March 5, 1943

Dear Countee:

Thanks a million for your kind letter. I am always proud to have a word of praise from you because your friendship means a great deal to me. It means so much to me because I have never known you to make an insincere move, neither for personal gain, nor for malice growing out of jealousy of anyone else. Then too, you are my favorite poet now as always since you began to write. I have always shared your approach to art. That is, you have written from within rather than to catch the eye of those who were making the loudest noise for the moment. I know that hitch-hiking on band-wagons has become the rage among Negro artists for the last ten years at least, but I have never thumbed a ride and can feel no admiration for those who travel that way. I have pointed you out on numerous occasions as one whose integrity I respected, and whose example I wished to follow.

Now, as to segregation, I have no viewpoint on the subject particularly, other than a fierce desire for human justice. The rest of it is up to the individual. Personally, I have no desire for white association except where I am sought and the pleasure is mutual. That feeling grows out of my own self-respect. However blue the eye or yellow the hair, I see no glory to myself in the contact unless there is something more than the accident of race. Any other viewpoint would be giving too much value to a mere white hide. I have offended several “liberals” among the whites by saying this bluntly. I have been infuriated by having them ask me outright, or by strong implication if I am not happy over the white left-wing associating with Negroes. I always say no. Then I invariably ask why the association should give a Negro so much pleasure? Why any more pleasure than with a black “liberal”? They never fail to flare up at that which proves that they are paying for the devout worship that many Negroes give them in the cheap coin of patronage, which proves that they feel the same superiority of race that they claim to deny. Otherwise, why assume that they have done a noble deed by having contact with Negroes? Countee, I have actually had some of them to get real confidential and point out that I can be provided with a white husband by seeing things right! White wives and husbands have been provided for others, etc.

I invariably point out that getting hold of white men has always been easy. I don’t need any help to do that. I only wish that I could get everything else so easily as I can get white men. I am utterly indifferent to the joy of other Negroes who feel that a marriage across the line is compensation for all things, even conscience. The South must laugh and gloat at the spectacle and say “I told you so! That is a black person’s highest dream.” If a white man or woman marries a Negro for love that is all right with me, but a Negro who considers himself or herself paid off and honored by it is a bit too much for me to take. So I shall probably never become a “liberal.” Neither shall I ever let myself be persuaded to have my mind made up for me by a political job. I mean to live and die by my own mind. If that is cowardly, then I am a coward. When you come to analyze it, Countee, some of the stuff that has passed as courage among Negro “leaders” is nauseating. Oh, yes, they are right there with the stock phrases, which the white people are used to and expect, and pay no attention to anymore. They are rather disappointed if you do not use them. But if you suggest something real just watch them back off from it. I know that the Anglo-Saxon mentality is one of violence. Violence is his religion. He has gained everything he has by it, and respects nothing else. When I suggest to our “leaders” that the white man is not going to surrender for mere words what he has fought and died for, and that if we want anything substantial we must speak with the same weapons, immediately they object that I am not practical.

No, no indeed. The time is not ripe, etc. etc. Just point out that we are suffering injustices and denied our rights, as if the white people did not know that already! Why don’t I put something about lynchings in my books? As if all the world did not know about Negroes being lynched! My stand is this: either we must do something about it that the white man will understand and respect, or shut up. No whiner ever got any respect or relief. If some of us must die for human justice, then let us die. For my own part, this poor body of mine is not so precious that I would not be willing to give it up for a good cause. But my own self-respect refuses to let me go to the mourner’s bench. Our position is like a man sitting on a tack and crying that it hurts, when all he needs to do is to get up off it. A hundred Negroes killed in the streets of Washington right now could wipe out Jim Crow in the nation so far as the law is concerned, and abate it at least 60% in actuality. If any of our leaders start something like that then I will be in it body and soul. But I shall never join the cry-babies.

You are right in assuming that I am indifferent to the pattern of things. I am. I have never liked stale phrases and bodyless courage. I have the nerve to walk my own way, however hard, in my search for reality, rather than climb upon the rattling wagon of wishful illusions.

I suppose you have seen my denial of the statements of Douglas Gilbert of the World-Telegram. I know I made him sore. He is one of the type of “liberals” I spoke of. They are all Russian and want our help to put them in power in the U.S. but I know that we would be liquidated soon after they were in. They will have to get there the best way they can for all I care.

