Black Power

by Richard Wright

  How could I get at the boy? He was hugging to his heart a delusive dream and he was determined not to surrender it; if he had to let that dream go, he’d hate whoever robbed him of it. But that false dream stood between him and his seeing reality for what it was, colored his vision regarding the value of being a detective….

  “I’ll have to think about this,” I told him with a sigh.

  He thanked me and left; I went upstairs and sat in a chair and shook my head. Good God…. Did the men who had administered this colony before the coming of Nkrumah know that this sort of rot was simmering in the minds of boys? Maybe they had known it and had not cared? No; I was inclined to feel that they had not known it, for, if they had, I was sure that they would have been frightened. But what stunned me most about the boy was his absolute distrust of the British; it was by far the deepest emotion of his life.

  Next morning the Prime Minister’s office phoned to tell me that I’d be called for at four o’clock and taken to a huge outdoor political rally to be held at the Westend Arena. The Prime Minister was scheduled to speak upon his forthcoming motion for self-government and he indicated that he wanted me to greet his followers with a short speech.

  As I was driven toward the rally that afternoon, I could hear the roar of the vast crowd five blocks before the arena came into the line of my vision. Arriving at the edge of the throng, I heard a speaker addressing the audience in Ga, the language of a tribe close to the Accra region. I was led through packed black bodies to the platform where the Prime Minister sat surrounded by his ministers and aides.

  Fanning out in front of the platform were more than ten thousand faces whose brown, reddish, and black skins were lit to a blatant distinctness by the long red rays of the setting sun. There were practically no women present, a circumstance that I was to get accustomed to in all public affairs of the Gold Coast. Many of the men were barefooted and most of them wore their native togas. An impression of earthiness rose up from those tense, lifted faces that stretched so far away that they became dim to the eye—faces that seemed like a reality conjured up by a sorcerer from the early days of mankind; they appeared unsubstantial, like figments of a dream that would vanish upon close inspection. Then, at that moment, a roar welled up from ten thousand throats and the crowd’s reality not only became real, but suggestive of a menace, a threat….

  The speaker threw a challenging question in English requiring a yes or no answer, for he wanted the audience to participate in the meeting, and the crowd hurled a rolling “NO!” that made my eardrums tingle. The speaker switched to Ga and hammered on and on; then he swung back to English, declaring:

  “Nkrumah has led you this far and he will lead you on! If you don’t support him, he cannot have the power to act for you! You must believe that he’ll never let you down! He went to prison for you; he suffered for you; hell lay down his life for you! You must have faith and trust him! Do you trust him?”

  “YES!” the crowd roared.

  “Will you follow him?” the speaker asked.

  “YES!” the crowd answered.

  “Do you believe that he fights for freedom?”

  “YES!” the crowd answered.

  “Who organized the CPP?”

  “NKRUMAH!”

  “Who raised the slogan for self-government NOW?”

  “NKRUMAH!”

  “Who?”

  “NKRUMAH!”

  “I asked you who?”

  “NNNKKKKRRRUUUMMMMAAH!”

  “Will he fight for you?”

  “YES!”

  “Will you fight for him?”

  “YES!”

  “And what are we fighting for?”

  “FREE—DOOOOM! FREE—DOOOOOM!”

  At times the dialogue between the speaker and the audience became so intimate, so prolonged, so dramatic that all sense of distance between leaders and followers ceased to exist, and a spirit of fellowship, of common identity prevailed among faces young and old, smooth and bearded, wise and simple…. The speaker lifted his voice in song and the mass joined in, and the collective sound seemed to rise as high as the skies:

  There is victory for us

  In the struggle of the CPP,

  There is victory for us!

  Sons of Ghana, rise and fight!

  Girls of Ghana, rise and shine!

  In the struggle of the CPP

  There is victory for us!

  Forward ever, backward never;

  In the struggle of the CPP

  There is victory for us!

  My turn came to greet the audience and I rose and spoke somewhat as follows:

  “Men of Ghana: Your great and respected Prime Minister has extended to me an invitation to see your country, its people, and the rapid rate of development that you are making. It is with pride that I’ve come to look upon the labor of a man who attended our American schools and who has dedicated his life to the struggle for the freedom of his country.

  “I’m one of the lost sons of Africa who has come back to look upon the land of his forefathers. In a superficial sense it may be said that I’m a stranger to most of you, but, in terms of a common heritage of suffering and hunger for freedom, your heart and my heart beat as one.

  “Centuries ago the living bodies of our forefathers were dragged from these shores and sold into slavery; centuries ago the bodies of our forefathers formed the living instruments which the white men of Europe used to build the foundations of the Western world; centuries ago we were reduced to nameless, stateless pawns shuffled by the will of Europeans and Americans across the chessboards of history; centuries ago our tribes were so mauled, mixed, and scattered that we could not even speak to one another in a common tongue.

  “This is indeed a turgid, cloudy past, a past not of our making or choosing; yet, despite all this, this heritage has brought us a sense of unity deeper than race, a sense of humanity that has made us sensitive to the sufferings of all mankind, that has made us increasingly human in a world that is rapidly losing its claim to humanity….

