Encyclopedia of African-American Literature (Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Literature)

641 Pages·2007·3.27 MB·English

by  Wilfred D. Samuels

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF
AFRICAN-AMERICAN
LITERATURE
(cid:2)(cid:3)
Wilfred Samuels
Associate Editors
Loretta Gilchrist Woodard
Tracie Church Guzzio
Encyclopedia of African-American Literature
Copyright © 2007 by Wilfred Samuels
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any
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ISBN-10: 0-8160-5073-2
ISBN-13: 978-0-8160-5073-4
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Encyclopedia of African American literature / Wilfred D. Samuels, editor; Tracie Guzzio,
associate editor, Loretta Gilchrist Woodard, associate editor.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8160-5073-2 (acid-free paper)
1. American literature—African American authors—Encyclopedias. 2. American literature—
African American authors—Bio-bibliography—Dictionaries. 3. African American authors
—Biography—Dictionaries. 4. African Americans—Intellectual life—Encyclopedias.
5. African Americans in literature—Encyclopedias. I. Samuels, Wilfred D. II. Guzzio, Tracie.
III. Woodard, Loretta Gilchrist.
PS153.N5E48 2007
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Introduction iv
Acknowledgments x
A to Z Entries 1
Bibliography of
Secondary Sources 581
Major Works by
African-American Writers 585
List of Contributors 593
Index 595
I
NTRODUCTION
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We have always been imagining ourselves . . . style that constitutes the foundation and heartbeat
we are the subjects of our own narratives, of the African-American literary tradition.
witnesses to and participants in our own During the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries,
experience. . . .We are not, in fact, “other.” unknown black bards, as James Weldon Johnson
(Morrison, 208) recounts, placed their lips to the sacred fire of
poetry and created “sorrow songs” whose lyrics
In this profoundly proud, eloquent, and bold responded to the dehumanization of the world of
declaration, novelist Toni Morrison takes on those chattel slavery, a world that, in the end, reduced
“serious scholars” and new discoverers of what African Americans to “three-fifths other.” In their
she defines as a rich “Afro-American artistic pres- songs, they registered their personal humanity
ence” in Western culture in general and American and simultaneously humanized the troubled and
culture in particular. For many years Western troubling world around them. The lyrics of such
scholars considered the phrase African-American songs as “Steal Away,” “Swing Low Sweet Chariot,”
literature to be either a myth or a contradiction and “Motherless Child,” as well as the didactic and
and either negated or dismissed the rich body of often humorous narratives and tales about Brer
writing by Americans of African descent. Rabbit, Tar Baby, and High John de Conquer, com-
As Olaudah Equiano declares in his 18th-cen- mented on current conditions, passed on tradi-
tury autobiography, The Interesting Narrative of tions, entertained, and offered lessons in morality
Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African, and virtue in the “broken tongue” that black people
Written by Himself (1789), black Africans brought created. But when exposed to the written texts and
with them to the strange land of the “New World” more formal language of Western culture, African
memories of their traditions of dance, music, and Americans also put pen to paper to create works of
poetry, which, planted in the British colonies of merit. For example, kidnapped between the ages
North America in particular, took root in the new of seven or eight, Ethiopian-born Phillis Wheatley
songs they sang. Today those songs run deep like confounded the community of her New England
a river in the souls of black folks and reverberate “city upon a hill,” the cradle of many Founding
and resound in the antiphonal call-and-response Fathers, with her broadsides and eventually with
iv
Introduction v
her Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral dawning self-consciousness, self-realization,
(1773), the first known collection of poems to be and self-respect. In those sombre forests of his
published by an enslaved black person. striving his own soul rose before him, and he
Witnesses to and participants in the horrific saw himself, darkly as through a veil; and yet
system of chattel slavery, early writers such as he saw in himself some faint revelation of his
Olaudah Equiano, Frederick Douglass, and Linda power, of his mission. He began to have a dim
Brent (Harriet Jacobs) wrote their way to freedom feeling that, to attain his place in the world, he
with the publication of their respective works, The must be himself and not another. (368)
Interesting Narrative . . . ; Narrative of Frederick
Douglass, An American Slave, Written By Himself The result of this “striving in the souls of black
(1845); and Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, folk” (371) was their “gift of story and of song”—
Written by Herself (1861), all three paradigms of the means by which they carved a place for them-
a new genre: the slave narrative–black autobiogra- selves in the American cultural landscape. DuBois
phy. These now-acknowledged classic texts are clear concluded, “And so by fateful chance the Negro
evidence of the way Africans and African Ameri- folk-song—the rhythmic cry of the slave—stands
cans directly affected the development of Western today not simply as the sole American music, but
literature and even intellectual history. Like the as the most beautiful expression of human experi-
drafters of the Declaration of Independence and ence born this side of the seas. It still remains as
the U.S. Constitution, documents that undergird the singular spiritual heritage of the nation and
Western thought and philosophy, Equiano and the greatest gift of the Negro people” (536–537).
