The Other Blacklist: The African American Literary and Cultural Left of the 1950s

323 Pages·2014·5.51 MB·English

by  Mary Helen Washington

THE OTHER BLACKLIST
MARY HELEN WASHINGTON
THE OTHER BLACKLIST
The African American Literary and
Cultural Left of the 1950s
Columbia University Press / New York
Columbia University Press
Publishers Since 1893
New York Chichester, West Sussex
cup.columbia.edu
Copyright © 2014 Columbia University Press
All rights reserved
E-ISBN 978-0-231-52647-0
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Washington, Mary Helen.
The Other Blacklist : the African American Literary and Cultural Left of the 1950s / Mary Helen
Washington.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-231-15270-9 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-231-52647-0 (e-book)
1. American literature—African American authors—History and criticism. 2. American literature
—20th century—History and criticism. Politics and literature—United States—History—20th
century. African Americans—Intellectual life—20th century. 5. Right and left (Political science) in
literature. 6. Cold War in literature. I. Title.
PS153.N5W349 2014
810.9’896073—dc23
2013031563
A Columbia University Press E-book.
CUP would be pleased to hear about your reading experience with this e-book at cup-
[email protected].
COVER DESIGN: Julia Kushnirsky
COVER IMAGE: Charles White, Let’s Walk Together, from the Charles L. Blockson Afro-American
Collection, Temple University Libraries.
References to websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the author nor
Columbia University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since the
manuscript was prepared.
For the next generation of our tribe:
Darionne Washington
Cordell Washington
Denzel Washington
Cordajah Washington
Rodney Washington
Sean Washington
Azaria Washington
Aliyah Washington
Olivia Kyla Mitchell
Solomon Mitchell
Nathaniel Wilson
Xavier Wilson
May they jump at the sun.
CONTENTS
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations

INTRODUCTION
1. LLOYD L. BROWN
Black Fire in the Cold War
2. CHARLES WHITE
“Robeson with a Brush and Pencil”
3. ALICE CHILDRESS
Black, Red, and Feminist
4. WHEN GWENDOLYN BROOKS WORE RED
5. FRANK LONDON BROWN
The End of the Black Cultural Front and the Turn Toward Civil Rights
6. 1959
Spycraft and the Black Literary Left
EPILOGUE
The Example of Julian Mayfield

Notes
Works Cited
Index
ILLUSTRATIONS
Figure 0.1. Poster by Charles White for the second
convention of the National Negro Labor Council,
Cleveland (1952)
Figure 1.1. Page from Lloyd L. Brown’s FOIA file (1962)
Figure 1.2. One-Third of A Nation poster, Living Newspapers
of the WPA (1938)
Figure 2.1. Charles White, A History of the Negro Press
(1940)
Figure 2.2. Charles White at work on mural Techniques Used
in the Service of Struggle (c. 1940)
Figure 2.3. Founding members of the Committee for the
Negro in the Arts (c. 1940)
Figure 2.4. A CNA awards banquet in New York City (1950s)
Figure 2.5. Page from Charles White’s FOIA file (c. 1951)
Figure 2.6. Charles White, Sojourner Truth (1949)
Figure 2.7. Charles White, Exodus 1 Black Moses (1951)
Figure 2.8. Charles White, Let’s Walk Together (1953)
Figure 2.9. Marion Post Wolcott, Migrant workers waiting to
be paid, near Homestead, Florida, Farm Security
Administration photo (February 1939)
Figure 2.10. Charles White, Harvest Talk (1953–54)
Figure 3.1. Page from Childress’s FOIA file (1953)
Figure 3.2. Childress, Wedding Band (1973)
Figure 3.3. Childress, Like One of the Family, Beacon Press
edition (1986)
Figure 3.4. Alice Neel’s portrait of Mike Gold (1952)
Figure 3.5. Alice Neel’s portrait of Pat Whelan (1935)
Figure 3.6. Alice Neel’s portrait of Alice Childress (1950)
Figure 3.7. Herbert Aptheker, Ewart Guinier, and Alice
Childress (1975)
Figure 4.1. Gwendolyn Brooks, “A Gathering at the South
Side Community Art Center” (1948)
Figure 4.2. Gwendolyn Brooks presents the Literary Times
Award to Jack Conroy (1967)
Figure 4.3. Gwendolyn Brooks in Chicago Daily News photo
(1957)
Figure 5.1. Pages from Frank London Brown’s FOIA file
(1957) 217–19
Figure 6.1. Lloyd L. Brown and Louis Burnham at AMSAC
conference (1959)
Figure 6.2. Lorraine Hansberry giving keynote address at
AMSAC conference (1959)
Figure 6.3. Lorraine Hansberry at AMSAC conference (1959)
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
IHAVE LIVED with this book for such a long time (twelve years, at last
count) that the list of people who have sustained me has grown long,
but remembering the generosity that has been constant over these
years is a great and humbling pleasure. The support of my colleagues at
the University of Maryland, College Park—Theresa Coletti, Kent
Cartwright, Christina Walter, Bill Cohen, Bob Levine, Howard Norman,
Jackson Bryer, Randy Ontiveros, John Auchard, David Wyatt, Martha
Nell Smith, Zita Nunes, Merle Collins, Joshua Weiner, Michael Collier,
Edlie Wong, Keguro Macharia, Shawn Saremi, and Barry Pearson—has
been critical in reminding me that it only counts when you turn your ideas
into a physical object. The university has generously supported my work
with numerous research grants from the College of Arts and Humanities,
including the Distinguished Faculty Research Fellowship and travel
grants from the University’s Driskell Center for the Study of the African
Diaspora. My wonderful year in Los Angeles (2000–2001), supported in
part by a fellow ship from the UCLA Institute for American Culture,
enabled me to jump-start this project.
My UCLA crew was there at the beginning of The Other Blacklist and
supplied great moral and intellectual support: Richard Yarborough, who
has always been my best scholarly mentor, friend, supporter, and reader,
and Harryette Mullen, who surely knows how important she has been as
inspiration, cheerleader, generous colleague, model scholar, and
excellent LA cultural tour guide. Gerard Maré led me on several hikes
through the mountains of LA, which helped ground me for periods of
silent, butt-to-chair work. He and King-Kok Cheung provided me with a
beautiful LA retreat house that year, overlooking the canyon, a perfect
place to work. I am very grateful for the people at the many institutions
where I conducted research, especially to the UCLA institute, the staff at
the Schomburg Center for Research on Black Culture, Diana
Lachatanere, and Colin Palmer. I have also received support from the
University of California, Berkeley, Bancroft Library (especially Susan