Impermanent Blackness: The Making and Unmaking of Interracial Literary Culture in Modern America

289 Pages·2023·25.679 MB·English

by  Korey Garibaldi

Impermanent Blackness

Impermanent Blackness
the making and unmaking of
interracial literary culture
in modern ameri c a
korey garibaldi
prince ton university press
princet on & oxford
Copyright © 2023 by Prince ton University Press
Prince ton University Press is committed to the protection of copyright and the
intellectual property our authors entrust to us. Copyright promotes the pro gress
and integrity of knowledge. Thank you for supporting free speech and the global
exchange of ideas by purchasing an authorized edition of this book. If you wish to
reproduce or distribute any part of it in any form, please obtain permission.
Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work
should be sent to permissions@press . princeton . edu
Published by Prince ton University Press
41 William Street, Prince ton, New Jersey 08540
99 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 6JX
press . princeton . edu
All Rights Reserved
ISBN 978-0-691-21190-9
ISBN (e- book) 978-0-691-24512-6
British Library Cataloging- in- Publication Data is available
Editorial: Anne Savarese and James Collier
Production Editorial: Kathleen Cioffi
Jacket Design: Katie Osborne
Production: Erin Suydam
Publicity: Jodi Price and Carmen Jimenez
Copyeditor: Elisabeth A. Graves
Jacket image: Macro of folded book signatures by Keira McKee / Alamy Stock Photo
This book has been composed in Arno
Printed on acid- free paper. ∞
Printed in the United States of Amer i ca
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For my mom

Students, to you ’tis giv’n to scan the heights
Above, to traverse the ethereal space,
And mark the systems of revolving worlds.
— phillis wheatley, “to the
university of cambridge,
in new- england” (1773)
Not wholly this or that,
But wrought
Of alien bloods am I,
A product of the interplay
Of traveled hearts.
Estranged, yet not estranged, I stand
All comprehending;
From my estate
I view earth’s frail dilemma;
Scion of fused strength am I,
All understanding,
Nor this nor that
Contains me.
— georgia douglas johnson,
“cosmopolite” (1922)

Contents
Introduction 1
1 How to Segregate a Re nais sance 19
2 Integration and Its Discontents 71
3 Challenging Little Black Sambo 108
4 What Was Postwar American Culture? 141
5 Toward Disunion 174
Coda 205
Acknowl edgments 211
Notes 215
Index 263
ix