Black Power

by Richard Wright

  I thanked the young lady, bade her good night, and went to my room which had a screened-in balcony from which I could see the swarming, far-off, faint yellow lights of Accra twinkling in the valley below.

  “Massa!”

  I turned and saw a steward, dressed in white, black of face, barefooted, his lips hanging open expectantly.

  “What is it?”

  “Massa want chop?”

  “What?”

  “Chop? Hot chop? Cold chop?”

  I hadn’t understood anything; it was my first experience with pidgin English and I shook my head and confessed:

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Chop, Massa.” He went through the motions of eating, carrying his hand to his mouth and chewing vigorously.

  “Dinner?”

  “Yasa, Massa. When you want.”

  When I entered the huge dining room I saw three black boys dressed in white standing at attention. I learned later that one was the cook, one was the steward, and the other was the steward’s assistant; in addition there were a gardener, a laundryman, a night watchman (commonly known as “t’ief” man), a man who did the shopping, and an Englishwoman who acted as overseer.

  As I sat at the table, my three men disappeared, their coarse-soled feet swishing over the highly polished wooden floor. I sighed. This was Africa too. These servants seemed to know their business; they had, no doubt, been trained in their duties by a tradition left here for a hundred years by English housewives. But that pidgin English! I shuddered. I resented it and I vowed that I’d never speak it…. I started; the steward was at my elbow, holding a platter of fried fish; he’d come so silently upon me that I was nonplused.

  Early next morning I found a taxi at the roadside and went into the city. I got out at the post office. There were no sidewalks; one walked at the edge of a drainage ditch made of concrete in which urine ran. A stench pervaded the sunlit air. Barefooted men dressed in cloths whose colors were a mixture of red, green, yellow, blue, brown, and purple stood idling about. Most of the women not only carried the inevitable baby strapped to their backs, but also a burden on top of their heads and a bundle in each hand. I reached a street corner and paused; coming toward me was a woman nursing a baby that was still strapped to her back; the baby’s head was thrust under the woman’s arm and the woman had given the child the long, fleshy, tubelike teat and it was suckling. (There are women with breasts so long that they do not bother to give the baby the teat in front of them, but simply toss it over the shoulder to the child on their back….)

  The women’s carriage was remarkably graceful; they walked as straight as ramrods, with a slow, slinging motion, moving their legs from their hips, their feet just managing to skim over the earth. When they glanced about they never jarred or jolted the huge burdens they had on their heads, and their eyes held a calm, proud look. In the physical behavior of both men and women there were no wasted motions; they seem to move in a manner that conserved their energies in the awful heat.

  In front of the Indian, Syrian, and European stores African women sat before wooden boxes heaped high with red peppers, oranges, plantains, cigarettes, cakes of soap cut into tiny bits, okra, tomatoes, peeled coconuts, small heaps of matches, cans of tinned milk, etc. Men from the Northern Territories, dressed in long smocks, sold from carts piled with cheap mirrors, shoestrings, flashlights, combs, nail files, talcum powder, locks, and cheaply framed photos of Hollywood movie stars…. I was astonished to find that even the children were engaged in this street trade, carrying their wares on their heads either in calabashes or brass pans that had been polished until they glittered. Was it a lack of capital that made the Africans sell like this on the streets? One could buy bread from a little girl who carried a big box, screened-in, upon her cranium; one could buy a concoction called kenke—a kind of crushed corn that had been cooked and steamed and seasoned with pepper—from a woman who balanced an enormous, steaming calabash upon her head; one could buy baby bonnets from a woman who had layers of them stored in a brass pan that was borne aloft; yet another woman sold soap from a stack which held at least forty cakes perched atop her skull; one could buy lengths of colored cloth from a woman the top of whose head was a small dry-goods store; one could buy fish, eggs, chickens, meat, yams, bananas, salt, sugar, plantains, cigarettes, ink, pens, pencils, paper—and all of this was but “one flight up,” that is, above the heads of the street women who were popularly known as “mammies.”

