WEBVTT - Richard Wright: Hurling Words Into Darkness

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<v Speaker 1>Identity is such a tough topic to have conversations around.

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<v Speaker 1>It's such a nebulous concept, and every person can align

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<v Speaker 1>with a bunch of different identity groupings. Within any identity group,

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<v Speaker 1>individual people will have their own perspectives and experiences. It's

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<v Speaker 1>almost as if lives are intricate and require us to

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<v Speaker 1>think deeply about ourselves and others. It's no wonder that

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<v Speaker 1>when identity comes up in relation to social and political issues,

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<v Speaker 1>chaos often ensues confronting the ways we think about and

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<v Speaker 1>address identity is no one size fits all process, and

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<v Speaker 1>if you're an outsider in any way and conscious of

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<v Speaker 1>its effects, you're often tasked with defending your humanity and

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<v Speaker 1>disrupting orthodoxes. But answers don't come without questioning. I'm Eve

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<v Speaker 1>stef Coote and This is Unpopular, a podcast about people

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<v Speaker 1>in history who didn't let the threat of persecution keep

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<v Speaker 1>them from speaking truth to power. In the early and

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<v Speaker 1>mid nineteen hundreds, the relationship between the FBI and black

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<v Speaker 1>activists and artists was and still is fraught with tension

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<v Speaker 1>and animosity that moved in both directions. The United States

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<v Speaker 1>Federal Bureau of Investigation targeted many black Americans for their

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<v Speaker 1>work and political involvement. Take writer Claude Mackay, who wrote

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<v Speaker 1>the sonnet If We Must Die, among many other poems, stories,

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<v Speaker 1>and books. The FBI's file on him was a hundred

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<v Speaker 1>and ninety three pages long, and it called him a

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<v Speaker 1>notorious Negro revolutionary coin tel pro Or The FBI's Counter

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<v Speaker 1>intellig program used psychological warfare, informants, and illegal surveillance to

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<v Speaker 1>go after civil rights activists, communists, and other organizers and

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<v Speaker 1>movement leaders. It killed members of the Black Panther Party

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<v Speaker 1>and raids. Put simply, the FEDS went to great lengths

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<v Speaker 1>to sew division and political organizations, encourage presentment of black

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<v Speaker 1>leaders and groups, and make sure people that they considered

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<v Speaker 1>subversives were brought down in any way possible. FBI Director

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<v Speaker 1>j Edgar Hoover even directed the FBI's attention to black

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<v Speaker 1>owned extremist bookstores, as he labeled them. It's a move

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<v Speaker 1>that hearkens back to the restrictions placed on enslaved people's

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<v Speaker 1>literacy in the attempt to limit insurrection and challenges of

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<v Speaker 1>authority and status quo. One of the people the FBI

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<v Speaker 1>employed it's correct tactics on was Richard Nathaniel Right. Richard

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<v Speaker 1>was born in nineteen o eight in Roxy, Mississippi. His

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<v Speaker 1>mother was a teacher and his father was a sharecropper.

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<v Speaker 1>Richard had a younger brother named Leon Allen Wright. As

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<v Speaker 1>the family attempted to make ends meet, they moved from

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<v Speaker 1>Roxy to Natchez, Mississippi, to Memphis, Tennessee, but Richard's father

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<v Speaker 1>left the family by nineteen fourteen, and Richard, his mom,

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<v Speaker 1>and his brother moved a lot in the following years

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<v Speaker 1>as Richard's mother took low paying jobs to take care

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<v Speaker 1>of the family. His father's absence took a toll on him,

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<v Speaker 1>and Richard remained estranged from him into adulthood. When Richard

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<v Speaker 1>was young, he and his brother spent time at an orphanage,

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<v Speaker 1>and his mom had a paralytic stroke, so neighbors and

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<v Speaker 1>family helped take care of the Rights as they moved

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<v Speaker 1>from place to place. A major moment in Richard's life

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<v Speaker 1>happened when he was about nine years old, living with

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<v Speaker 1>his aunt and uncle in Elaine, Arkansas. Richard grew to

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<v Speaker 1>love his uncle Silas, but that relationship was cut short

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<v Speaker 1>when Silas was murdered by a gang of white men.

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<v Speaker 1>Richard's family and his aunt soon fled the city and

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<v Speaker 1>headed for West Helena, Arkansas. For a while, the family

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<v Speaker 1>also lived with Richard's grandparents in Jackson, Mississippi. His grandma

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<v Speaker 1>and aunt Addie, who lived there too, were devout Seventh

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<v Speaker 1>Day at Venice, and were strict about what Richard could

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<v Speaker 1>read and write. He rejected having evangelical teachings pressed upon him.