Cheerio, good luck, and a happy encounter (with me) in the near future.

Sincerely,
Zora

Document from Amistad Research Center, Tulane University.

“Zora Neale Hurston: Jump at the Sun” is available on DVD at www.newsreel.org

by Anne Seidlitz

In writing INVISIBLE MAN in the late 1940s, Ralph Ellison brought onto the scene a new kind of black protagonist, one at odds with the characters of the leading black novelist at the time, Richard Wright. If Wright’s characters were angry, uneducated, and inarticulate — the consequences of a society that oppressed them — Ellison’s Invisible Man was educated, articulate, and self-aware. Ellison’s view was that the African-American culture and sensibility was far from the downtrodden, unsophisticated picture presented by writers, sociologists and politicians, both black and white. He posited instead that blacks had created their own traditions, rituals, and a history that formed a cohesive and complex culture that was the source of a full sense of identity. When the protagonist in INVISIBLE MAN comes upon a yam seller (named Petie Wheatstraw, after the black folklore figure) on the streets of Harlem and remembers his childhood in a flood of emotion, his proclamation “I yam what I yam!” is Ellison’s expression of embracing one’s culture as the way to freedom.

If Wright’s protest literature was a natural outcome of a brutal childhood spent in the deep South, Ellison’s more affirming approach came out of a very different background in Oklahoma. A “frontier” state with no legacy of slavery, Oklahoma in the 1910s created the possibility of exploring a fluidity between the races not possible even in the North. Although a contemporary recalled that the Ellisons were “among the poorest” in Oklahoma City, Ralph still had the mobility to go to a good school, and the motivation to find mentors, both black and white, from among the most accomplished people in the city. Ellison would later say that as a child he observed that there were two kinds of people, those “who wore their everyday clothes on Sunday, and those who wore their Sunday clothes every day. I wanted to wear Sunday clothes every day.”

Ellison’s life-long receptivity to the variegated culture that surrounded him, beginning in Oklahoma City, served him well in creating a new take on literary modernism in INVISIBLE MAN. The novel references African-American folktales, songs, the blues, jazz, and black traditions like playing the dozens — much as T.S. Eliot and James Joyce had referenced classical Western and Eastern civilization in THE WASTELAND and ULYSSES. An added difference for Ellison was that his modernist narrative was also a vehicle for inscribing his own and the black identity — as well as a roadmap for anyone experiencing themselves as “invisible,” unseen. “Time” magazine essayist Roger Rosenblatt would say: “Ralph Ellison taught me what it is to be an American.”

For Ellison, unlike the protest writers and later black separatists, America did offer a context for discovering authentic personal identity; it also created a space for African-Americans to invent their own culture. And in Ellison’s view, black and white culture were inextricably linked, with almost every facet of American life influenced and impacted by the African-American presence — including music, language, folk mythology, clothing styles and sports. Moreover, he felt that the task of the writer is to “tell us about the unity of American experience beyond all considerations of class, of race, of religion.” In this Ellison was ahead of his time and out of step with the literary and political climates of both black and white America; his views would not gain full currency until the 1980s.

In his own life, Ellison’s interests were as far ranging as his “integrative” imagination. He was expert at fishing, hunting, repairing car engines, and assembling radios and stereo systems. His haberdasher in New York said that he “knew more about textiles than anyone I’ve ever met,” and his friend Saul Bellow called him a “thoroughgoing expert on the raising of African violets.” He was also an accomplished sculptor, musician, and photographer. The scope of Ellison’s mind and vision may have contributed to the growing unwieldiness of his much-awaited second novel, which he toiled over for forty years. He planned it as three books, a saga that would encompass the entire American experience. The book was still unfinished when Ellison died in New York in 1994 at the age of eighty.

INVISIBLE MAN and the essays in SHADOW AND ACT and GOING TO THE TERRITORY were transformative in our thinking about race, identity, and what it means to be American. On the power of three books, Ellison both accelerated America’s literary project and helped define and clarify arguments about race in this country. Ellison’s outlook was universal: he saw the predicament of blacks in America as a metaphor for the universal human challenge of finding a viable identity in a chaotic and sometimes indifferent world. The universality and accomplishment of Ellison’s writing can be seen in the breadth of his continuing influence on other writers, from Toni Morrison and Charles Johnson to Kurt Vonnegut and the late Joseph Heller. Fifty years after the publishing of INVISIBLE MAN, Ralph Ellison’s voice continues to speak to all of us.