Douglass have much to say about the true meaning DuBois’s task in The Souls of Black Folk was to
of freedom, the rights of the individual (particu- claim, validate, and celebrate the contributions
larly in a democracy), and universal human rights. of African Americans, particularly in music, and
Many of these ideas were echoed and added to by to place them at the heart of American culture—
other 19th-century African-American writers, of indeed, at the heart of human culture.
fiction and nonfiction, many of whom were fierce Were he alive today, DuBois would undoubtedly
abolitionists, including William W. Brown, Nat be able to assess critically the last 100 years as a his-
Turner, Martin Delaney, Henry H. Garnet, and torical playing field on which African Americans—
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper. not only through their music, including blues, jazz,
African Americans entered the 20th century with and particularly rap music, but also through their
cadences of progression and precision grounded in oral and written texts—re-envisioned, redefined,
determination, spirituality, and literacy. In The and re-represented themselves, not merely “darkly
Souls of Black Folk (1903), which many consider the as through a veil” but also in the multifaceted
black master text or “the African-American book of spaces they created for themselves outside and
the 20th century,” William Edward Burghardt (or inside the black/white paradigm imposed on them
W. E. B.) DuBois, with, it seems, prophetic vision, as a people, as writers, and as scholars of a more
succinctly captures African Americans’ dogged dynamic black world and culture.
journey from children of emancipation to youths In light of the racial realities and marginalization
“with dawning self-consciousness”: faced by African Americans, these accomplishments
did not come easily. In fact, from a legal perspective,
If, however, the vistas disclosed as yet no the double-conscious striving of African Americans
goal, no resting place, little but flattery and lasted into the middle of the 20th century. when
criticism, the journey at least gave leisure for the Supreme Court rendered its 1954 decision in
reflection and self-examination; it changed Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, ostensibly
the child of Emancipation to the youth with tearing down the doctrine of “separate but equal”
vi Encyclopedia of African-American Literature
inherent in segregationist Jim Crow laws. Black (“Preface,” The Book of American Negro Poetry)
writers, particularly Richard Wright, considered and Langston Hughes (“The Negro Artist and the
it their responsibility to fight the same battle for Racial Mountain”) to Richard Wright (“Blueprint
equality, as exhibited in their work. for Negro Writing”), James Baldwin (“Everybody’s
The dilemma African-American writers faced Protest Novel”), Ralph Ellison (“The Art of Fic-
throughout much of the 20th century is concisely tion: An Interview”), and LeRoi Jones (Imamu
outlined by Hoyt Fuller, a black scholar/critic and Amiri Baraka), became the relationship between
the editor of the Negro Digest / Black World, in art and propaganda or polemics. While Elli-
his essay “Contemporary Negro Fiction” (1965), son maintained that “The understanding of art
in which he responds to John W. Aldridge’s con- depends finally upon one’s willingness to extend
tention that “the writing of novels is basically a one’s humanity and one’s knowledge of human
process of assigning value to human experience” life” (175), Baraka and the architects of the Black
(322). Were all things equal, Fuller maintains, Arts Movement argued that “Black Art is the
there would be no problem. However, a conflicting aesthetic and spiritual sister of the Black Power
line is drawn, he concludes, because “in practice, Concept. As such it envisions an art that speaks
if not in principle, the two major races in America directly to the needs of and aspirations of Black
often have different values, or at least different America” (Neal, 257).
