Robert Washington lecture, "Wright in Chicago part two," at the University of Iowa, July 27, 1971

Robert Corrigan: I probably should say, I forgot to point out that when he leaves us this summer, he's joining two institutions in the fall. He will be both on the Bryn Mawr faculty, and then I guess spend half of his time in New York City at the New School for Social Research. So perhaps we can see some interesting things coming out of the New York scene too. Speaker 2: I'm interested, [inaudible], in the park and work but you do not mention the name of Mark Warner. This is a matter of some interest to me, since Greg was trained by Mark Warner, and his degree is in social anthropology. Since there is, in Warner's methodology, the emphasis of [inaudible] interview, something in the technique that might have been of great interest to [inaudible]. I'm wondering if in your conversations with Mrs. [Wirth] if one of these things has been introduced. Warner, for example, had people spread all over the south side, engaging in interviews of all sorts. This would be ... I know this [inaudible] shock me after [inaudible] because [inaudible] probably true while [Wright] was still in Chicago. So, is there anything in your digging around that would suggest a connection with Warner group? Robert Washingt...: That's true of Caden's work with Warner. But first Caden worked for Wirth as a research assistant. Warner had a presence. He didn't have that much influence on the direction. The people who, in fact, supervised this study were Park and Louis Wirth. Warner ... Gosnell study of Negro Politicians. Again, Warner had a good deal to do with that, but he wasn't a leader in the school. Robert Washingt...: Park was a major influence, and then there were people like Burgess and Wirth and so on. I can't say, I can't say really what the connection was. Mrs. Wirth didn't mention Warner at all, in fact, and I can't say really how much Wright got through that end of taking sociology. I really don't know. Speaker 4: Do you have any idea of the growth of the suburbs surrounding Chicago at this time? With the wealthy white people moving out, perhaps suggested the pattern that we're now getting into with the early metropolis [inaudible] like that happening concurrently with the folks doing on coursing? Robert Washingt...: Well, there were strict patterns of ethnic and class segregation in Chicago. Still is, to some extent. The suburbs, I'm not sure that there was a very heavy suburban movement at that point. Burgess printed up a very famous map of Chicago. If you look in any sort of sociology textbook, you'll see it. He maps the city in terms of its functions. In fact, they're are a very major kind of start, beginning impetus for human ecology, the study of human ecology movement. If there was a suburbian community, and I hope you don't mean it in the contemporary sense of suburb, you just simply mean outside of city limits. Speaker 4: Well, I was thinking particularly about somewhere ... I'm sorry, I can't remember. Well, I think Professor Davis was talking about the fact that in Native Son, this wealthy white family is not terribly far away from bigger- Robert Washingt...: Yeah, well, you'd have to know that Chicago to understand it. They probably live in a place like Hyde Park. It's very possible, which would be ... Speaker 4: [inaudible]. Robert Washingt...: Yeah, this would be five minutes from a Black ghetto, Woodlawn. Speaker 4: In other words, this is really prior to the period in which the wealthy white starts to get out of the city altogether. Robert Washingt...: I don't think that the connection needs to be necessary. For instance, I think this is Hyde Park. I think the image of this kind of setting, of this liberal white ... Hyde Park is around the University of Chicago. It's got a reputation for being a liberal white community, et cetera. I don't think that any sort of contemporary reference to suburb applies there. Speaker 4: I see. Speaker 5: I grew up in Chicago just at that time, and I lived around the University of Chicago from 1924 to roughly 1933. I would substantiate what you said, that as far as the drive was concerned, I don't think there's any [inaudible]. The family lived in that area, the Hyde Park area. Speaker 5: There were, already though, even in the 20s, movements out to the North Shore and the South Shore, a place like Winnetka, like Wilmete, Highland Park. Richer families were already beginning as the influx of Irish and Jewish families that had been in Prairie Avenue coming to the Hyde Park district and then taking over by a Black family. Speaker 5: There was was a very sharp line, as you say, right above Drexel, Cottage Grove, Washington Park. And there were also a certain [inaudible] to, and I wanted to ask you, I always use this as a way of getting into the section I wanted to ask you. And that is about the education. You mentioned bathing beaches and there were [inaudible] right. If I can remember that clear place where whites were and Blacks were. Maybe Blacks crossed over or white came over. There would be some kind arrest. Speaker 5: But in the public schools, there was a considerable amount of co-mingling, of integration in that time. That was in my grammar schools. I went to Hyde Park high school and to junior high school in