BLACK VOICES
An Anthology of African-American Literature
EDITED AND WITH AN INTRODUCTION
BY ABRAHAM CHAPMAN
A SIGNET CLASSIC
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
I
21
FICTION
CHARLES W. CHESNUTT
Baxter's Procrustes
50
52
JEAN TOOMER
Karintha
Blood-Burning Moon
63
64
66
RUDOLPH FISHER
Common Meter
73
74
ARNA BONTEMPS
A Summer Tragedy
87
88
LANGSTON HUGHES
Tales of Simple
Foreword: Who Is Simple?
Feet live Their Own life
Temptation
Bop
Census
Coffee Break
Cracker Prayer
Promulgations
96
97
97
99
101
103
105
106
108
110
RICHARD WRIGHT
The Man Who lived Undereroumi
zffl
113
114
xiv
BLACK VOICES
ANN PETRY
l a Darkness and Confusion
161
161
RALPH ELLISON
Invisible Man (Prologue)
192
192
FRANK LONDON BROWN
McDougal
201
202
PAULE MARSHALL .
To Da-duh, In Memoriam
204
205
DIANE OLIVER
Neighbors
215
215
IL AUTOBIOGRAPHY
FREDERICK DOUGLASS
231
Narrative of the life of Frederick
Douglass, An American Slave (Chapters 1, 6, 7, and 10)
232
JAMES WELDON JOHNSON
Along This Way (Selected Episodes)
269
• 270
RICHARD WRIGHT
The Ethics of Living Jim Crow
288
288
J. SAUNDERS REDDING
299
No Day of Triumph (Chapter 1: Sec*
tionsl, 5, and 7)
300
JAMES BALDWIN
Autobiographical Notes
316
316
ARNA BONTEMPS
Why I Returned
321
321
Contents
MALCOLM X
.332
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
(Chapter 1)
•
333
STANLEY SANDERS
"I'll Never Escape the Ghetto1*
347
347
HI. POETRY
PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR
We Wear the Mask
A Death Song
Sympathy
A Negro Love Song
354
355
W. E. B. DU BOIS
The Song of the Smoke
A Litany at Atlanta
358
359
360
JAMES WELDON JOHNSON
The Creation
364
364
FENTON JOHNSON
The Daily Grind
The World Is a Mighty Ogre
A Negro Peddler's Song
The Old Repair Man
Rulers
The Scarlet Woman
Tired
Aunt Jane Allen
366
367
368
368
369
369
CLAUDE McKAY
Baptism
If We Must Die
Outcast
The Negro's Tragedy
America
The White City
The White House
371
372
372
373
373
374
374
356
356
357
370
370
371
375
BLACK VOICES
JEAN TOOMER
Harvest Song
Song of the Son
Cotton Song
Brown River, Smile
377
377
378
COUNTEE CULLEN
Yet Do I Marvel
A Song of Praise
A Brown Girl Dead
From the Dark Tower
Incident
Scottsboro, Too, Is Worth Its Song
Three Epitaphs:
For My Grandmother
For Paul Laurence Dunbar
For A Lady I Know
381
383
383
384
384
384
385
386
386
386
386
MELVIN B. TOLSON
An Ex-Judge at the Bar
Dark Symphony
Psi
386
387
388
392
FRANK HORNE
Kid Stuff
Nigger: A Chant for Children
401
401
402
STERLING A. BROWN
Sister Lou
Memphis Blues
Slim in Hell
Remembering Nat Turner
Southern Road
Southern Cop
The Young Ones
The Ballad of Joe Meek
Strong Men
403
404
405
407
410
412
413
413
414
419
375
376
Contents
X'
ARNA BONTEMPS
A Note of Humility
Gethsemane
Southern Mansion
My Heart Has Known Its Winter
Nocturne At Betheeda
A Black Man Talks of Reaping _
The Day-Breakers
421
421
421
422
422
422
424
424
LANGSTON HUGHES
Afro-American Fragment
As I Grew Older
Dream Variations
Daybreak In Alabama
Dream Boogie
Children's Rhymes
Theme for English B
Harlem Same In Blues
Ballad of the Landlord
425
425
426
427
427
428
428
429
430
431
432
FRANK MARSHALL DAVIS
Four Glimpses of Night
I Sing No New Songs
Robert Whitmore
Flowers of Darkness
433
433
434
435
435
RICHARD WRIGHT
Between the World and Me
436
437
438
ROBERT HAYDEN
439
Tour 5
439
On the Coast of Maine
440
Figure
In Light Half Nightmare and HalfVision
441
Market
442
Homage to the Empress of the Blues 443
xviii
BLACK VOICES
Mourning Poem for the Queen of
Sunday
Middle Passage
Frederick Douglass
443
444
449
OWEN DODSON
Guitar
Black Mother Praying
Drunken Lover
The Reunion
, Jonathan's Song °
Yardbird's Skull
Sailors on Leave
450
450
451
454
454
455
456
457
MARGARET WALKER
For My People
458
459
GWENDOLYN BROOKS
The Artist's and Models' Ball
The Mother
The Preacher: Ruminates Behind the
Sermon
The Children of the Poor
We Real Cool
The Chicago Defender Sends a Man to
Little Rock
460
461
461
466
DUDLEY RANDALL
The Southern Road
Legacy: My South
Booker T. and W. E. B.
The Idiot
468
468
469
470
471
LERONE BENNETT, Jr.
471
472
Blues and Bitterness
LANCE JEFFERS
The Night Rains Hot Tar
On Listening to the Spirituals
462
463
465
473
473
474
Contents
Grief Streams Down My Chest
The Unknown
NAOMI LONG MADGETT
Native
Her Story
The Race Question
MARI EVANS
Coventry
Status Symbol
The Emancipation of George-Hector
(a colored turtle)
My Man Let Me Pull Your Coat
Black Jam for Dr. Negro
LEROI JONES
Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide
Note
The Invention of Comics
Look for You Yesterday, Here You
Come Today
The Death of Nick Charles
The Bridge
xix
474
475
475
476
476
477
478
478
479
480
480
481
482
483
484
485
488
491
IV. LITERARY CRITICISM
W. E. B. DU BOIS
The Souls of Black Folk (Chapters 1
and 14)
ALAIN LOCKE
The New Negro
The Negro In American Culture
RICHARD WRIGHT
How "Bigger" Was Born
STERLING A. BROWN
A Century of Negro Portraiture in
American Literature
493
494
512
512
523
538
538
564
564
xx
BLACK VOICES
JAMES BALDWIN
Many Thousands Gone
Three Papers from the First Conference
of Negro Writers (March, 1959)
1. ARTHUR P. DAVIS
Integration and Race Literature
2. J. SAUNDERS REDDING
The Negro Writer and His Relationship to His Roots
3. LANGSTON HUGHES
Writers: Black and White
BLYDEN JACKSON
The Negro's Image of the Universe as
Reflected in His Fiction
JOHN HENRIK CLARKE
The Origin and Growth of Afro-American Literature
RICHARD G. STERN
That Same Pain, That Same Pleasure:
An Interview with Ralph Ellison
612
618
618
622
DAN GEORGAKAS
James Baldwin . . . in Conversation
660
660
STERLING STUCKEY
Frank London Brown
DARWIN T. TURNER
The Negro Dramatist's Image of the
Universe, 1920-1960
GEORGE E. KENT
Ethnic Impact in American Literature
CLARENCE MAJOR
Black Criterion
669
669
677
BIBLIOGRAPHY
590
590
605
605
606
612
623
631
632
645
645
677
690
691
698
698
700