Bright Skylark Literary Productions
  • Bright Skylark Literary Productions Sitemap
  • Author Statement
    • Blog: Visionary Vibes >
      • Aberjhani - Author Biography
      • Bright Skylark News Notes
      • Blog: Cultural Arts Reviews and Remembrances
      • Blog: Sonic Delight Music Reviews >
        • Summer-Song Rhapsody for Michael Jackson: Editorial with Poem
      • Shifting Points of View and the Massacre in Charleston, South Carolina (USA) >
        • Author-Poet Aberjhani in the News
      • 7 Ways to Help Replace Legislated Fear with Informed Compassion
    • Greeting Flannery O'Connor at the Back Door of My Mind >
      • Tribute to Savannah Author Robert T.S. Mickles Sr.
    • Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah >
      • Podcast Prospects 504
      • More Books by Aberjhani >
        • Readers & Reviewers on the Writings of Aberjhani
        • Checking in at Goodreads
        • Editing Credits
        • ELEMENTAL: The Power of Illuminated Love (Art and Poetry Gift Book)
        • The River of Winged Dreams
        • The Wisdom of W.E.B. Du Bois
        • Songs from the Black Skylark zPed Music Player: A Novel by Aberjhani
        • I Made My Boy Out of Poetry
        • Journey through the Power of the Rainbow: Quotations from a Life Made Out of Poetry
        • Buy Books by Aberjhani on Amazon
        • 10th Anniversary of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance
  • AI Literary Chat Salon
  • Carousel of Sustainable Compassion
  • Working Scribe Carousel Number 2
    • Awards & Honors
    • My LinkedIn Portfolio Sampler
    • Pop Icon Michael Jackson in Life & Legend
    • Creative Thinkers International
  • Art and Poster Store
    • Blog: Silk-Featherbrush Art and Style
    • Postered Poetics
    • Your Introduction to Original Silk-Featherbrush Art & Style
  • Choose a Cultural Arts Heritage Project to Support
  • Working Scribe Image Carousel 2
  • About Bright Skylark Literary Productions
    • Bright Skylark Values and Motto
  • Famous Quotes of Note
    • Pinterest Page of Quotations
  • Charter for a More Compassionate World
  • As a Poet Thinketh: Poetry by Aberjhani
    • The Bridge of Silver Wings
    • Rainbow-Song for the Angel of Tao by Aberjhani
    • Ode to the Good Black Boots that Served My Soul So Well (poem by Aberjhani)
    • Angel of Remembrance: Candles for September 11, 2001
    • Rainbow-Song for the Angel of Tao: Verse 1
  • Articles and Essays
    • Abbreviated Minds in the News for Wreaking Havoc Worldwide editorial by Aberjhani
    • Iconic Authors Toni Morrison's and Harper Lee's New Works Likely to Influence Dialogues on Race
    • Red Summer: Text and Meaning in Claude McKay’s poem ‘If We Must Die’” part 1 of special 4-part series by Aberjhani
    • A Writer's Journey to Selma, Alabama
    • Justice Remains Elusive in Case of Newly-freed Louis C. Taylor (Part 1 of 2)
    • Sensualized Transcendence: Editorial and Poem on the Art of Jaanika Talts (Part 1)
    • Realms of Emerging Light (Sensualized Transcendence Editorial and Poem on the Art of Jaanika Talts Part 2)
    • Notes on the 150th Anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation
    • Why Race Mattered in Barack Obama's Re-Election: Editorial and Poem
    • Posted Perspectives on America's 2012 Presidential Election
    • 47 Percenters and Guerrilla Decontextualization: Dreamers and Nightmares
    • Considering Michael Clarke Duncan: Big Black Man Within A Nonsociopoliticohistorical Context (Editorial with Poem)
  • Video Pen & Ink
  • Links and Connections
    • Aberjhani's Guerrilla Decontextualization
  • Contact the Author
  • Working Scribe Image Carousel 2
  • Working Scribe Image Carousel 2
  • Bright Skylark LP Storefront

Literary & Cultural arts Persuasions: 
Reviews & Remembrances by Aberjhani

Exploring the stylistic texts, images, and provocative meanings
of contemporary & classic cultural arts.

Main Page

African Americans Far from Home (part 2): Intimacy, Ethics, and Take-Aways

2/17/2022

0 Comments

 
Picture
Relationship building, arguably, comprises the heart of Gartrell’s institutional success and the soul of his memoir’s emotional intelligence.

(If you missed part 1of this article you can click here to check it out.)

Connecting with the right people to help establish and staff his Wisdom21 schools presents a challenge repeatedly met in innovative ways. Often crucial in this regard are women. His relationships with the same––notably, per the text, repeatedly initiated by them––at times blur what would be considered in the U.S. as lines of professional propriety. You might even say they were completely erased in certain cases. Gartrell is not insensitive to the point and wrestles with its implications and potential consequences. 


​Loneliness and Rules of Engagement

In a chapter titled “Land of Ladies,” he theorizes that during his time in the country, Japanese women were “especially lonely and in desperate need of love.” This, despite having a reputation for making “the best marriage partners on earth” (p. 108). A variety of factors are cited as possible reasons for their loneliness and desperation but the dangerous end result was an apparent (at least to the author) acute vulnerability which made them easy prey for unscrupulous foreign tourists. As for the author:    

“…Back in the U.S., I led a fairly typical life and tended to shy away from romances not suitably cultivated, wholesome, or clean. In Japan, however, the rules of engagement were radically different. In many respects, there were no rules at all... As an aspiring businessman, community leader, and person of conscience, I felt it my duty to address…concerns as appropriately as I could…” (p. 110).