Resources

Novels and Essays by Ralph Ellison

INVISIBLE MAN, 1952 (novel)
SHADOW AND ACT, 1964 (essays)
GOING TO THE TERRITORY, 1985 (anthology of interviews, essays, and more)
THE COLLECTED ESSAYS OF RALPH ELLISON, 1995 (John Callahan, ed.)
JUNETEENTH (1999) (novel)

Selected Essays and Reviews

Albert Murray, THE OMNI-AMERICANS (1970)
Robert G. O’Meally, THE CRAFT OF ELLISON (1980)
Benston, ed., SPEAKING FOR YOU: RALPH ELLISON’S CULTURAL VISION
Jerry Watts, HEROISM AND THE BLACK INTELLECTUAL: RALPH ELLISON, POLITICS, AND AFRO-AMERICAN INTELLECTUAL LIFE (1994)

A DVD of “Ralph Ellison: An American Journey”, containing an additional hour of video commentary and analysis can be purchased from California Newsreel.

by Horace Clarence Boyer
This essay originally appeared as the introduction to a Sweet Honey in the Rock songbook.

INTRODUCTION

On February 28, 1927 in Memphis, Tennessee, the blind sanctified singer Mamie Forehand recorded a refrain based on Psalm 81:16. In this passage of scripture the poet and musician King David advised his people that if they would serve the Lord they would be rewarded by being fed “honey out of the rock,” the place where according to legend of that time, the sweetest nectar was produced. The song became widely popular among Pentecostal, Baptist and Methodist congregations but, as often happens, it underwent a slight textual change on its way to popularity. While Forehand titled her song “Honey In The Rock” and sang those words, random congregations soon added the adjective “sweet” to the title, and the song has come down through history as “Sweet Honey in the Rock.” Forty-six years after Forehand introduced the song, a quintet of African-American women, singing as a unit of the vocal workshop of Washington D.C’s Black Repertory Theater Company, organized an a cappella group and called themselves “Sweet Honey In The Rock.” It would not overstate the case to add the overworked – but definitely applicable – phrase “and the rest is history.”

A female a cappella group was a strange sight and sound in 1973. This in itself seemed strange, for female singing groups have been a part of African-American musical history since the first quarter of the 20th century, when African-American male a cappella groups were organized. But the groups remembered and written about have been the piano-accompanied groups such as The Hyers Sisters, The Ward Singers, The Shirelles and En Vogue. Completely forgotten are the trail blazers, among whom were the powerful Virginia Female Singers, whose 1921 recording of “Lover of the Lord” has recently resurfaced. Little-known facts that have surfaced about this group and others that followed are that they used the voice classification of the male quartets (tenor, bass, etc.) and arranged their own songs. Moreover the bass for the group could compete, without a handicap, with the bass of any of the male groups, including the famous Blue Jay Singers and the Birmingham Jubilee Singers.

Long forgotten are The Southern Harps, organized in New Orleans in 1935 and whose 1942 group was comprised of a lead, swing lead, alternate lead, tenor, baritone and bass. Of particular interest is the fact that the lead was Bessie Griffin, who, in the 1950’s, would emerge as a gospel superstar, while the tenor was Helen Matthews, featured in the 1970’s Broadway musical “Purlie” under the name Linda Hopkins. Their hometown compatriots were the Jackson Singers, organized in 1936, a group that produced a sound not unlike The Southern Harps, with whom they were often paired in concerts. Also forgotten are the Golden Stars of Memphis, organized in 1938, as well as the more famous Songbirds of the South, organized in the same city in 1940. Fortunately one of its members, Cassietta George, made a significant musical contribution as a member of The Caravans.

