The Negro in Literature and Art in the United States

To some extent purely literary and artistic achievement in America was for the time being retarded, and in the case of the Negro this was especially true. The great economic problems raised by the war and its aftermath have very largely absorbed the energy of the race; and even if something was actually done – as in a literary way – it was not easy for it to gain recognition, the cost of publication frequently being prohibitive. An enormous amount of power yearned for expression, however; scores and even hundreds of young people were laying solid foundations in different lines of art; and within the next decade we shall almost certainly witness a great fulfillment of their striving. Yet even for the time being there are some things that cannot pass unnoticed.

Of those who have received prominent mention in the present book, W.E. Burghardt DuBois and William Stanley Braithwaite especially have continued the kind of work of which they had already given indication. In 1920 appeared Dr. DuBois's "Darkwater" (Harcourt, Brace & Co., New York), a strong indictment of the attitude of the white world toward the Negro and other colored peoples. This book belongs rather to the field of social discussion than to that of pure literature, and whether one prefers it to "The Souls of Black Folk" will depend largely on whether he prefers a work primarily in the wider field of politics or one especially noteworthy for its literary quality. Mr. Braithwaite has continued the publication of his "Anthology of Magazine Verse" (now issued annually through Small, Maynard & Co., Boston), and he has also issued "The Golden Treasury of Magazine Verse" (Small, Maynard & Co., 1918), "Victory: Celebrated by Thirty-eight American Poets" (Small, Maynard & Co., 1919), as well as "The Story of the Great War" for young people (Frederick A. Stokes & Co., New York, 1919). As for the special part of the Negro in the war, importance attaches to Dr. Emmett J. Scott's "Official History of the American Negro in the World War" (Washington, 1919), while in biography outstanding is Robert Russa Moton's "Finding a Way Out" (Doubleday, Page & Co., Garden City, N. Y., 1920), a work written in modest vein and forming a distinct contribution to the history of the times.

Of those poets who have come into prominence within the period now under review first place must undoubtedly be given to Claude McKay. This man was originally a Jamaican and his one little book was published in London; but for the last several years he has made his home in the United States and his achievement must now be identified with that of the race in this country. He has served a long apprenticeship in writing, has a firm sense of form, and only time can now give the full measure of his capabilities. His sonnet, "The Harlem Dancer," is astonishing in its artistry, and another sonnet, "If We must Die," is only less unusual in strength. Mr. McKay has recently brought together the best of his work in a slender volume, "Spring in New Hampshire, and Other Poems" (Grant Richards & Co., London, 1920). Three young men who sometimes gave interesting promise, have died within the period – Joseph S. Cotter, Jr., Roscoe C. Jamison, and Lucian B. Watkins. Cotter's "The Band of Gideon, and Other Lyrics" (The Cornhill Co., Boston, 1918) especially showed something of the freedom of genuine poetry; and mention must also be made of Charles B. Johnson's "Songs of my People" (The Cornhill Co., 1918), while Leslie Pickney Hill's "The Wings of Oppression" (The Stratford Co., Boston, 1921) brings together some of the striking verse that this writer has contributed to different periodicals within recent years. Meanwhile Mrs. Georgia Douglas Johnson has continued the composition of her poignant lyrics, and Mrs. Alice M. Dunbar-Nelson occasionally gives demonstration of her unquestionable ability, as in the sonnet, "I had not thought of violets of late" (Crisis, August, 1919). If a prize were to be given for the best single poem produced by a member of the race within the last three years, the decision would probably have to rest between this sonnet and McKay's "The Harlem Dancer."

In other fields of writing special interest attaches to the composition of dramatic work. Mary Burrill and Mrs. Dunbar-Nelson especially have contributed one-act plays to different periodicals; Angelina W. Grimké has formally published "Rachel," a play in three acts (The Cornhill Co., Boston, 1920), while several teachers and advanced students at the different educational institutions are doing excellent amateur work that will certainly tell later in a larger way. R. T. Browne's "The Mystery of Space" (E. P. Dutton & Co., New York, 1920), is an interesting excursion in metaphysics; and this book calls forth a remark about the general achievement of the race in philosophy and science. These departments are somewhat beyond the province of the present work. It is worthwhile to note, however, that while the whole field of science is just now being entered in a large way by members of the race, several of the younger men within the last decade have entered upon work of the highest order of original scholarship. No full study of this phase of development has yet been made; but for the present an article by Dr. Emmett J. Scott, "Scientific Achievements of Negroes" (Southern Workman, July, 1920), will probably be found an adequate summary. Maud Cuney Hare has brought out a beautiful anthology, "The Message of the Trees" (The Cornhill Co., Boston, 1919); and in the wide field of literature mention might also be made of "A Short History of the English Drama," by the author of the present book (Harcourt, Brace & Co., New York, 1921).