ways of interpreting the same values” (322). Fuller Even a cursory review of the 20th-century
further argues, “. . . the reading public, which is debate over the existence, much less the value,
white, must be cognizant first of the nature and of an African-American literary tradition—often
purpose of literature in general before taking the engaged in by white critics and scholars, includ-
further step toward the appreciation of that litera- ing Robert Bone, C. W. E. Bigsby, Warren French,
ture produced by Negroes. The failure or refusal and Alfred Kazin—reveals that African-American
of both critics and public to do this in the past has writers occupied both sides of the debate. It fell to
resulted in the attachment of stigma to the des- Bone to define with clarity not only what white
ignation, ‘Negro literature,’ making it easy, when Western scholars saw as the problem but also what
desirable, to dismiss much of this literature as the dilemma was for the African-American writer.
inconsequential” (323). Fuller claims that “Negro Bone wrote in his now-classic text, The Negro
literature” is often derided as “protest literature,” Novel in America (1958):
because “if it deals honestly with Negro life, it will
be accusatory toward white people, and nobody The Negro must still structure his life in
likes to be accused, especially of crimes against the terms of a culture to which he is denied full
human spirit” (324). Fuller concludes: access. He is at once a part of and apart from
the wider community in which he lives. His
The reading public must realize, then, that adjustment to the dominant culture is marked
while it is the duty of any serious writer to by a conflicting pattern of identification and
look critically and truthfully at the society of rejection. His deepest psychological impulses
which he is a part, and to reveal that society alternate between magnetic poles of assimila-
to itself, the Negro writer, by virtue of his tion and Negro nationalism. (3–4)
identification with a group deliberately held
on the outer edges of that society, will, if he is Black scholars, particularly Darwin T. Turner and
honest, call attention to that specia1 aspect of Hoyt Fuller, rushed to respond to Bone’s partially
the society’s failure. (324) correct but, they vehemently argued, flawed con-
tention. On the one hand, although Fuller noted
Throughout the 20th century, the question Bone’s understanding of the central issues, he
for black writers, from James Weldon Johnson also conceded that generations of black writers
Introduction vii
have embraced “assimilationism.” He writes, “It is Hogue argues that the acceptance of a black/
true that some of the writers in the twenties and white binary “failed to engage and appreciate Afri-
thirties, Walter White and Jessie Fauset among can American differences, rich cultural diversity
them, sought in their novels to illustrate how little and approaches to life that comprise American/
difference there was between Negroes and whites, African American life” (2). Ironically, it also cre-
even going to the extent of presenting heroes and ated yet another paradigm, the elite or black mid-
heroines white enough to pass. After all, it is natu- dle-class norm/center, reducing African-American
ral for man to want to belong, really belong, to the differences to a “singular formation.”
society which nurtured him” (326). On the other Hogue demands that a wider net be cast—one
hand, despite acknowledging Bone’s “commend- that would include, embrace, and value the multiva-
able effort,” Turner, in “The Negro Novel in Amer- lent black voices and identities of African Americans,
ica: In Rebuttal,” caustically took Bone to task for including “jazz/blues African Americans, Voodoo
the “errors of fact and inference, inconsistencies African Americans, working class African Ameri-
and contradictions, supercilious lectures, and flip- cans, subaltern African Americans, modern African
pant remarks often in bad taste. . . . Unfortunately, Americans and urban swinging African Americans”
not content to confine himself to the role of critic (2)—which, in the end, is concerned less with white
and historian of individual writers, [Bone] has racism and more with defining and constructing
presumed himself to serve as psychiatrist, philoso- themselves as subjects with agency. Hogue calls for
pher, and teacher not only for all Negro writers a more polycentric theoretical perspective to access
but for all Negroes” (122). and assess the African-American literary tradition
Most scholars agree that in the 1960s and and “to examine and discuss African Americans in
1970s, the Black Aesthetics and Black Arts move- terms of their own distinctions and traditions, to
ments challenged the hierarchy with radical and engage the polyvalent nature of African American
militant voices that spoke cacophonously black, literatures, history, and criticism” (2).
