Black Power

by Richard Wright

  “Take her! Take her!”

  And when a frustrated man rested his head tenderly upon a woman’s breast, they jeered:

  “Don’t break ’em! Don’t it hurt!”

  It was a Western movie, packed, as they say, with action. In the Legislative Assembly the Africans had made believe that they believed in Western values; here, in this dark movie, they didn’t have to pretend. Psychologically distant, they mocked at a world that was not their own, had their say about a world in which they had no say…. When a cowboy galloped across the scrubby plains, they shouted in chorus:

  “Go, go, go, go, go…!”

  During stretches of dialogue, they chatted among themselves about the last explosion of drama, waiting for the action to begin again. It was clear that the African was convinced that movies ought to move…. A fist fight took place and each blow that landed brought:

  “Swish-um! Swish-um!”

  Throughout the film the audience commented like a Greek chorus, and when the heroine was trapped I was sure that they wanted the villain to violate her. They applauded when the hero rushed his panting horse to the rescue; but their applause was not because they were concerned about the poor girl’s virginity, but because his horse was beautiful and fast and strong. I dare say that these boys must have wondered, years ago when these films were first being projected in the Gold Coast, why the hero rushed so in such cases….

  And it did not matter too much whose hands held the smoking guns—the hand of the law or outlaw—for they helped to speed the bullets on their way with:

  “BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!”

  When a character made his reappearance, they greeted him like an old friend. (The same film is shown over and over again, for the audiences derive great joy from seeing the same action performed time and again!) Scenes filled with suspense caught them up totally; a thunderous drone would fill the air until the moment of climax and then, as the net closed tighter and tighter about the hero, or as the villain moved in for the kill, they went wild…. Elements of surprise delighted them; when the hero’s bullets had run out and the trigger clicked on empty chambers, the tongues in the audience went:

  “Click, click, click….”

  The impossible made them stand up and cheer, as when the hero, stealthily creeping around the villain in the semi-darkness, climbed a tree, waited for the villain to lift the blond virgin in his arms, and then plunged headlong down upon the villain—the pandemonium that erupted drowned out the soundtrack.

  Not a little dazed, I made my way back to the hotel and tried to sort out what I had seen and heard. It was quite obvious that the African’s time sense was not like our own; it did not project forward in anticipation; it oscillated between the present and the past. And at once I knew why there had been no literature in the Gold Coast, no novels or dramas even from those who had been educated in England. (Mabel Dove has written some short stories and Dr. Danquah has written a drama; but I’ve not read them.) The great adventure of the Western world, the rise out of feudalism of a new bourgeois class that thirsted to explore experience, that felt that it had a future that had to be ransacked for sensations, had not touched these people.

  The African did not strain to feel that which was not yet in existence; he exerted his will to make what had happened happen again. His was a circular kind of time; the past had to be made like the present. Dissatisfaction was not the mainspring of his emotional life; enjoyment of that which he had once enjoyed was the compulsion.

  I did not regard this as wrong; it was just different. By implication, it could make for a deep sense of conservatism. That which had occurred was holy, right, just, natural…. Why not? It was human. One did not leave the past behind; one took it with one; one made the past the present. I could not get beyond that, for it was alien to me; it was intriguing, but beyond the bounds of my feelings. I could understand it, but I couldn’t experience it.

  Twenty-One

  As detached and resistant as I try to be, I find myself sometimes falling heir to the reaction pattern which lingers on here as a kind of legacy of British imperialism. One morning I wanted to take a batch of film to the Photographic Section of the Gold Coast Information Service and I got into a taxi and told the driver:

  “Photo Section of the Gold Coast Information Service.”

  “What, Massa?”

  “The Photo Section on Boundary Road,” I said.

  “Yasa, Massa.”

  He set his car in motion and drove for some time. I noticed that he had taken a route that was not familiar to me.

  “Where are you going?” I asked him.

  He stopped the car and looked at me, his face flashing a white grin.