The general attitude in the presentation of Negro characters in the fiction in the standard magazines of the country has shown some progress within the last three years, though this might seem to be fully offset by such burlesques as are given in the work of E. K. Means and Octavus Roy Cohen, all of which but gives further point to the essay on "The Negro in American Fiction" in this book. Quite different and of much more sympathetic temper are "The Shadow," a novel by Mary White Ovington (Harcourt, Brace & Co., New York, 1920) and George Madden Martin's "Children of the Mist," a collection of stories about the people in the lowlands of the South (D. Appleton & Co., New York, 1920).

In the field of the theatre and the drama there has been progress, though the lower order of popular comedy still makes strong appeal; and of course all legitimate drama has recently had to meet the competition of moving-pictures, in connection with which several members of the race have in one way or another won success. Outstanding is Noble M. Johnson, originally of Colorado, a man of great personal gifts and with a face and figure admirably adapted to Indian as well as Negro parts. In the realm of the spoken drama attention fixes at once upon Charles S. Gilpin, whose work is so important that it must be given special and separate treatment. It is worthy of note also that great impetus has recently been given to the construction of playhouses, the thoroughly modern Dunbar Theatre in Philadelphia being a shining example. Interesting in the general connection for the capability that many of the participants showed was the remarkable pageant, "The Open Door," first presented at Atlanta University and in the winter of 1920-21 given in various cities of the North for the benefit of this institution.

In painting and sculpture there has been much promise, but no one has appeared who has gone beyond the achievement of those persons who had already won secure position. Indeed that would be a very difficult thing to do. Mr. Tanner, Mr. Scott, Mrs. Meta Warrick Fuller, and Mrs. May Howard Jackson have all continued their work. Mr. Tanner has remained abroad, but there have recently been exhibitions of his pictures in Des Moines and Boston, and in 1919 Mrs. Jackson exhibited at the National Academy of Design and at the showing of the Society of Independent Artists at the Waldorf-Astoria. In connection with sculpture, important is a labor of love, a book, "Emancipation and the Freed in American Sculpture," by Frederick H. M. Murray (published by the author, 1733 7th St., N. W., Washington, 1916). This work contains many beautiful illustrations and deserves the attention of all who are interested in the artistic life of the Negro or in his portrayal by representative American sculptors.

In music the noteworthy fact is that there has been such general recognition of the value of Negro music as was never accorded before, and impetus toward co-operation and achievement has been given by the new National Association of Negro Musicians. R. Nathaniel Dett has been most active and has probably made the greatest advance. His compositions and the songs of Harry T. Burleigh are now frequently given a place on the programs of the foremost artists in America and Europe, and the present writer has even heard them at sea. Outstanding among smaller works by Mr. Dett is his superb "Chariot Jubilee," designed for tenor solo and chorus of mixed voices, with accompaniment of organ, piano, and orchestra. To the Southern Workman (April and May, 1918) this composer contributed two articles. "The Emancipation of Negro Music" and "Negro Music of the Present"; and, while continuing his studies at Harvard University in 1920, under the first of these titles he won a Bowdoin essay prize, and for a chorus without accompaniment, "Don't be weary, traveler," he also won the Francis Boott prize of $100. Melville Charlton, the distinguished organist, has gained greater maturity and in April, 1919, under the auspices of the Verdi Club, he conducted "Il Trovatore" in the Grand Ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria. Maud Cuney Hare has helped to popularize Negro music by lecture-recitals and several articles in musical journals, the latter being represented by such titles as "The Drum in Africa," "The Sailor and his Songs," and "Afro-American Folk-Song Contribution" in the Musical Observer. In January, 1919, with the assistance of William R. Richardson, baritone, Mrs. Hare gave a lecture-recital on "Afro-American and Creole Music" in the lecture hall of the Boston Public Library, this being one of four such lectures arranged for the winter by the library trustees and marking the first time such recognition was accorded members of the race. The violinist, Clarence Cameron White, has also entered the ranks of the composers with his "Bandanna Sketches" and other productions, and to the Musical Observer (beginning in February, 1917) he also contributed a formal consideration of "Negro Music." Meanwhile J. Rosamond Johnson, Carl Diton, and other musicians have pressed forward; and it is to be hoped that before very long the ambitious and frequently powerful work of H. Laurence Freeman will also win the recognition it deserves.