Indeed the African-American a cappella quartet or quintet was created during the last half of the 19th century, and became a staple of American minstrelsy. It came into modern entertainment in 1905 when Fisk University, realizing it was too costly to send out their large group of Jubilee Singers, dispatched a quartet to replace them. African-American colleges and universities throughout the nation quickly organized similar groups, which inspired a battalion of Jubilee Singers in Birmingham and Bessemer, Alabama, in the second decade of the 20th century. Beginning with the organization of The Foster Singers in 1915, quartets of Jubilee Singers sprang up around the nation. The Fairfield Four were organized in 1921, The Dixie Hummingbirds in 1928, and these groups, in turn, inspired the organization of such secular music groups as The Mills Brothers in 1922, The Ink Spots in 1934 and The Delta Rhythm Boys in 1935. Sweet Honey In The Rock thus joined one of the most prestigious companies of music makers in the history of the United States.

SWEET HONEY IN THE ROCK AND THE AFRICAN-AMERICAN A CAPPELLA SINGING TRADITION

Sweet Honey In The Rock is uniquely distinct from all of these groups. She is even different from Mamie Forehand, though, like Forehand and these groups, she makes melody, harmony, rhythm and message. And therein lies her unique quality: more than any group on the music scene today, “Sweet Honey” as the group is affectionately called – carries a message. Absent from the group’s songs are the moon and June rhymes, the pretty melodies with senseless words and any sign of the slightest fear of topical subjects. In fact, Sweet Honey is known as the group that will go where no other singers will go, textually. At a concert of Sweet Honey, even before they open their mouths to sing, one is struck by the elegant, and yes, beautiful attire of the singers. Clad in colorful dresses of the finest African and eastern fabric, their heads are covered with striking (and intricately wrapped) turbans, or their hair is braided into elaborate designs adorned with ribbons and scarves. The singers grandly – and with a purpose – make their way to a group of chairs assembled in a semi-circle on stage and take their seats. Glancing briefly at each other they burst into sound, a sound unlike any heard in many years. As often as not they accompany themselves on rattles, gourds or sticks. The sound is that of sisters sitting around the fireplace singing songs of social commentary, a female choir in rehearsal, a congregation of Wednesday evening Prayer Services singers, or a village that has come together to sing through happiness, trials or death. Even as the melodies, harmonies and rhythms soar, one is immediately struck by the message of the songs, for the message is what Sweet Honey is all about. In writing about Sweet Honey in Epic Lives – One Hundred Black Women Who Made a Difference (Visible Ink Press, 1993), Jesse Carney Smith notes “despite their name, which comes from a gospel song, Sweet Honey In The Rock’s message is more often political (and social) than religious.” “I think everything is political,” (member Bernice Johnson) Reagon stated in People Magazine. “We are about being accountable.” To be sure, Sweet Honey has become the surrogate conscience of the United States in that her songs will not let us rest while there is still work to be done. Indeed the topics of the songs range from the controversial Joanne Little case to the instructively ceremonial “Seven Principles,” detailing, in English and Swahili, the principles of Kwanzaa. And the message is delivered without hostility or rancor but with the care of a friend and concerned loved one.

As the words of the songs become intense, Sweet Honey accents the meaning through a time-honored African-American practice of standing up and singing. The audiences, more than often, accept this as a sign for them, too, to show their involvement. They, too, stand, clap their hands and sway to the music. Before long the concert has turned into an ecstatic community revival. And clearly Sweet Honey is the leader of the revival. Just as clearly, the group is the Greek chorus, minstrels or community singers of our society, commenting on all matters of importance to the populace.

They are more than just community singers. These women, unlike the jubilee quartets of the 1920s, are not simply singers who, for lack of preparation or want of something else to do, or to make a living and contribution at the same time, fell into a singing group. They are educated (the group contains two members with earned Ph.D. degrees and professional women who have accepted the charge of reminding us that we are all God’s children.) They have taken their songs and message not only throughout the United States and Africa but throughout Mexico, Germany, Australia, Japan, England and Russia, among many nations.

However, their position as community singers is important when it is realized that Sweet Honey almost single-handedly kept the a cappella group tradition alive until 1988 when Take 6 joined them in what is perceived as a revival of the a cappella group. Happily, today there is a plethora of such groups, many of which, both male and female, were inspired to organize by Sweet Honey. In yet another unique move, Sweet Honey includes in her concerts sign-language interpretation for the Deaf and hard of hearing, a practice begun by the group in 1979.