Given the radicalized and revolutionized factions of gender equality activists around the world in 2022, much more could be written about the author’s observations of and experiences with Japanese women. This writer would encourage exactly that for one important reason. A key component to surviving the transitions from homogenous cultural models which many have experienced in the past to more diverse communities currently forming  is this: a willingness to understand how members of different cultures experience that of “others.” Powerful examples are presented throughout the subject text. 
​A definitive example of the possible pitfalls and drawbacks of mixing private intimacies with business ambitions may be seen in what the author describes as a “paper marriage” convenient for legal purposes. In addition to proving herself an extremely competent business partner, his native-born wife Kazumi calmly overlooks her husband’s involvement with two mistresses (a practice widely documented as acceptable in Japan). However, just as the expanding Wisdom21 enterprise begins to spiral downward, her expertise and devotion both disappear.   

Black Community in an Asian World

Something many will likely be surprised to learn about when reading 21 Years of Wisdom is the extensiveness of the Black presence in Japan. The discovery makes for a completely different scenario from the solitary status reported by James Baldwin in “Stranger in the Village”––or for that matter by explorer Matthew A. Henson as he planted a flag with Robert E. Peary at the North Pole in 1909––and thereby increases its value as a recent addition to the literature of Black expatriates. 
The nonprofit Japan African American Friendship Association had been established in the country some years before Gartrell’s arrival. His rapid rise in prominence, however, made him a suitable choice to lead it following the 1995 passing of the previous president, Harry Stevenson. He would hold that position for a decade.

​Interaction with one particular African-American from Atlanta proved exceptionally useful when the school founder clashed with the Yakuza (mob) over a dispute concerning a former employee’s dismissal. Before things could turn violent, his fellow expatriate handled the matter without the boss’s consent and informed him afterwards. Moreover, interestingly enough, it to a city with a more than 50 percent Black population that Gartrell returns at the conclusion of his Japanese odyssey. 

5 Teachable Take-Aways

In the Author’s Note for 21 Years of Wisdom, readers are cautioned that people who identify with certain demographics may find some passages in his memoir offensive. He’s probably right. But many of those same individuals are likely to sidestep any sense of personal slight out of appreciation for the larger philosophical, geographical, and historical contexts in which the central story is embedded. They might also find Shannon Roxborough’s insightful foreword useful towards that end.
Picture
​
More than a few commenters have noted the stylish novel-like quality of Gartrell’s narrative. With that in mind: how interesting would it be to see a director such as Spike Lee, Steven McQueen, Regina King, or Quentin Tarantino produce a film adaptation of the book? Time will tell. For now, the following are 5 of what I consider to be important teachable take-aways from 21 Years of Wisdom: ​
  1. Harmonious interaction between members of converging cultures is as dependent upon those entering a host country as it is upon indigenous communities accommodating them.

  2. The literature of the African-American expatriate experience is one deserving of greater study within the contexts of both American academia and world literary forums.

  3. The potential for mutually life-enriching experiences shared by immigrants and native residents on various shores is an extensively documented one, the study of which could serve America well as the country continues to evolve from one of a majority-White rule to one of a minority-majority population.

  4. Alongside any strategies for raking in maximum profits, effective organizational leadership requires ethical practices which safeguard the integrity of an organization’s products, its image, and it personnel.   
    ​
  5. The mindful practice of cultural literacy provides an effective deterrent to mind-less violence between people of different nationalities, religious background, and other social distinctions.

By Aberjhani
Author of Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah
and Greeting Flannery O’Connor at the Back Door of My Mind
Creator of Original Silk-Featherbrush Artstyle

    Contact Author-Artist Aberjhani at Bright Skylark Literary Productions 

Submit
0 Comments

Revisiting Ben Okri’s 'The Famished Road'

11/29/2021

0 Comments

 
Picture
(Art detail from “Surprise Endings & Unexpected Beginnings” by Aberjhani ©2021)

Introductory Note
Many Americans may remain unfamiliar with the Nigerian-born author Ben Okri, who now makes his home in England, but his global reading audience continues to grow even as he continues to publish commanding works in different genres. It helps as well that newspapers like The Guardian are willing to make their platform available to him and a number of universities have elected to bestow honorable doctorates upon him.

As pointed out in Conversations with the World Ben Okri’s Existential Call to Creative Arms, this review of the author’s The Famished Road was previously published in the former Savannah College of Art and Design’s (SCAD) weekly newspaper known as The Georgia Guardian and in my former AXS African-American Cultural Arts column. It is presented now as part of my response to Okri’s statement regarding the construction of an “existential creativity” to combat climate change denial and inspire works of visionary transformation.

A Writer’s Journey Begins

Readers began to track Okri’s literary oeuvre with the publication of his first novel, Flowers and Shadows in 1980, and he kept their attention after publishing The Landscapes Within in 1981. However, it was The Famished Road , published ten years later in 1991, that won Okri the much-coveted Booker Prize for Fiction and placed him on the same literary A-list as such world-class talents as Salman Rushdie, Toni Morrison , Alice Walker, and Cormac McCarthy. 

The Famished Road is exceptional in its treatment of fiction as a study of both history and prophecy. Through the eyes of Okri’s child-hero, Azaro (an abbreviation of Lazarus) readers enter an African community coming to terms with that crossroads known as change.
Azaro is an abiku, or “spirit-child” who has a keen eye for both the natural and the supernatural. Or, as the author put it: “The spirit-child is an unwilling adventurer into chaos and sunlight, into the dreams of the living and the dead… They all yearn to make of themselves a beautiful sacrifice, a difficult sacrifice, to bring transformation, and to die shedding light within this life… I was a spirit-child rebelling against the spirits, wanting to live the earth’s life and contradictions.”

