LETTER FROM THE SOUTH
NOBODY KNOWS MY NAME
I walked down the street, didn't
have on no hat,
Asking everybody I meet, Where's
my man at?
-Ma Rainey
Negroes in the North are right when they refer to the
South as the Old Country. A Negro born in the North who finds
himself in the South is in a position similar to that of the son of the
Italian emigrant who finds himself in Italy, near
the
village where his
father first saw the light of day. Both are in countries they have never
seen, but which they cannot fail to recognize. The landscape has
always been familiar; the speech is archaic, but it rings a bell; and
so do the ways of the people, though their ways are not his ways.
Everywhere he turns, the revenant finds himself reflected. He sees
himself as he was before he was born, perhaps; or as the man
he
would
have become, had he actually been born in this place. He sees the
world, from an angle odd indeed, in which his fathers awaited his
arrival, perhaps in the very house in which he narrowly avoided being
born. He sees, in effect, his ancestors, who, in everything they do
and are, proclaim his inescapable identity. And the Northern Negro
in the South sees, whatever he or anyone else may wish to believe,
that his ancestors are both white and black. The white men, flesh of
his flesh, hate him for that very reason. On the other hand, there is
scarcely any way for him to join the black community in the South:
for both he and this community are
in
the
grip of the immense illusion
that their state is more miserable than his own.
This illusion owes everything to the great American illusion that
our state is a state to be envied by other people: we are powerful, and
we are rich. But our power makes us uncomfortable and we handle
it very ineptly. The principal effect of our material well-being has
been to set the children's teeth on edge.
If
we ourselves were not so
fond of this illusion, we might understand ourselves and other peoples
better than we do, and be enabled to help them understand us. I am