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<v Speaker 1>Despite the strict religious rules of the household, Richard read

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<v Speaker 1>pulp magazines, newspapers, and stories. It was hard for Richard

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<v Speaker 1>to manage his schooling because the family moved so much

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<v Speaker 1>and because of his mom's disability, but he published his

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<v Speaker 1>first short story, The Voodoo of Hell's half Acre, in

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<v Speaker 1>a black newspaper called The Southern Register in nineteen four,

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<v Speaker 1>and he graduated from Smith Robertson Junior High School in

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<v Speaker 1>nineteen Richard started attending Lanier High School that fall, but

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<v Speaker 1>he was only there for a few weeks before he

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<v Speaker 1>dropped out to begin working. He left Mississippi once again

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<v Speaker 1>and went to Memphis, where he worked for the Merry

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<v Speaker 1>Optical Company and discovered a love for the writings of H. L.

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<v Speaker 1>Mencon Fyodor Dostoyevski, Saint Clair, Louis Sherwood Anderson, and Theodore Dreiser.

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<v Speaker 1>Richard's literary interest was being fed in Memphis. He identified

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<v Speaker 1>with Mencon's view of the South as hell and the

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<v Speaker 1>writing planted in Richard a seed of social protest. But

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<v Speaker 1>Memphis itself, Jim Crow, was stifling. He hopped on a

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<v Speaker 1>train to Chicago near the end of eight His family,

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<v Speaker 1>who had joined him in Memphis, followed him to Chicago.

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<v Speaker 1>To Chicago was not the South, but it was no

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<v Speaker 1>magical city, devoid of segregation, discrimination, and racism. He took

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<v Speaker 1>a series of jobs and went through a period of

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<v Speaker 1>unemployment during the depression. But all the while Richard was

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<v Speaker 1>still writing, still reading, and still studying writers, and he

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<v Speaker 1>was developing an interest in communism. In nineteen thirty two,

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<v Speaker 1>when he was working at a post office where a

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<v Speaker 1>bunch of radical intellectuals were employed, he began going to

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<v Speaker 1>meetings of the Chicago John Reid Club, which was mainly white.

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<v Speaker 1>John Read Clubs were an arm of the Communist Party

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<v Speaker 1>u S, a geared towards Marxist artists and intellectual Richard

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<v Speaker 1>joined the Communist Party in nineteen thirty three, and he

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<v Speaker 1>began publishing essays and poems in left wing journals. He

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<v Speaker 1>was even elected executive secretary of the Chicago John Read Club.

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<v Speaker 1>This is what he later said in an essay about

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<v Speaker 1>how he felt when reading communist magazines. After attending his

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<v Speaker 1>first club meeting, the revolutionary words leaped from the page

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<v Speaker 1>and struck me with tremendous force. It was not the

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<v Speaker 1>economics of communism, nor the great power of trade unions,

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<v Speaker 1>nor the excitement of underground politics that claimed me. My

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<v Speaker 1>attention was caught by the similarity of the experiences of

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<v Speaker 1>workers in other lands, by the possibility of uniting scattered

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<v Speaker 1>but kindred people's into a hole. It seemed to me

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<v Speaker 1>that here, at last, in the realm of revolutionary expression,

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<v Speaker 1>Negro experience could find a home of functioning value and roll.

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<v Speaker 1>Around this time he wrote his first novel, Law Today,

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<v Speaker 1>but it was not published until after his death. The

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<v Speaker 1>John Reid Clubs disbanded in nineteen thirty four, but Richard

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<v Speaker 1>continued in his literary pursuits. He went to the American

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<v Speaker 1>Writers Congress in New York in nineteen thirty five. That

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<v Speaker 1>same year, he began preparing guidebooks for the Federal Writers Project,

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<v Speaker 1>A New Deal Relief program for unemployed writers. In nineteen

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<v Speaker 1>thirty six, he was transferred to the Negro Theater unit

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<v Speaker 1>of the Federal Theater Project and his writing career was flourishing.

