Psychology Comes to Harlem: Rethinking the Race Question in Twentieth-Century America

229 Pages·2012·1.63 MB·English

by  Jay Garcia

Psychology Comes to Harlem
New Studies in American Intellectual and Cultural History
Howard Brick, Series Editor
Psychology Comes to Harlem
Rethinking the Race Question in
Twentieth-Century America
JAY GAR CIA

The Johns Hopkins University Press
Baltimore
∫ 2012 The Johns Hopkins University Press
All rights reserved. Published 2012
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Garcia, Jay, 1972–
Psychology comes to Harlem : rethinking the race question in
twentieth-century America / Jay Garcia.
p. cm. — (New studies in American intellectual and cultural history)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn-13: 978-1-4214-0519-3 (hbk. : acid-free paper)
isbn-10: 1-4214-0519-9 (hbk. : acid-free paper)
isbn-13: 978-1-4214-0541-4 (electronic)
isbn-10: 1-4214-0541-5 (electronic)
1. American literature—African American authors—History and criticism.
2. African Americans—Intellectual life—20th century. 3. Wright, Richard, 1908–1960—
Criticism and interpretation. 4. Baldwin, James, 1924–1987—Criticism and
interpretation. 5. Harlem (New York, N.Y.)—Intellectual life—20th century. I. Title.
ps153.n5g24 2012
810.9%896073—dc23 2011034757
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Where men have always looked around
And searched for secrets never found,
You saw a vision, dark, profound;
You heard beneath a distant sound;
You took the lid o√ the Underground.
Fredric Wertham to Richard Wright
I could never understand why people think these structural
questions were not connected to the psychic, with emotions and
identifications and feelings because, for me, those structures are
things you live . . . they have real structural properties, they break
you, they destroy you.
Stuart Hall
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contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
1 Richard Wright Writing:
The Unconscious Machinery of Race Relations 19
2 Richard Wright Reading: The Promise of Social Psychiatry 49
3 Race and Minorities from Below: The Wartime Cultural Criticism
of Chester Himes, Horace Cayton, Ralph Ellison,
and C. L. R. James 75
4 Strange Fruit: Lillian Smith and the Making of Whiteness 102
5 Notes of a Native Son: James Baldwin in Postwar America 136
Conclusion 170
Notes 177
Essay on Sources 201
Index 209
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acknowledgments
Many people helped to make Psychology Comes to Harlem possible. For their formida-
ble critical talents and generosity I thank my main dissertation advisors in the
Program in American Studies at Yale University. Jean-Christophe Agnew’s ‘‘Ameri-
can Century’’ course was the challenging and indispensable starting point for the
book, and his close attention to the particulars of the project always buoyed my
spirits. My work was likewise sustained by Hazel Carby’s enthusiasm about the
project and the model of her own scholarship. Michael Denning’s combination of
sound practical advice and exacting questions was essential for seeing the project in
new ways at crucial junctures. Several other colleagues a≈liated with the American
Studies Program and Department of African American Studies at Yale University
shaped my thinking in di√erent ways throughout the trajectory of the project. Paul
Gilroy, Alan Trachtenberg, Matthew Jacobson, and Jonathan Holloway provided
vital insights and leads.
While at Yale, I was lucky to be part of an excellent writing group that quickly
became an invaluable resource. Amy Chazkel, Michael Cohen, Mark Overmyer-
Velazquez, Tori Lawless, and Fiona Vernal helped me strengthen my arguments.
Scott Saul, Becky Ruquist, Leigh Raiford, Lori Brooks, JJ Fueser, and Joseph Thomp-
son were also key interlocutors and made graduate studies a great deal of fun to boot.
Shafali Lal’s passion for scholarship, as for social change, was another resource as I
worked on this study. Questions she posed in her own work were not only relevant to
my research, they also led me to conduct more searching investigations. A presen-
tation based on the first phase of my research came about only after Shafali’s insistence
that we jointly organize an American Studies Association panel. Her humor, vision,
and skill in seeing the best in others continue to wend through the lives of those
she touched.
While teaching at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, my work on
the book benefited from critiques by John Kasson and Fred Hobson and the support