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Sterling A. Brown's "Literary Chronicles."

African American Review, Fall, 1997 by Hortense E. Simmons

When the judges of Opportunity's first literary contest awarded Sterling A. Brown Second Prize for his essay "Roland Hayes" (first prize went to E. Franklin Frazier for "Social Equality and the Negro"), they clearly did the right thing. The essay, Brown's first publication, appeared in the historic June 1925 isssue of the journal heralding the achievements of the young writers of the "Negro Renaissance." Brown received a whopping $30 in prize money for his critical review of a concert Hayes presented in Lynchburg, Virginia. To be sure, the essay was the catalyst that launched Brown into what more than likely proved an intellectually stimulating juncture in his professional life. For more than a decade, Brown's critical commentary appeared in Opportunity, but as a chronicle of the literary scene for Opportunity's readers, the majority of his work appeared principally, with monthly frequency, between 1931 and 1935. The chronicles included reviews and notes, as well as commentary on books, plays, movies, and musical productions. Sometimes featured under the titles "Our Book Shelf," "Chronicle and Comment," or "The Literary Scene," the most consistent title for the series was "The Literary Scene: Chronicle and Comment."

More Articles of Interest: Sterling Brown: maker of community in academia; Memories of Sterling Brown; "Runnin' space": the continuing legacy of Sterling Allen Brown; A Son's Return: Selected Essays of Sterling A. Brown; Sterling A. Brown and the Afro-modern moment

In the inaugural publication on Roland Hayes, Sterling Brown's readers were introduced to a young, candidly probing intellect who uncompromisingly dared to assert the aesthetic value of Black folk lives and verbal expression, and he did so in what was to become his nonconformist signature as a critic, a signature that Darryl Pinckney labels "volatile, ironic, and hopelessly genuine" (14). In the essay, Brown expresses concern about the audience's inability appropriately to appreciate the art of Hayes's performance: "The applause is not terrific. The whites do not understand, will not, cannot. They only know that they have caught distant glimpses from lofty perilous places. The Negroes feel somehow rebuked" (174).

Although whites were among Opportunity's readers, Brown addressed his commentary primarily to his Black readers. His was a not-too-delicate balancing act, for in his role as chronicler he sought to be personally instructive. "Whenever Sterling opened his mouth he taught," observes Pinckney, and his text, Black culture, was "a text he studied as no other black writer had before or since" (14). Joanne Gabbin identifies the details of Brown's text, mirroring clearly his broad literary interests and personal concerns:

Brown commented on modern developments in American literature: the trend toward regionalism, the newer traditions of realism and naturalism, the dominance of the lowly as subject matter, the use of dialect to achieve local color, and the rising tide of social protest in literature . . . the need for a literary audience interested in the genuine development of Black writers, the validity of portrayals of Black life and character regardless of their authorship, the distortion of historical fiction, and generally, the achievement of a high level of craftsmanship. (187)

"I have as yet, no logs to roll, and no brickbats to heave" - an ironic, "sterling" Brown affirmation - pivots the essay "Our Literary Audience" (42). Considered among his most compelling early critical commentaries, this essay exposes Brown's sensitivity to the challenges that faced African American artists seeking to master their craft, as well as his belief that the writers and their Black readers shared reciprocal responsibilities in the development of the literature. His was truly a genuinely felt commitment:

I have . . . a deep concern with the development of a literature worthy of our past, and of our destiny; without which literature certainly, we can never come to much. I have a deep concern with the development of an audience worthy of such literature. (42)

Acknowledging that his essay is based on six years of study, Brown discusses four chronic fallacies he believes plague Black readers:

We look upon Negro books, regardless of the author's intention, as representative of all Negroes, i.e. as sociological documents. We insist that Negro books be idealistic, optimistic tracts for race advertisement. We are afraid of truth telling, of satire. We criticize from the point of view of bourgeois America, of racial apologists. (42)

He challenges his readers to recognize such critical standards for what they are - negative impediments which stifle writers' creativity as well as "dwarf their stature as interpreters." For Brown, the artist's responsibility is to reject a "Pollyanna philosophy of life" in favor of both a responsive and responsible interpretation Of the truth, however unflattering it may appear. Likewise, he charges the audience to shed their thin skins and accept the artistic, in which truth and intelligence prevail over propaganda. Throughout the essay, Brown urges his readers to exercise their intellect and to eschew their reactionary defense of the race. An intelligent critical approach, he argues, would yield the realization and acceptance that "books about us may not be true of all of us; but that has nothing to do with their worth" (44). Having quoted Walt Whitman earlier, Brown concludes his essay by reaffirming Whitman's assessment that "without great audiences we cannot have great literature" (61).

Sterling A. Brown's "Literary Chronicles."

African American Review, Fall, 1997 by Hortense E. Simmons

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