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<v Speaker 1>He joined the South Side Writers Group and wrote two

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<v Speaker 1>plays based on his unfinished novel. He wrote the short

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<v Speaker 1>story Big Boy Leaves Home, which was published in the

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<v Speaker 1>Anthology of the New Caravan and received critical acclaim. He

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<v Speaker 1>worked as a journalist for New Masses of Marxist magazine,

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<v Speaker 1>but Richard was becoming disenchanted with the Communist Party. He

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<v Speaker 1>questioned Stalinist policies and recruiting and organizing for the party

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<v Speaker 1>was interfering with his literary work. Plus other Chicago communists

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<v Speaker 1>constantly questioned his loyalty. In ninety seven, he decided to

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<v Speaker 1>move to New York City. After the break, Wright publishes

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<v Speaker 1>his magnum opus. In a counter terrorism report the FBI

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<v Speaker 1>put out in the agency referenced a group of people

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<v Speaker 1>they called Black identity extremists. The report said that quote,

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<v Speaker 1>it is very likely black identity extremists perceptions of police

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<v Speaker 1>brutality against African Americans spurred an increase in premeditated retaliatory

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<v Speaker 1>lethal violence against law enforcement, and will very likely serve

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<v Speaker 1>as justification for such violence. It noted that the violence

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<v Speaker 1>committed by these extremists, or b I E S as

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<v Speaker 1>it called them, peaked in the nineteen sixties and seventies,

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<v Speaker 1>and that this violence was rare in the past twenty years,

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<v Speaker 1>but the six targeted attacks against police that it listed

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<v Speaker 1>since those could be indicative of a resurgence of targeted

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<v Speaker 1>violence in what they called the b I E Movement.

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<v Speaker 1>Throughout the report, the FBI took care to emphasize how

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<v Speaker 1>these extremists premeditated attacks were motivated by the perceptions of

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<v Speaker 1>an unjust criminal justice system, perceptions of unjust treatment of

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<v Speaker 1>African Americans in the perceived unchallenged the legitimate actions of

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<v Speaker 1>law enforcement. Here's US Representative Karen Bass expressing her concerns

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<v Speaker 1>about the report to former U s Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

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<v Speaker 1>So you should know that a lot of active surround

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<v Speaker 1>the country are very concerned that we're getting ready to

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<v Speaker 1>repeat a very sad chapter of our history where people

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<v Speaker 1>who are rightfully protesting what they consider to be an

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<v Speaker 1>injustice in their community, which is their relationship with police officers,

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<v Speaker 1>are now being targeted and labeled as extremists and are

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<v Speaker 1>going through periods of surveillance and harassment. She goes on

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<v Speaker 1>to ask him what the Department of Justice is going

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<v Speaker 1>to do to protect the rights of average citizens who

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<v Speaker 1>want to protest the actions of police officers. He says,

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<v Speaker 1>this department will not unlawfully target people, but too many

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<v Speaker 1>Black identity extremists. Labeling and targeting represented a spiritual successor

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<v Speaker 1>of co intel pro the grouping is fictitious. The cases

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<v Speaker 1>the FBI identified in relation to Black identity extremism had

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<v Speaker 1>no link to a unified movement. The label does, however,

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<v Speaker 1>provide a concise terminology to help spread fear a moniker,

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<v Speaker 1>not unlike the one given to serial killers for the

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<v Speaker 1>purposes of sensationalizing and mythologizing. The specter of a black

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<v Speaker 1>uprising looms closer when black identity extremists exist. In July

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<v Speaker 1>twenty nineteen, it was reported that the FBI ditched the

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<v Speaker 1>term black identity extremists and was opting to place several

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<v Speaker 1>categories it once used under the umbrella of racially motivated

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<v Speaker 1>violent extremism instead, but the point had been proven. It

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<v Speaker 1>was not about organized and targeted violence against the state.

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<v Speaker 1>Any challenge of the racial status quo was a threat

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<v Speaker 1>to an order to precious to let go of without

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<v Speaker 1>a fight. So Richard left Chicago the place that represented

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<v Speaker 1>his departure from a South and his journey deeper into

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<v Speaker 1>radical thought and social justice. But Chicago was not the

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<v Speaker 1>refuge he had worked it up to be. It had

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<v Speaker 1>also been a place where he lived in the boundary

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<v Speaker 1>between black space and white space. He rubbed shoulders with

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<v Speaker 1>white people in his Communist Party circles, but was still

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<v Speaker 1>confined by the limitations that white society imposed on him.

