Certain People Read online

  Let it be known that black men and women

  Helped to build this, our country.

  Let it be known that black men and women of the past

  In an effort to make this country

  What it ought to be, gave up their very last

  To make America a real democracy,

  A true homeland of the free.

  Let our leaders of today go back into the past

  And come fighting forth envigored with the spirit

  Of Turner, and Vesey, Douglass, Tubman and Truth.

  Let our stalwart black youth lift their heads in pride

  As they tell of their fathers’ fight for freedom

  To the white youth by their side.

  Yes, let it be known, let all the old folks tell it.

  Sing it to the babes yet in arms.

  Let us read the glorious story

  Right along with our Bible. Let it be known to all,

  The story of the glorious struggles of my people.

  Too long … Too long has it been kept from us.

  Margaret Burroughs’s hairdo became not only her personal trademark but her personal symbol of protest. “To me it began to have a deep meaning,” she says. “It meant that black people must be proud of what they are and who they are, and not try to hide their lights under wigs, and hair straighteners and bleaching creams. I hope it also meant that what goes on inside a person’s head is more important than what sits on top of it.”

  Building her DuSable Museum of African American History has been another “glorious struggle” for Margaret Burroughs, and she has faced problems similar to those of the Museum of African Art in Washington. Though Chicago had an American Indian Museum, a Jewish Museum, an Oriental Institute, and a Polish Museum, there was vociferous opposition to the idea that a museum of black culture should be established. Much of the criticism came, again, from leaders of the black community, one of whom wrote to say, “We have nothing to be proud of.” The white community was also opposed, claiming that a black museum would constitute an instrument of segregation. Still, the DuSable Museum was formally inaugurated in October 1961, in Dr. Burroughs’s living room.

  It was not until thirteen years later that the museum was able to move out of her living room and into a building in Washington Park with 25,000 square feet of exhibition space, donated by the city of Chicago. The museum’s collection is still almost pathetically small, and the building, with cracked plaster and peeling paint, is sadly in need of repair. Its cleaning and maintenance staff is meager, and the museum presents an appearance of honest, if untidy, poverty. Dr. Burroughs and her husband do most of the work themselves, and they put in long hours without any compensation. The museum offers a number of unique services. It will supply suggestions to parents who want to give their babies African names. It will demonstrate techniques for wrapping skirts and turbans in various African styles, and it will advise couples who want to get married with an African theme. In 1974, the DuSable Museum put on a wedding where the minister wore a dashiki, and the bride and groom stood at an altar decorated with African sculpture. If a group of children cannot come to visit the museum, the museum will come to visit them—in the form of a lecturer, usually in the person of Margaret Burroughs, with a suitcase full of artifacts. Though most museums shut off their telephones after 5:00 or 5:30 P.M., the DuSable Museum keeps its switchboard open until late at night to answer questions on African history. Usually, these come in forms of calls from barbershops and corner taverns from men and women who need a fact to settle a bet. But the museum is desperately in need of funds, and Dr. Burroughs is currently trying to raise $2,000,000 for operating costs, renovations, and new acquisitions—a modest enough sum, compared with budgets of other museums. “If every black person in Chicago would contribute just one dollar, we would reach our goal,” Dr. Burroughs says. So far, however, these dollars have not been forthcoming.

  In Washington, one of the problems facing the Museum of African Art is that its director, Warren Robbins, is white. In Chicago, the situation facing the DuSable Museum is, if anything, even more acute because Margaret Burroughs is black. So deeply rooted is black self-doubt that the majority of blacks simply cannot accept the possibility that a fellow black, such as Margaret Burroughs, might be doing something worthwhile. Such is the competitiveness of black versus black that blacks actually resent and seek to belittle other blacks, such as Margaret Burroughs, who have achieved some degree of recognition and status above them. The result is a large segment of the black population that would rather submit to the authority of whites than to accept the leadership of other blacks.

