I declare that the American people are fostering in their bosoms a spirit of rebellion which will yet shake the pillars of popular government as they
have never before been shaken . . . . All indications point to the fulfillment of
such declaration. (133-4)
And like David Walker, Fortune reminds America of humanity?s history. Reiterating the threat of revolution, he states,
When you ask free men that question [?What are you going to do about the
oppression?] you appeal to men who, though sunk to the verge of despair,
yet are capable of uprising and ripping hip and thigh those who deemed them
incapable of rising above their condition. The history of mankind is fruitful
of such uprisings of races and classes reduced to a condition of absolute
despair. (133)
The enslavement of the black race may have changed facades, but the theme of upward mobility remained strong and defiant, more resounding with rage than ever before.
Marcus Garvey stands alone as one who has vehemently sought to channel the rage of his people militantly. He exclaims,
Shall we not fight for the glorious opportunity of protecting and forever
more establishing ourselves as a mighty race and nation, never more to be disrespected by men? Glorious shall be the battle when the time comes to
fight for our people and our race. (332)
Garvey, a pioneer of Black Nationalism, envisioned an autonomous African nation free from white rule and oppression. His vision included ?marshaling the 400,000,000 Negroes of the world to fight for the emancipation of the race and of the redemption of the country of our fathers? (325). Dismissing the possibility of obtaining equality in America, he concludes that ?so long as there is a black and white population, when the majority is on the side of the white race, you and I will never get political justice or get political equality in this country (my emphasis)? (330). Perhaps most significant about Garvey?s rhetoric is his expressed desire to dominate racially. His vision included a ?government that will place [the black race] in control, even as other races are in control of their own governments? (326). Inherent throughout African-American literature and rhetoric is this dominant theme of overcoming oppression and obtaining not just equality, but obtaining autonomy and, more notably, control.
Epitomizing the plight of the black race in America, Langston Hughes writes,
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun
or does it fester like a sore
and then run
or does it sag like a heavy load
or does it EXPLODE? (?A Dream Deferred? 305)
Will the ?dream deferred? one day explode? Will rage one day boil out of control? Will the momentum to overcome the most miserable of oppressed conditions subside only after achieving racial dominance? In his poem ?Dream Variation,? Hughes metaphorically implies the probability of a racial reversal of power in America. He exclaims, ?Till the white day is done,? illustrating that white dominance will one day end. And when he writes ?Night coming tenderly / Black like me,? Hughes boldly proclaims, ?That is my dream!? (373). Though this night, this day when the black race will rule, is coming ever so ?tenderly,? it is, nevertheless, coming. Does Hughes alone have this dream? Or, is he speaking for a race of men and women who also have a dream? No, Hughes is not alone.
Sterling Brown, in his poem ?Strong Men,? outlines the black struggle in America, recounting the many victories over foes — from slavery through prohibition. Like Hughes, Brown questions the inevitability of a final overcoming. Concerning the strength of the black race, Brown explains that after every battle, ?The strong men keep a-comin? on / Gittin? stronger . . .? (413). Having overcome slavery, having successfully dealt with the hypocrisy of Reconstruction ?freedom,? Brown writes,
Today they shout prohibition at you
?Thou shalt not this?
?Thou shalt not that?
?Reserved for whites only?
You laugh. (413)
The poem concludes:
The strong men . . . coming on
The strong men gittin? stronger
Strong men . . . .
Stronger . . . . (413)
Yes, strong men are coming on. Yes, rage is growing; rage is festering.
Although a desire, a passionate rage, has always pressed upward to overcome racial oppression, many have argued the improbability of success. But like conciliatory voices of the past, these voices also define and expound upon America?s black rage. James Weldon Johnson, in his 1935 book, Negro Americans, What Now?, advocates integration as the only logical ?way out.? But he also writes,
Our history in the United States records a half-dozen major and a score of
minor efforts at insurrection during the period of slavery. This, if they heard
it, would be news to that big majority of people who believe that we have
gone through three centuries of oppression without once thinking in terms
of rebellion or lifting a finger in revolt. Even now there comes times when
we think in terms of physical force. (149)
Although he does not advocate violence, as a black literary spokesman, he admits the presence of, as well as the justification for, rage. He concludes, ?We would be justified in taking up arms or anything we could lay hands on and fighting for the common rights we are entitled to and denied, if we had a chance to win? (149). Johnson claims he does not support violence as a logical solution to the race?s plight — but the thought is there.