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<v Speaker 1>Years later, after he moved out of the United States,

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<v Speaker 1>but returned to Chicago briefly, he wrote an essay titled

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<v Speaker 1>The Shame of Chicago for the magazine Evenue. In the essay,

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<v Speaker 1>he described the ugliness of Chicago and says it never

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<v Speaker 1>became the promised land, the loaned for Mecca that he

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<v Speaker 1>envisioned when he left the South. In New York, Richard

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<v Speaker 1>helped start the magazine New Challenge. He also became the

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<v Speaker 1>Harlem editor of The Daily Worker and co editor of

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<v Speaker 1>Left Front, and to New York is where he had

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<v Speaker 1>his first book published. He submitted some of his stories

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<v Speaker 1>to a magazine contest that was open to Federal Writers

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<v Speaker 1>Project Authors, and he won first prize. The publishing house

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<v Speaker 1>Harper and Brothers then published four of his novellas as

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<v Speaker 1>the book Uncle Tom's Children in nineteen thirty eight. Uncle

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<v Speaker 1>Tom's Children confronted the horrors of Southern racism and black

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<v Speaker 1>people's resistance against it. But it was the book Native Son,

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<v Speaker 1>which he finished in nineteen forty with the help of

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<v Speaker 1>a Guggenheim fellowship, that really put right on the map.

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<v Speaker 1>Native Son follows Bigger Thomas, a twenty year old black

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<v Speaker 1>man living in poverty in Chicago's South Side. Bigger responds

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<v Speaker 1>to the weight of racism, oppression, and poverty with anger, fear,

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<v Speaker 1>and violence. Through that lens, he rapes a woman and

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<v Speaker 1>murders her and another woman. In the end, Bigger is

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<v Speaker 1>sentenced to death. The book was a bestseller. Black and

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<v Speaker 1>White folks Alike praised right for its brutal realism, for

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<v Speaker 1>its emotional residence, and for its unparalleled portrayal of the

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<v Speaker 1>reality of the effects of racism on its targets and

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<v Speaker 1>its perpetrators. The implication was that Bigger was not just

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<v Speaker 1>an animalistic criminal acting out of primitive instinct. He was

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<v Speaker 1>a Native Son shaped by an environment that encouraged isolation, hatred, resentment,

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<v Speaker 1>and violence in black people. That was a viewpoint that

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<v Speaker 1>could tug at the heartstrings of white people who were

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<v Speaker 1>prone to sympathy and understanding. The book dramatized the injustice

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<v Speaker 1>and bleakness that plagued black life under the thumb of racism,

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<v Speaker 1>and it emphasized the need for social change. The n

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<v Speaker 1>double a CP awarded Right the spin guard Metal for

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<v Speaker 1>the book. Native Son even went on to become a

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<v Speaker 1>play and a movie. But Richard's breakout hit was not

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<v Speaker 1>immune to negative criticism, especially from black people. Bigger's troubled

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<v Speaker 1>life and tragic end was predestined. He was one dimensional

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<v Speaker 1>and poorly developed, with no roots in real truth. Critics

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<v Speaker 1>also said the story grossly supported perceptions of black people

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<v Speaker 1>as simple, brutish, and doomed to tragedy because they were

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<v Speaker 1>poor and black. In nineteen forty nine, James Baldwin, who

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<v Speaker 1>was friends with Fright, wrote the essay Everybody's Protest Novel.

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<v Speaker 1>In it, he said, quote Bigger's tragedy is not that

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<v Speaker 1>he is cold, or black or hungry, not even that

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<v Speaker 1>he is American black, but that he has accepted a

0:16:42.600 --> 0:16:46.600
<v Speaker 1>theology that denies him life, that he admits the possibility

0:16:46.720 --> 0:16:51.320
<v Speaker 1>of his being subhuman and feels constrained therefore to battle

0:16:51.400 --> 0:16:55.320
<v Speaker 1>for his humanity according to those brutal criteria bequeathed him

0:16:55.360 --> 0:17:00.160
<v Speaker 1>at his birth. But our humanity is our burden, our life.

0:17:00.800 --> 0:17:03.480
<v Speaker 1>We need not battle for it. We need only to

0:17:03.560 --> 0:17:13.040
<v Speaker 1>do what it's infinitely more difficult that is accepted. We're

0:17:13.040 --> 0:17:15.680
<v Speaker 1>going to pause on the controversy and take a quick

0:17:15.680 --> 0:17:19.359
<v Speaker 1>break when we return. Right breaks with the Communist Party,

0:17:19.760 --> 0:17:22.400
<v Speaker 1>but still earns a spot on the FBI's watch list.

0:17:34.840 --> 0:17:38.800
<v Speaker 1>Wright had married a Russian Jewish ballerina, Dimo Rose Meadman,

0:17:38.960 --> 0:17:42.720
<v Speaker 1>in ninety nine, but they got a divorce in nineteen forty.

