing is written for/
to/about and around the lives/spiritactions/humanism and total existence
of blackpeople . Black writing in form/sound/word%usage/intonation/rhythm/repetition/direction/definition
and beauty is opposed to
that which is now (and yesterday) considered writing, i.e ., white literature
. Black Fire may not be read by many blackpeople in its present
form (hard cover edition) because of the price . Anytime a book is
more than thirty-five cents to one dollar you are in trouble. To buy
a book that costs more would do harm to most black families' daily
budgets . But, if possible, I suggest that you acquire a copy of Black
March 1969 NEGRO DIGEST