ABSTRACT

These pronouncements about the nature and function of African American literature by some of the most prominent black writers over the past hundred years indicate some crucial differences of opinion. There are some easily discernible patterns based on history: in moments of crisis, such as the racially segregated Great Depression during which Richard Wright wrote his “blueprint,” there is an intensity

and sharpness to his message as he uses phrases like “purposeful agent,” “serious responsibility,” and “complex consciousness” to describe the situation of the black writer. Colson Whitehead, writing in our contemporary world which seems much more prosperous and less fraught by racial antagonism than Wright’s did, can joke about how the fact that he likes steak is nearly as important as his race. Regardless of their historical context, all four of these quotations raise important questions that cannot be answered easily, especially about audience and about the responsibilities of the black writer. There is always a tension between an African American writer’s individual impulses and a perceived duty to respond to a tradition defined in racial terms. Note that Morrison’s first obligation is to write works that complement that tradition, and that Wright is conscious of “the fluid lore of a great people.” Both Hughes and Whitehead seem to want to rise above their audience’s expectations, but both begin their responses heavily conscious of what those expectations are. Hughes’s 1926 essay “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain” is often read

as a cogent definition of the goals of the Harlem Renaissance (or “New Negro Renaissance”). This brief period during the 1920s marks a significant moment in African American literary history, as it was the first time black authors had articulated their hopes and goals as a collective group of artists. Hughes celebrates black American life and acknowledges that it is different from white American life: not inferior, but different. The quotation above is a clarion call not only to black artists, but also to all African Americans. Hughes hopes for a celebration of black culture and identity. But the words “fear” and “shame” at the beginning of it are significant. Why are fear and shame associated with blackness in America? Why does it take an exhortation like this one from Hughes to rally black artists to express themselves honestly? Why did some black readers in 1926 favor what Hughes called “ordinary” (read “dull”) white books over the exuberant expressions of their own culture? Why did they need art to teach them how to appreciate their own beauty? These are questions that had to be raised with some urgency in the 1920s, and

they reverberate thereafter. Hughes and his contemporaries were conscious that there was a body of African American literature that preceded them, but also that the historical and social circumstances that produced that literature was fraught with injustice and immorality. Bluntly, the horrors of the system of chattel slavery in the United States are impossible to overcome, even for those who were born after slavery was abolished. Although the era of slavery is now a century and a half in the past, its long-term effects live on. The goal of racial equality and harmony remains an elusive one. African American writers respond to these basic facts, but they do so in a variety of ways broad enough to produce a rich literary tradition.