American Hunger (13 page)

“I’ll organize the committee and turn it over to someone else,” I suggested.

“You don’t want to do this, do you?” he asked. “No,” I said firmly.

“You worked willingly enough to organize white writers,” he cut at me.

“I was organizing people I understood,” I said.

“What would you like to do on the South Side, then?”

“I’d like to organize Negro artists,” I said.

“But the party doesn’t need that now,” he said.

I rose, knowing that he had no intention of letting me go after I had organized the committee. I wanted to tell him that I was through, but I was not ready to bring matters to a head. I went out, angry with myself, angry with him, angry with the party. Well, I had not broken the decision, but neither had I accepted it wholly. I had dodged, trying to save time for writing, time to think.

Again I urged myself to quit, but I could not do it. I knew that Nealson was not a leader. His mind was too rigid, too limited. I had not discerned in him any understanding of life or politics. His
approach had been to offer me a drink, and when that had failed he had threatened; he had tried flattery, and when that had failed he had hinted at expulsion. If I had been wrong, he certainly had not convinced me. In the end I resolved to work a month, then confront him with my original compromise.

My task consisted in attending meetings until the late hours of the night, taking part in discussions, or lending myself generally along with other Communists in leading the people of the South Side. We debated the housing situation, the best means of forcing the city to authorize open hearings on conditions among Negroes. I gritted my teeth as the daily value of pork chops was tabulated, longing to be at home with my writing. I felt that pork chops were a fundamental item in life, but I preferred that someone else chart their rise and fall in price.

Nealson was cleverer than I and he confronted me before I had a chance to confront him. I was summoned one night to meet Nealson and a “friend.” When I arrived at a South Side hotel I was introduced to a short, yellow man who carried himself like Napoleon. He wore glasses, kept his full lips pursed as though he were engaged in perpetual thought. He swaggered when he walked. He spoke slowly, precisely, trying to charge each of his words with more meaning than the words were able to carry. He talked of trivial things in lofty tones. He said that his name was Smith, that he was from Washington, that he planned to launch a national organization among Negroes to federalize all existing Negro institutions so as to achieve a broad unity of action. The three of us sat at a table, facing one another. There were no smiles now. I knew that another and last offer was about to be made to me, and if I did not accept it, there would be open warfare.

“Wright, how would you like to go to Switzerland?” Smith asked with dramatic suddenness.

“I’d like it,” I said. “But I’m tied up with work now.”

“You can drop that,” Nealson said. “This is important.”

“What would I do in Switzerland?” I asked.

“You’ll go as a youth delegate.” Smith said. “From there you can go to the Soviet Union.”

“Much as I’d like to, I’m afraid I can’t make it,” I said honestly. “I simply cannot drop the writing I’m doing now.”

We sat looking at one another, smoking silently.

“Has Nealson told you how I feel?” I asked Smith.

Smith did not answer. He stared at me a long time, then spat:

“Wright, you’re a fool!”

I rose. Smith turned away from me. A breath more of anger and I would have driven my fist into his face. Nealson laughed sheepishly, snorting.

“Was that necessary?” I asked, trembling.

I stood recalling how, in my boyhood, I would have fought until blood ran had anyone said anything like that to me. But I was a man now and master of my rage, able to control the surging emotions. I put on my hat and walked to the door. Keep cool, I said to myself. Don’t let this get out of hand …

“This is good-bye,” I said.

I walked home. My mind was made up. I would attend the next unit meeting and announce my withdrawal, telling the comrades that I still adhered to the ideological program of the party, but that I did not want to be bound any longer by the party’s decisions.

