The Home Front
BOHN, WILLIAM E.
The Home Front By WILLIAM E. BOHN The Black Boys ACOUPLE of weeks ago I was writing about „uvel» aa a road to understanding. All round us are groups ef people who are different Difference...
...He may go further as a popular writer than any other American Negro has ever gone...
...Suddenly a white man approached from the opposite direction...
...That may lies mediocrity...
...icfcwrd Armamr...
...High wages during a labor'shortage period are a false attraction if education and training for a better job are sacrificed...
...Hia pictures of the people, whites and Macks, must epitomize the impressions which carried with him into manhood...
...He is vigorously and viciously asserting equality...
...All round us are groups ef people who are different Difference inspires fear...
...The Negro straightened up and became once more the handsome and self-respecting human being but now, it teemed to me, with infinite tadnesa added to the lines of his face, Wright speak¦ of the "sensitive controlling mechanism'' which shuts off the minds and emotions and actions of the Negroes...
...e • • Lack-leg fa Pasafaa...
...He bowed and cringed and uttered degrading sounds...
...WiVy a law?— Child labor laws are necessary to give children freedom fee education and for normal physical and social growth, the standard of a 16-year rninimiwn age for employment in ketones it any time and for afl employment during school bows hag received general recognition is providing ths minimum of opportunity needed to allow the child to prepare for satisfying life and service in a democracy...
...I have known hundreds of them...
...I confess that I blinked when I read this sentence (page SS): "After 1 had outlived the shocks of childhood, after the habit of reflection had been born in me, I used to mull over the strange absence of real kindness in Negroes, how unstable was our tenderness, how lacking in genuine passion we were, how void of great hope, how timid our joy, how bare our tradition...
...Their talents, ambitions, hopes have been disregarded...
...From the ventage point ef hit present success snd popularity he looks beck and—no matter what were the exact details of hn existence — he aees his boyhood as a hard and bitter time...
...The realistic BOvel gets beyond peculiarities of speech, dress and Manners...
...It never occurred to me," he says, "that I wss in sny way an inferior being...
...These people, 13,000,000 of them, have been generally played down...
...He is in his early thirties Despite all his handicaps, it is seldom that an American author achieves such distinction in so few years...
...Others will suffer the same loss, unless a State law protects them...
...Fear is dangerous...
...Through this book — as through a number of others publisher...
...This attitude is easy to understand...
...In reading Native Son, I had my suspicious roused by the sketch of the Communist leader...
...I can easily imagine how the Chicago Communists took possession of Met and gave Mm the recognition for which he yearned...
...Since the form of expression is literature, this man cannot be guided and guarded by all of the inhibitions that would hedge in a teacher or social worker...
...To counteract this state of affairs it is natural that advocates of equal opportunity should ' twing the other, way...
...Nobody could be ss good aa that Having read Black Boy, I can understand how Richard Wright came to draw that picture...
...Our friend, W. E. Burghs rdt Du Bois, raises a question at to whether this is straight biography or hction in biographical form...
...A good summary of a progressive program...
...Instantly the Negro was transformed into an obsequious, grining monkey...
...during the past year—we hare a window opened straight into their hearts...
...To hundreds of Negro men and women this must se> m like adding literary insult to centuries of social and economic injury...
...Boys and 1 girls must be brought back to school...
...Instead of this, they accept him and bis book with reservations...
...In alt his experience in church and school he never makes a friend...
...Gilbert Taylor, head of th* | language department at Weetmineter I College.—News item...
...To biographers of Richard Wright the question is important, but not to us...
...I NOTICE that»Negro writers are more cautious than whites in expressing approval of this book...
...We begin to see things from their point of view...
...The man was too saintly, too wise, too devoted...
...Timid touls are alarmed, but that hardly matters...
...Hs cannot write at a Negro carefuOy calculating what will be toe effect of hi* writing en public •opinion...
...On the face of it this might strike you as strange...
...I was laying things like this in connection with a discussion of Two Solitude*, Hugh MacLennan's fine novel about the Canadian French...
...For it presents a picture of the deep South which is horrible...
...The whites are just aa inimical aa the black* and more dangerous began** at the power and prejudice which give backing even to the humblest of them...
...The religion of Ms relativea ia mean, lew, sordid...
...The war has drawn thousands of boys and girls under 16 out of schools and into the labor market...
...Now comes this ruthless Richard Wright...
...Because it prods us to sympathy and understanding a conscientiously written work of fiction may he worth a decent books on social theory...
...It rushes up so hotly that it hurt* friend* as well as foes...
...Conformity he simply cannot stand...
