On the Shoulders of Giants

by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

  In quick succession, Hughes published two collections of poetry, The Weary Blues (1926) and Fine Clothes to the Jew (1927), both merging jazz and blues with more traditional forms of poetry. Like McKay, Toomer, and Thurman, he was attacked by some black critics who thought his portrayal of life among lower-class blacks was a betrayal to the New Negro image. In 1926, Hughes responded in the Nation with his now famous artistic manifesto, “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain.” In this excerpt, he answers the question of why his poems use so much jazz, a question, Hughes believed, that showed an inherent self-hatred in blacks who asked it:

  But jazz to me is one of the inherent expressions of Negro life in America: the eternal tom-tom beating in the Negro soul—the tom-tom of revolt against weariness in a white world, a world of subway trains, and work, work, work; the tom-tom of joy and laughter, and pain swallowed in a smile. Yet the Philadelphia clubwoman is ashamed to say that her race created it and she does not like me to write about it. The old subconscious “white is best” runs through her mind. Years of study under white teachers, a lifetime of white books, pictures, and papers, and white manners, morals, and Puritan standards made her dislike the spirituals. And now she turns up her nose at jazz and all its manifestations—likewise almost everything else distinctly racial. She doesn’t care for the Winold Reiss portraits of Negroes because they are “too Negro.” She does not want a true picture of herself from anybody. She wants the artist to flatter her, to make the white world believe that all Negroes are as smug and as near white in soul as she wants to be. But, to my mind, it is the duty of the younger Negro artist, if he accepts any duties at all from outsiders, to change through the force of his art that old whispering “I want to be white,” hidden in the aspirations of his people, to “Why should I want to be white? I am a Negro—and beautiful!”

  Like Zora Neale Hurston, Hughes was not able to survive on the admiration of reviewers and in 1927 accepted financial support from wealthy white philanthropist Charlotte Mason. She supported his return to college at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, which he graduated from in 1929, and encouraged him to write a novel, Not Without Laughter (1930). By the time the novel was published, Hughes had pulled away from Mason, and his relationships with Hurston and Locke had also crumbled. He began another period of travel, first spending seven months barnstorming through the Deep South, where he read his poems (at one point, through the bars to the Scottsboro Boys) and sold inexpensive collections of his poetry to audiences. His firsthand experiences with Jim Crow laws radicalized his political beliefs. When he finished his tour, he joined a twenty-two person delegation to Russia to make a film about American racial relations. The film was never made, but Hughes spent fourteen months traveling across Russia, becoming, according to one observer, “the traveling star of colored America.”

  Hughes’s writing also became more political, as he produced polemic essays and poems, yet earned a living writing Broadway plays (Mulatto, 1935) as well as children’s verse and fiction for commercial magazines. During the Harlem Renaissance, he had actively fought the artistic restraints of using writers for propaganda, but now he encouraged it. “It is the social duty of Negro writers,” he wrote, “to reveal to the people the deep reservoirs of heroism within the race.” A younger, less jaded Hughes would have remarked that just by being talented, articulate, and insightful, the African-American writer was already being heroic.

  Unlike many of his Harlem Renaissance colleagues, Hughes continued to be prolific and widely read long after the Renaissance had “officially” ended. He wrote many plays, poems, essays, and stories as well as two autobiographies, The Big Sea (1940) and I Wonder as I Wander (1956). Although his political views became much more moderate following World War II, he was still called before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1953. Hughes refused to give the committee any names, but he did renounce some of his earlier radical positions. By the end, he was dismissed as a “friendly witness.” Eighty-three-year-old W. E. B. Du Bois, on the other hand, remained defiant and unrepentant before the committee.

  Hughes’s final years were spent living in a brownstone in Harlem, where he continued his prolific output. One of his most memorable literary achievements is a collection of stories featuring the Harlem character Jesse B. Semple, referred to as Simple, whose direct and honest views, mostly about race issues, given to the reserved narrator at a neighborhood bar, resulted in five popular collections, beginning with Simple Speaks His Mind (1950). He also produced his most political book of poetry, The Panther and the Lash (1967). In 1967, suffering from severe abdominal pains, he checked himself into a hospital under the name James L. Hughes, not telling anyone that he was there. He died two weeks later.

  Langston Hughes’s funeral service was a celebration of the fruits of the Harlem Renaissance he had come to embody: jazz and blues music were played, poems were recited, and Duke Ellington’s “Do Nothing Until You Hear from Me” ended the service. Later, as his body was being cremated, his dearest friends recited his first published poem, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers.” And, while that poem is rich with youthful intensity and longing for heritage, a poem more representative of Hughes’s wit, charm, and razor-cut observation, “Dinner Guest: Me,” places him enjoying the admiration of his white hosts, yet ever aware of being the outsider:

  I know I am

  The Negro Problem

  Being wined and dined,

  Answering the usual questions

  That come to white mind

  Which seeks demurely

  To probe in polite way

  The why and wherewithal

  Of darkness U.S.A.—

  Wondering how things got this way

  In current democratic night,

  Murmuring gently

  Over fraise du bois, “I’m so ashamed of being white.”