I attended the next unit meeting and asked for a place on the agenda, which was readily granted. Nealson was there. Evans was there. Ed Green was there. When my time came to speak, I rose and said:

“Comrades, for the past two years I’ve worked daily with most of you. Despite this, I have for some time found myself in a difficult position in the party. What has caused this difficulty is a long story which I do not care to recite now; it would serve no purpose. But I tell you honestly that I think I’ve found a solution
of my difficulty. I am proposing here tonight that my membership be dropped from the party rolls. No ideological differences impel me to say this. I simply do not wish to be bound any longer by the party’s decisions. I would like to retain my membership in those organizations in which the party has influence, and I shall comply with the party’s program in those organizations. I hope that my words will be accepted in the spirit in which they are said. Perhaps sometime in the future I would like to meet and talk with the leaders of the party as to what tasks I can best perform.”

I sat down amid a profound silence. The Negro secretary of the meeting looked frightened, glancing at Nealson, Evans, and Ed Green.

“Is there any discussion on Comrade Wright’s statement?” the secretary asked finally.

“I move that discussion on Wright’s statement be deferred,” Nealson said.

A quick vote confirmed Nealson’s motion. I looked about the silent room, then reached for my hat and rose.

“I would like to go now,” I said.

No one said anything. I walked to the door and out into the night and a heavy burden seemed to lift from my shoulders. I was free. And I had done it in a decent and forthright manner. I had not been bitter. I had not raked up a single recrimination. I had attacked no one. I had disavowed nothing. I remembered, as I walked the night streets, how I had stolen money from the movie house in Jackson, Mississippi; how I had forced the window and had stolen the gun; how I had broken into the college storehouse and had stolen cans of fruit preserves; I remembered how I had lied to my boss man in Memphis when I had wanted to leave my job and come to Chicago; how I had lied to Mr. Hoffman; how I had forged notes to the library in Memphis when I had wanted books to read … But I had changed; I had none of that fear, none of those wild impulses now. I had merely confronted my comrades,
stated what I felt and had let it go at that.

The Communist party could not say that I was an enemy, that I had attacked them. A Trotskyite or a man bent upon wrecking or disrupting the work of the Communist party would have remained within the organization so as better to quarrel, obstruct. But I had only asked to be free, had accused no one, and had denounced nothing. Perhaps, I told myself, when the Communist party has grown up, when it can work without tactics of terror, threat, invective, intimidation, suspicion, I would go back …

Aw, God … How naïve I was! I was young and brimming with confidence. I felt that my strength was unlimited. I had neatly solved a problem that had been worrying me for a long time, and now I thought that I could turn my energies to writing and justify myself. I did not know that night how little I understood the political party to which I had belonged. But I soon learned, learned how simple were my motives, how trusting was my attitude, how wide and innocent were my eyes, as round and open and dew-wet as morning-glories …

The next night two Negro Communists called at my home. They pretended to be ignorant of what had happened at the unit meeting. Patiently I explained what had occurred.

“Your story does not agree with what Nealson says,” they said, revealing the motive of their visit.

“And what does Nealson say?” I asked.

“He says that you are in league with a Trotskyite group, and that you made an appeal for other party members to follow you in leaving the party …”

“What?” I gasped. “That’s not true. I asked that my membership be dropped. I raised no political issues.” What did this mean? I sat pondering. “Look, maybe I ought to make my break with the party clean. If Nealson’s going to act this way, I’ll resign …”

“You can’t resign,” they told me.

“What do you mean?” I demanded.

“No one can resign from the Communist party,” they said.

I looked at them and laughed.

“You’re talking crazy,” I said.

“Nealson would expel you publicly, cut the ground from under your feet if you resigned,” they said. “People would think that something was wrong if someone like you quit here on the South Side.”

I was angry. Was the party so weak and uncertain of itself that it could not accept what I had said at the unit meeting? Who thought up such tactics? Then, suddenly, I understood. These were the secret, underground tactics of the political movement of the Communists under the czars of Old Russia! The Communist party felt that it had to assassinate me morally merely because I did not want to be bound by its decisions. I saw now that my comrades were acting out a fantasy that had no relation whatever to the reality of their environment.

“Tell Nealson that if he fights me, then, by God, I’ll fight him,” I said. “If he leaves this damn thing where it is, then all right. If he thinks I won’t fight him publicly, he’s crazy!”