In the department of singing, in which the race has already done so much laudable work, we are evidently on the threshold of greater achievement than ever before. Several young men and women are just now appearing above the horizon, and only a few years are needed to see who will be able to contribute most; and what applies to the singers holds also in the case of the young violinists, pianists, and composers. Of those who have appeared within the period, Antoinette Smythe Garnes, who was graduated from the Chicago Musical College in 1919 with a diamond medal for efficiency, has been prominent among those who have awakened the highest expectation; and Marian Anderson, a remarkable contralto, and Cleota J. Collins, a soprano, have frequently appeared with distinct success. Meanwhile Roland W. Hayes, the tenor, has been winning further triumphs by his concerts in London; and generally prominent before the public in the period now under review has been Mme. Florence Cole Talbert, also the winner of a diamond medal at Chicago in 1916. Mme. Talbert has been a conscientious worker; her art has now ripened; and she has justified her high position by the simplicity and ease with which she has appeared on numerous occasions, one of the most noteworthy of her concerts being that at the University of California in 1920.

A list of books bearing on the artistic life of the Negro, whether or not by members of the race, would include those below. It may be remarked that these are only some of the more representative of the productions within the last three years, and attention might also be called to the pictures of the Van Hove Statues in the Congo Museum at Brussels in the Crisis, September, 1920.

A Social History of the American Negro, by Benjamin Brawley. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1921.

Songs and Tales from the Dark Continent, recorded from the singing and the sayings of C. Kamba Simango, Ndau Tribe, Portuguese East Africa, and Madikane Cele, Zulu Tribe, Natal, Zululand, South Africa, by Natalie Curtis Burlin. G. Schirmer, New York and Boston, 1920.

Negro Folk-Songs: Hampton Series, recorded by Natalie Curtis Burlin, in four books. G. Schirmer, New York and Boston, 1918.

The Upward Path: A reader for colored children, compiled by Myron T. Prichard and Mary White Ovington, with an introduction by Robert R. Moton. Harcourt, Brace & Co., New York, 1920.

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J. A. Lomax: Self-Pity in Negro Folk-Songs. Nation, August 9, 1917.

Louise Pound: Ancestry of a "Negro Spiritual." Modern Language Notes, November, 1918.

Natalie Curtis Burlin: Negro Music at Birth. Music Quarterly, January, 1919, and Current Opinion, March, 1919.

William Stanley Braithwaite: Some Contemporary Poets of the Negro Race. Crisis, April, 1919.

Elsie Clews Parsons: Joel Chandler Harris and Negro Folklore. Dial, May 17, 1919.

Willis Richardson: The Hope of a Negro Drama. Crisis, November, 1919.

N. I. White: Racial Traits in the Negro Song. Sewanee Review, July, 1920.

Our Debt to Negro Sculpture. Literary Digest, July 17, 1920.

C. Bell: Negro Sculpture. Living Age, September 25, 1920.

Robert T. Kerlin: Present-Day Negro Poets. Southern Workman, December, 1920.

Robert T. Kerlin: "Canticles of Love and Woe." Southern Workman, February, 1921.

XIV

CHARLES S. GILPIN

AS an illustration of the highly romantic temperament that characterizes the Negro race, and also as an instance of an artist who has worked for years to realize his possibilities, we might cite such a shining example as Charles S. Gilpin, the star of "The Emperor Jones" in the New York theatrical season of 1920-21. Here is a man who for years dreamed of attainment in the field of the legitimate drama, but who found no opening; but who with it all did not despair, and now, after years of striving and waiting, stands with his rounded experience and poise as an honor and genuine contributor to the American stage.

Charles S. Gilpin was born in Richmond, Va., the youngest child in a large family. His mother was a nurse in the city hospital; his father a hard-working man in a steel plant. He was educated at St. Frances' Convent, where he sang well and took some part in amateur theatricals; but he was to work a long while yet before he found a chance to do the kind of work that he wanted to do, and meanwhile he was to earn his living as printer or barber or otherwise, just as occasion served. He himself has recently said, "I've been in stock companies, vaudeville, minstrel shows, and carnivals; but not until 1907 did I have an opportunity to show an audience that the Negro has dramatic talent and likes to play parts other than comedy ones."