  The sun was killing. I sought shade at another street intersection where, around an outdoor water hydrant, a knot of men, women, and children were gathered. They had small tubs, gasoline tins, buckets, pans, anything that could hold water. Boys and girls of eight or nine years of age were balancing tins holding ten or more gallons of water upon their tiny heads and walking off toward their homes with careful strides. A girl, a cloth fastened about her middle, was bent over a basin assiduously doing the family wash. Still another girl, twelve or thirteen, was nude and standing in a small tub and bathing herself in full view. A tiny girl squatted over a drainage ditch, urinating. A man went to the hydrant, took a sip of water from the stream, rinsed his mouth, spat, then damned up the stream in his cupped palms and drank. The girl who had been bathing got out of the tub, dumped the water into the drainage ditch, went to the hydrant, took her place in line and, when her turn came, filled her tub, went a few feet away and dashed the entire contents of the tub over her head, rinsing the soapsuds from her body. She looked down at her gleaming, wet skin, her face holding a concentrated and critical expression. Taking her place in line once more, she filled the tub, lifted it to her head and went mincing off, presumably toward home…. A woman came leading a boy and girl by their hands; she carried a big galvanized bucket on her head. When she’d filled it with water, she proceeded to bathe the children with a bar of laundry soap and a sponge made of rough excelsior. She handled them rudely, jerking them this way and that, while she plied the sponge over their eyes, mouths, ears…. The girl wore a string of white and blue beads about her hips and a red cloth was pulled tight between her tiny thighs, each end fastened to the beads, front and back. The boy wore nothing.

  (Over and above supplying needed water, these outdoor hydrants are really social clubs; it is here that the gossip of the quarter is spread and exchanged, where tall tales get embellished, where marriages, deaths, and births are announced. Sometimes fights take place, or romances are started. Sundry bargains and swappings are struck over petty merchandise. The intimacy of the African communal life can be witnessed in all of its innocence as it clusters about an outdoor hydrant.

  (The crowds about the hydrants swell or diminish according to the time of day: there is an early morning crowd of men, women, and children; then a lull comes; toward noon the hydrant is patronized mostly by women who cook or wash; then the afternoon is slow; there are moments when the hydrant is completely deserted. Toward four o’clock the crowds collect again and they last until well into the night. Sometimes at four o’clock in the morning one can see a sleepy-eyed child filling a huge pail with water and walking slowly homeward….)

  Beggars were in thick evidence, their black, gnarled hands outstretched and their high-pitched voices singing out:

  “Penny, Massa! Penny, Massa!”

  So deformed were some that it was painful to look at them. Monstrously swollen legs, running sores, limbs broken so that jagged ends of the healed bones jutted out like blackened sticks, blind men whose empty eye-sockets yawned wetly, palsied palms extended and waiting, a mammoth wen suspended from a skinny neck and gleaming blackly in the hot sun—all of them were men and they sat nude to the waist with cloths draped modestly over their loins. I wondered if they were professional beggars, if they had deliberately deformed themselves to make these heart-wracking appeals? If they had, they had surely overdone it in terms of Western sensibilities, for I was moved not to compassion, but to revulsion. Perhaps for an African temperament conditioned to a belief that a beggar might be some dis
tant relative in reincarnated disguise, such sights might impel donations, might induce a state of pity based upon dread. I don’t know….

  I wanted to push on and look more, but the sun was too much. I spent the afternoon fretting; I was impatient to see more of this Africa. My bungalow was clean, quiet, mosquito-proof, but it had not been for that I’d come to Africa. Already my mind was casting about for other accommodations. I stood on my balcony and saw clouds of black buzzards circling slowly in the hazy blue sky. In the distance I caught a glimpse of the cloudy, grayish Atlantic.

  Night fell and suddenly out of the blue velvet dark came the sound of African crickets that was like an air-raid siren. Frog belches exploded. A soft, feathery thud, like that of a bird, struck the window screen. Reluctantly, I climbed into bed….