Moreover, like another boy-hero in the famed Calvin san Hobbes comic strip, he’s prone to wandering roads of the imagination which constantly lead him in body, mind, and spirit away from the safety of his parents’ protection. Although a child, Azaro’s dilemma is one easily worthy of any of Shakespeare’s great characters. His struggle to resist the pull of spirits who would lead him back into their world is equal to his battle against the more material forces of poverty, disease, and corruption. Never-ending hunger (for food as well as peace), crooked politicians handing out poisoned milk, frozen-hearted landlords and old men prone to evil make Azaro’s grip on physical reality at best, tenuous. 
In his love for his mother, Azaro finds reason enough to remain in the material world, though it‘s often painful to witness and endure her laments: “A woman suffers, a woman sweats, with no rest, no happiness… This life is too much for me.”

His father is a fighter whose battles force him to the brink of death, but who ultimately triumphs in body and spirit.  He coaxes his son back from realms of death by singing to him visions of life: “I see great happiness in our future… I see gold in your eyes. Your flesh glitters with the dust of diamonds. I see your mother as the most beautiful woman in the world.”

A Heady Fictional Brew

History, mythology, and social realism blend in The Famished Road to create a very heady fictional brew. By providing a portrait of his homeland during an era when oil lamps were just beginning to give way to electricity and cars beginning to claim the road over bicycles, Okri created a parable on change relevant not only to Africa but to the world at large.

His work poses very serious questions for the twenty-first century. Among them: To what extent will we allow the indefinable dynamics of something called “destiny” to maintain grief and horror in the world? How hard are human beings willing to fight to achieve and sustain justice, equanimity, or joy? And should progress be called such when it devours what is best within the human spirit?

Okri’s prose is sometimes indistinguishable from poetry and the fact that he strikes a masterful balance between the two for a full 500 pages is a small miracle of aesthetic creativity. Readers discovering his work for the first time are often astonished at the skill with which that poetic perspective flows between the material and the spiritual. In an interview for the Current Authors book series, Okri once explained that in Nigeria:

“This is just the way the world is seen… the ancestors are still part of the living community and there are innumerable gradations of reality, and so on. It’s quite simple and straightforward… a kind of realism, but a realism with many more dimensions.”


Well-earned Honors

The Famished Road marked the beginning of a trilogy that continued with Songs of Enchantment in 1993 and concluded with Infinite Riches in 1998. The novel continues to stand out among reading audiences for reasons beyond the fact that it is an exceptionally good read. It also commands distinction because it represents a kind of inspired quality of literary fiction needed in the twenty-first century to help encourage members of different cultures to try to greet each other in the name of peace and civility rather than automatically attack one another in the name of war or terrorism.

In addition to the aforementioned Booker Prize, Okri has been the recipient of numerous other honors, including Italy’s Premio Palmi and the vice presidency of the English Centre of International PEN. He has also received, as of last count, some 7 Honorary Doctorates in recognition of his contributions to modern literature from such education institutions as England’s University of Essex and Nelson Mandela University in South Africa.

by Aberjhani
author of Songs of the Black Skylark zPed Music Player

and Greeting Flannery O’Connor at the Back Door of My Mind

MORE LITERARY ESSAYS BY ABERJHANI
  • Rediscovering the Writings of Kahlil Gibran in the Age of COVID-19
  • Letter to James Baldwin (in lieu of a ‘Letter to Barack Obama’)
  • ‘Talks Between My Pen and Muse’ an Inspired Literary Debut from Poet Aurie Cole
  • Reading Rumi after 9/11 and again at the end of the War in Afghanistan Part 1
  • Reading Rumi after 9/11 and again at the end of the War in Afghanistan Part 2
  • Red Summer: Text and Meaning in Claude McKay's poem 'If We Must Die' Pt. 1

    Contact the Author

Submit
0 Comments

Exploring the Wonder and Enigma of Flannery O'Connor (part 3 of 3)

12/18/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
Postered Chomatic Poetics "Wonder & Enigma of Flannery O'connor" title art graphic by Aberjhani.
Impaired as she was by lupus, O’Connor may not have been able to barrel ahead with the same level of prolific productivity as some of her contemporaries—such as James Baldwin for example-- but neither did she let it bring her career to a screeching halt between the time of her diagnosis and her death on August 3, 1964. 

She followed the novel Wise Blood with a collection of short stories, A Good Man is Hard to Find, in 1955; the novel The Violent Bear it Away in 1960; and the short story collection Everything That Rises Must Converge ––a book on which she worked virtually right up until her death–– published posthumously in 1965. In between the writing and the publishing, she marshaled her strength to travel (aided by crutches) and lecture, write articles for popular magazines (for which she was generally well paid), and write numerous letters to friends, supporters, and critics. 

(To read part 1 of this story please click here. For part 2 click this link.)
​
The O’Connor readers and scholars now know would not have been possible without a tightly woven network of friends and family members who supported her work through belief in, and out of love for, her. After illness derailed her plans to live the life of a postmodern New York author, she famously surrounded herself with peacocks at Andalusia, her family’s farm, and allowed the world to come to her just as much as she continued to embrace it on the page and through speaking engagements. Fellow authors, theologians, aspiring writers, general admirers, and would-be lovers in the form of men as well as women often made their way to her front door.  
Picture
Flannery O'Connor quotation art graphic by AZ Quotes.
​Her editor, Robert Giroux, believed enough in the corpus of her work that in 1971 he published The Complete Stories of Flannery O’Connor. A compilation of all her short fiction, The Complete Stories went on to win the National Book Award for Fiction in 1972, and in 2009—shortly after Brad Gooch’s biography was published–– was voted “The Best of the National Book Awards Fiction.” 