In like manner, Ralph J. Bunch draws similar conclusions in his 1935 essay, ?A Critical Analysis of the Tactics and Progress of Minority Groups.? He concludes that because of the vast outnumbering by whites, and because ?the Negro masses are so lacking in radical class consciousness . . . any possibility of large scale identification of the Negro population with revolutionary groups can be projected only into the future? (167). Not now. But how long? How near in the future?
Dissenting thought, capitalizing on the rage of an oppressed race, insisted on bringing ?the future? closer. Claude McKay writes, ?If we must die, O let us nobley [sic] die, / So that our precious blood may not be shed / In vain . . .? (344). Promoting violence as the only defense against violence and the only means to overcome oppression, McKay proclaims,
Though far outnumbered let us show us brave
And for their thousand blows deal one deathblow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
Like me we?ll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back! (334)
Rage, which may have originated from grief of oppression, when pressed to the wall, will strike back.
W. E. B. Du Bois, realizing that black society would not rest long in a state of inequality, explains,
What, then, is this dark world thinking? It is thinking that as wild and
awful as this war was , it is nothing to compare with that fight for freedom
which black and brown and yellow men must and will make unless their
oppression and humiliation and insult at the hands of the White World
cease. The Dark World is going to submit to its present treatment just as
long as it must, and not one moment longer. (The Souls of White Folk 183-4)
How long? Not long. Du Bois, having a prescient understanding of race relations in America, notably explained in 1903 that ?the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color line? (Souls of Black Folk xxiii). Oh how true this statement proved to be as black America continued to press upward and white American continued to dominate and oppress!
The Civil Rights Movement in America
By the time the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s was in full swing, white America wondered in awe at the demonstration of black rage they witnessed. Many were aghast, wondering where all the penned up anger came from. Race riots and violence ravaged the country. Black spokesmen rose up from various organizations — Black Panther Party, SNCC, Nation of Islam — and proclaimed BLACK POWER! The rage witnessed was astronomical. Rage had finally boiled over. Martin Luther King, Jr., explained that the ?sweltering summer of the Negro?s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality? (?I? 103).
The Civil Rights Movement has produced an explosion of black rhetoric, specifically rhetoric of rage, more extensive and complete than at any previous time in American history. Prior to the era, blacks were never free to openly speak and criticize white institutions and government. Because of this new freedom to speak in open forum, internal black rage has finally been released, heard externally through unprecedented expression and demonstration.
In the struggle for civil rights, the rhetoric of revolution dominates as one major theme of black rage. In his address to the 1966 graduating class at Howard University, Adam Clayton Powell, Congressman from Harlem, boldly proclaims, ?We are the last revolutionaries in America — the last transfusion of freedom into the bloodstream of democracy. Because we are, we must mobilize our wintry discontent to transform the cold heart and white face of this nation? (278). Rage again has evolved, this time to the height of advocating violent revolution. Maula Ron Karenga, in The Quotable Karenga, writes, ?Blacks live right in the heart of America. That is why we are best able to cripple this man. And once we understand our role, we won?t talk revolution, we?ll make it? (196). Rooted in the bitterness of slavery, thought of rebellion and overcoming oppression has never subsided. Rage, a vehicle to express discontent, has never been absent from black-American history.
While many have advocated revolution, some doubt whether a revolution, because
of its impracticability, will ever become a reality. Robert F. Williams , in ?USA:
The Potential of a Minority Revolution,? writes,
Is it possible for a minority revolution to succeed in powerful America? . . .
Cynics [say] that to even raise such a question is insane . . . [that] violent
resistance to brutal racial oppression can lead only to suicide. How do they
know? . . . [Some said] that ?the American Revolution can never succeed
against the military might of the crown.? . . . Yes, a minority revolution has
as much, or more, chance of succeeding in racist USA as any place else in
the world. At the very outset, all revolutions are minority revolutions.
(my emphasis) (328)
At the very outset, all revolutions are minority revolutions. Yes, even a ?black? minority can effect a revolution. Once dismissed as an impractical channel for black rage and means of finally overcoming, revolution is very much a part of black thought throughout the Civil Rights Movement and beyond. Black rage has become more impassioned with fury, eclipsing the earlier, more conservative mindset that disregarded the possibility of a violent revolution. Black rage has obtained a new height of demonstration and boldness.
Accompanying revolutionary thought, black rhetoric of rage also strongly advocates the use of violence. The demonstration of black rage, previously confined to moderate words and philosophy, has risen to vehement protest and physical violence. H. Rap Brown, in his 1967 address entitled ?Colonialism and Revolution,? denounces ?white-American racist colonialism? and advocates violence and revolution. He asserts, ?The question of violence has been cleared up. This country was born on violence. . . . Violence is part of the revolutionary struggle. . . . Power, indeed, must come from the barrel of a gun? (312). Echoing this thought, Williams asserts,
You cannot have progress here without violence and upheaval, because it?s struggle for survival for one and a struggle for liberation for the other.
