Black Freedom Through Literature

As well as entertaining, literature gives a view into the life and the mind of the author, into the society in which they live, and helps people to understand others. Through reading, a thorough examination of the African American psyche is possible. From Mark Twain’s classic Huckleberry Finn , set during the time of slavery, through some of the more modern writers, an evolution of this Black Sense of Self can be explored. From the latter half of the nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth century, there is a clear progression of African American self consciousness from an acceptance of inferiority to a more complex and diverse set of values.

Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn captures many aspects of American consciousness at the time of slavery and gives a good impression of the subjugation imposed by white society, as well as African American awareness of his own place in the world. As well as bearing indicators of the black man being property rather than a real human being, there is also evidence of the general prejudice against him and his resulting low self esteem.

White society at the time considered the black person property, rather than human, an item to own and exploit. Huck feels no guilt about white supremacy; on the contrary, he feels guilt about his doing wrong in the eyes of white society:

“It would get all around, that Huck Finn helped a nigger to get his freedom; and if I was to ever see anybody from that town again, I’d be ready to get down and lick his boots for shame . . . I was stealing a poor old woman’s nigger that hadn’t ever done me no harm . . . There was the Sunday school, you could a gone to it; and if you’d a done it they’d a learnt you, there, that people that acts as I’d been acting about that nigger goes to everlasting fire.”

Another shocking example of the general attitude towards slaves as merely property occurs when Huck meets Tom’s Aunt Sally and tells her the story about the cylinder blowing on the steam boat. ”Good gracious,” she asks, “anybody hurt?” “No’m. Killed a nigger,” replies Huck. Her response is that “it’s lucky; because sometimes people do get hurt.”

            The more general prejudices held against blacks are clear throughout the story. Because Jim chose the night Huck was “murdered” to run away, the townspeople assumed it was Jim that had committed the crime. Even Huck, who seems relatively liberal in his thinking, held deep prejudices towards blacks, at one time saying that “you can’t learn a nigger to argue,” and “It was fifteen minutes before I could work myself up to go and humble myself to a nigger.” Another time, Huck struggles with the moral dilemma of helping Jim on the run, “What had poor Miss Watson done to you, that you could see her nigger go off right under your eyes and never say one single word?” When Huck considers Jim’s plight in being split up from his family, he exclaims that “he cared just as much for his people as white folks does for theirn. It don’t seem natural, but I reckon it’s so.”  Similarly, Huck demonstrates his disdain for the black mind when he and Tom discuss plans to free him, “besides, Jim’s a nigger and wouldn’t understand the reasons for it.”

            Several instances in Huckleberry Finn give insight as to how prejudice affects a low self esteem in the black man. Jim certainly seems to accept his lowliness, in taking an extra shift on watch rather than wake Huck for his turn. Similarly, Jim shows that he thinks higher of Huck and Tom than he does of himself when they discuss plans to break him out of the cabin: Huck says that “he couldn’t see no sense in the most of it, but allowed we was white folks and knowed better than him.” Such feelings of low self esteem were not just an aspect of Jim, but also shown by Nat, the Phelps’ slave. When he showed Huck and Tom into Jim’s hut, Nat was convinced by Tom that Jim did not shout out their names in joy, that it was witches in his mind.

            The early part of the twentieth century goes on to show some marked changes in American society where there are still lingering prejudices but greater hope for true freedom. The derogatory thinking of blacks in white society is evidenced in Jean Toomer’s Blood Burning Moon where Tom Burwell is popularly known as “Big Boy.” Similarly, Bob Stone’s thinking that “his family still owned the niggers, practically,” is indicative of a continuation of white society thinking of the black man as being subservient. Reinforcing such an opinion, Tom tells Louisa that “White folks always did do for niggers what they likes.” That the vigilante mob of white men summarily burn Tom underlines the fact that the black man still was not free, or equal, many years after the end of slavery.

            Early poetry of Langston Hughes speaks of a history of subjugation and deepening of the black soul. In The Negro Speaks of Rivers , Hughes expresses a “soul grown deep like the rivers,” and, similarly, in The Weary Blues , Hughes conveys a tiredness of hearing “Sweet Blues! \ Coming from a black man’s soul.” Hughes’ 1932 poem, I, Too , also shows a progression in thinking of equality: “I, too sing America. \ I am the darker brother \ . . . They’ll see how beautiful I am.”