  The lobster is delicious.

  The wine divine,

  And center of attention

  At the damask table, mine.

  To be a Problem on

  Park Avenue at eight

  Is not so bad.

  Solutions to the Problem,

  Of course, wait.

  Words of the Wise:

  The Legacy of the Harlem Writers

  Langston Hughes’s closest friends holding hands and reciting a defining poem in African-American history as his body is fed to the flames of the crematorium. What a wonderful metaphor that could be: a symbolic choir of the Talented Tenth singing the gospel of the spirit of the Harlem Renaissance as its final surviving minister is laid to rest, his shining words echoing from their hopeful lips into history. Then we could catalog all the names of the famous African-Americans and white Americans that have been inspired by those words. How poetic! How uplifting!

  How insulting.

  These giants of the Harlem Renaissance weren’t heroes because they were flawless. They were heroes because, despite petty jealousies, philosophical differences, and romantic disappointments among themselves, they still found ways to express enduring principles, values, and beliefs that they thought would benefit their community, whether that be the African-American community, or the American community, or the world community. They had a vision beyond themselves for a better world. Sometimes the vision burned bright their whole lives and they continued to carry that torch right up until the end; sometimes it burned too bright and they confused their own ambitions with those of their vision and it incinerated them. They were uncommon people dedicated to a common cause—and that cause made them great. But, if the Harlem Renaissance teaches us anything, it is to see each of them as a human being, not just an icon of color. And to marvel that sometimes human beings can translate into words the chaos of passions, frustrations, and hopes we hold for the future—and make those words echo forever, not just in dusty tomes of history, but in the richest need in our hearts.

  “The Gifts That

  My Ancestors Gave”

  How Harlem Writers

  Influenced My Life<
br />
  By Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

  When I read great literature, great drama, speeches, or sermons, I feel that the human mind has not achieved anything greater than the ability to share feelings and thoughts through language.

  JAMES EARL JONES

  I used to play basketball.

  Since retiring as a professional basketball player eighteen years ago, I’ve done many things: sports announcing, scouting, acting, coaching. But the occupation I feel most defines all the aspects of who I am at this time in my life is writer.

  What surprises people about me so much isn’t that I’m a writer. Lots of celebrities write books, mostly about how they became celebrities or how you, too, can cook, do yoga, or stay young like a celebrity. What surprises people is that I write books about history. Granted, three of my books were autobiographical, but that, too, is a form of history. My history. And in each I tried to do more than just detail my relationship with basketball. Giant Steps (1983) explores the complicated coming-of-age process of how I became a man—a man who also happened to be a professional basketball player. Kareem (1990), a diary of my farewell season in 1989, focuses on how being an African-American in this society brought me from two obscure rooms in Harlem to that well-publicized last season. A Season on the Reservation: My Sojourn with the White Mountain Apaches (2000) was not so much about me as about the White Mountain Apache high school basketball team I helped coach for a season. While I recounted my trials, triumphs, and shortcomings as a coach, mostly I wanted the book to be about the high school team in the context of their rich Native American history and my involvement with them in the context of my equally rich African-American history. Not so much a collision of two cultures, but a wary dance of sorts as our pasts sniffed each other’s present—and found a way to respectfully learn from the other. Though the details in each of those books were indeed my personal history, the real story was about my small place in a much larger canvas of African-American history.

  My other two books are pure Kareem-less history. Black Profiles in Courage: A Legacy of African-American Achievement (1996) presented a group of outstanding African-American role models for children of color who are forced to read history books in school that mostly ignore black achievements. How can black children grow up with a strong sense of self-respect and hope if they rarely see people like them honored and exalted? Sure, they can go to the sports arena and see black athletes chasing different-shaped balls, turn on MTV and see a variety of black performers singing and dancing, or go to the movies and see a few black leading actors. But our history is so much richer than that of performers. It’s filled with inspiring examples of heroism, creativity, ingenuity, and genius. I wrote that book because I wanted kids to see the broader spectrum of opportunities. To see the many paths open to them by profiling admirable historical figures to act as their trail guides.

  Brothers in Arms: The Epic Story of the 761st Tank Battalion, WWII’s Forgotten Heroes (2004) recounts the heroic exploits of the 676 enlisted men and 36 officers of an all-black tank battalion. Despite a horrendous casualty rate of 50 percent and unrelenting racism from white commanding officers and fellow enlisted men, these men never balked, never gave up. Recent war movies have shown the faces of courage when they look like Mel Gibson (We Were Soldiers) or Bruce Willis (Tears of the Sun). The highly decorated warriors in Brothers in Arms showed the world what the face of bravery looked like when it was black.

  My interest in history is less academic and much more practical. I’m not interested in gathering amusing tidbits of historical trivia so people can sit around a fancy restaurant table sniffing the bouquet of their wine while repeating the information to entertain each other. The people I write about fought and struggled and suffered, and I want all that to count for something. I want their history to inform and excite and inspire the reader. As it did me. Harlem Renaissance leader Marcus Garvey said, “A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.” This has been my guiding principle in choosing what to write and how to approach the material. For some, history is a drab and dusty subject; for me it is a powerful stimulant, arousing our passions about past injustices and infusing us with strength to fight present ones. The only way I know how to share my passion about history and its power to affect our lives is to write these books.