​Mother and Daughter Together

Of all those who shared their life’s energies to help endow Flannery O’Connor’s with enduring meaning possibly none were more crucial than her mother, Regina Cline O’Connor. The relationship between mother and daughter could alternate between a sensitive symbiosis and a barely-restrained combativeness. But: the fact is that despite her great intellectual prowess Flannery O’Connor was made an invalid by her disease and it could not have been any easier for her mother to watch her daughter’s slow agonizing physical decline any more than it had been to watch her husband’s. She nevertheless bore the “cross” of the affliction which defined so much of her own life’s story.

As such, she did the kinds of things caregivers tend to do when committed to ensuring as high a quality of life as they can for someone they love: setting aside a thermos of hot coffee at night to share with Flannery in the morning, running a farm to secure an income, tolerating the droppings and cries of beautiful but annoying peacocks, traveling abroad with her daughter even when she herself was ill, and standing guard at her hospital room door to ensure a chance at rest and possible recovery. 
Regina Cline is very much present in the pages of Flannery but a section or two presented within the context of her struggles to assist her daughter might have made this powerful biography even more compelling. She outlived the writer by almost thirty-one years, dying on May 8, 1995, at the age of ninety-nine. 


​In Praise of Those Who Wait

In the acknowledgments section of his biography on the author, Brad Gooch informs readers that he “first stepped into the world of Flannery O’Connor in the late 1970s.” Thoroughly smitten by what he found in that world, he respectfully wrote her close friend Sally Fitzgerald, editor of The Habit of Being, Letters of Flannery O’Connor, to obtain her blessings for his hope to write a biography. Fitzgerald advised him in 1980 against such an undertaking because she was already in the process of writing a literary biography of her friend. Consequently, Gooch held off and waited, even beyond Fitzgerald’s death in 2000, for a book that never appeared.
​
Then, approached by an editor in 2003 about a biography on O’Connor, it clearly was not an offer he could refuse. A dream which had been deferred for more than two decades finally saw the light of day in 2009 and by most accounts it was very much worth the wait.

Author

Aberjhani is co-author of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance as well as author of Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah and Greeting Flannery O'Connor at the Back Door of My Mind.

0 Comments

American Dream Meets Black Reality in Johnson's 'From “N Word” to Mr. Mayor'

5/6/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
To fully appreciate reading former Savannah mayor Otis S. Johnson's From 'N Word' to Mr. Mayor, Experiencing the American Dream, you might want to note some important clues he shares at the book's beginning. The first is his identification of himself as a "scholar activist." Take that for exactly what it sounds like: he has long been devoted to the cultivation of knowledge within himself and others, as well as to the reversal of heinous social and political injustices.
​
A second shared hint is his struggle over whether to spell out the word "nigger" in this book's title or employ the more politically-accepted abbreviation. Following his publisher's suggestion, he chose the latter but felt the original more "symbolic of my struggle as a black male in American society." With that in mind, the book in general, he states, "documents my struggle to achieve the American Dream while having to confront the vicissitudes of being black in a racist society" (p. 11) 


​A Timeline of Powerful History

PictureFrom 'N Word' to Mr. Mayor, Experiencing the American Dream autobiography by Dr. Otis S. Johnson.
The above words may sound, to some, like little more than sensationalistic jargon employed to grab attention. It would be more accurate to describe them as precise when considering Johnson was born in 1942 and, from the beginning until the present era, his experience of the American dream has unfolded along a timeline of powerful history-shaping events on personal, national, and international levels.

For its precisely-balanced combination of social history and personal memoir, Johnson's book under any title is one of the most valuable written in recent years by an African-American man, and one of the most important for any time by a native of Savannah, Georgia. Being the former dean of Savannah State University's College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, and current Scholar in Residence and Professor Emeritus that he is, Dr. Johnson's text often reflects the language of his intellectual leanings. That allows him to place his life and his times within an analytical context similar to important works by some of his scholarly heroes, like Harlem Renaissance strategist W.E.B. Du Bois and political scientist Hanes Walton Jr. 
​
Yet, at the same time, he is a very down-to-earth writer who engages readers with stories of his family's Gullah culture heritage, what it meant to lose his father at an early age, learning about racism for the first time, falling in love and getting his heart broken, discovering the world as a young sailor, and confronting the challenges of leadership within a demographically-evolving community. 


​Anti-racism Activism

The city of Savannah and the state of Georgia as Johnson experienced them while growing into maturity during the 1960s were much like America at that time as a whole.  African Americans with many White Americans alongside them were calling for an end to Jim Crow apartheid and battling against the system by staging public sit-ins, conducting protest marches, and targeting racial barriers ripe for breaking.
​
Of his position in this history, Johnson writes, "My life has been full of being in places where I shocked non-blacks with my presence" (p. 88). One such place was on the campus of Armstrong State College (now Atlantic University) where in 1963 he famously became the first African American to enroll in the school. Another was the campus of the University of Georgia, Athens, where he was the first Black from Savannah to attend that institution. At UGA, he walked out of one class after a white professor discussing the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark Brown vs. Board of Education decision proclaimed the only reason African-Americans wanted to integrate schools in Georgia was to marry white women. 
Art Prints

​Most of the kind of anti-racism activism Johnson chronicles is to be expected given the time-frame. In his chronicling, however, he provides important snapshots of black leaders in Savannah, like Wesley Wallace "W.W." Law and Hosea Williams, in political action. But his reportage goes beyond the dynamics of blackness clashing with whiteness.
​
Through his account of how segregation laws prevented Whites from attending the historically black Savannah State College, founded some 45 years prior to the establishment of Armstrong (as a junior college) in 1935, he demonstrates how racism has caused grievous injury on both sides of the color line. It has also been extremely absurd when considering that in order for him to become the first African-American to integrate Armstrong in 1963 for sake of racial progress in the name of democracy, he had to switch from Savannah State's senior college program curriculum to Armstrong's junior college curriculum.  