0:17:43.359 --> 0:17:46.800
<v Speaker 1>The next year, he married Ellen Poplar, a white woman

0:17:46.840 --> 0:17:50.159
<v Speaker 1>who was a member of the Communist Party. They stayed

0:17:50.200 --> 0:17:53.920
<v Speaker 1>together until he died, and had two daughters together, born

0:17:54.000 --> 0:17:58.080
<v Speaker 1>in nineteen forty two and nineteen forty nine. Nineteen forty

0:17:58.160 --> 0:18:00.959
<v Speaker 1>one was also the year that he published twelve Million

0:18:01.000 --> 0:18:04.119
<v Speaker 1>Black Voices, a folk History of the Negro in the

0:18:04.200 --> 0:18:07.879
<v Speaker 1>United States, a book about black life from slavery to

0:18:08.080 --> 0:18:12.720
<v Speaker 1>sharecropping to the Great Migration. Right also wrote the manuscript

0:18:12.760 --> 0:18:16.600
<v Speaker 1>for American Hunger, which wasn't published in its entirety until

0:18:16.640 --> 0:18:20.240
<v Speaker 1>after his death. Part of the second section, about his

0:18:20.280 --> 0:18:23.679
<v Speaker 1>involvement in and later rejection of the Communist Party, was

0:18:23.720 --> 0:18:28.200
<v Speaker 1>published in the Atlantic Monthly in nineteen forty four. By

0:18:28.240 --> 0:18:31.520
<v Speaker 1>this point Wright had grown completely disenchanted with the Party

0:18:31.560 --> 0:18:34.480
<v Speaker 1>and split with it. The party had turned pro war

0:18:34.880 --> 0:18:39.119
<v Speaker 1>and it did not challenge segregation. He also distanced himself

0:18:39.160 --> 0:18:42.760
<v Speaker 1>from Marxism, which had contributed to his perspective in his writing.

0:18:44.720 --> 0:18:47.639
<v Speaker 1>The first section of the manuscript was published as the

0:18:47.680 --> 0:18:51.200
<v Speaker 1>memoir Black Boy, A Record of Childhood and Youth in

0:18:51.280 --> 0:18:57.240
<v Speaker 1>nineteen He made this dark statement in Black Boy, I

0:18:57.440 --> 0:19:00.760
<v Speaker 1>used to maul over the strange absence of real kindness

0:19:00.760 --> 0:19:05.280
<v Speaker 1>and negroes. How unstable was our tenderness, How lacking in

0:19:05.359 --> 0:19:09.320
<v Speaker 1>genuine passion we were, How void of great hope, how

0:19:09.359 --> 0:19:13.600
<v Speaker 1>timid our joy, how bear our traditions, How hollow our memories?

0:19:13.920 --> 0:19:17.240
<v Speaker 1>How lacking we were in those intangible sentiments that bind

0:19:17.800 --> 0:19:21.480
<v Speaker 1>man to man, And how shallow was even our despair.

0:19:26.720 --> 0:19:30.520
<v Speaker 1>He was also busy with endeavors beyond writing. Fright gave

0:19:30.560 --> 0:19:33.960
<v Speaker 1>a bunch of lectures, traveled helped James Baldwin get a

0:19:34.000 --> 0:19:37.439
<v Speaker 1>grant and served on the American Council of Race Relations,

0:19:38.280 --> 0:19:41.680
<v Speaker 1>but he would soon make another major life changing move.

0:19:42.520 --> 0:19:46.879
<v Speaker 1>In nineteen he traveled to France, where he gave interviews,

0:19:47.240 --> 0:19:51.040
<v Speaker 1>met with publishers, and linked up with French intellectuals and

0:19:51.240 --> 0:19:56.159
<v Speaker 1>existentialists like Hertrude Stein, Jean Paul Sartre, and Simone de Beauvoir.

0:19:57.080 --> 0:20:01.240
<v Speaker 1>Richard and his wife Ellen also traveled to other European countries,

0:20:05.200 --> 0:20:10.520
<v Speaker 1>and Richard even helped other American, African and European intellectuals

0:20:10.960 --> 0:20:16.480
<v Speaker 1>launched the Pan African magazine Presence Africane. The family returned

0:20:16.520 --> 0:20:20.159
<v Speaker 1>to New York in January of nineteen forty seven, but

0:20:20.480 --> 0:20:26.000
<v Speaker 1>the racism and anti radicalism was no longer tolerable, especially

0:20:26.040 --> 0:20:29.680
<v Speaker 1>now that he had spent time in France, the looks

