4 - Richard Wright and the Dynamics of Place in Afro-American Literature

Summary

ONE way to begin an inquiry into the dynamics of Afro-American place is to survey standard inscriptions of place in classic Afro-American literary texts. Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man and Richard Wright's Native Son provide such texts. In the former, we encounter a scene in which the protagonist, still a neophyte in the Brotherhood movement, and his colleague Tod Clifton are forced into a fight with the nationalist Ras the Exhorter. Ras gets the best of Clifton and raises a knife to slash the boy's throat when suddenly he is overcome by a sobbing surge of feeling. Releasing Clifton, he proceeds to deliver a hortatory condemnation of the Brotherhood and its black membership. His harsh condemnation is matched in its effect only by the eloquence of his invitation to Clifton to join the black nationalists:

“You [Clifton are] young, don't play you'self cheap, mahn. Don't deny you'self! It took a billion gallons of black blood to make you. Recognize you'self inside and you wan the kings among men … You black and beautiful. … So why don't you recognize your black duty, mahn, and come jine us?”

His chest was heaving and a note of pleading had come into the harsh voice. He was an exhorter, all right, and I [the protagonist] was caught in the crude, insane eloquence of his plea. […]