THE MUSICAL STYLES OF SWEET HONEY IN THE ROCK

While there is no doubt the uniqueness of Sweet Honey is the message, her musical sound is what attracts first-time listeners. Described in the magazine High Fidelity as breathtaking excursions into harmony singing and neck-hair raising in Downbeat, one is startled at the many musical guises through which the message may appear. At one time the message comes in the form of a low-down blues; at another it is presented through the 19th century Negro Spiritual; then as the song of a field worker or a chain-gang member; now as a mother singing a sweet lullaby to her child; often as ceremonial African chant with all of its rhythmic/melodic motives that border on becoming a mantra; again as a reggae song steeped in African punctuated rhythms; now as a rousing gospel song with congregational responses; or as a children’s song, with rhythms that crave a ring play.

Regardless of the guise through which the message is presented, the Sweet Honey sound dresses it in splendid attire. In her singing, the four- and five-part harmony sounds as spontaneous as friends meeting on the street corner, though it has the refinement of a conservatory ensemble. The richness of the individual voices and the natural vibrato, huskiness, and agility that they innately possess is a trademark of the group. Placing the high voices in their middle register forces the bass (yes, there are two in the group) to its lower register, creating a sound of substance and body. Like the sweet singing quartets of old, Sweet Honey celebrates close harmony, precise attacks and releases, and understated – yet firm – rhythmic accentuation. At a moment’s notice she can easily change to energetic and extremely intense solo and background singing, a preaching style of delivery, and the exaggerated rhythms of the hard-singing quartets.

The style for which Sweet Honey is most noted is the layered or polyphonic practice reminiscent of West African singing. In this practice the bass sets up a two- or four-bar motif (or ostinato) that not only sets the rhythmic base, but also the harmonic foundation. After several statements of this ostinato, a tenor or baritone enters with a contrasting motif that sets up a dual rhythmic and harmonic progression. On top of this, two other voices, perhaps a tenor and baritone or two tenors, add yet another contrasting motif and together the voices create a sonorous arabesque of harmony and rhythm that is as intricately designed as a tennis match is active. At the moment that the listener thinks she or he has been exposed to all of the material of the song, the lead enters with a soaring melody that, because it is totally different from the sounds already presented, can gallantly ride on top of the harmony and rhythm set up by what has become the response to a call. This practice is so effective because the message of the leader is all the more pronounced as it sits atop a mountain of sound.

Another Sweet Honey device is the folk choral response composed of a single statement presented in perpetual motion behind the soloists. This device, created by the Tidewater Jubilee Quartets, involves setting up a textual or neutral syllable response such as oom-ma-lank-a-lank-a-lank over which the leader/soloist weaves a story. Another favored device is the classic response wherein the background singers repeat the leader’s call, answer questions posed by the lead or complete statements begun by the lead. A favorite example of this device is found in W. Herbert Brewster’s “Old Land Mark” in which the leader begins a statement with ‘let us all go back’ while the response states a diminished repetition, ‘all go back.’ The leader continues the statement with ‘back to the old,’ while the background singers complete the statement with ‘old land mark.’ Acknowledging the ingenuity of Sweet Honey, one can expect endless variations on all of these devices. As if the use of the several devices at their command were not enough to provide variety in sound and technique, each member of Sweet Honey is a soloist in her own right and will lead one or two songs in each concert. This differs from such perennially single-soloist lead groups as The Supremes, where Diana Ross was the lead singer, and Martha and The Vandellas. Sweet Honey works in the tradition of such groups as The Roberta Martin Singers and The Caravans, groups in which each singer was also a soloist.

From the marvelous recorded library of the group – and a fine library it is – and the many articles and reviews written about them – and even articles by members of the group – plus their tours throughout the United States and other parts of the world, we can easily get to know and enjoy Sweet Honey, that is, unless I’m preaching to the choir. Enjoy!

Prior to the 1960s, there were virtually no outlets for the wealth of black theatrical talent in America. Playwrights writing realistically about the black experience could not get their work produced, and even the most successful performers, such as Hattie McDaniel and Butterfly McQueen, were confined to playing roles as servants. It was disenfranchised artists such as these who set out to create a theater concentrating primarily on themes of black life. In 1965, Playwright Douglas Turner Ward, actor Robert Hooks, and theater manager Gerald Krone came together to make these dreams a reality with the Negro Ensemble Company. The main catalyst for this project was the 1959 production of “A Raisin in the Sun.”