Hyde Park. There were places like Wendell Phillips that were completely Black, but Hyde Park to me seemed to me to be a fairly, I would say about a third, even when I was there, were Black students. Speaker 2: The only thing I can say is that it wasn't typical off the milieu generally for poor Black people in Chicago at the time. Speaker 5: These were not. That's [inaudible] They would be, I suppose, the professional groups. Speaker 6: I kind of think [inaudible] the nuance [inaudible] be more familiar with the schools you're talking about [inaudible] going to Hyde Park. Is that the kind of ... And I think this is my first back where [inaudible]. But from her testimony, she was adopted [inaudible] and sent to [inaudible] separation from the school, which is ... You were just kind of actively ignored. Speaker 5: I think that's probably, right. Not in sports. Speaker 6: Probably not, no. That was [inaudible]. Speaker 7: I was down at Robert Abbott's fine [inaudible] very interesting document everything you've seen. He found the Chicago [inaudible], and he represents the migrant from the south and [inaudible] training and Bible stories and the newspaper, and had all the frustration. Speaker 7: Then he went to the north and it shows how he was very poor and struggling. From his pictures, he was Black, rather than mulatto or light or somewhat, which he'll even [inaudible] and you can see that the town in some kind of technical mastery would help. I think he employed people of other ethnic groups because he couldn't find enough Blacks to do jobs, and he set up his place in a synagogue or some such building. But then he was very dramatic in his employment of getting Blacks to migrate from the south and come to the north. Was very dramatic. Speaker 7: I remember he didn't like us [inaudible] over the word Black or Negro and decided to just use the word race. And the papers are so interesting because it says race, you must be of this race. I would say still in World War I they'd get to see this migrations and that the early migrant was not all that they set out to be. Very interesting book. Speaker 5: Does Abbott mention Wright at all? Speaker 7: I don't [inaudible]. Speaker 5: Lynn here, we discovered quite by accident that Abbott's Monthly published Wright's very short story about 1936. Speaker 7: I don't [inaudible] as far as- Speaker 9: What story was that? Speaker 5: Lynn, what's the book title? Superstition. This was 1936 was the date. Speaker 10: Tom, you made all these casual references to the cultish movements in Chicago. And I actually remember them because I only studied, I did for one. It was a peace [inaudible] which was touched by this anthropological book, and this was offshoot of the Gaudi movement. I don't remember how it- Robert Washingt...: They have a fairly extensive section. I didn't want to go too long. That's why I stopped. They have graphs and maps and all sorts of things. So storefront churches, the cultish movements, they described them all. They point out, for instance, I'd say this about religion, is that among the poor Blacks in Chicago at the time, they point out that probably about this group constituted probably about somewhere around 100,000. These would be the masses, but poor people, really poor. Robert Washingt...: The population itself, I guess, would have been somewhere around 250,000 or so. Now of this group, this 100,000 they point out that about half claim to have church membership and of this group, smaller percentage, probably somewhere like about a tenth or so was involved in some kind of way with these kind of salvationist movements. Speaker 10: Wasn't [inaudible] as far as I knew is [inaudible] decided is [inaudible]. It seems to be after the idea that would come from these [crosstalk] and some of this- Robert Washingt...: There was a strong Garvey feeling. You know, there's a lot of- Speaker 10: Immediately in contact with the- Robert Washingt...: Except that it was interesting because both the middle-class Blacks ... And part of this, again, you'll get this color differential. A lot of people point out that the Garvey people were for the most part, dark skin. Garvey made a big point himself of just saying not to trust a lighter skin Negroes, that they would sell you out, et cetera. So that a tremendous amount of consciousness among dark skin people, Blacks in Chicago on a race issue, but no institution support them. Like Urban League and ACP and all of that so that they had a hard time surviving and the city government, which is also interesting because the city government was Big Bill Thompson who was involved with Capone and the whole kind of racket scene and so on. There was not much ethics in Chicago politics. Still isn't. Speaker 11: You said at the beginning that you were going to [inaudible] 15th of [inaudible]. And I think ... I mean, from its basic [inaudible] I thought you implied that their particular point of view saw development as a natural [inaudible] competition that you could have with races and [inaudible] where you were taking off wherever you want to go. I wondered if you had- Robert Washingt...: Well, I'll say a little bit about it. It will start getting very theoretical and stuff about what they lacked as a school, but their assumptions ... They operate with assumptions that conflict