Navigating Major Changes

Early in From 'N Word' to Mr. Mayor (2016, Donning Company Publishers) Johnson discusses three types of black leadership attributed to sociologist Daniel C. Thompson (author of Sociology of the Black Experience) and with which many readers of African-American literature are familiar: "...the Uncle Tom...racial diplomat...and race advocate" (p. 48). He places himself closer to the third category but more as a "human rights advocate" who believes the following: "'We are all God's children,' but I live in an institutional and structural racist society. 'Self-preservation is the first law of nature'" (p. 49).
​
By the time Dr. Johnson took office in 2004 as the sixty-fourth mayor of Savannah, and its second consecutive black mayor (after the late Floyd Adams), the city was well on its way to navigating major changes in its multicultural and economic make-up. His determination to meet that challenge at every level resulted in 2006 in a major heart attack experienced while attending the National Conference of Black Mayors in Memphis, Tennessee. Consequently, he writes, "How I approached the job of being mayor during the period before and the period after my heart attack were two very different periods" (p. 291).
As it pertained to his labors as mayor, Johnson's professed sense of racial "self-preservation" took a back seat to his role as a servant leader committed to advocating "for improving conditions that impact people of all races and classes" (p. 261). In the wake of the Great Recession that would create chaos in American cities during his second term, he worked with city council members to help Savannah avoid the kind of disastrous lay-offs and cancellation of services which occurred in cities like Atlanta and Camden. As he points out:

"In 2011, we were still in the greatest economic downturn since the Great Depression. We had to find a way to continue providing all of the services to citizens with about $8 million less than we had in 2010...while the 2011 budget was extremely difficult, it was balanced with minimal impact to our citizens and without an increase in property taxes. That was due to strong leadership, clear priorities, and tough resolve by this council, which chose not to spend wildly when times were good" (p. 325).

Candidates lining up for the 2020 presidential race in America could take a few helpful lessons from this former mayor's playbook. One might be committing to running a campaign based on proven abilities and a strategic comprehensive vision rather than one based on negative personal attacks. In fact, though he won his first election to mayor before former U.S. President Barack H. Obama won his first election to the White House, their campaign styles bore striking similarities. (The president and mayor met when Mr. Obama visited Savannah in 2010.)   

Conclusion

At times, From 'N Word' to Mr. Mayor reads a bit too much like a college paper, or lecture, as Johnson parenthetically informs readers where he will continue the thread of a particular subject or on which page he has already discussed it. This is easy enough to overlook, and even smile about, when remembering these pages are coming to us from a master scholar at whose literary feet we are fortunate indeed to sit and learn as much as possible. 
​
Aberjhani
Author of Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah
0 Comments

Text and Meaning in Dick Gregory’s ‘Nigger’ part 2: Unyielding Commitment

10/12/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
Dick and Lillian Gregory giving a press conference in Chicago in 1967. (AP photograph by Charles Knoblock courtesy of Ebony Magazine)

To read part 1 of this article please CLICK HERE. Part 2 begins now:
​One measure of Dick Gregory’s commitment to eradicating the blight of racial injustice from America’s potential democratic paradise was a marked willingness to risk nearly everything he valued in pursuit of it. Prospective employers and audiences alike could easily turn their backs on a comedian specializing in his brand of in-your-face political satire, not to mention “blackball” someone increasingly identified with freedom marchers.

​In fact, the political component expressed in the pages of Nigger was not something in which publisher E.P Dutton, according to Gregory, was interested at all. As explained in conversation with the late Dr. Marable Manning (1950-2011, author of the biography Malcolm X, A Life of Reinvention) just before receiving the Hung Tao Choy Mei Leadership Institute's 2006 Paul Robeson "Here I Stand" award, the publisher expected the comic to deliver a manuscript  showcasing his ethnic “wit and wisdom” with minimal focus on the racial realities of the time. What they wanted, essentially, was a joke book which left no room for expansions of consciousness.

​However, having already received an advance of $200,000 for the proposed work, Gregory opted to partner with white author Robert Lipsyte to produce a book which could simultaneously: 1) help raise people’s awareness about the effects of racial disparity in the United States; 2) share humor based on the human condition as he lived it; and 3) inspire participation in the Civil Rights Movement. This unexpected gamble at first stunned both the publisher and the public but ultimately yielded across-the-board rewards for all stakeholders involved.     

Partners in the Struggle

Further evidence of the humanitarian’s unyielding commitment came early on when he insisted on sharing his battle for civil and human rights with his beloved wife, Lillian. Living with that decision proved difficult more than once. As her husband, for example, struggled to observe principles of nonviolent conflict resolution while policemen in the South spat in his face and white supremacists tossed a grenade into a church where he gathered with other activists, Lillian found herself alone when their infant son, Richard Jr., died.
​
​Sometime later, she took Gregory’s place on the front lines of a protest in Selma, Alabama. There, she was arrested and spent a week in jail while pregnant with twins. 
Over the years, as their family continued to grow and racial oppression remained a deadly reality, the activist-entertainer made it clear to his children that their personal time and enjoyments as a family would have to come second to the demands of “the movement.” It was the same kind of bitter, but possibly unavoidable, pill of historical destiny which the children of other iconic leaders (again, consider King and Malcolm X) had to swallow.  