  “Where Massa wanna go?” he asked me.

  “I told you the Photo Section. It’s on Boundary Road.”

  He drove off again; then once more he slowed the car and said to me:

  “Massa, tell me where it is….”

  “What are you doing?” I demanded. “You drove off like you knew where it was—” Houses have no street numbers in Accra.

  “Yasa, Massa,” he said, picking up speed.

  What was wrong with the guy? The taxi sped past buildings that were strange to me; soon I saw the green landscape of the suburbs of Accra.

  “Say, boy! Where’re you taking me?” I yelled at him, leaning forward.

  “Massa, I don’t know where it is,” he mumbled, slowing the car.

  “Then why didn’t you tell me? Why are you driving about aimlessly?” My voice was so sharp that he winced; the heat and the humidity held me in a grip. I noticed the lazy, relaxed manner in which he sat slouched behind the wheel and I was suddenly angry. “For God’s sake, ask somebody where the Photo Section is,” I directed him. “It’s somewhere on Boundary Road. You know where that is, don’t you?”

  “Yasa, Baas.”

  He drove on. I sat back and swabbed sweat off my face, chiding myself. I oughtn’t to speak to a boy like that…. The car rolled on and I watched for familiar landmarks. I saw none.

  “Where are you taking me?” I begged of him.

  “I don’t know, Massa,” he said and stopped the car.

  “I want to go to the Photo Section on Boundary Road,” I said, talking slowly, making sure that he heard every word.

  “Yasa, Massa.”

  He started the car up again and sped off. The landscape was still strange. But perhaps he’s taking a roundabout way to get back into the city? I held myself in. But, no; the city was getting farther and farther away….

  “Where are you going?” I asked him.

  “I don’t know, Massa,” he said, slowing the car.

  “Ask somebody,” I told him.

  We went forward slowly and, at the sight of a policeman, he stopped the car and spoke to him in his native tongue. The policeman pointed elaborately and again we were off. I waited, tense, sweating. I looked at my surroundings and saw a huge sign that road.

  BRITISH MILITARY COMMAND FOR WEST AFRICA

  “Boy, stop!”

  The car skidded to a halt, the tires screeching on the concrete pavement.

  “Turn this car around!”

  He turned the car.

  “Now, take me back to my hotel!”

  “Massa wanna go back?”

  “Yes!”

  He started off. I relaxed. I’d get another taxi and start all over again. Jesus…. The British might have thought that I was trying to spy on them if they had found me wandering amidst their military installations…. A good five minutes passed and when I looked out of the window of the car I saw the Photo Section of the Gold Coast Information Service as we were speeding past it. I’d found it by accident!

  “Stop!” I yelled. “There it is!”

  He jammed on his brakes and I went forward against the back of the front seat. I got out and told him to wait. Ten minutes later I emerged and told him to drive me to the Seaview Hotel. At the entrance of the hotel, I got out.

  “What do I owe you?”

/>   “Eighteen shillings, Massa,” he said, his face averted.

  That did it. I got mad. I felt that I was dealing with a shadow.

  “Don’t be a fool, man! Tell me what I owe you!”

  He looked at me and grinned shyly.

  “Fourteen shillings, Massa.”

  “Talk sense,” I muttered, feeling sweat running on my face.

  He waited a long time, scratched his head, looked at me out of the corners of his eyes, his brows knitted, weighing me.

  “Twelve shillings, Massa.”

  “Are you charging me for taking me out into the country? That was your fault—”

  “Ten shillings, Massa.” He was still bargaining.

  “What was the actual price of my trip? You charge a shilling a mile, three shillings an hour, don’t you? Did you drive me nine miles?”

  I was determined not to be cheated. He looked at me fully now, grinned again, and said imperturbably:

  “What Massa wanna give me?”

  “Here are eight shillings,” I said; I felt that that was too much, but I was willing to settle for that.

  “Thank you, Massa,” he said, bowing and smiling.