0:20:29.720 --> 0:20:32.640
<v Speaker 1>he god for being in an interracial marriage, the discrimination

0:20:32.680 --> 0:20:35.680
<v Speaker 1>he still faced for being black. He wrote the essay

0:20:35.720 --> 0:20:40.440
<v Speaker 1>titled I Choose Exile, which was denied for publication in Ebony,

0:20:41.359 --> 0:20:44.119
<v Speaker 1>but in it he wrote that there is more freedom

0:20:44.160 --> 0:20:47.359
<v Speaker 1>in one square block of Paris than there is in

0:20:47.400 --> 0:20:54.840
<v Speaker 1>an entire United States of America. He and the family

0:20:54.880 --> 0:20:58.440
<v Speaker 1>moved to Paris in nineteen forty seven, where he remained

0:20:58.520 --> 0:21:02.720
<v Speaker 1>until his death in nineteen sixty. There he continued to

0:21:02.760 --> 0:21:07.679
<v Speaker 1>write essays and books, including The Outsider, Savage Holiday, The

0:21:07.760 --> 0:21:11.639
<v Speaker 1>Color Curtain, and The Long Dream, and he published a

0:21:11.680 --> 0:21:14.840
<v Speaker 1>collection of his lectures that he gave in Europe titled

0:21:15.000 --> 0:21:20.119
<v Speaker 1>White Man Listening. After traveling to the Gold Coast or

0:21:20.160 --> 0:21:24.000
<v Speaker 1>present day Ghana, he published the book Black Power, A

0:21:24.119 --> 0:21:27.560
<v Speaker 1>Record of Reactions in a Land of Pathos, in which

0:21:27.560 --> 0:21:31.919
<v Speaker 1>he espoused condescending views about so called African culture and

0:21:32.000 --> 0:21:37.400
<v Speaker 1>tribal customs, and implied the superiority of Western traditions and industrialization.

0:21:41.800 --> 0:21:45.879
<v Speaker 1>Right attended the Bandon Conference in Indonesia as a representative

0:21:46.000 --> 0:21:49.800
<v Speaker 1>for the Congress of Cultural Freedom, and he took part

0:21:49.800 --> 0:21:53.520
<v Speaker 1>in planning the first Congress of Negro Artists and Writers

0:21:53.560 --> 0:21:58.040
<v Speaker 1>in Paris. His work was so troubling to US authorities

0:21:58.320 --> 0:22:02.480
<v Speaker 1>that the FBI kept him under surveillance, targeting his passport

0:22:02.800 --> 0:22:05.800
<v Speaker 1>and keeping him on the Security Index of Major Threats

0:22:05.800 --> 0:22:09.480
<v Speaker 1>to the US. He was blacklisted in Hollywood, and he

0:22:09.600 --> 0:22:13.080
<v Speaker 1>was having trouble publishing his work in the US, but

0:22:13.240 --> 0:22:16.480
<v Speaker 1>he wrote and used his voice to champion social progress

0:22:16.560 --> 0:22:20.480
<v Speaker 1>until the end. He died in Paris in nineteen sixty

0:22:20.520 --> 0:22:28.080
<v Speaker 1>of a heart attack. Wright's work has been read worldwide,

0:22:28.480 --> 0:22:33.040
<v Speaker 1>translated into many different languages. His writing indoors, and it

0:22:33.080 --> 0:22:36.919
<v Speaker 1>has been credited with positively affecting race relations in the

0:22:37.040 --> 0:22:40.520
<v Speaker 1>United States, and it continues to be contentious in the

0:22:40.640 --> 0:22:44.359
<v Speaker 1>years after Wright's death. Many people have argued that his

0:22:44.440 --> 0:22:47.639
<v Speaker 1>depiction of black life in Native Son and much of

0:22:47.720 --> 0:22:52.480
<v Speaker 1>his writing reinforced negative stereotypes and distorted reality so much

0:22:52.840 --> 0:22:56.520
<v Speaker 1>as to be harmful, and Zora Neil Harston said that

0:22:56.600 --> 0:23:01.159
<v Speaker 1>his depiction of the South was unrealistic, writes words were

0:23:01.280 --> 0:23:04.679
<v Speaker 1>more than vehicles to entice white readers into thinking and

0:23:04.720 --> 0:23:10.560
<v Speaker 1>caring about the plight of black people. He influenced writers

0:23:10.560 --> 0:23:13.879
<v Speaker 1>who came after him, and he worked to immortalize the

0:23:13.920 --> 0:23:17.119
<v Speaker 1>truths of living well black that were often ignored in