​Prophetic Inclinations

People who laughed at Gregory’s famously racially-tinged monologues, as well as protesters who marched alongside him at various rallies around the country (through the South, yes, but also in Chicago, Washington, DC, and elsewhere) recognized within his personality characteristics associated with prophets.

​That specific aspect of his demeanor is particularly noticeable in chapter seven of Nigger . The section contains a transcript of his response to a startling discovery. Preparing to address activists gathered in a church in Selma to coordinate the registration of Black voters, Gregory observed that the front row of the church had been “filled that night with policemen pretending to be newspaper reporters and taking notes” (p. 200). Rather than becoming dismayed or frightened, he used this development to address the infiltrators directly: 
“…What do you think would happen to Christ tonight if He arrived in this town a black man and wanted to register to vote on Monday? What do you think would happen? Would you be there? You would? Then how come you’re not out there with these kids, because He said that whatever happens to the least, happens to us all… Let’s analyze the situation…” (p. 202).
Picture
Dick Gregory with the late John Lennon and Yoko Ono. (photograph from Yoko Ono as shared via Twitter in honor of Gregory after his passing)
​In his determination to help America become as great as he believed it was/is meant to become, Gregory touched so many people’s lives at different stages of his own that his voice and influence––like those of athlete Muhammad Ali (1942-2016), author James Baldwin (1924-1987) and Civil Rights icon Rosa Parks (1913-2005) are likely to increase rather than decrease as the 21st century unfolds. In addition, he often pointed out that he was only one of movement’s numerous foot-soldiers and, in truth many, like Congressman John Lewis and educator Angela Davis, are still standing strong and lend validity to Gregory’s contention as directed to the spirit of his mother: 


​Getting Stronger

“Those of us who weren’t destroyed got stronger, got calluses on our souls. And now we’re ready to change a system, a system where a white man can destroy a black man with a single word. Nigger… When we’re through, Momma, there won’t be any niggers any more” (p. 209).

​Although it appeared America had reached a kind of final goal when former POTUS Barack Obama occupied the White House for eight years, Gregory knew we had not. He nevertheless retained faith in the American people’s ability to one day achieve such a goal.Sitting on the sidelines and dreaming or complaining about it could never be enough to make it happen. An accomplishment of that magnitude would require––as demonstrated by his own amazing life example––an unwavering dedication combined with a willingness to make sometimes painful sacrifices, and, a sustained belief that ultimately the benefits of the long hard struggle will come to outweigh all untold anguish endured. 

About Aberjhani

On any given day of the week, the creator of Postered Chromatic Poetics and co-author of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance, Aberjhani, may be found wearing any number of hats descriptive of multiple pursuits: historian, visual artist, poet, advocate for compassion, novelist, journalist, photographer, and editor. Having recently completed a book of creative nonfiction on his hometown of Savannah, Georgia (USA) he is currently working on a play about the implications of generational legacies as symbolized by efforts to rename the Eugene Talmadge Memorial Bridge.

    Contact Author

Submit
0 Comments

    Archives

    November 2023
    June 2023
    February 2023
    December 2022
    June 2022
    February 2022
    November 2021
    September 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    December 2019
    November 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    March 2019
    January 2019
    October 2017
    July 2017
    August 2012