insisting that blacks were not victims but agents. Returning now to the question of what DuBois
For example, Baraka identified blacks as magi- might discover at the beginning of the 21st cen-
cians who own the night. Despite this challenge, tury in a new exploration of the “striving in the
however, black writers and critics in general con- souls of black folks,” it would be impossible to
tinued to value assimilationism, led, according deny that he would discover a veritable vineyard
to Professor Lawrence Hogue, by “elite/middle in which, as unfettered and emancipated former
class African Americans” who were interested in chattel, African Americans flowered the American
racial uplift, in protesting racism, and in refuting literary landscape with their gift of story, reaping
negative images of African Americans. This [atti- a rich and bountiful harvest that runs the gamut
tude] kept the black/white binary firmly, coun- from autobiography and slave narrative to slam
terproductively, destructively, and “supremely in poetry; hip-hop and rap narratives; black erotica
place.” Here, Hogue echoes Baldwin who, in his and experimental fiction; blues drama and novels;
critique of Wright’s Native Son, “Everybody’s baby mamma drama fiction; gay, lesbian, detec-
Protest Novel,” in which he derided the protest tive, and science-fiction popular best sellers; femi-
novel, argues that Bigger’s tragedy is “that he has nist, womanist, and Africana Womanism voices;
accepted a theology that denies his life; that he African-American–Caribbean voices; modernist
admits the possibility of his being sub-human and postmodernist voices; the humorous tales of
and feels constrained, therefore, to battle for Jesse B. Semple; and the bitingly satirical voice of
his humanity according to those brutal criteria The Boondocks comic strip. No doubt, he would,
bequeathed him at his birth” (23). According indeed, say “amen” to Morrison’s claim with which
to Baldwin, Bigger seeks “acceptance within the this introduction began: that African Americans
present community” (23). “have always imagined” themselves.
viii Encyclopedia of African-American Literature
Moreover, DuBois would find the now-undeni- on major and minor writers, including writers
able progress and contributions made by African of fiction and nonfiction, poets, dramatists, and
Americans in their efforts to create and validate critics, as well as entries on the finest works of
an African-American literary tradition emblema- African-American literature, from all genres and
tized in the history-making publication of sev- time periods.
eral anthologies by major presses, specifically the Browsers will find entries on all the canonical
Norton Anthology of African American Literature autobiographers, novelists, and poets, including
(1997), Call and Response: The Riverside Anthology Maya Angelou, Amiri Baraka, Charles Chesnutt,
of the African American Literary Tradition (River- Paul Laurence Dunbar, Zora Neale Hurston, Paule
side, 1997), Cornerstones: An Anthology of African Marshall, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, John Edgar
American Literature (St. Martin’s, 1996), and Trou- Wideman, and August Wilson. The volume also
ble the Water: 250 Years of African American Poetry highlights a host of emerging (in some cases
(Mentor Books 1997), as well as major reference already award-winning) literary voices, such as
works such as The Oxford Companion to Afri- Jeffrey Reynard Allen, Toi Derricotte, Pearl Cleage,
can American Literature (1997) and Macmillan’s Thomas Glade, E. Lynn Harris, William Henry
African American Literary Criticism, 1773 to 2000 Lewis, Sapphire, Danzy Senna, and Trey Ellis, and
(1999). Equally significant are major electronic popular fiction writers, such as Jerome Dickey,
productions, such as the Encarta Africana multi- Omar Tyree, and Zane, whose works are read-
media encyclopedia maintained by Harvard’s Pro- ily available and whose readers are numerous and
fessors Henry Louis Gates and Kwame Anthony diverse. Finally, this volume includes discussions
Appiah at Africana.com; the related site Encyclo- of the major critical and theoretical schools and
pedia Africana, managed by Henry DuBois (W. scholars that have influenced the perception and
E. B. DuBois’s grandson); and the online Oxford reception of this body of material, as well as entries
African American Studies Center. on important terms, themes, historical events, and
African-American writers of serious and popu- more. Entries are cross-referenced for ease of use.