It was in the 90's that Mr. Gilpin began his professional work as a variety performer in Richmond, and he soon joined a traveling organization. In 1903 he was one of the Gilmore Canadian Jubilee Singers; in 1905 he was with Williams and Walker; the next season with Gus Hill's "Smart Set"; and then from 1907 to 1909 with the Pekin Stock Company of Chicago. This last company consisted of about forty members, of whom eleven were finally selected for serious drama. Mr. Gilpin was one of these; but the manager died, and once more the aspiring actor was forced back to vaudeville.

Now followed ten long years – ten years of the kind that blast and kill, and with which even the strongest man sometimes goes under. With the New York managers there was no opening. And yet sometimes there was hope – not only hope, but leadership and effort for others, as when Mr. Gilpin carried a company of his own to the Lafayette Theatre and helped to begin the production of Broadway shows. Life was leading – somewhere; but meanwhile one had to live, and the way was as yet uncertain. At last, in 1919, came a chance to play William Custis, the old Negro in Drinkwater's "Abraham Lincoln."

The part was not a great one. It was still bound by racial limitations and Custis appeared in only one scene. Nevertheless the work was serious; here at least was opportunity.

In the early fall of 1920 Mr. Gilpin was still playing Custis and helping to make the play a success. Meanwhile, however, Eugene O'Neill, one of the most original playwrights in the country, had written "The Emperor Jones"; and Charles S. Gilpin was summoned to the part of the star.

There were many who regretted to see him leave "Abraham Lincoln," and some indeed who wondered if he did the wise thing. To Charles Gilpin, however, came the decision that sooner or later must be faced by every artist, and indeed by every man in any field of endeavor – either to rest on safe and assumed achievement, or to believe in one's own self, take the great risk, and launch out into the unknown. He choose to believe in himself. His work was one of the features of the New York theatrical season of 1920-21, and at the annual dinner of the Drama League in 1921 he was one of the ten guests who were honored as having contributed most to the American theatre within the year.

The play on which this success has been based is a highly original and dramatic study of panic and fear. The Emperor Jones is a Negro who has broken out of jail in the United States and escaped to what is termed a "West Indian Island not yet self-determined by white marines." Here he is sufficiently bold and ingenious to make himself ruler within two years. He moves unharmed among his sullen subjects by virtue of a legend of his invention that only a silver bullet can harm him, but at length when he has reaped all the riches in sight, he deems it advisable to flee. As the play begins, the measured sound of a beating tom-tom in the hills gives warning that the natives are in conclave, using all kinds of incantations to work themselves up to the point of rebellion. Nightfall finds the Emperor at the edge of a forest where he has food hidden and through whose trackless waste he knows a way to safety and freedom. His revolver carries five bullets for his pursuers and a silver one for himself in case of need. Bold and adventurous, he plunges into the jungle at sunset; but at dawn, half-crazed, naked, and broken, he stumbles back to the starting-place only to find the natives quietly waiting for him there. Now follows a vivid portrayal of strange sounds and shadows, with terrible visions from the past. As the Emperor's fear quickens, the forest seems filled with threatening people who stare at and bid for him. Finally, shrieking at the worst vision of all, he is driven back to the clearing and to his death, the tom-tom beating ever nearer and faster according as his panic grows.

To the work of this remarkable part – which is so dominating in the play that it has been called a dramatic monologue – Mr. Gilpin brings the resources of a matured and thoroughly competent actor. His performance is powerful and richly imaginative, and only other similarly strong plays are now needed for the further enlargement of the art of an actor who has already shown himself capable of the hardest work and the highest things.

For once the critics were agreed. Said Alexander Woolcott in the New York Times with reference to those who produced the play: "They have acquired an actor, one who has it in him to invoke the pity and the terror and the indescribable foreboding which are part of the secret of 'The Emperor Jones.'" Kenneth MacGowan wrote in the Globe; "Gilpin's is a sustained and splendid piece of acting. The moment when he raises his naked body against the moonlit sky, beyond the edge of the jungle, and prays, is such a dark lyric of the flesh, such a cry of the primitive being, as I have never seen in the theatre"; and in the Tribune Heywood Broun said of the actor: "He sustains the succession of scenes in monologue not only because his voice is one of a gorgeous natural quality, but because he knows just what to do with it. All the notes are there and he has also an extraordinary facility for being in the right place at the right time." Such comments have been re-echoed by the thousands who have witnessed Mr. Gilpin's thrilling work, and in such a record as this he deserves further credit as one who has finally bridged the chasm between popular comedy and the legitimate drama, and who thus by sheer right of merit steps into his own as the foremost actor that the Negro race has produced within recent years.