  Next morning a phone call came from the Prime Minister’s office; I was told that at four o’clock I’d be picked up by the Prime Minister’s car and that I’d see “something.”

  And at four o’clock a sleek car entered the driveway. A uniformed chauffeur stepped out and saluted me; I climbed into the back seat. As we went through the city black faces jerked around, recognizing the car. We came to the Prime Minister’s residence and pulled into a driveway. I got out and young black faces smiled at me. A few policemen hovered in the background. I was led forward into a red, two-story brick dwelling that looked remarkably like a colonial mansion in Georgia or Mississippi. I followed my guide upstairs, down a hallway, and into a living room.

  The Prime Minister, dressed in a smock, was standing in the middle of the floor.

  “Welcome!” he said.

  “I’m glad to see you and your people,” I told him.

  “How are you?”

  “Fine, but panting to see your party and your comrades.”

  He laughed. He presented me to a series of his friends whose strange names I did not recall, then we sat down.

  “I want to take you on a quick tour of the city,” he told me.

  “I’m truly honored.”

  “Nothing has been prepared. I want you to see how these people respond to our appeals—”

  “What’s going to happen in July?” I asked, referring to the coming meeting of the Legislative Assembly.

  The Prime Minister threw back his head and laughed. I got used, in time, to that African laughter. It was not caused by mirth; it was a way of indicating that, though they were not going to take you into their confidence, their attitude was not based upon anything hostile.

  “You are direct,” he said.

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “You’ll have to wait and see,” he told me.

  I studied Nkrumah; he was fairly slightly built, a smooth jet black in color; he had a longish face, a pair of brooding, almost frightened eyes, a set of full, soft lips. His head held a thick growth of crinkly hair and his hands moved with slow restlessness, betraying a contained tension. His bodily motions were almost deliberate and at times his face seemed like a blank mask. One could almost feel the force of his preoccupations as he would jerk his head when his attention darted. His questions and answers were simple and to the point; I felt that he had much more on his mind than he permitted to pass his lips; he was the full-blown politician whose consciousness was anchored in concrete, practical concerns pointing toward a fondly sought goal….

  His colleagues drew him into a discussion that was conducted in tribal language; when it was over, he announced:

  “Let’s go!”

  His personal bodyguard stood at attention; it was composed of hand-picked militants and faithfuls of the Convention People’s Party. He led the way and I followed down into the street where his motorcycle escort, dressed in scarlet, stood lined up near their machines. The Prime Minister waved his hand to signal that all was ready. The motor-cyclists raced their engines to a deafening roar; then they pulled slowly into the street, leading the way. The Prime Minister’s car, with the Prime Minister seated on my right, followed.

  The sun was still shining as we moved slowly forward. The drone of the motorcycles attracted the attention of people on both sides of the street and, spontaneously, men, women, and children abandoned what they were doing and fronted the car. Others rushed pellmell out of shacks, their faces breaking into wide, glad smiles and, lifting their hands upward with their elbows at the level of their hips, palms fronting forward—a kind of half-Nazi salute—they shouted a greeting to the Prime Minister in a tone of voice compounded of passion, exhortation, and contained joy:

  “Free—doom! Free—dooooom!”

  Ahead of the car the sides of the streets turned black with faces. We reached a wide roadway and the crowds swirled, shouting:

  “Free—dooom! Free—dooom!”

  “Kwame! Kwame!” They shouted his name.

  “Fight! Fight!”

  “Akwaba! Akwaba!” (“Welcome! Welcome!”)

  The road turned into a black river of eager, hopeful, glad faces whose trust tugged at the heart. The crowds grew thicker. The shouting sounded like a cataract. The Prime Minister, smiling, laughing, lifted his right hand as he returned their salute.

  The road led into a slum area, and the Prime Minister turned to me and said:

  “This is James Town. I want you to see this too…. I want you to see all we have, the good and the bad.”