  In fact, middle-class blacks often seem to have difficulty cooperating in any endeavor. It has been noted that black scholars and educators often tend to turn to a white “authority” in their field for advice, that black doctors turn to white doctors when they need a confirming opinion, and that black lawyers would rather confer with white members of their profession than with blacks. A black client often feels more secure with a white lawyer, and a black patient feels he is in better hands if his doctor is white.

  In a study by sociologists Abram Kardiner and Lionel Ovesey, it has been pointed out that blacks’ frequent failures in professional, social, and business relations with other blacks is because “in every Negro, he encounters his own self-contempt.” It is as though the black were saying, “You’re only another black man like me. So why should you be in a position above me? Why should I listen to you?”

  Or perhaps, in even more human terms, it is because in small, daily ways, even the most successful blacks are reminded that, though some black people have made great and important strides, most have not. It is what the Washington lady, from her car, saw in the drunken young man dressed like “Super Fly.” It is what Doris Zollar sees when she looks at her wedding book. When she married Lowell Zollar, a young doctor, it was a great social event in Little Rock, and was given large coverage in the society pages of the black press. There was a huge reception, with many gifts, each one carefully listed in the wedding book. Among the gifts of Lenox china dinner plates, vermeil table settings and silver tea services, are listed such gifts as this one:

  “Mr. and Mrs. B—: $5.00”

  14

  The Power of the Press

  In 1957, a black sociologist named E. Franklin Frazier published a book called Black Bourgeoisie, the contents of which still raise hackles among upwardly mobile blacks. Frazier, who died in 1962, was chairman of the Department of Sociology at Howard University, and among his assertions, repeated throughout the book, was the statement that Negro society lived “in a world of make-believe.” Primarily, Frazier was critical of the new middle-class blacks who had achieved some degree of affluence during their lifetimes—in the professions or white-collar occupations—and whose lives had become an abject, and usually second-rate, imitation of the doings and attitudes of the white upper-class social structure they saw around them. This imitation, as Frazier saw it, was more like a dreadful parody. Frazier pointed mockingly at the then-current phenomenon of black debutantes, in long white dresses and opera-length gloves, being presented at cotillions in rented hotel ballrooms by tailcoated fathers who were druggists, bank clerks, or electricians. These new-rich (or comparatively rich) blacks, Frazier claimed, tried to compensate for their innate feelings of inferiority by buying expensive automobiles—even then, the Cadillac had become the black status car—which were nearly always financed; on houses that they could not afford; on clothes, furs, and jewelry that they did not need; on costly and tasteless furnishings that they never used; and on luxury cruises and other travel undertaken not so much for pleasure as for a way to flaunt their new wealth. Needless to say, Professor Frazier’s book made a number of black people, who could see themselves reflected in his pages, very angry.

  This new class, Frazier said, had no economic or cultural base. They had “sloughed off the genteel tradition of the small upper class,” and had similarly rejected “the folk cu
lture of the Negro masses.” Lacking “cultural roots in either the Negro world with which it refuses to identify, or the white world,” which refused to let the black bourgeoisie share its life, “most black bourgeoisie live in a cultural vacuum and their lives are devoted largely to fatuities.” Frazier concluded, “The black bourgeoisie suffers from ‘nothingness’ because when Negroes attain middle-class status, their lives generally lose both content and significance.” It was a stinging indictment and, it must be admitted, important parts of Frazier’s 1957 thesis still stand, particularly as they pertain to certain segments of the new middle class. Professor Frazier, however, failed to mention that new-rich whites are often just as guilty of imitative vulgarity and conspicuous spending. And his is a rather limited definition of what social “class” consists of in America. Class is not simply defined by money, material possessions, or even manners. It is more a matter of self-assurance, dignity, and a commonality of interests within a common organization. In any social class—high, low, or middle—there must be give-and-take. But, in the end, an upper class emerges from people who have the deepest and most solid feelings of their own self-worth, and of the worth of their similarly situated and similarly thinking peers.