    Categories

    All
    1950s
    1960s
    2022 Russia Ukraine War
    20th Century Authors
    21st Century Artists
    21st Century Authors
    21st Century Poets
    Aberjhani
    Aberjhani Observance Of National Poetry Month
    Aberjhani On Aurie Cole
    Aberjhani On Brad Gooch
    Aberjhani On Chinese Famine
    Aberjhani On Dick Gregory
    Aberjhani On Duncan McNaughton
    Aberjhani On Eugene Talmadge
    Aberjhani On Flannery O'Connor
    Aberjhani On Immigration
    Aberjhani On Jean-Paul Sartre
    Aberjhani On Mao Zedong
    Aberjhani On Mark Morneweg
    Aberjhani On Maya Angelou
    Aberjhani On Otis S. Johnson
    Aberjhani On Paul Laurence Dunbar
    Aberjhani On PT Armstrong
    Aberjhani On Russia Ukraine Was
    Aberjhani On Savannah Georgia
    Aberjhani On Savannah-Georgia
    Aberjhani On Yang Jisheng
    Adapting Books For Film
    Africa
    African American Authors
    African-American Authors
    African-American Comics
    African American History Month
    African American Men
    African-American Men
    African Americans
    African Americans Abroad
    African Americans In Japan
    African Americans Living Outside America
    African American Writers In Savannah GA
    African Diaspora
    African Engineers
    African Writers
    AI Literary Chat Salon
    Alice Walker
    Amanda Gorman
    American Artists
    American Authors
    American Civil War
    American PEN Video
    Andrew Davidson
    Angel Art
    Angel Lore
    Angel Meme
    Angel Of War And The Year 2022
    Angelology
    Annie Cohen-Solal
    Antiracism
    Archangel Michael
    Art By Aberjhani
    Art By Christia Cummings-Slack
    Artist-Author Aberjhani
    Artist James Russell May
    Artist Marcus Kenney
    Asian Authors
    Audio Podcast
    Aurie Cole
    Author Brad Gooch
    Author Connie Zweig
    Author Franklin D. Lewis
    Author Interview
    Author Mark Morneweg
    Author Poet Aberjhani Official Site
    Author-Poet Aberjhani - Official Site
    Authors
    Authors From Savannah Georgia
    Ava DuVernay
    Benjamin Hollander
    Benjamin Van Clark Neighborhood
    Ben Okri
    Ben Okri Videos
    Best Interviews Of 2023
    Bill Berkson
    Biography
    Biracial Relationships
    Biracial Women
    Black History Month
    Black Men Who Write
    Black Movie Directors
    Black Women Authors
    Blogs By Aberjhani
    Booker Prize For Literature
    Booker Prize Winners
    Book Industry
    Book Publishing
    Book Reviews
    Book Reviews By Aberjhani
    Books
    Books About Rumi
    Books About Savannah-Georgia
    Books About Sufism
    Books And Authors
    Books By Aurie Cole
    Books By Darrell Gartrell
    Books By Flannery O'Connor
    Books By Patricia Ann West
    Books By PT Armstrong
    Books By Robert T.S. Mickles Sr.
    Books By Rotimi Ogunjobi
    Books On Flannery O'Connor
    Brad Gooch
    Brad Gooch Audio Podcast
    Brunswick Georgia
    Canadian Authors
    Canadian Novelists
    Carlos Ruiz Zafon
    Caste The Origins Of Our Discontents
    Celebrity Authors
    Children's Literature
    Chinese Authors
    Chinese History
    Christia Cummings-Slack
    Christina Cummings-Slack
    Christine Cummings
    Classic Authors
    Connie Zweig
    Contemporary African Literature
    Contemporary African Writers
    Contemporary Artists
    Contemporary Authors
    Contemporary Canadian Authors
    Contemporary Literature
    Contemporary Southern Literature
    Cormac Mccarthy
    Cornel West
    Creative Nonfiction
    Creative Thinkers
    Cultural Demographics
    Cultural Heritage
    David Gordon Green
    Dick Gregory Videos
    Digital Publishing
    Director Regina King
    Director Steve McQueen
    Doctorate In Literature
    Dreams Of The Immortal City Savannah Book By Aberjhani
    Duncan McNaughton
    Ebooks
    Education
    El Portal Press
    English As A Second Language
    English Learning Students
    Essay On 21 Years Of Wisdom
    Essays By Aberjhani
    Essays On Ben Okri
    Essays On Duncan McNaughton
    Essays On Flannery O'Connor
    Essays On Immigration
    Eugene Talmadge
    Eugene Talmadge Memorial Bridge
    Evolving Cultures
    Existential Creativity
    Existentialism
    Fall Of The Rebel Angels
    Famous Women Artists
    Fiction
    Filming Movies In Savannah-Georgia
    Flannery O'Connor
    French Authors
    French Literature
    Genre Bending Literature
    Genre-bending Literature
    Global Community
    Grandmothers
    Great Sufi Poets
    Greeting Flannery O'Connor At The Back Door Of Mind Book By Aberjhani
    Gullah Geechee Culture
    Gustave Flaubert
    Halloween's End
    Hector France
    Historical Fiction
    Historical Poetry
    History
    History Of Civil Rights Movement
    History Of Famines
    History Of Literature
    History Of Racism
    Human Cannibalism
    Iconic Authors
    Immigrant Experience
    Immigration Policies
    Influential Authors
    International Authors
    International Poets
    Interracial Relationships
    Interview
    Isabel Wilkerson
    Jalal Al-Din Mohammad Balkhi
    Jalal Al Din Mohammad Rumi
    Jalal Al-Din Mohammad Rumi
    James Joyce
    Jean Genet
    Jean-Paul Sartre
    Jelaluddin Rumi
    Jim Crow Racism
    Lady Gaga
    Latino Ficiton
    Leadership Philosophy
    Leadership Theory
    Life And Legacy Of Dick Gregory
    Life And Legacy Of Flannery O'Connor
    Lillian Gregory
    Literary Biographies
    Literary Community
    Literary Criticism
    Literary Essays
    Literary Friendships
    Literary History
    Literary Honors
    Literary Influencers
    Literary Influences
    Literary Legacies Of The South
    Literary Prizes
    Literary Traditions
    Literary Translations
    Literature Of Immigration
    Luca Giordano
    Memoir
    Memoir By Darrell Gartrell
    Michal Majernik
    Movie Sets
    Mythology
    National Poetry Month
    Naturalism Fiction
    New Orleans
    Nicanor Parra
    Nigerian Authors
    Nigerian Literature
    Nigger By Dick Gregory
    Nobel Laureates
    Nonfiction
    Novels
    Official Site For Author Poet Aberjhani
    Official Site For Author-Poet Aberjhani
    Official Website Of Author Poet Aberjhani
    Official Website Of Author-Poet Aberjhani
    Oklahoma City
    Oprah Winfrey
    Patricia Ann West
    PEN America
    PEN International
    Philosophy
    Podcast On Literature
    Poems About Savannah-Georgia
    Poems By Patricia Ann West
    Poetry
    Poetry By Aurie Cole
    Poetry By Duncan McNaughton
    Poets Against War
    Poets From
    Poets From Afghanistan
    Poets From Boston
    Poets From Savannah Georgia
    Poets From Savannah-Georgia
    Poets On War
    Political Activism
    Political Biographies
    Political Strategies
    Political Theories
    Postered Poetics Art By Aberjhani
    Predatory Gentrification
    Preventing Erasures Of History
    Prose And Poetry
    Prose Poem
    Public Intellectuals
    Public School System
    Publishers
    Publishing
    Publishing Options
    Putin Attacks Ukraine
    Q&A With Author
    QOTD Quote Of The Day
    Quentin Tarantino
    Quotations
    Quotes By Dick Gregory
    Quotes By Flannery O'Connor
    Quotes By Mark Morneweg
    Race In America
    Race In Japan
    Racism In Georgia
    Racism In Savannah
    Racism In The United States
    Reiki Master
    Richard Wright
    Rotimi Ogunjobi
    Rumi Day
    Rumi's Birthday
    Russian Invasion Of Ukraine
    Russia Ukraine Conflict 2022
    Russia Ukraine Video
    Russia Ukraine War
    Salman Rushdie
    Sandfly In Savannah Georgia
    San Francisco Poets
    Savannah College Of Art And Design Graduates
    Savannah Georgia
    Savannah-Georgia
    Savannah River
    Savannah State University
    SCAD Graduates
    Shams Of Tabriz
    Singer Sade
    Social Activism
    Social Realism
    Somewhere In The Stream By Duncan McNaughton
    South Carolina
    Southern Legacies
    Spike Lee
    Spiritual Counseling
    Spirituality
    Starvation
    Still Water Words
    Sufi Literature
    Talks Between My Pen And Muse
    Teachable Take-Aways
    Text And Meaning Series By Aberjhani
    The American Poet Who Went Home Again
    The Angel's Game
    The Famished Road
    The Gargoyle By Andrew Davidson
    The River Of Winged Dreams
    The Word "Nigger"
    Toni Morrison
    Transgression Fiction
    Transgression Literature
    Transgressive Literature
    Tribute To Dick Gregory
    Ukraine Russia Crisis 2022
    Video
    Video Podcast
    Video Poem
    Videos About Rumi
    Videos On Literature
    Wakanda Forever
    War And Peace
    William Anderson
    Wisdom21
    Women Artists
    Women Authors
    Women Poets
    Women's Voices
    World Community
    World History
    World Poetry Day
    Writers And Writing
    Xenophobia
    Yang Jisheng
    Year 2022 In Review
    Yoko Ono
    YouTube Videos

