A Great American Protest Novel

A spiritual inheritor to Agee, says Ward.

[by Jerry W. Ward, Jr.]

“There is in Southern white man, distributed almost as thickly as the dialect,” James Agee wrote in 1936, “an epidemic capability of sadism which you would have to go as far to match and whose chief basis is possibly, but only possibly, and only one among many, a fear of the Negro, deeper and more terrible than any brief accounting can suggest or explain. The flaw of sadism can turn its victims loose into extremities which the gaudiest reports have only begun to suggest.”

These surgical words come from the conclusion of “Cotton Tenants: Three Families,” a report Fortune magazine would not publish. Cotton Tenants did not see print until 2013. Agee indicted his race in a way his race dared not acknowledge, for to have done so would have been tantamount to staring into Medusa’s eyes. Agee’s people understood that “Southern white man” was identical with “American man” and that “fear of the Negro” was a sly allusion to a Yankee idea represented through a Spanish character in Herman Melville’s “Benito Cereno.”

Agee knew his race well.

ICYMI: The Last 2 Weeks in Black Writing (8/4 - 8/16)

- HBW collected tributes from a number of important writers and scholars to bid farewell to Chancellor Bob Hemenway, who - among many other accomplishments - wrote a foundational literary biography of Zora Neale Hurston.

- ForHarriet shared 7 Black Women Science Fiction Writers Everyone Should Know. (One of the authors, Nalo Hopkinson, has a new short story collection out right now.)


- Roxane Gay opens this conversation with Ta-Nehisi Coates by noting the frequent comparisons of Coates to James Baldwin. 5 days earlier, Vinson Cunningham wrote about why Coates isn't the James Baldwin of our time.

- Baldwin or not, Coates did make it onto President Obama's summer reading list.

- Beverly Jenkins spoke to NPR Books about writing historical romances with black protagonists.

- Issa Rae, author of The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl, was profiled in the New York Times in "The Misadventures of Issa Rae."

- Walter Mosley, author of the Easy Rawlins series, sat down with NPR for conversations about the Watts Riots and his Southern roots. 

Robert “Bob” Hemenway (1941-2015), Literary Scholar and Mentor - A Special Tribute from the Project on the History of Black Writing

The Project on the History of Black Writing is deeply saddened by the passing of Robert Hemenway. Best known for his work as a biographer of Harlem Renaissance writer and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston, Hemenway established himself as a major literary scholar early in his career. His book, Zora Neale Hurston: A Literary Biography, was named one of the Best Books of 1978 by the New York Times, and was winner of the Society of Midland Authors Award in Biography as well as the Rembert W. Patrick Memorial Prize of the Florida Historical Society. In this literary biography, Hemenway utilizes unpublished letters, personal manuscripts, and interviews of Hurston’s close friends to create an original, full-length study of Hurston’s life and literary career.

Zora Neale Hurston was a prolific American author of innovative and influential works, both creative and scholarly. Hemenway used Hurston’s scholarship, art, autobiography, and novels to emphasize her rich contributions and commitment to the history of black writing and culture. Today we recognize her centrality to the emergence of women, gender, and sexuality studies, as well as to the advancement of folklore studies in the United States. Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) is one of the most widely read and discussed novels in American and world literature.  

Poet and novelist Alice Walker wrote, “Robert Hemenway's book on the literary life of Zora Neale Hurston is a major work, and one for which scholars and readers and writers will be extremely eager. They will also be grateful for his thorough research and sensitive reconstruction of Zora's life. It is for me a great book, because it gives back to all of us something invaluable that was nearly lost: reliable information and knowledge of the life of a great writer and unique human being. It is just such a joy to know that Zora's story is in the world, at last!”

Similarly, Harlem Renaissance scholar Houston Baker remarked that the book was “A landmark in American literary biography, drawing from virtual obscurity a singular life marked by outstanding works of art.”

In addition to his literary biography on Hurston, Hemenway served as editor of Taylor Gordon's Harlem Renaissance memoir, Born to Be, published “Folklore Field Notes from Zora Neale Hurston” in The Black Scholar, and contributed to the College Language Association Journal with his article “'Baxter’s Procrustes': Irony and Protest,” in which Hemenway analyzed a well-known story of African American writer Charles Chestnutt. 

Upon retirement, Hemenway left his personal papers to the University of Kansas, where they are housed at the Kenneth Spencer Research Library. 

A few months before his passing, the Project on the History of Black Writing announced its plan for a special Hemenway-Long scholarship to be awarded to an incoming graduate student focusing on African American and Ethnic writing. (Octavia Long was a 1909 African American graduate student of KU. Long's recovery continues the work to which Hemenway was and HBW remains committed).

Click here to read the University of Kansas's Tribute to Robert Hemenway and a statement from current KU Chancellor, Bernadette Gray-Little.

Chancellor Hemenway leaves behind many friends, colleagues, and those who benefited from his mentorship, many of whom have reached out to express their sentiments. HBW is honored to collect these remembrances. More will be added as they come in. Read the powerful reflections on the life and legacy of Robert Hemenway below, starting with Alice Walker's tribute:

ICYMI: The Last 3 Weeks in Black Writing (7/13 - 8/3)

The HBW Blog didn't post ICYMI for 3 weeks while staff members were preparing for and working on the NEH Summer Institute Black Poetry After the Black Arts Movement. Since it has now concluded, we return to the regular blog schedule!

 - HBW celebrated the lives of Norman Jordan and Paul Vesey (Samuel Allen), two great writers and thinkers.

- Jerry Ward discussed the effect of the digital medium on Asili Ya Nadhiri's poetic performance.

- Dr. Ward also wondered if studies about how literature effects the brain have been conducted by his colleagues in Chinese universities.

- Dr. Howard Rambsy II rounded up his thoughts and reflections from HBW & NEH's recent summer seminar Black Poetry After the Black Arts Movement over at Cultural Front. (He also posted this excellent piece about book endorsements, spurred by Toni Morrison's words about Ta-Nehisi Coates's Between the World and Me.)

- Justina Ireland notes the privilege underlying many critics' reviews of black social commentary like Coates's book.

- Relatedly, The Atlantic has been hosting a Between the World and Me book club, the last installment of which goes up today. Read them here (covering chapters 1 & 2), here (chapters 3 & 4), and here (chapter 5 & 6).

- Errin Whack takes issue with the idea that Atticus Finch's more overt racism in Go Set a Watchman damages To Kill a Mockingbird. Rather, she says it is a more complex, adult view on racism.

- The extraordinary Roxane Gay writes about letting go of the love she once had for Bill Cosby in light of what she now knows about his crimes.

- John Metta published "I, Racist," the text of a "congregational reflection" he gave to an all-white church congregation in late June about why he stopped speaking to white people about race for a long time - and why he's starting again.

- While at Comic-Con to promote March: Book Two, a graphic novel about the Civil Rights Movement, Representative John Lewis of Georgia recreated the outfit he wore in the march on Selma.

- If you live in Douglas County, Kansas, submissions for the Langston Hughes Creative Writing Award are now open!