0:23:17.200 --> 0:23:24.399
<v Speaker 1>literary traditions in favor of caricature, idealism, or moderation. In nineties,

0:23:24.440 --> 0:23:29.919
<v Speaker 1>Alas Poor Richard James Baldwin wrote and Uncle Tom's Children

0:23:30.080 --> 0:23:33.679
<v Speaker 1>and Native Son and above all and Black Boy, I

0:23:33.760 --> 0:23:37.840
<v Speaker 1>found expressed for the first time in my life, the sorrow,

0:23:38.240 --> 0:23:41.080
<v Speaker 1>the rage, and the murderous bitterness which was eating up

0:23:41.119 --> 0:23:46.479
<v Speaker 1>my life. Richard gave his lecture the Situation of the

0:23:46.480 --> 0:23:50.439
<v Speaker 1>Black Artist and Intellectual in the United States just weeks

0:23:50.480 --> 0:23:54.440
<v Speaker 1>before his death, when he was ill and under financial strife.

0:23:55.240 --> 0:23:58.440
<v Speaker 1>He said that black American artists lived in a nightmares

0:23:58.560 --> 0:24:01.440
<v Speaker 1>jungle and were repressed when they tried to speak out

0:24:01.480 --> 0:24:05.720
<v Speaker 1>against the racial status quo. He had previously been involved

0:24:05.760 --> 0:24:09.480
<v Speaker 1>with the American Society of African Culture a c I,

0:24:09.600 --> 0:24:16.920
<v Speaker 1>a funded organization, and he had given US officials who

0:24:16.920 --> 0:24:21.919
<v Speaker 1>were eager to curb communism information about Ghanaian politician Quam

0:24:22.119 --> 0:24:25.800
<v Speaker 1>and Cruma, But in this speech he took a sharp turn,

0:24:26.240 --> 0:24:30.720
<v Speaker 1>denouncing the US for spying on and trying to silence expatriates,

0:24:31.119 --> 0:24:34.840
<v Speaker 1>and claiming that most revolutionary movements in the West were

0:24:34.880 --> 0:24:39.280
<v Speaker 1>started by a gen provocateur to organize the discontented so

0:24:39.359 --> 0:24:42.800
<v Speaker 1>that the government can keep an eye on them. Some

0:24:42.880 --> 0:24:50.439
<v Speaker 1>people have suggested that Right was murdered. Right once wrote

0:24:50.480 --> 0:24:54.680
<v Speaker 1>that a person who doesn't have a theory about the meaning, structure,

0:24:54.720 --> 0:24:57.960
<v Speaker 1>and direction of modern society is a lost victim in

0:24:58.000 --> 0:25:03.480
<v Speaker 1>a world he cannot understand or control. The Black experience

0:25:03.680 --> 0:25:07.240
<v Speaker 1>is not monolithic, and neither are the ways black people

0:25:07.320 --> 0:25:11.440
<v Speaker 1>choose to pursue liberation right chose to try to get

0:25:11.440 --> 0:25:15.919
<v Speaker 1>people to acknowledge the cruelty and dehumanization that were the

0:25:15.960 --> 0:25:19.960
<v Speaker 1>products of race and class inequality. The criticism of his

0:25:20.040 --> 0:25:23.240
<v Speaker 1>work and questioning of its efficacy in bettering the lives

0:25:23.240 --> 0:25:29.440
<v Speaker 1>of black people was warranted, but the fluctuations in his philosophies, politics,

0:25:29.480 --> 0:25:32.800
<v Speaker 1>and feelings throughout his life chart the path of a

0:25:32.840 --> 0:25:36.800
<v Speaker 1>man trying to attain self actualization and trying not to

0:25:36.880 --> 0:25:41.320
<v Speaker 1>become a lost victim. His writing was purposeful and the

0:25:41.400 --> 0:25:48.560
<v Speaker 1>stakes were high. Mississippi Senator Theodora Bilbo, a white supremacist,

0:25:48.720 --> 0:25:53.639
<v Speaker 1>segregationists and Ku Klux Klan member, said the book was

0:25:53.720 --> 0:25:57.320
<v Speaker 1>a damnable lie whose purpose was to plant seeds of

0:25:57.400 --> 0:26:00.679
<v Speaker 1>hate against white people. He said at the book was

0:26:00.800 --> 0:26:06.199
<v Speaker 1>quote the dirtiest, filthiest, lousiest, most obscene piece of writing

0:26:06.480 --> 0:26:09.359
<v Speaker 1>that I have ever seen in print. I would hate

