KNOW THE TRUTH AND IT WIll
BE THE SAME WITH
KINGS AND CHILDREN A HUNDRED YEARS FROM NOW
OR A THOUSAND UNQUOTE HOME AGAIN THANK GOD
IN NEW YORK QUOTE THERE IS NO ARMENIA
GENTLEMEN THERE IS NO AMERICA AND THERE IS NO
ENGLAND AND NO FRANCE AND NO ITALY THERE IS
ONLY THE EARTH GENTLEMEN UNQUOTE SO YOU CAN
SEE FOR YOURSELF THAT IF TRAVEL BROADENS IT
ALSO FLATTENS ONE STOP AND ITS TOO BAD BECAUSE
YOU KEEP THINKING IT MIGHT SOMEHOW SOME DAY
ADD UP TO MORE THAN ZERO STOP ARE YOU SURE
DONT WANT TO HEAR ABOUT MY UNHAPPY
CHILDHOOD STOP OK SETTING SAIL WILL SEND
YOU TREMENDOUS ARTICLE ALL ABOUT IT STOP BUT
IF YOU WOULD ONLY RECONSIDER ABOUT THE
UNHAPPY CHILDHOOD
KENNETH FEARING
A Tale of Folk Courage
BLACK THUNDER,
by Arna Bontemps. Jl1acmillan.
$2.50.
In that limited and almost barren field known as the
Negro novel, Arna Bontemps's
Blac,k Thunder
fills a yawn-
ing gap and fills it competently.
Covering all those skimpy
reaches of Negro letters I know, this is the only novel deal-
ing forthrightly with the historical and revolutionary tra-
ditions of the Negro people.
Black Thunder
is the true story of a slave insurrection that
failed. But in his telling of the story of that failure Bon-
temps manages to reveal and dramatize through the char-
acter of his protagonist,
Gabriel, a quality of folk courage
unparalleled in the proletarian literature of this country.
Gabriel is a young slave, who, hearing of the struggles of the
French proletariat and the exploits of L'Ouverture,
decides
to avenge the murder of a fellow-slave by leading the
Negroes of Richmond, Virginia, against the landowners. On
the night when the attack is to take place, Gabriel's ragged
slave-host, armed with cutlasses, pikes, and a "peck of bul-
lets," hides in the woods near Richmond,
waiting for the
call to advance and capture the arsenal. At the crucial mo-
ment, a terrific rainstorm sweeps down, flooding the fields
and bogging the roads. This, coupled with the treachery of
two members of his band, makes the uprising impossible.
Gabriel's army deserts him. The next three weeks are times
of wild terror, for everywhere the white plantation owners
are asking one another, "What Negro can you point to and
say definitely he is not involved?"
From that juncture onward,
Black Thunder
is mainly
the story of Gabriel, who believes in the eventual triumph
of his destiny in spite of all the forces which conspire against
it. He is convinced that God and the universe are on his
side. He believes he must and will lead the Negro people
to freedom. He 5eems to have no personal fear and no per-
sonal courage. He thinks, dreams, and feels wholly in terms
of Negro liberation. His mind is a confused mixture of su-
perstition, naive cunning, idealism, and a high courage born
partly of his deep ignorance and partly of an amazing ability
to forget his personal safety. He contemptuously refuses to
run to the mountains to save himself and decides to stay near
the scene of the insurrection "to get in two-three mo' good
licks fo' my time comes." When considering Gabriel solely
as an isolated individual, he seems sustained by an extremely
foolish belief in himself; but when one remembers his slave
PARTISAN
REVIEW AND ANVIL
state, when one realizes the extent to which he has made
the wrongs of his people his wrongs, and the degree in which
he has submerged his hopes in their hopes-when one re-
members this, he appears logically and gloriously invincible.
The plan for the uprising is so simple and daring that
when it is disclosed and tracked to its source, the fear-ridden
whites can scarcely believe it. But Gabriel believes, he be-
lieves even when he is caught; even when the black cowl is
capped about his head, even when the ax swings, he believes.
Why?
For me the cardinal value of Bontemps's book, besides
the fact that it is a thumping story well told, lies in the
answer to that question. Perhaps I am straying further
afield than the author did in search for an answer. If I do,
it is because I believe we have in
Black Thunder
a revelation
of the very origin and source of folk values in literature.
Even though Gabriel's character is revealed in terms of
personal act,ion and dialogue, I feel there is in him much
more than mere personal dignity and personal courage. There
is in his attitude something which transcends the limits of
immediate consciousness. He is buoyed in his hope and cour-
age by an optimism which takes no account of the appalling
difficulties confronting him. He hopes when there are no
objective reasons or grounds for hope; he fights when his
fellow-slaves scamper for their lives. In doing so, he takes his
place in that gallery of fictitious characters who exist on the
plane of the ridiculous and the sublime. Bontemps endows
Gabriel with a myth-like and deathless quality. And it is in
this sense, I believe, that
Black Thunder
sounds a new note
in Negro fiction, thereby definitely extending the boun-
daries and ideology of the Negro novel.
RICHARD WRIGHT
3
1