  The narrow streets filled quickly and the car plowed slowly through nostalgic crowds of men, women, and children who chanted:

  “Free—dooooom!”

  Many of the women waved their hands in that strange, quivering gesture of welcome which seemed to be common to the entire Gold Coast; it consisted of lifting the hand, but, instead of waving the hand as one did in the West, one held the arm still and shook the palm of the hand nervously and tremblingly from side to side, making the fingers vibrate.

  “Free—dooooom!”

  My mind flew back to the many conversations that I’d had in Chicago, New York, London, Paris, Rome, Buenos Aires about freedom, and I could picture again in my mind the white faces of friends screwed up in disgust and distaste when the word “freedom” was mentioned, and I could hear again in my memory the tersely deprecating question shot at me across a dinner table:

  “Freedom? What do you mean, freedom?”

  But here in Africa “freedom” was more than a word; an African had no doubts about the meaning of the word “freedom.” It meant the right to public assembly, the right to physical movement, the right to make known his views, the right to elect men of his choice to public office, and the right to recall them if they failed in their promises. At a time when the Western world grew embarrassed at the sound of the word “freedom,” these people knew that it meant the right to shape their own destiny as they wished. Of that they had no doubt, and no threats could intimidate them about it; they might be cowed by guns and planes, but they’d not change their minds about the concrete nature of the freedom that they wanted and were willing to die for….

  The crowds, milling in and out of the space between the motorcycles and the Prime Minister’s car, chanted:

  “Free—dooooom!”

  The passionate loyalty of this shouting crowd had put this man in power, had given him the right to speak for them, to execute the mandate of national liberation that they had placed in his hands; and, because he’d said he’d try, they’d galvanized into a whole that was 4,000,000 strong, demanding an end to their centuries-old thralldom. Though still mainly tribal, though 90 per cent illiterate, they wanted to be free of an alien flag, wanted the sovereignty of their own will in their own land. And they had melted their tribal differences into an instrument to form a bridge between tribalism and twentieth-century forms of political mass organization. The women who danced and shouted were washerwomen, cooks, housewives, etc.

  “Free—dooom! Free—dooom!” rang deafeningly in my ears.

  “They believe in you,” I said to the Prime Minister.

  “Would you believe that four years ago a demonstration like this was impos
sible?” he told me. “These were a cowed and frightened people. Under the British it would have been unheard of for people to sing and shout and dance like this…. We changed all that. When I came from London in 1948, the mood of these people was terrible. They trusted nothing and nobody. They’d been browbeaten so long by both the black leaders and the British that they were afraid to act.”

  “Who were the first in the Gold Coast to offer opposition to your efforts to organize your people?” I asked Nkrumah.

  “The missionaries,” he said without hesitation.

  My mind raced back to my reading of the history of the early days of the Gold Coast and I recalled that, from 1553 to 1592, the merchants of England, all staunch Christians, had sent ships to the Gold Coast to engage in trading British trinkets for gold dust and slaves, and some of those ships had been named John Evangelist, Trinity, Bartholomew, John Baptist, and Jesus….

  That the missionaries should have been the first to manifest opposition was, in my opinion, as it should have been. If they had to, the industrial and mercantile interests could come to terms with a rising nationalism. Indeed, during the past five hundred years history has shown that nationalism is one of the necessary but transitional forms of an expanding industrial system, and there was no reason why industrialization and nationalism could not, for a time, coexist, mutually enriching each other.

  Religious interests, however, were jealous by their very nature and felt an understandable panic at the emergence of a sweeping nationalism that was bent not only upon creating new institutions for the people, but also new emotional attitudes, values, and definitions. And what could have frightened the men of God more than this wild and liquid emotion that Nkrumah had channeled into a new political party? Religion needed all the emotion of a community allied to its own ends, and when a rival appeal was made for the loyalty of that emotion, religious people must needs be opposed, even if the counterappeal of religion meant a decrease in the basic welfare of the people. Mass nationalist movements were, indeed, a new kind of religion. They were politics plus!