I was not able to know if my statement reached Nealson, but there was no public outcry against me. But in the ranks of the party itself a storm broke loose and I was branded a traitor, an unstable personality, and one whose faith had failed.

What a weird experience I had had! At no time had I felt at home in the Communist party. I had always felt that the possibility was there, but always I was not quite sure of the motives of the people with whom I worked and they never seemed quite sure of mine. My comrades had known me, my family, my friends; they, God knows, had known my aching poverty. But they had never been able to conquer their fear of the individual way in which I acted and lived, an individuality which life had seared into my blood and bones.

I now avoided the comrades as much as possible; and, as I was losing touch with the party, many other young Negroes of the South Side were entering it for the first time. The expansion of the party’s activity under the People’s Front policy offered many opportunities to young Negroes who, because of race and status, had led cramped lives. The invitation to go to Switzerland as a youth delegate, which I had refused, was accepted by a young Negro who had fought the Communist party and all its ideas until he had seen a chance to take a trip to Europe.

I was transferred by the relief authorities from the South Side Boys’ Club to the Federal Negro Theatre to work as a publicity agent. There were days when I was acutely hungry for the incessant analyses that went on among the comrades, but whenever I heard news of the party’s inner life, it was of charges and countercharges, reprisals and counterreprisals. I was glad to be out of it. All its energies, it seemed, were absorbed in factional fights, hair-splitting political definitions.

The Federal Negro Theatre, for which I was doing publicity, had run a series of ordinary plays, all of which had been revamped to “Negro style,” with jungle scenes, spirituals, and all. For example, the skinny white woman who directed it, an elderly missionary type, would take a play whose characters were white, whose theme dealt with the Middle Ages, and recast it in terms of southern Negro life with overtones of African backgrounds. Contemporary plays dealing realistically with Negro life were spurned as being controversial. There were about forty Negro actors and actresses in the theater, lolling about, yearning, disgruntled, not knowing what to do with themselves.

What a waste of talent, I thought. Here was an opportunity for the production of a worth-while Negro drama and no one was aware of it. I studied the situation, then laid the matter before white friends of mine who held influential positions in the Works Progress Administration. I asked them to replace the white
woman—including her quaint aesthetic notions—with someone who knew the Negro and the theater. They promised me that they would act.

Within a month the white woman director had been transferred. We moved from the South Side to the Loop and were housed in a first-rate theater. I successfully recommended Charles DeSheim, a talented Jew, as director. DeSheim and I held long talks during which I outlined what I thought could be accomplished. I urged that our first offering should be a bill of three one-act plays, including Paul Green’s
Hymn to the Rising Sun,
a grim, poetical powerful one-acter dealing with chain gang conditions in the South.

I was happy. At last I was in a position to make suggestions and have them acted upon. I was convinced that we had a rare chance to build a genuine Negro theater. I convoked a meeting and introduced DeSheim to the Negro company, telling them that he was a man who knew the theater, who would lead them toward serious dramatics. DeSheim made a speech wherein he said that he was not at the theater to direct it, but to help the Negroes to direct it. He spoke so simply and eloquently that they rose and applauded him.

I then proudly passed out copies of Paul Green’s
Hymn to the Rising Sun
to all members of the company. DeSheim assigned reading parts. I sat down to enjoy adult Negro dramatics. But something went wrong. The Negroes stammered and faltered in their lines. Finally they stopped reading altogether. DeSheim looked frightened. One of the Negro actors rose.

“Mr. DeSheim,” he began, “we think this play is indecent. We don’t want to act in a play like this before the American public. I don’t think any such conditions exist in the South. I lived in the South and I never saw any chain gangs. Mr. DeSheim, we want a play that will make the public love us.”

I could not believe my ears. I had assumed that the heart of
the Negro actor was pining for adult expression in the American theater, that he was ashamed of the stereotypes of clowns, mammies, razors, dice, watermelon, and cotton fields … Now they were protesting against dramatic realism! I tried to defend the play and I was heckled down.