APPENDIX

1. THE NEGRO IN AMERICAN FICTION

EVER since Sydney Smith sneered at American books a hundred years ago, honest critics have asked themselves if the literature of the United States was not really open to the charge of provincialism. Within the last year or two the argument has been very much revived; and an English critic, Mr. Edward Garnett, writing in The Atlantic Monthly, has pointed out that with our predigested ideas and made-to-order fiction we not only discourage individual genius, but make it possible for the multitude to think only such thoughts as have passed through a sieve. Our most popular novelists, and sometimes our most respectable writers, see only the sensation that is uppermost for the moment in the mind of the crowd – divorce, graft, tainted meat or money – and they proceed to cut the cloth of their fiction accordingly. Mr. Owen Wister, a "regular practitioner" of the novelist's art, in substance admitting the weight of these charges, lays the blame on our crass democracy which utterly refuses to do its own thinking and which is satisfied only with the tinsel and gewgaws and hobbyhorses of literature. And no theme has suffered so much from the coarseness of the mob-spirit in literature as that of the Negro.

As a matter of fact, the Negro in his problems and strivings offers to American writers the greatest opportunity that could possibly be given to them to-day. It is commonly agreed that only one other large question, that of the relations of capital and labor, is of as much interest to the American public; and even this great issue fails to possess quite the appeal offered by the Negro from the social standpoint. One can only imagine what a Victor Hugo, detached and philosophical, would have done with such a theme in a novel. When we see what actually has been done – how often in the guise of fiction a writer has preached a sermon or shouted a political creed, or vented his spleen – we are not exactly proud of the art of novel-writing as it has been developed in the United States of America. Here was opportunity for tragedy, for comedy, for the subtle portrayal of all the relations of man with his fellow man, for faith and hope and love and sorrow. And yet, with the Civil War fifty years in the distance, not one novel or one short story of the first rank has found its inspiration in this great theme. Instead of such work we have consistently had traditional tales, political tracts, and lurid melodramas.

Let us see who have approached the theme, and just what they have done with it, for the present leaving out of account all efforts put forth by Negro writers themselves.

The names of four exponents of Southern life come at once to mind – George W. Cable, Joel Chandler Harris, Thomas Nelson Page, and Thomas Dixon; and at once, in their outlook and method of work, the first two become separate from the last two. Cable and Harris have looked toward the past, and have embalmed vanished or vanishing types. Mr. Page and Mr. Dixon, with their thought on the present (though for the most part they portray the recent past), have used the novel as a vehicle for political propaganda.

It was in 1879 that "Old Creole Days" evidenced the advent of a new force in American literature; and on the basis of this work, and of "The Grandissimes" which followed, Mr. Cable at once took his place as the foremost portrayer of life in old New Orleans. By birth, by temperament, and by training he was thoroughly fitted for the task to which he set himself. His mother was from New England, his father of the stock of colonial Virginia; and the stern Puritanism of the North was mellowed by the gentler influences of the South. Moreover, from his long apprenticeship in newspaper work in New Orleans he had received abundantly the knowledge and training necessary for his work. Setting himself to a study of the Negro of the old régime, he made a specialty of the famous – and infamous – quadroon society of Louisiana of the third and fourth decades of the last century. And excellent as was his work, turning his face to the past in manner as well as in matter, from the very first he raised the question propounded by this paper. In his earliest volume there was a story entitled "'Tite Poulette," the heroine of which was a girl amazingly fair, the supposed daughter of one Madame John. A young Dutchman fell in love with 'Tite Poulette, championed her cause at all times, suffered a beating and stabbing for her, and was by her nursed back to life and love. In the midst of his perplexity about joining himself to a member of another race, came the word from Madame John that the girl was not her daughter, but the child of yellow fever patients whom she had nursed until they died, leaving their infant in her care. Immediately upon the publication of this story, the author received a letter from a young woman who had actually lived in very much the same situation as that portrayed in "'Tite Poulette," telling him that his story was not true to life and that he knew it was not, for Madame John really was the mother of the heroine. Accepting the criticism, Mr. Cable set about the composition of "Madame Delphine," in which the situation is somewhat similar, but in which at the end the mother tamely makes a confession to a priest. What is the trouble? The artist is so bound by circumstances and hemmed in by tradition that he simply has not the courage to launch out into the deep and work out his human problems for himself. Take a representative portrait from "The Grandissimes":