  Professor Frazier claimed that black attitudes were sustained by two “myths”—the myth of black business, and the myth of black society. These myths, he asserted, were both created and promulgated by the black press. It is an interesting notion, and bears some looking into. The first black newspaper, Freedom’s Journal, was founded in 1827 by two free blacks, one of whom, John Russworm, was the first black to be graduated from an American college. Twenty years later, Frederick Douglass’s North Star—later renamed Frederick Douglass’s Paper—appeared. Both these newspapers were essentially Abolitionist tracts, aimed at white as well as black readers, and concentrated on reports of mistreatment and injustice to blacks in the South. After the Civil War, a number of black newspapers came into existence, particularly after 1880, when blacks began migrating from the South to Northern cities. By 1900, the two most influential black newspapers were the Guardian, published by William Monroe Trotter, a Harvard graduate, and the New York Age. The Guardian was a mouthpiece for Negro intellectuals, while the New York Age plumped for the theories of Booker T. Washington, who wanted to build a strong black labor force.

  In 1905, the Chicago Defender appeared—first as a simple handbill. By 1910, however, the Defender was appearing regularly and, at first, the paper concentrated on sensationalism to attract readers. But by the end of the first World War, the Defender had become the leading black voice in the country. Due, in large part, to the huge migration of blacks to Chicago, the Defender’s circulation reached 100,000 by 1922. The Defender was also one of the primary causes for this migration, because the Defender was the first of what would be many black publications that romanticized the scale of the opportunities—business and educational—that blacks could find in the big Northern cities. To the poor black in the South reading the Defender, Chicago sounded like a second Eden. In Chicago, he was told, life was fast, rich and stimulating. Good-paying jobs were to be had. There were superb schools and colleges for his children. In Chicago, blacks owned their own homes and automobiles—some employed white chauffeurs—and there was a gay social life in opulent restaurants and at lavish private parties. In the Defender’s pages, Chicago was advertised as the Land of Milk and Honey, and the Defender received thousands of letters a week from rural blacks asking nothing more than how to get to Chicago. When they got there, of course, they often found something quite different as they crowded the city’s relief rolls.

  Between World War I and World War II, dozens of new black newspapers came into existence, most of them published in big cities, and most of them dealing with city life. By 1943, there were 164 active black newspapers, most of them published in large cities with black populations of 50,000 or more. Nearly all were weeklies, and they had a combined circulation-per-issue of close to 2,000,000. During World War II, three new important black news organs appeared—the Pittsburgh Courier, with a weekly circulation of about 270,000; the Baltimore Afro-American, with 230,000; and the Norfolk, Virginia, Journal and Guide, with 78,000. The Chicago Defender, meanwhile, held strong with a circulation of 160,000. In 1956, the Defender became a daily and instituted a national edition that circulates throughout the country. As black newspapers proliferated, black newsgathering agencies came into existence, the most important of which is the Associated Negro Press, which was established in 1919. All these newspapers, to entice their readers, covered international and national affairs only in a way that had a black “slant.” During the Korean War, for example, less attention was paid to the defeats and victories—or even to the cause—of the war itself than to the heroic deeds of certain black soldiers. From the slant, it was possible to get a slanted view—that all black soldiers were shining heroes, for example. What readers were reading was often less news than it was romantic fiction and escape literature.

  In 1945, John Johnson’s Ebony appeared, and it gradually became the most influential black news magazine in the country. Though John Johnson originally intended his publication to be one that chronicled the lives of “ordinary” black men and women, it has become something a little different, which undoubtedly accounts for Ebony’s success and for the fact that the Johnsons who own it have become very rich. It is easy to fault Ebony. It is often sloppily edited, and few issues are without a number of typographical errors. There are errors of syntax too, as well as errors of plain fact. Also, Ebony can be accused of being a bit parochial. Published in Chicago, it pays a great deal of attention to Chicago people, their lives and doings. But it is the quality of life reflected in Ebony that is most interesting.