    RSS Feed

  • Bright Skylark Literary Productions Sitemap
  • Author Statement
    • Blog: Visionary Vibes >
      • Aberjhani - Author Biography
      • Bright Skylark News Notes
      • Blog: Cultural Arts Reviews and Remembrances
      • Blog: Sonic Delight Music Reviews >
        • Summer-Song Rhapsody for Michael Jackson: Editorial with Poem
      • Shifting Points of View and the Massacre in Charleston, South Carolina (USA) >
        • Author-Poet Aberjhani in the News
      • 7 Ways to Help Replace Legislated Fear with Informed Compassion
    • Greeting Flannery O'Connor at the Back Door of My Mind >
      • Tribute to Savannah Author Robert T.S. Mickles Sr.
    • Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah >
      • Podcast Prospects 504
      • More Books by Aberjhani >
        • Readers & Reviewers on the Writings of Aberjhani
        • Checking in at Goodreads
        • Editing Credits
        • ELEMENTAL: The Power of Illuminated Love (Art and Poetry Gift Book)
        • The River of Winged Dreams
        • The Wisdom of W.E.B. Du Bois
        • Songs from the Black Skylark zPed Music Player: A Novel by Aberjhani
        • I Made My Boy Out of Poetry
        • Journey through the Power of the Rainbow: Quotations from a Life Made Out of Poetry
        • Buy Books by Aberjhani on Amazon
        • 10th Anniversary of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance
  • AI Literary Chat Salon
  • Carousel of Sustainable Compassion
  • Working Scribe Carousel Number 2
    • Awards & Honors
    • My LinkedIn Portfolio Sampler
    • Pop Icon Michael Jackson in Life & Legend
    • Creative Thinkers International
  • Art and Poster Store
    • Blog: Silk-Featherbrush Art and Style
    • Postered Poetics
    • Your Introduction to Original Silk-Featherbrush Art & Style
  • Choose a Cultural Arts Heritage Project to Support
  • Working Scribe Image Carousel 2
  • About Bright Skylark Literary Productions
    • Bright Skylark Values and Motto
  • Famous Quotes of Note
    • Pinterest Page of Quotations
  • Charter for a More Compassionate World
  • As a Poet Thinketh: Poetry by Aberjhani
    • The Bridge of Silver Wings
    • Rainbow-Song for the Angel of Tao by Aberjhani
    • Ode to the Good Black Boots that Served My Soul So Well (poem by Aberjhani)
    • Angel of Remembrance: Candles for September 11, 2001
    • Rainbow-Song for the Angel of Tao: Verse 1
  • Articles and Essays
    • Abbreviated Minds in the News for Wreaking Havoc Worldwide editorial by Aberjhani
    • Iconic Authors Toni Morrison's and Harper Lee's New Works Likely to Influence Dialogues on Race
    • Red Summer: Text and Meaning in Claude McKay’s poem ‘If We Must Die’” part 1 of special 4-part series by Aberjhani
    • A Writer's Journey to Selma, Alabama
    • Justice Remains Elusive in Case of Newly-freed Louis C. Taylor (Part 1 of 2)
    • Sensualized Transcendence: Editorial and Poem on the Art of Jaanika Talts (Part 1)
    • Realms of Emerging Light (Sensualized Transcendence Editorial and Poem on the Art of Jaanika Talts Part 2)
    • Notes on the 150th Anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation
    • Why Race Mattered in Barack Obama's Re-Election: Editorial and Poem
    • Posted Perspectives on America's 2012 Presidential Election
    • 47 Percenters and Guerrilla Decontextualization: Dreamers and Nightmares
    • Considering Michael Clarke Duncan: Big Black Man Within A Nonsociopoliticohistorical Context (Editorial with Poem)
  • Video Pen & Ink
  • Links and Connections
    • Aberjhani's Guerrilla Decontextualization
  • Contact the Author
  • Working Scribe Image Carousel 2
  • Working Scribe Image Carousel 2
  • Bright Skylark LP Storefront