Written by Lorraine Hansberry, of “A Raisin in the Sun” was a gritty, realistic view of black family life. The long-running play gave many black theater people the opportunity to meet and work together. Robert Hooks and Douglas Turner Ward were castmates in the road company. Together they dreamed of starting a theater company run by and for black people. While acting in Leroi Jones’ play “The Dutchman”, Hooks began spending nights teaching to local black youth. In a public performance primarily for parents and neighbors, the kids put on a one-act play by Ward. A newspaper critic who had attended the performance recommended that Ward’s plays be produced commercially.

While Hooks raised money, Ward wrote plays. The pair recruited a theater manager, Gerald Krone, and the three men produced an evening of black-oriented, satiric one act plays. One of these short plays, “Day of Absence”, was a reverse minstrel show, with black actors in whiteface performing the roles of whites in a small Southern town on a day when all the blacks have mysteriously disappeared. The plays, performed at the St. Marks Play House in Greenwich Village, were a major success. They ran for 504 performances and won Ward an Obie Award for acting and a Drama Desk Award for writing. Impressed with his work, the NEW YORK TIMES invited Ward to write an article on the condition of black artists in American theater.

Ward’s piece in the Times became a manifesto for the establishment of a resident black theater company. With money from the Ford Foundation and a home at the St. Marks Playhouse, the Negro Ensemble Company formed officially in 1967. Though the new company succeeded in attracting audiences from all walks of life, they ran into a number of political and economic difficulties. In London a performance of the NEC’s first production, “Song of the Lucitanian Bogey” (1967) was heckled by-right wing protesters who resented its anti-colonial message. Back home in America, the group had to deal with criticism from members of the black community over their continued association with white administrators, playwrights, and funders.

Among the many plays produced by the Negro Ensemble Company were such greats as Peter Weiss’ “Song of the Lucitanian Bogey”, Lonnie Elder’s Ceremonies in Dark Old Men” (1969) and Charles Fuller’s “Zooman and the Sign” (1980). These plays dealt with complex and often ignored aspects of the black experience. Creating emotionally resonant characters with depth and variety, the NEC paved the way for black Americans to present a voice that had been aggressively stifled for three hundred years. This revolution in production and writing also meant an equally important advance for black actors. With the NEC, many black actors found their first opportunity to play characters with depth and meaning.

Though critically acclaimed and presenting some of the most important theatrical work of its time, the NEC ran into a number of economic troubles. With production costs rising and an original grant from the Ford Foundation gone, the group no longer had enough money for many of its projects. Even sellout audiences in the St. Marks Theater could not generate enough revenue to meet the budget. In the 1972-73 season the resident company was disbanded, staff was cut back, training programs canceled, and salaries deferred. The decision was made to produce only one new play a year.

Fortunately, the first play chosen was “The River Niger”, by Joe Walker. “The River Niger” was a moving play about the struggles of a black family from Harlem in the ’70s. It was the first NEC production to move to Broadway, where it stayed for nine months. It won the Tony Award for Best Play, and embarked on an extensive national tour. The success of “The River Niger” helped to insure the continued work of the NEC and of its many members over the next ten years. In 1981, the NEC had what was probably its most successful production with “A Soldier’s Play”, by Charles Fuller. “A Soldier’s Play” is a gripping story of the murder of a black soldier on a Southern Army base, and the subsequent investigation by a black army captain. It was a tremendously popular play and won both the Critics Circle Best Play Award and the Pulitzer Prize. It was later made into a movie, “A Soldier’s Story”, which was nominated for three Academy Awards.

Since its founding in 1967, the NEC has produced more than two hundred new plays and provided a theatrical home for more than four thousand cast and crew members. Among its ranks have been some of the best black actors in television and film, including Louis Gossett Jr., Sherman Hemsley, and Phylicia Rashad. The NEC is respected worldwide for its commitment to excellence, and has won dozens of honors and awards. While these accolades point to the larger success of the NEC, it has created something far greater. It has been a constant source and sustenance for black actors, directors, and writers as they have worked to break down walls of racial prejudice.