  Ebony also publishes “The Ebony Success Library,” which includes such volumes as 1,000 Successful Blacks, and Famous Blacks Give Secrets of Success. Success is Ebony’s theme, and it is nothing if not inspirational. It has become, in other words, a magazine devoted to the black achiever, the extraordinary black. In the pages of Ebony, success is romanticized and glamorized, given an extra coat of luster and excitement. Everything in Ebony is heightened, and the magazine abounds in adjectives and superlatives. A Chicago doctor is described as a “brilliant” surgeon. A young economist with a university post is described as “world-renowned,” and a lawyer is “internationally famous.” Nikki Giovanni, generally recognized as one of the best black poets, is called “extraordinarily famous.” A California couple—she a schoolteacher and he the director of a boys’ camp—are written up in Ebony in terms of their “beautiful” home with its “spacious bar.” Actually, in the accompanying photographs, the house looks like an attractive but modest California bungalow and the den looks hardly spacious but rather cluttered and crowded. A Harlem couple have fled the city to enjoy “the affluent good life” of a Westchester suburb, and their Irvington home is also “spacious”—though, in the photographs, the house looks on the small side. The Irvington couple, Ebony points out, have white neighbors who treat them nicely.

  People whom Ebony writes up are nearly all, it would seem, “executives” or “highly paid executives.” Ebony—as well as its readers, one assumes—has an obsessive interest in salaries. This or that prominent “executive” in an accounting firm earns $35,000 a year. Another earns $80,000 a year. In higher brackets, men are simply “millionaires” or “multimillionaires.” Ebony is equally interested in what people pay for things, particularly houses, and every piece of black real estate is provided with its price tag. (The Irvington couple, for example, live “in a neighborhood of $100,000 homes.”) Other possessions are listed. If a man “drives a Cadillac,” that fact is noted. Another couple has two Cadillacs and a custom-built Mercedes. Still another man drives a $27,000 Rolls-Royce. If a man has bought his wife a $25,000 diamond necklace, Ebony reports that fact, along with what she pays for her clothes and he pays for custom-made shoes at “world-famous Peel’s of London.” In the pages of Ebony, all men
are “dapperly dressed,” all women are “chic,” and all living rooms are “elegant.” (Ebony also always counts the rooms of houses.) Perhaps Ebony’s emphasis is an extension of John Johnson’s personal philosophy, but the message emerges that “success” is measured in money and possessions.

  Ebony devotes a good deal of space to black Society, to its parties and charitable doings. Ebony also chronicles the successes of black entertainers. To upper-crust and even middle-class blacks, the entertainers exist on an interesting social stratum all their own. Blacks are proud of their entertainers; most, after all, are attractive-looking people and make decorative additions at parties. Also, most are people with proven talent. And yet a distinction is drawn between people like Marian Anderson and Mattiwilda Dobbs, who are opera singers, and such people as Diana Ross, a pop singer. An upper-crust black mother would much prefer her daughter to study opera, ballet, or concert piano to having her sing with a rock group or dance in a Broadway musical. This was exactly Charlotte Hawkins Brown’s attitude when her niece married Nat “King” Cole—he was a “popular” performer, who sang in nightclubs. He was not even Paul Robeson, who performed in Shakespeare. It is an attitude currently expressed by Mrs. Winston Willoughby of Washington, who, talking of a recent Washington party, commented, “Pearl Bailey was there—big deal!” She would be a very big deal, of course, at a white party.

  Charlotte Hawkins Brown would have been even more aghast had her niece wanted to marry Roy Campanella or Joe Louis. The black upper crust is much less proud of its professional athletes. Partly, it is because the athletes are assumed to be people who have made a great deal of money through the sheer good luck of having been born with long legs or strong arms, who have needed no education and possess no artistic talent. Many black athletes, furthermore, have “made their way up from the street,” and have few of what are considered the social graces. Also, the number of blacks who have become successful athletes are a somewhat painful reminder of one of the cliché beliefs which whites have expressed about blacks—that they have “a natural ability” at sports, just as they are supposed to have “natural rhythm.”