between ethnic groups and between different economic functions was a natural part of the process of urban development. Urban life indeed, that this was not an unusual thing. Robert Washingt...: And that to look at a community as being segregated was not a thing that one should moralize about. Robert Park, for instance. Mrs. Wirth pointed this out, referred to reformers as those for God's Sake's people. Anybody who had any sort of moral kind of complaint was a for God's Saker. He was the leader of the school, the Chicago school. He felt that this question, the moral question was irrelevant to the problem of analyzing what was going on and its social process. Well, what happens- D Speaker 11: Descriptive. Robert Washingt...: Well, that's right. It's very descriptive, but what happens with Caden and Drake as a consequence, and I see the heavy hand of Park all over this book. But what happens with them as a consequence is that they can't ever begin to talk about some of the ways in which power is used in a detrimental way for Black people in Chicago at the time. They can't do it because Park and Wirth were supervising a study. They wouldn't dare do it. Robert Washingt...: So you have to see this book is really kind of mediated through, through Park and Wirth and their influence. Wirth much less so of the conservative influence than Park. But Park, again, let me add this about Park. Maybe I'm not being fair to him. Robert Washingt...: Park had a conception of race relations, which belonged to a kind of abolitionists kind of sentiment. In fact, he left the University of Chicago and went to Fisk where he remained until his death. He had an interest, you see, in a kind of an improvement, kind of abolitionists kind of conception of how one approaches race relations. But if I went into more detail about that it would get boring. Speaker 12: Kind of got a [inaudible] second reaction and the media did [inaudible] place in a bit of context which is number one, it seemed to be he went to sociologists frequently with a concept and that was very much his own concept. And number two, while he was using them, he was often well beyond them. For example, I don't know how many sociologists could anticipate even later the urban rebellions which say Native Son tentatively imply. Speaker 12: And I remember in this essay [inaudible] on the ... Thought it could be [inaudible]. This feeling that he was in touch with Black boys in a certain kind of way which has vibrations that nobody would understand and [inaudible] would understand and nobody else understand. Speaker 12: Horace Keaton made it a big [inaudible] Black boy ... I myself am not familiar with it. Somebody by the name of Redfield. Robert Washingt...: Yeah, Robert Redfield. Well, you know, see there's a folk urban dichotomy here. Wright only used sociology very selectively. I'll talk about this in my second lecture. One of the things that impressed him a great deal about the approach of the department was Wirth put a focus on the impersonality of life in the city. His experiences coincided with it. I think he used all parts that coincided with his experience. Robert Washingt...: For instance, he couldn't get through Marxism any really kind of coherent expression about peasant life. So he turned to sociology, he turned to anthropology, Redfield. But he went all over. He was taking bits and bits there. Never a total scheme from anybody except the Marxists at one point. Speaker 13: Well the slotting in of his father for the peasant [inaudible] popular sort of [inaudible]. Robert Washingt...: There was another thing that Mrs. Wirth mentioned about his going back to see his father. He had a special perception about folk life that a number of people didn't have partly because they were distant from plantation life and he went back to see his father and ask his father if he needed anything, pointed out that he had published some books and had made some money. His father said no, he didn't need anything. Robert Washingt...: He pointed out that Mrs. Wirth that his father seemed to be standing in the same place he was standing the time before and that he was like a post. And that was it. I don't think he saw him after that. Speaker 14: The [inaudible] may be that when he did take from sociology and anthropology very seriously he was not always capable of [inaudible]. Robert Washingt...: I'll talk about this in the other lecture but I think part of it, his relationship to any intellectual scheme was to keep it in alignment with his experiences, which is not what all intellectuals do, because intellectual schemes and traditions constrain you away from your experiences. But I don't think he ever intended to get away from those experiences so that he would take whatever he could use. Speaker 10: Well he took with rigidity the business of Black rural life in product of the seasons. Robert Washingt...: Cycle, you know. Cyclical. Speaker 10: [inaudible] which Ellison had [inaudible]. Robert Washingt...: But that was his experience he was dealing with, not Ellison's. But his own experiences of plantation life. Speaker 1: [inaudible] really wasn't written in the sociology concept that's explained his experience of some kind of [inaudible]. I don't know which one of the sociologists that came from. Robert Washingt...: