Cultural Contexts for Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man : A Bedford Documentary Companion

by Sundquist, Eric

• ISBN13: 9780312100810
• ISBN10: 0312100817
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1995-02-15
• Publisher: Bedford/St. Martin's

Summary

A unique supplement to one of the most important African American novels of this century. AsInvisible Manchronicles the major moments of African American life during the first half of the twentieth century, this volume illuminates and contextualizes the novel with a collection of speeches, essays, folktales, historical analyses, photographs, and other cultural and historical documents.

Table of Contents

Preface	v
Introduction	1	(30)
I. ``The Scaffolding of a Nation'': The Black Belt and Beyond	31	(82)
Atlanta Exposition Address	33	(6)
Booker T. Washington
Of Our Spiritual Strivings	39	(3)
W. E. B. Du Bois
Of Mr. Booker T. Washington	42	(6)
Founder's Day Address at Tuskegee, 1931	48	(8)
Anson Phelps Stokes
Cowards from the Colleges	56	(10)
Langston Hughes
Social Equality	66	(6)
Gunnar Myrdal
Supreme Court Brief Brown v. Board of Education: The Effects of Segregation	72	(6)
The Shadow of the Plantation	78	(8)
Charles S. Johnson
Tore Up and a-Movin'	86	(8)
Bernice Kelly Harris
An Analysis of Negro Patriotism	94	(7)
William N. Colson
The Black Migration	101	(3)
W. T. Andrews
12 Million Black Voices	104	(9)
Richard Wright
II. ``A Heap of Signifying'': Vernacular Culture	113	(34)
(What Did I Do to Be So) Black and Blue	115	(2)
Andy Razaf
African American Folk Song Run, Nigger, Run	117	(3)
African American Folk Song Jack the Rabbit! Jack the Bear!	120	(3)
The Devil's Son-in-Law	123	(2)
Peetie Wheatstraw
African American Spiritual Many Thousands Gone	125	(2)
Why Mr. Dog Runs Brer Rabbit	127	(2)
Emma Backus
Brer Rabbit and the Goobers	129	(3)
Carl Carmer
Street Market Song De Sweet Pertater Man	132	(2)
Sweet-the-Monkey	134	(2)
Leo Gurley
Hip Language	136	(11)
Mezz Mezzrow
III. ``The City within a City'': Harlem, U.S.A.	147	(102)
Federal Writers' Project Portrait of Harlem	149	(10)
The New Negro	159	(13)
Alain Locke
Blacks in the Labor Movement	172	(7)
Sterling Spero
Abram L. Harris
Race Catechism	179	(4)
Cyril V. Briggs
Africa for the Africans	183	(5)
Marcus Garvey
Speech Delivered at Liberty Hall, August 1921	188	(5)
The Road to Negro Liberation	193	(6)
Harry Haywood
Marxism and the American Negro	199	(7)
Will Herberg
Marxism and the Woman Question	206	(6)
Avram Landy
Negro Americans, What Now?	212	(8)
James Weldon Johnson
Harlem Runs Wild	220	(6)
Claude McKay
The Harlem Riot of 1943	226	(7)
Adam Clayton Powell, Sr.
The Negro and the Second World War	233	(8)
Ralph Ellison
Harlem Is Nowhere	241	(8)
Ralph Ellison
Bibliography	249