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Invisible Man and African American radicalism in World War II
African American Review, Fall, 2005 by Christopher Z. Hobson
Here "the principle" becomes nonracial and internationalist, focusing on the ties that African Americans--to whom "we" implicitly refers throughout the meditation--have or should have with "others," inferably both non-African Americans and non-Americans. Their "loud, clamoring semi-visible world" reminds us of the protagonist's sense, after Clifton's murder, of a distinct life and culture that has "been there all along ... outside the groove of history" (443) in the subway and Harlem's streets. There, besides the US workers, native-born and immigrant, "minority" and Anglo, toward whom organizations such as the Brotherhood oriented, one would find street-corner men, prostitutes, higglers, and others, of all nationalities, whom these organizations disregard as lumpen proletarians and whom the protagonist now sees with new eyes (471-72). Beyond Harlem, the "semi-visible world" would include the peoples of colonial and imperialized countries--China, India, and much of Africa--who had emerged explosively in the world arena during and after World War II under both Communist and noncommunist leadership. These, the protagonist believes, have been sought as a power base by political manipulators ("Jack and his kind") and dismissed by philanthropic liberals ("Norton and his"). Jack's "kind," however, in the dream-closing chapter 25, included old Emerson and Norton, the capitalists, as well as Ras. This conception that the pawn-movers include capitalist-imperialist forces as well as Communists marks off Ellison's ideas from the common 1950's liberal idea that the US must become more democratic in order to compete more vigorously against Communism. Rather, Ellison suggests an international commonality of interest that can use the democratic "principle" as a counterweight against Communist and non-Communist manipulators. Ellison further suggests that in this way African Americans may give leadership to the world's emergent peoples. The closing warning of destruction if this is not done seemingly refers to the previous decades' experience of fascist as well as Communist mass organization.
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This last section of the meditation recalls the internationalism and awareness of struggles against colonialism and what would now be called neocolonialism that characterized the circles that Ellison and Wright frequented. The Negro Quarterly's four issues carried articles by writers from Brazil, Cuba, the Gold Coast (Ghana), Haiti, and India. The editors spoke of Negroes' "unity of interest with India, China, Africa, the Philippines, Latin America, and all other darker peoples of the world" (Summer 1942: v). Wright's journal for 1945 proudly and somewhat critically records a meeting with V. L. Pandit, Nehru's sister and co-worker (4 Jan. 1945); James, whose relevance to Invisible Man has already been suggested, was a Trinidadian who had been politically active in London and then the US. In short, the World War II African American radical political milieu was internationalist to the core, and the idea of making common cause with colonial and semicolonial peoples was widespread among its members. Apparently more sustained and central in earlier drafts, this internationalism remains visible in Invisible Man's published text, in the furnishings of Emerson's office, in the West Indians' militancy during the eviction and rebellion, in Ras's beliefs, and in the crowd at Clifton's funeral, of whom "some had been born in other lands" (453; see 159, 180-81, 274-81, 541, 549). (27) Evoking the liminal world below the political radar and the world beyond US borders, the third portion of the protagonist's reflections embodies this multiracial and multinational viewpoint.
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