Redfield and Caden liked it. Caden use this. They always contrasted agricultural cycle to the machine and the impersonality of the machine Wright also like to talk about the feudal relations between people, which was something that Wirth talked about a lot. He always contrasted feudal relations, which were personal. And in fact, when Wright began to describe relations to white southerners, he makes the contrast between these personal relations and in the north, this impersonality, the coldness, and the south the spontaneity, the north again it's coldness and its very kind of stiff movements. Speaker 14: You've got that, I'm sure with Ellison too [inaudible]. Robert Washingt...: Possible, possible. Speaker 14: I think he would, and I think that the poor white in that novel is just on that page. Speaker 15: I'm interested in [inaudible] press and the fact that I've seen at least in [inaudible] suggests that the Black press was even as far back as the 1960s a sustaining and kind of institution in the Black community. I was wondering what effect did this have on Richard Wright and you suggested as everyone knows that he [inaudible] and says [inaudible] so forth. Did the Black press have any impact [inaudible] in the Black community? Robert Washingt...: Well, the Defender sure. They were [crosstalk] Repeat it. Speaker 16: What is the impact of the- Robert Washingt...: Of the Black press. The Defender was an important paper. I don't know Wright's specific reactions to the Defender, but it was a very, very important paper. In fact, when I pointed out about the migrations, all of the white newspapers in Chicago were opposed to the Black migrations. The Defender was consistently saying come, come, encouraging people to leave the south. Robert Washingt...: I think that on most ... I'm not sure about the political, because in the political, I don't know what their involvements were with the machine. Up until the Depression, the Black community was Republican and then switched over. And I don't know what the involvements of the Black press was with the machine. Speaker 16: Well, at least in [inaudible] that they seem to be in opposition to reforming the system. Robert Washingt...: Yeah. I think that's more of a class thing there. Yeah. But this you'll find probably most of the major institutions in the Black community were an opposition to Garvey, which was one of the reasons why it ultimately failed. Speaker 17: [inaudible] lose influence in the 1930s out of the pressure of the Great Depression seemed to be the Defender was perhaps the most outstanding newspaper in America. And I mean [inaudible]. At the time it was encouraging migration, but I suspect that- Robert Washingt...: Lost influence? Speaker 17: ... of the economic depression. [inaudible] Robert Washingt...: I really don't know. I don't know. Speaker 18: You mentioned that incident [inaudible] riots [inaudible] from while he was waiting in line. Wright mentioned somewhere, I've forgotten where, but it may be in the introduction [inaudible] that one of the times where he first really had an emotional sense of Black community, the first time was when he was waiting in line and saw all the other Black people out of work. I wondered if you would put that in the context of your general [inaudible] of social [inaudible]- Robert Washingt...: No, that was Marxist. It was Marxist. Speaker 18: Well, all right. Robert Washingt...: Yeah. Speaker 18: Theory or his- Robert Washingt...: First of all, Marx had no use for rural life. He didn't have much to say about it other than it was idiotic, but he talks about how strategic it is to bring these people into an urban context, because then they can become a group. The distinction between existing as a group on itself and for itself that would all of a sudden develop a consciousness and so on. Robert Washingt...: That was indicative of a Marxist kind of analysis when he was talking about the way these people, who had normally been isolated, were talking to each other and developing a consciousness. There's no sociology that he was kind of exposed to that would have given him that. Speaker 18: So whatever sense of Black community he got came primarily from the Marxists. Robert Washingt...: Yeah, And I'm not sure whether that sense, whether it proletarian sense of now we're really all coming together and this crisis is really kind of sufficient now. And that's the way Marx saw it, that you need to bring the people into the urban area, and as the economic system of capitalism breaks down, that the masses will rise. Wright was using that analogy. Speaker 19: [inaudible] Yeah, that's the blueprint for nuclear rioters. Now fully in the [inaudible]. And the Marxism he's talking about also ... [inaudible] kind of a match [inaudible] Wright has. He felt that another way that the folklore of Black people and pride a nationalistic [inaudible] powerful [inaudible]. But it had to be Moses in line with the Marxian claims. But it isn't the full idea of the big commentary [inaudible] America. And also [inaudible] notion of the whole United States, which was a [inaudible] the 1930s. Robert Corrigan: They used to arrive at the [inaudible] and bill himself into the reality of the Marxist [inaudible]. Robert Corrigan: Could I beg your indulgences for a couple more announcements?