  “Under the leadership of your Leader, the Convention People’s Party has roused immense interest throughout America and the world at large. You men are, of all the teeming millions of Africa, the first to step upon the political stage of the twentieth century. What you do will have consequences that will roll down the years. What you achieve in the coming months will to a large degree define the character of the coming struggle for the redemption of Africa.

  “Today, in your struggle for self-government, you are presenting to the men of England a political promissory note which the English have declared to be the real moral currency of mankind, and now the world is watching to see if the English will honor their own currency! They asked you to build political parties, and you did! But you did it so much quicker than they thought you could! You are making your bid for freedom in terms which your teachers in England and America told you were correct. Now, in your struggle for self-government, you are presenting for redemption a promise made to you by the heart of England. Will she honor it? The world is waiting to see….

  “From the 30,000,000 sons and daughters of African descent in the New World, both in North and South America, and in the many islands of the Atlantic, I bring you deep-felt greetings.

  “I am an American and therefore cannot participate in your political affairs. But I wish you victory in your bid for freedom! Ghana, show us the way! The only advice that I can give you is two thousand years old and was uttered by a Man Whose name is frequently used but Whose moral precepts millions choose to ignore. To a great and despoiled Africa, to an Africa awakening from its slumber, to an Africa burning with hope, I advise you: TAKE UP YOUR BED AND WALK!”

  The handclapping was weak and scattered. Perhaps they were not used to hearing speakers who did not raise their voices, or maybe they had not understood…? I sat. The Prime Minister rose to speak. The chairman asked the crowd to pledge their personal loyalty to the Leader and I saw twenty thousand palms shoot willingly
upward and their colors—orange, brownish, dark yellow, and dingy gray—made me feel that I was gazing upon a sweep of newly turned earth…. And from the rapt look on their faces I knew that these men had never before in their lives made such a pledge to a secular cause. Here was religion melting into politics; prayers were becoming pledges; hope was translating itself into organization; devotion was becoming obedience; trust was turning itself into discipline; and reverence was being converted into vigilance….

  In his speech the Prime Minister was quiet, restrained; he informed his followers that it was necessary from time to time to report to them upon progress. He reminded them that if they were displeased with him that they could dismiss him. He asked for their trust for the future.

  “It was Clausewitz who said that politics is war by other means,” he told them. “Because our struggle now has entered a quiet phase, do not think that we are not fighting. We are fighting the same old battle for freedom with other weapons….”

  I watched the faces closely. Did they understand such concepts? I wondered…. Could such sophisticated language be grasped by men so new to party struggles? How would this party behave in complicated situations? Could these pledges of loyalty withstand the many snarling currents ahead in the sea of politics?

  The Prime Minister spoke on, and the sun, as it went down in the west, was a huge blue-gray ball showing through folds of straggling clouds. Again the vast crowd was asked to pledge its loyalty to the Leader by raising its hands, and again those clay-colored, orange, red, yellowish, brown, and grayish palms lifted skyward, extending as far back in the fading purple light as my eyes could see…. And I realized that sprawling over this vast continent were millions of other black people just as eager, as submissive, as trusting, who wanted to hold up their hands and pledge their loyalty to a leader—eager to die, if need be, for their redemption, their justification in the eyes of the world.

  The Prime Minister finished and there was applause, singing, chanting. On the platform there was some milling around and talking. A newspaperman came to me and asked:

  “We’d like to run your speech in tomorrow’s paper. I’m with the Graphic. Can we have it?”

  Instinctively I turned to the Prime Minister.

  “There’s a reporter asking to print what I said.”

  “Have you got it written down?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Let me see it,” he said.

  I gave him my notes. He took them, looked off solemnly, then folded them slowly. The reporter waited. I waited. Then the Prime Minister came close to me and pushed the notes into the top breast pocket of my suit; he said no word and I said no word. I looked at the reporter and he looked at me. Then the Prime Minister moved silently away…. The reporter took a few steps backward, looking around with embarrassment. I did not understand what was happening and I did not want to ask for any explanation in public. Had I said something wrong in my speech? No one had asked to read what I had proposed to say. If they had, I’d have gladly submitted my ideas to be censored. But why had the Prime Minister taken my notes and given them back to me with such a meaningful gesture? I wanted to know, but, in the end, I resolved that I’d do nothing; I’d wait….

  I made my way back to the government bungalow in a deeply thoughtful mood.

  Ten

  Next morning I resolved to move at once into the center of the city and I made the round of the three available hotels. I finally settled on the Seaview which stood at the edge of the beach and fronted James Town, the slum area. The Seaview was grim, with dingy mosquito nets over the beds; there were flies, greasy food, spattered walls, wooden floors whose cracks held decades of filth. The cold-water faucets gave forth water that was almost hot, so exposed to the tropic sun was the plumbing of the establishment. It was the kind of hotel that one read about in a Joseph Conrad novel and, what intrigued me most, I had only to go to the balcony and look down and there was Africa in all its squalor, vitality and fantastic disorder….

