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Invisible Man and African American radicalism in World War II

African American Review, Fall, 2005 by Christopher Z. Hobson

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(16.) For analyses of the Wright-Ellison relationship and Ellison's wartime politics, see Fabre, "From Native Son," which quotes portions of this same letter (204; my transcription corrects one or two errors) and Neal; for biographical background, Fabre, Unfinished Quest; Jackson, Ralph Ellison; Rowley.

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(17.) James, with a solid background in pan-Africanist and socialist activities, then belonged to the "third camp" Workers Party, a dissident branch within US Trotskyism. His ideas on Negro self-organization, which he had developed earlier while in the "orthodox" Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party and elaborated in conversations with Trotsky, had some influence within the SWP, which he rejoined in 1947 before finally quitting in 1951. It is unclear when Wright met James, but the Wrights were on good terms with James and Webb by August 1942 (Rowley 267). By the mid-1940s James was developing the anti-vanguard stance elaborated in his Notes on Dialectics (1948), quoted in my text. For Wright's response to James's ideas on the African American movement, see his Journal, 13, 14, 16 Feb. 1945. Sources on Ellison and Wright suggest but do not conclusively establish that Ellison met James at this time. Jackson's date of 1938 for a three-way acquaintance is not supported by his sources (Ralph Ellison 211). Firsthand sources are also inconsistent on whether Ellison was directly involved in the 1944-45 editorial projects, but he seems to have been consulted about a proposed magazine (his experience on the Negro Quarterly would be apposite) and may have been at a meeting on a book project along with James. (See Wright, Journal [1945], Cayton 249-50, Fabre, Unfinished Quest 268, Webb 210-21, Worcester 77; Worcester, in an 8 July 2002 communication, was unable to shed additional light on these contradictory accounts.) Ellison and James were at least superficially acquainted as late as 1947, when both attended a shipboard party for the Wrights, who were moving to France (Wright, Journal, 30 July 1947).

(18.) For the events of 1935 and 1943, see "Harlem Disorders," "Police Shoot Into Rioters," "Police End Harlem Riot"; Brandt 183-206; Ellison, "Eyewitness"; Greenberg. I am indebted to my students Donna Greci, Anitra Lauro, Gerianne McArdle, Flora Slamet, and Tabitha Watson for research on the events. Ellison adapts one story about how chapter 25's events begin from 1935 (541); from 1943, the August date, a distinct version of the precipitating incident (540), and details about looting (539-40, 542, 544), some with parallels in his contemporary New York Post account ("Eyewitness"). He omits time-specific details such as anger over Italy's invasion of Abyssinia (1935) and an attack on an African American GI (1943).

(19.) See Marx 121, paraphrasing Hamlet's "Well said, old mole. Canst work i' th'earth so fast?" (1.5.170).

(20.) Callahan's view of these incidents misses their reference to intra-Marxist debates (African-American 173-76).

Invisible Man and African American radicalism in World War II

African American Review, Fall, 2005 by Christopher Z. Hobson

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