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1 results

  • Chapter 11 - Black Cultural (Inter)nationalism

  • from Part IV - International, Black, and Radical Visions
  • Edited by Eve Dunbar, Vassar College, New York, Ayesha K. Hardison, University of Kansas
  • Book:
    African American Literature in Transition, 1930–1940
    Published online:
    25 March 2022
    Print publication:
    07 April 2022, pp 321-348

  • Summary

    This chapter identifies the US Communist left as a major influence on African American writers and activists during the 1930s. Black writers who began their careers during the Depression era often sought to distinguish themselves from the Harlem Renaissance of the previous decade, and the Communist left furnished a political and literary discourse, as well as sustaining institutional support, that enabled Black writers to pioneer a distinctive practice of politics and art. The chapter analyzes the reasons why Black writers were drawn to the Communist movement, and outlines the Communist-backed organizations and causes that inspired African Americans in the decade. Through a reading of work by Richard Wright, Eugene Gordon, Margaret Walker, Theodore Ward, Ralph Ellison, and others, the chapter identifies the complex dialectic of Black cultural particularity and Marxist theory that distinguishes the literary output of 1930s African American writers on the left.