  No breezes blew here to freshen the air. My skin was always oily and wet and tiny mosquitoes bit deeply into my arms and ankles. The humidity was so dense that each time I shaved I had to clean a film of sweat from the mirror. An army of stewards was in attendance, dressed in white, their naked feet swishing to and fro day and night. No one hurried; voices were never raised; the hotel seemed in the grip of the heat, mastered by it.

  At mealtimes fried food, prepared by a chef whose god seemed to have been named grease, was served. The mattresses on the bed were damp and stained by God knows what. The locks, keys, and latches on the doors were rusty and worked with difficulty, so damaged had they become by the ever-present moisture. The lavatory, when it was flushed, set up a groaning, howling noise that penetrated every room of the hotel at all hours. And almost always one could hear the continuous and mysterious beating of drums deep in the maze of the streets of James Town…. The hotel’s veranda was constantly crowded with Africans and Europeans guzzling beer which was used instead of the uncertain and sometimes dangerous drinking water. It was amazing how quickly I got used to the medley of odors; the early morning stench of homemade soap, the noon-hour cooking smells, and the vapors of excrement drifting into the hotel from the open drainage ditches outside.

  The hotel was owned by a Greek; there were three hotels in Accra and all of them were owned by foreigners. Africans seemed to have the notion that there was something immoral about a hotel, and when you explained to them how needful hotels were to travelers, to those who had no relatives, they’d only smile or giggle. Pride would have kept any African, if he had had the capital, from operating a hotel, even though he had a Western education from Oxford or Cambridge. Living in tribal families, boasting “brothers” and “sisters” by the hundreds in far-flung towns and villages, an African had only to seek out his tribe to be housed, fed, and taken care of.

  Using the Seaview as a base, I made many long excursions into the alleyways and compounds of James Town, in and out of the narrow paths between crummy shacks, and even down to the seashore where the strangely painted canoes of the fishermen lay upon the hot sand. Those inhabitants of James Town who lived near the water front were fisherfolk, and their drying nets, dark brown or purple, could be seen draped over wooden trestles in the sun. If a good catch of herring had come in the night before, the women, their cloths tied at their hips, would be arranging the fish in the sun to dry, laying them in rows side by side upon the red earth, upon palm leaves, or upon the rusty tin roofs…. And the cured fish would be shipped into the interior.

  In shady places the men could be seen standing or squatting, mending nets, or talking politics, or arranging the details of their next fishing expedition. Now and then, stepping calmly among the sprawling men and women, would come a chief, togaed, sandaled, surrounded by his “linguist” and his elders, a young boy holding a vast umbrella above his head….

  Practically no grass grew in James Town and there were but few trees. Above all, there were no flowers. So denuded of blooming things was the African’s environment that one wondered if it was by intent. (Someone told me later that the lack of vegetation was to keep down the invasion of snakes, but I doubt if that can account for the scarcity of green stuff around African homes.) It might well be that the nearness of the jungle and its lush creepers have made the African feel that he could derive all the delight he needs in growing and blooming things without bothering to plant anything in front of his door.

  I turned down a narrow path and saw a woman bent over, resting on her knees, washing her hair in a tin pan, lathering the soapsuds over her head, her eyes closed. Evidently she had heard my footsteps on the hard red clay, for she paused, cocked her head, and listened for a second with her eyes still closed; then, as I walked on, she resumed her vigorous massaging of her hair….

  I came upon a group of old men sitting upon their wooden stools, their naked backs resting against a stone wall; they were talking and their bony black bodies reminded me of those woode
n carvings now so rare in Africa and which can be seen only in the drawing rooms of rich Europeans. As I passed them I caught the low, soft murmurs of the Ga language flowing from their lips. They knew undoubtedly from my dress that I was a stranger, yet they evinced no overt curiosity. After I’d gone about twenty yards I turned my head and found them gazing at me. But the moment they knew that I knew that they were staring at me, they turned their eyes away. A stranger incited Africans to a high pitch of interest, but they were sensitive and always tried to hide that interest.

  I barged into a crowded compound, walking slowly, as though I had a right to be there. The women, as they saw me approach, stopped their work, reached down and took hold of their cloths and covered their naked breasts. I walked on for a few yards and glanced back; they felt that I had gone and had let their cloths fall again to the ground, not slackening the performance of their domestic duties…. It was not because I was a man that they had covered themselves, for there were many men in evidence everywhere. It was not only because I was a stranger that they had exhibited such modesty; it was because I wore Western clothes, shoes, a sun helmet, that they had shrunk and covered themselves. They had performed a gesture in which, according to their customs, they did not really believe. But they had been long taught by the missionaries that it was considered shameful—that others considered it shameful—to be naked, and so when they had caught sight of me, they had hastily sheltered themselves. My approaching presence had been like the shadow of the Cross falling athwart the innocence of their simple lives, and, because of their conditioning, they had paid deference to that Cross; but the moment I had gone, they had reverted quickly and naturally to their traditional behavior. The words of St. Paul, that arch inhibitor of men, came to my mind:

  What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.