Always the powers in command are ruthless and unmerciful in defending
their position and their privileges. (Negroes 173)
Just as the Civil War was required to end the devastating oppression of slavery, so during the ?60s spokesmen of black rage have determined that a violent uprising is required to secure civil rights. Defying the philosophy of nonviolence as a means of obtaining a dream utopia of ?equality,? Williams concedes,
The most noble of mankind must surely aspire for a human level of
endeavor, wherein mankind can establish a utopian society divested of
brute force and violence. The irony of this great dream is that if it is at
all possible, it is possible only through the medium of violence. It is
possible only through Revolution. (?USA? 326)
The inevitability of rage exploding is both realized and apparent as never before.
Black Power, advocating — screaming for — revolution and violence, dominates the forefront of black-rage demonstration. It is important to understand, however, that the whole idea of Black Power and Black Pride originated, not as a venting of rage to cause people to rise up in anger, but rather to provide self worth and a realization that as humans, blacks must demand comparable treatment. Nonetheless, this seed of innocence soon produces a channel for rage. In his 1967 speech ?The Meaning of Black Power,? Franklin Florence defines Black Power as an ?active? attitude. He proclaims, ?And I say tonight, freedom and justice are not gifts — you must take them — rise up, you mighty black people — organize and take power? (165).
Indeed, Black Power encompassed a wide variety of thought and rhetoric during the Civil Rights Movement. Leroi Jones, recalling the separatist philosophy of Garvey, exclaims, ?Black Power cannot exist WITHIN white power.? Continuing, he proclaims, ?One or the other. There can only be one or the other. They might exist side by side as separate entities, but never in the same space. Never. They are mutually exclusive? (138). The decision, according to some, has to be made as to which one will prevail. (Recall that Garvey determined that equality can never be ensured for blacks as long as a white majority exists in America.) Others recount the thought of rising to racially dominate. In ?How White Power Whitewashes Black Power,? Nathan Hare explains that ?Black Power means the exercise of influence over the behavior of White oppressors to the benefit of blacks — by any means available . . .? (217). Any means available. So, nationalistic thoughts of finally prevailing in victory reappear. Rage, as is evident, has neither subsided nor been appeased. Nor has the momentum to overcome ceased from pressing upward against white social dominance.
One organization that aims to channel black rage militantly beyond the efforts of others is the Black Panther Party. The Party holds that only a ?true revolution? will effect the changes required to rid black society of white oppression (Straub 66). One goal of the Panthers is to organize blacks in a common effort to overcome despotism. Bobby Seale, Chairman of the Party, explains in a 1968 address that black people should not ?sit down and let a spontaneous riot happen in the streets where we are corralled and a lot of us are shot up, unorganized. . . .? He exhorts, ?Black people, organize!? (185). No doubt, rage is present. But how to channel it? Could blacks organize?
Concerning the task of organizing, Eldridge Cleaver, a militant revolutionary of the Black Panther Party, explains,
Black people have never been able through any mechanism to express
what their will is. People have come along and spoken in the name of black
people; they have said that black people want to be integrated; they have
said black people want to be separated; but nowhere at no time have black
people been given the chance to register their own position. (68)
The leaders of the Black Panther Party seek to provide the avenue, the means, and the organization for militant mass-resistance. Expressing an ?any-means-necessary? mind set, Stokely Carmichael proclaims,
We?re going to organize our way. The question is how we?re going to
facilitate those matters, whether it?s going to be done with a thousand
police men and submachine guns, or whether it?s going to be in a context
where it?s allowed by white people. (41)
Regardless of the means, RAGE will be heard. As Carmichael points out, white resistance, in most cases, will determine where and to what extent rage will lead.
The struggle for social power between white and black America was brought to a head during the Civil Rights Era. Williams explains,
The oppressor?s heart is hard. The experience of history teaches that he
only relents under violent pressure and force. There is little hope that he
will see the handwriting on the wall before it is too late. . . . America is a
house of fire — FREEDOM NOW! — or let it burn, let it burn. (?USA? 333)
Paralleling similar warnings provided to white America prior to the Civil War, as well as during Jim Crow, Williams? admonition reflects both the presence and reoccurrence of black rage throughout American history, continually insisting on pressing upward against white dominance.