...I would have ssid that on the average they are more warmly affectionate to relatives and friends than whites...
...AH the World knows from hi* Atlantic Monthly article* how that brief honeymoon ended...
...But whstver the spring of experience from which it ttsrted, the impulse is overpowering, irrepressible...
...It takes us inside men and women who may It our neighbors but who are kept alien to us by their word* and ways...
...U. 5. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR Childikm t Bumau i w ashinotom ii, d. c wallace's POSTWAR new DIAL Butinett Wtek summarises the basic ideaa of a. postwar New Deal as championed by Henry Wallace: "A philosophy of government which holds that the government can and must use it* Influence and revenues to guarantee: (1) work for everybody who wants it, (2) rising postwar wages, with hourly rates increasing at hours of work go down, (8) a floor under farm prices with insurance against crop failure, (4) adequate housing for everyone, (6) nationwide insurance against the hasarda ef old age, accidents, sickness, and unemployment, (6) free technical and higher as well as secondary education, (7) full protection of business against unfair competition and monopoly both at home and abroad...
...He it a black Erskine Caldwell...
...You would think that other Negroes would rally round him, boost him, hurry him along to a position from which he can get the ear of the entire reading public...
...We realise that inaide they are not very different...
...There is the continuous implication that it was instinctive...
...He came North bleeding from a hundred wounds suffered by his ego...
...Who endorses these standards?— These standards have been endorsed by the International Association of Governmental Labor Officials, the National Conference on Labor Legislation, the 1940 White House Conference on Children in a Democracy, the American Federation of Labor, the Congress of Industrial Organ rations, and many other national and State agencies and groups, public and private, interested in children and labor...
...He defends himself again.t hia aaat with a knife and M* unci* with rater blades...
...w 1EN he was four and twenty...
...SMALL CHANGE . The bulk of mankind doeg not change it* ideas after 25, according ; to Dr...
...This one take* hia) only to tbe moment when he departed from Memphis for Chicago...
...Our whole treatment of them is based on a widely accepted notion of innate inferiority...
...But who am I to argue with a colored man about such a topic...
...I can see that a good many Negroes will be auspicious of this book, afraid of the effect which it will have on white readers...
...What happened to him later on is to be disclosed in a later volume...
...e e e — Cant f* • SI ova But I am proud of Richard Wright America did, after all, produc* him, and be is man enough to writ* out of his own soul without regard to what either blacks or whites think about him...
...Other writers, both white and colored, have tried to play up Negro virtues...
...Like s dozen other novelists whom we hare had during the past two decades, he feels a positive need of hurting...
...v When he wax Hve and twenty...
...He is an authentic artist and he demanda the freedom which ia necessary to artists...
...From babyhood he objected to it, rebelled against it...
...The Federal Fair Labor Standards Act prohibits child labor under 16 in factories that sell their goods over State lines, but a State law is necessary to prohibit child labor in factories that sell their goods only within the State...
...Only 3 States and Puerto Rico prohibit all employment of children under 16 during school hours...
...It is important that white folks take a look through that window and take careful note of what they see...
...When he was grewa to thirty, And never changed a tenet, They feawd him mere thaa ready for Klaction ta the Senate...
...To him whole sections of Mississippi and Arkansas are nothing more than an eadlea...
...White enthusiasts, especially, tend to overglorify every evidence of talent or virtue...
...Tbe Negroes are our greatest unasaimiliated and misunderstood group...
...He waa not thought reliable, Although hi* mind waa then Inclined to b* «t ill alight!, pliable...
...Richard Wright ia direct, honest violent He could not long be fooled by anyone...
...Here is a dynamic and ambitious young writer...
...And loudly erguateatative, The law decreed ha might proceed To be a Representative...
...Many have lost forever part of their rightful education...
...The origin of his impulse to rebellion is never Indicated...
...Tobacco Jtoad...
...Since that time people in this country have been stirred and shocked by Mack Boy, the autobiography of Richard Wright (Harper and Brothers, $2.50...
...That it natural and right...
...The white man strutted on his way...
...Wright is a talented and successful writer...
...Only a State law forbidding employment of minors under 16 during school hours can assure boys and girls a preparation for their future careers as wage earners and good citizens...
...How many States have these standards?— Only 13 States, Puerto Rico, and Hawaii prohibit the employment in factories of children under 16...
...I recall seeing a tall, handsome and dignified Negro walking along a street down in Richmond, Virginia...
...He says his say no matter who is hit or hurt...
...Absence of real kindness among Negroes...
Vol. 28 • March 1945 • No. 10