0:26:09.400 --> 0:26:11.560
<v Speaker 1>to have a son, our daughter of mine permitted to

0:26:11.600 --> 0:26:15.560
<v Speaker 1>read it. It is so filthy and so dirty, but

0:26:15.640 --> 0:26:18.360
<v Speaker 1>it comes from a Negro, and you cannot expect any

0:26:18.440 --> 0:26:22.320
<v Speaker 1>better from a person of his type. He said this

0:26:22.480 --> 0:26:26.439
<v Speaker 1>on the floor of the Senate in nine It's in

0:26:26.480 --> 0:26:31.080
<v Speaker 1>the congressional record. He was sure the book would bread

0:26:31.119 --> 0:26:34.480
<v Speaker 1>trouble in black folks if we were distributed widely, and

0:26:34.560 --> 0:26:38.560
<v Speaker 1>he wasn't alone in this thinking. Black Boy was challenged

0:26:38.680 --> 0:26:42.879
<v Speaker 1>or banned in many US public schools for inciting racial

0:26:42.920 --> 0:26:48.440
<v Speaker 1>hatred or portraying race relations as strained in hostile decades

0:26:48.560 --> 0:26:53.600
<v Speaker 1>after Bilbo s viewed his rage. So was the book agitational?

0:26:54.520 --> 0:26:57.560
<v Speaker 1>Did it dig up something unsettling in the white American

0:26:57.600 --> 0:27:01.920
<v Speaker 1>psyche that society could potentially sift through? I think? So?

0:27:03.160 --> 0:27:06.120
<v Speaker 1>That doesn't mean it fueled a revolution that turned race

0:27:06.160 --> 0:27:11.320
<v Speaker 1>relations in the US on its head. Right wrote about

0:27:11.359 --> 0:27:15.600
<v Speaker 1>how social conditioning and systems helped construct black identities and

0:27:15.680 --> 0:27:19.640
<v Speaker 1>built characters of black people of the South that many

0:27:19.680 --> 0:27:24.119
<v Speaker 1>would say lacked nuance. Black suffering was on display in

0:27:24.240 --> 0:27:28.240
<v Speaker 1>his work in front of a worldwide audience, and Right's

0:27:28.320 --> 0:27:32.920
<v Speaker 1>fiction waded into uncomfortable territory, like the sexual violence against

0:27:32.960 --> 0:27:37.040
<v Speaker 1>women that's in Native Son. But Right's views did not

0:27:37.200 --> 0:27:41.159
<v Speaker 1>represent those of all Black Americans, despite the notions of

0:27:41.160 --> 0:27:45.000
<v Speaker 1>critics who believed him to be the most eloquent spokesman

0:27:45.359 --> 0:27:49.240
<v Speaker 1>for the American negro in this generation. As one New

0:27:49.320 --> 0:27:56.880
<v Speaker 1>York Times obituary put it, Native Son definitely breathes differently

0:27:57.000 --> 0:28:00.560
<v Speaker 1>now than it did in the context of nineteen forty America.

0:28:01.600 --> 0:28:06.359
<v Speaker 1>Yet rights insistence on exposing the destruction of racism and exploitation,

0:28:07.000 --> 0:28:12.560
<v Speaker 1>and his use of literary naturalism if imperfect, remain relevant.

0:28:13.400 --> 0:28:16.480
<v Speaker 1>He responded to the moment in which he lived with

0:28:16.520 --> 0:28:21.720
<v Speaker 1>an intentional call for understanding and progress. Isn't awakening even

0:28:21.800 --> 0:29:05.840
<v Speaker 1>possible without discomfort? Yeah, our producer is Andrew Howard, Holly

0:29:05.920 --> 0:29:11.880
<v Speaker 1>Fry and Christopher Hasiotis are our executive producers. So we've

0:29:12.000 --> 0:29:15.120
<v Speaker 1>reached the end of season one of Unpopular, who will

0:29:15.200 --> 0:29:18.160
<v Speaker 1>be going on a short break. We'll be back in October,

0:29:18.800 --> 0:29:21.080
<v Speaker 1>but in the meantime you can be on the lookout

0:29:21.120 --> 0:29:24.040
<v Speaker 1>for a bonus content over the break, So keep your

0:29:24.080 --> 0:29:27.000
<v Speaker 1>eyes peeled on the feed and keep sharing the show,

0:29:27.440 --> 0:29:32.240
<v Speaker 1>keep sending us your thoughts and ideas and warm praises,

0:29:33.200 --> 0:29:35.960
<v Speaker 1>and we'll see you again soon