  Which brings us to On the Shoulders of Giants. Once again, I’m relating some autobiographical material, but only with a specific focus: how a particular time in history opened my eyes about who I was—as an American, as an African-American—and inspired me to become more than I might otherwise have become. Yes, I was seven feet tall, and had I not discovered the Harlem Renaissance, I would probably still have become a successful professional basketball player and had a role in Airplane! But having a successful career is not nearly enough to make one happy or fulfilled. If the pinnacle of my influence as a human being was perfecting the skyhook, I would not feel very satisfied. Learning about the Harlem Renaissance allowed me to enjoy my success because I could understand it better and use it to do more. There’s an old saying, “A rising tide lifts all boats.” The Harlem Renaissance taught me that my success could also be others’ success.

  Despite my having written several best-selling books, people don’t come up to me on the street and say, “Hey, Kareem, got any suggestions about what I should read next?” They don’t corner me at the airport and ask, “What’s up with James Baldwin saying, ‘Artists are here to disturb the peace’? What’d he mean by that?” Interviewers don’t want to know my take on the pan-African movement. They want to discuss the Lakers, the current crop of NBA rookies, a shot I took in a game twenty years ago. The NCAA instead of the NAACP. And I don’t resent it one bit. I consider myself lucky that anyone wants my opinion about anything. But the Harlem Renaissance taught me not to be afraid to use whatever celebrity status I have to benefit my community. If people gather around to hear about basketball and I happen to slip in a story about some great figure in African-American history, then I’m doing what Maya Angelou describes in her poem “Still I Rise”:

  Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,

  I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

  I rise

  I rise

  I rise.

  I used to play basketball. Now I am a writer. I didn’t become either one by myself.

  I didn’t rise alone.

  Identity Theft:

  Beauty or the Beast

  As long as the colored man look to white folks to put the crown on what he say…as long as he looks to white folks for approval…then he ain’t never gonna find out who he is and what he’s about.

  August Wilson JR.,Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

  The main struggle that the writers of the Harlem Renaissance faced was trying to convince white Americans to change their long-held perceptions of black Americans. This was similar to the problem microbiologist Louis Pasteur had trying to convince the world that some diseases were caused by germs instead of just spontaneously popping up. People didn’t want to believe Pasteur because they were used to seeing the world a certain way—no matter how wrong it was, no matter how dangerous to themselves and their loved ones their stupidity was. History is filled with those heroes who accepted the daunting task of trying to change people’s petrified minds: mold could be penicillin, women could be equals, something heavier than air could fly. The public’s first reaction to change is always a resounding “Get lost!”

  Which is exactly the challenge the Harlem Renaissance writers faced in the 1920s and 1930s. Southern whites had had too many smug generations of seeing blacks as disposable property to suddenly slap their foreheads and say, “Gosh, what was I thinking? Of course we’re all brothers and sisters under the skin.” And poor whites, barely scratching an existence out of the unforgiving soil, desperately needed to cling to their skewed perception of blacks—they needed someone they could feel superior to in order to keep away despair. Whites from other parts
of the country usually had little exposure to blacks, so their perceptions were formed by casual observation of the shoeshine man or hotel maid combined with how blacks were portrayed in the arts. Minstrel shows had featured whites in blackface—and even blacks in blackface—shuffling and jiving around the stage, perpetuating the familiar stereotypes of the lazy, stupid, childlike African-American (see the chapter “ ‘Musical Fireworks’: Jazz Lights Up the Heavens of Harlem” for the history of minstrel shows). Cartoons, novels, radio shows, advertisements, newspapers, movies, and even children’s games perpetuated these portrayals. Judy Garland, Mickey Rooney, and Bing Crosby, among others, wore blackface in several of their films, including Crosby in the 1942 Christmas favorite, Holiday Inn (giving new meaning to the phrase white Christmas). They might have heard a rumor of an educated black who was a doctor or lawyer, but they saw that as a freak of nature, akin to a circus oddity, probably having more to do with some white blood in the veins from a frisky slave owner.

  All these attitudes about blacks were based on a firm belief that whites were biologically superior to blacks. Throughout the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries, plenty of “scientific” studies were published to support this conclusion. German anthropologist Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (1752–1840) was the first to come up with the idea of dividing people into five “races”: Caucasian (whites), Mongolian (yellow), Malayan (brown), Negro/Ethiopian (black), and American (red). In addition to skin color, he categorized people according to various physical traits: fair skin and high brows of Caucasians were proof of higher intelligence and more generous spirit; Mongolians, with their narrow eyes and sallow skin color were crafty and literal-minded; sloping craniums and dark skin of Negroes revealed how close they were to primates (although, it’s interesting to note that if you shave the hair off a chimpanzee or gorilla, their skin is whiter than that of a Caucasian).