  I stood watching him, wanting to tell him that was no way to act, that he should have been honest with me. He looked at me and burst into a wild laugh, a laugh of triumph. I was on the verge of cursing him, but I controlled myself. Suddenly I too laughed, lifted my arm in the Convention People’s Party salute, my elbow resting on my hip, the palm of my hand fronting him.

  “FREE—DOOOOM!” I roared at him.

  He jerked to a surprised attention, gave me a salute in return, shouting:

  “FREE—DOOOM!”

  I spun on my heels and went to my room. More than once did I find myself slipping into the pattern left here by the British. The Africans had been so trained to a cryptic servility that they made you act a role that you loathed, live a part that sickened you.

  Twenty-Two

  At midday when the tropic sun weighs upon your head, making you feel giddy, you discover that there are no parks in Accra, no water fountains, no shade trees, no public benches upon which one can rest from a weary walk. There are no public cafés or restaurants in which one can buy a cup of tea or coffee; there are, of course, a few private clubs, but they are either far from you when you need them or you have to be a member to use their services.

  This lack of amenities stems from two sources: first, the habits of African tribal life do not call for these tiny, civilized services; second, the British administrators retire to their homes for refreshment and relaxation. There are but a few hundred Britishers in a city like Accra and they do not feel that the city in which they are living temporarily or the country from which they draw their profits or salaries will be the place where their children will stay and grow up.

  I strode into the bourgeois section of Accra and passed home after home of rich blacks; they were huge structures, pale pink, light blue, pastel shades of brown, cream, yellow, and red and they were enclosed by high concrete walls the tops of which held barbed wire and jagged shards of glass to keep out intruders. Each house stood a great distance from the others and was surrounded by a wide expanse of ground which usually was overgrown with weeds or was bare or littered with rubbish. Not once did I observe an attempt at making a garden or landscaping. The entire section had about it a garish but bleak air. A little attention would have converted the area into a park, but, even though many of the wealthy Africans of this section had once lived in England, they evidently didn’t care for that sort of thing.

  I left the paved streets of the rich African section and, leaping over the ubiquitous open sewage drains, wandered into the dusty compounds alive with the usual clutter of children, goats, sheep, and chickens. I stepped cautiously around sedentary but ever-busy women…. What could they be doing all the time…? Their housework was no doubt easy; there was no dusting to be done; no floors to scrub or wax; no washing of windows; no lace curtains to be laundered…. I peered discreetly into interiors as I passed and only here and there did I see a bed or a cupboard. The windows were square, gaping holes. A roll of straw represented a pallet for the body when placed on the floor at night. And, as closely as I could observe, there didn’t seem to be any set time, any scheduled hour for anything; one ate, slept, cooked when one felt like it, and there was no reason for the keeping of rigid hours.

  My prying walks ranged as far as the suburbs and, one afternoon, I found myself in Christianborg, an outlying upper middle-class quarter in which both Africans and Europeans lived. While rounding a corner I saw the ruins of a huge building facing me. I stopped, interested. From the atmosphere of settled decay that lay upon the heaps of crumbling stone, I guessed that the structure must have dated from the early nineteenth century. All of its upper floors had long since caved in and a greenish mold clung to the jagged masonry. I climbed upon some rocks and peered over the edge of a rotting wall and saw fallen columns lying athwart mounds of debris, stone stairways that halted abruptly in mid-air, vacant spaces that terminated in masses of rubble.

  I sought an entrance into the ruin and was amazed when I came to a vast doorway. A man emerged and, seeing me, he came forward.

  “You know what this is, sar?” he asked me.

  “No; what is it?”

  “It’s the Old Slave Market Castle, sar.”

  “Does anybody live here now?”

  “Oh, yes, sar. It’s full, sar. Come along. I’ll take you to Mr. Hagerson.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “He’s the head man of the compound, sar.”

  I looked up at the top of the entrance and saw a faded inscription that read: 1803….