lar literature have never been more influential. They Given the successful movement toward vali-
are interviewed on Good Morning America and The dation and inclusivity witnessed today, the edi-
Today Show, as well as Sixty Minutes. Their works tors found it imperative to include a handful of
are regularly selected and celebrated by members of representative voices from hip-hop culture, and
Oprah’s Book Club; reviewed in the New York Times specifically from rap poetry. Our intention does
Book Review, Publications of the Modern Language not signal, in any way, a decision to be blind to,
Association, African American Review, and Callaloo; supportive of, or cavalier about the pervasive
promoted in Black Issues Book Review; and taught colonialist, nihilistic, oppressive, drug-promoting,
on college and university campuses across the homophobic, lust-filled, and misogynist mes-
country. African-American writers are noted for sages of many rap videos and lyrics, often, but not
embracing, validating, and proclaiming an America exclusively, by gangster rappers. Such messages
that is diverse, beautiful, and complex. proclaim, as bell hooks notes, that “Blackness rep-
resents violence and hate” (53). We do not mean
to endorse such particular views or ideologies.
ABOUT THIS BOOK
However, we recognize that hip-hop culture
The Encyclopedia of African-American Literature is firmly rooted in the call-and-response cadence
covers the entire spectrum of the African-Ameri- that undergirds African-American culture in gen-
can literary tradition, from the 18th-century writ- eral and the African-American literary tradition
ings of pioneers such as Equiano and Wheatley to specifically and that can be heard in everything
20th-century canonic texts to the finest of today’s from Negro spirituals, work songs, blues, and jazz
best-selling authors. This volume includes entries to the poetry of Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou,
Introduction ix
Nikki Giovanni, and Kevin Young. Ultimately, Bigsby, C. W. E., ed. The Black American Writer. Vol.
what attracts us to hip-hop culture and rap is the 1, Fiction. Deland, Fla.: Everett/Edwards, 1969.
seeming continuity and resonance between it and Bone, Robert. The Negro Novel in America. New
the Black Arts Movement apparent in the often Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1958.
raw, unveiled, and unsilenced voices of many Donalson, Mel. Interview. Pasadena, Calif.: June 20,
hip-hop artists, including Tupac Shakur, Queen 2006.
Latifah, and Public Enemy, who use their lyrics, DuBois, W. E. B. The Souls of Black Folk. In W. E. B.
poetry, and fiction as social and political vehicles DuBois: Writings. New York: Library of America
of comment. As critic Mel Donalson maintains, College Edition, 1986, 357–546.
“Much like poets Amiri Baraka, Haki Madhubuti, Ellison, Ralph. “The Art of Fiction: An Interview.” In
Gil Scott Herron, and Nikki Giovanni, who sought Shadow and Act. New York: Vintage Books, 1972,
to use the Black Arts Movement as a vehicle 167–183.
for black consciousness and liberation, Public Fuller, Hoyt. “Contemporary Negro Fiction.” South-
Enemy and the new black youth culture sought to ern Review 50 (1965): 321–335.
empower their generation and the black commu- Hogue, Lawrence W. The African American Male,
nity through rap lyrics and hip-hop sounds.” Writing, and Difference: A Polycentric Approach
In summary, we have chosen to include more to African American Literature, Criticism and His-
than just the best-known authors of the African- tory. Albany: State University of New York Press,
American canon. Indeed, our emphasis is on new 2003.
and emerging writers, who, we are convinced, are hooks, bell. Salvation: Black People and Love. New
equally and totally committed to speaking the York: William Morrow, 2001.
unspeakable; we also call attention to what Hogue Morrison, Toni. “Unspeakable Things Unspoken:
identifies as the more “polyvalent nature of Afri- The Afro-American Presence in American Litera-
can American literature, history and criticism” ture. In Toni Morrison, edited by Harold Bloom,
(2), not only to distinguish the Encyclopedia of 201–230. New York: Chelsea House Publishers,
African-American Literature from other reference 1990.
works but also, in our view, to provide some of its Neel, Larry. “The Black Arts Movement.” In The Black
most significant value. Aesthetics, edited by Addison Gayle, 256–274.
New York: Doubleday & Company, 1972.
Turner, Darwin T. “The Negro Novel in America: In
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Rebuttal.” College Language Association Journal 10
Baldwin, James. “Everybody’s Protest Novel.” In (1966): 122–134.
Notes of a Native Son. Boston: Beacon Press, 1955,
13–22.