From the 1940s to the late 1960s, evidence points to a shift in black consciousness towards a sense of hope for full equality and freedom. Despite the many differing opinions expressed in African American literature, this sense of hope that they can achieve full freedom is central. Hughes’ Note on Commercial Theatre , tells how black identity has been stolen by white society: “You’ve taken my blues and gone,” Hughes laments, “you mixed ‘em up . . . \ And you fixed ‘em  \  So they don’t sound like me.” But hope is expressed in a furthering of black society, that “someday somebody’ll \ . . . talk about me \ And write about me \ . . . sing about me \ And put on plays about me!” Further hope is expressed in Harlem , where Hughes suggests that a “dream deferred” will “explode.” There is, however, a remaining sense that there is something different between the white and black America which Hughes expresses well in Theme for English B : “Being me, it will not be white. \ But it will be \ a part of you . . .\ You are white – \ yet a part of me, as I am a part of you. \ That’s American.”

The 1960s, with the growth of the civil rights movement, saw a further growth in the hope for true equality. Richard Wright, in his short story The Man Who Was Almost a Man , shows both aspects of this hope and lingering sense of low self esteem that many black people must still have felt. With his gun, Dave marvels that he “could kill a man with a gun like this. Kill anybody, black or white.” Despite the growing feeling of equality, the use of derogatory terms for one another emphasizes esteem problems. At one point, Dave thinks that “them niggers can’t understand nothing,” and hears his own mother say to him, “nigger, is yuh gone plumb crazy?”

A more complex set of self-perceptions can be seen in James Baldwin’s story Sonny’s Blues , including an improving sense of self as more hope for the future. Although expressing a feeling of being trapped and telling his brother of having a desire to leave Harlem by way of joining the military, Sonny is the one to show and transfer his growing sense of pride as a black American: “I want to play with – jazz musicians . . . I want to play jazz .” By the end of the story, it is Sonny who teaches his brother about his sense of pride through his music and this reflects how black pride is perpetuated through the African American arts. Allegorical to the early struggle of blacks in America, Sonny seemed to struggle with the piano early in the jazz club scene,

He and the piano stammered, started one way, got scared, stopped; started another way, panicked, marked time, started again; them seemed to have found a direction, panicked again, got stuck.

A little later, Baldwin beautifully expresses great hope,

Sonny’s fingers filled the air with life, his life. But that life contained so many others . . . it wasn’t hurried and it was no longer a lament. I seemed to hear with what burning he had made it his, with what burning we had yet to make it ours, how we could cease lamenting. Freedom lurked around us and I understood, at last, that he could help us to be free if we would listen, that he would never be free until we did.

Amiri Baraka also expresses great hope in his poetry although his is an aggressive hope talking of some blacks selling out to America, charging them to examine their identity and calling them to rise up and take the freedom that is rightfully theirs. These themes are clear in Notes for a Speech ,

My color

is not theirs. Lighter, white man

talk . . .

. . . my so called

people . . .

You are

as any other sad man here

American.

Similar themes echo in A Poem for Half White College Students , where Baraka asks the reader, “are you white or black . . . \ . . . your words, are they \ yours? The ghost you see in the mirror, is it really \ you, can you swear that you are not an imitation greyboy.” In A Poem Some People Will Have to Understand , a lingering sense of low self esteem and frustration, “I am no longer a credit \ to my race . . . \ . . . Watercolor ego . . . \ . . . the wheels, won’t let us alone,” is overpowered by a call to action, “We have awaited the coming of a natural \ phenomenon . . . \ . . . But none has come \ . . . Will the machinegunners please step forward?”

American literature is rich with interest, excitement and learning. Even restricted to fiction, the history of the time and the attitudes of the writer are mirrored in the story and its characters. African American literature in particular speaks of many years of subjugation, of how blacks have been treated, how they responded and how they have been moved to overcome their oppressors. Even with ugliness, many stories convey a certain beauty both in the literary form and in the sense of pride and hope the authors express on behalf of all Americans, a beauty that we can all learn from.