  “You live here too?”

  “Yes, sar. I’m Mr. Hagerson’s assistant, sar.”

  The interior was more spacious than I had thought. The ruins extended over the area of a city block. At the edge of the mounds of crumbling stone and against the thick walls were crudely constructed rooms in which people lived, cooked…. As I penetrated farther I became aware of scores of black families quietly going about their duties. Through the debris were narrow dirt paths that skirted many rooms in which stooped women prepared meals over charcoal fires….

  Mr. Hagerson was a brown-skinned man of seventy-odd, clad in a pair of baggy trousers and a frayed shirt. He was barefooted and it seemed that a part of the flesh of his toes had worn away. He stretched out a shaking, skinny hand, greeted me with a smile, obviously delighted to meet a stranger.

  “Glad to meet you, sir,” he said, lifting a gnarled walking stick to help him stand.

  He led me toward his room, hobbling, turning his head now and then to point out a wall or a place where some large room had once existed. I entered his sleeping quarters which were dirty and musty. Pushing the only chair to me, he sat himself upon the edge of a box. On an old sun helmet to my left an eighth of an inch of dust had gathered. Had Mr. Hagerson been a bit taller, he could have been my grandfather. He had the same angular features, the same proud bearing, the same patient dignity that my grandfather had had.

  “I’m interested in this place, Mr. Hagerson. Could you tell me a little about it?”

  “Be glad to,” he began cheerfully.

  I wondered why he was so eager to talk. Most Africans are not very communicative unless it’s for material reasons. I learned later that Mr. Hagerson was presenting “his case” to me.

  “There was a man named Henry Richter,” he began leisurely enough….

  It seemed that in the early days of the Gold Coast there lived a Dutch family of Richters. One member of that family had been governor for a while; when he left the governorship, he went into the slave trade, took himself an African wife by whom he had several children, mulattoes. When the old man died, he left his mulatto children a fortune in gold dust which they had used to build the Slave Market Castle on whose ruins we now stood….

  “Were slaves quartered here?”

  “Oh, yes. They sold many, man
y slaves to America.”

  “Were any records kept?”

  “Yes. But they are hard to find. You see, there are people here in the Gold Coast with records of the sale of slaves in their possession. But nobody likes to show such things. Nobody likes to say that their family dealt in slaves….

  “The people who now live here in this ruined castle are the descendants of John Richter, the son of Henry Richter. He too had an African wife. Now, John had a brother, Bob. John and Bob had a dispute and finally John drove Bob out. John continued to live in the castle until his death. The slave descendants put in a claim to the effect that they owned the castle, and the brother, Bob, who lived at that time in Accra, put in a counterclaim. The slave claim won in the courts.”

  “You are a descendant of John Richter, Mr. Hagerson?”

  “Yes.”

  “But your name is not Richter?”

  “My name comes from my mother’s side. We have a matrilineal system, you know,” he told me.

  I was baffled. The men and women I had seen moving about in the compound had been all black and the descendants of the Richters had been mulattoes. So how could these people, 150 years later, after marrying far and wide, claim to be the descendants of the Richters? And what had become of the white blood?

  I learned that in the ruins of this Slave Market Castle lived a compound tribal family of some forty-odd men, women, and children, that Mr. Hagerson, the family’s only literate member, had been elected some three years previously as its head and spokesman. Though governed by tribal law in secular matters, the family had divided its religious loyalties among Presbyterians, Anglicans, Church of England, and Catholics; a substantial majority were pagans.

  The Castle is regarded as being “owned” by this family; no rent is paid; and the government tax rate is met by a communal pooling of funds. All of the children are being sent to mission schools, but the adult pagans follow the instructions of their fetish priest. Reckoning kinship in African tribal terms, Mr. Hagerson told me that, though only a part of the actual family lived here, many outstanding Gold Coast citizens had their family roots here, that no less than Sir Emmanuel Quist, the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, came from the original family of this compound….