could not do some others. He was not going to live forever. He had recognized what people in this country have a great deal of trouble recognizing, that life is very difficult, very difficult for anybody , anybody born. Now, I don’t think people can be free until they recognize this.
In the same way Bessie Smith was much freer—always and
terrible as this may sound—much freer than the people who murdered her, or let her die, you know. And Big Bill Broonzy was a much freer man than the success-ridden people running around on Madison Avenue today. If you can accept the worst, as someone said to me, then you can see the best. But if you think life is a great big, glorious plum pudding, you’ll end up in the madhouse, which is where, you know . . .
To perhaps even extend the examples you just offered: the little girl who walked into the Little Rock schoolhouse, or the Charlotte, North Carolina, schoolhouse, and was spat on was much freer than the white child who sat there with a misconceived notion.
Yes, yes, exactly. Well, I think the proof that Negroes are much stronger in the South today is simply, you know—
She knew who she was.
She knew who she was. And after all, that child has been coming for a very long time. She didn’t come out of nothing. That Negro families are able to produce such children, whereas the good white people of the South have yet to make any appearance, proves something awful about the moral state of the South. Those people in Tallahassee who are never in the streets when the mobs are there, well, you know, why aren’t they? It’s their town, too.
What about someone like Lillian Smith? 1
Lillian Smith is a great—I think a very great—and heroic, and very lonely figure, obviously. She has very few friends in that little hamlet in Georgia where she carries on so gallantly. She’s paid a tremendous price for trying to do what she thinks is right. And the price is terribly, terribly high. The only way for the price to become a little less is for more people to pay it.
Of course, here is someone of the South, a minority of one, and perhaps there are a few prototypes here and there. This leads to the—I’m looking through your book now, and I feel guilty for not having finished it before interviewing you. I’m sure you have something about majority-minority, perhaps, about the majority is not necessarily right all the time.
The majority is usually—I hate to say this—wrong. I think there’s a great confusion in this country anyway about that.
Ibsen’s Enemy of the People.
Yes, yes. I really think seriously there’s a division of labor in the world. And some people are here to, I can see . . . Let me put it this way: There are so many things I’m not good at. I can’t drive a truck. I couldn’t run a bank. Well, all right. Other people have to do that. Well, in a way they’re responsible to me and I’m responsible to them, you know.
My responsibility to them is to try to tell the truth as I see it—not so much about my private life as about their private lives, you know. So that there is in the world a standard for all of us, which will get you through your trouble. Because your trouble’s always coming, you know. And Cadillacs don’t get you through it. And neither do psychiatrists, incidentally. All that gets you through it, really, is some faith in life, which is not so easy to achieve.
Now, when you talk about majorities and minorities, I always have the feeling that this country’s talking about a kind of popularity contest in which everybody works together toward some absolutely hideous, hideously material end. But in truth, I think that politicians—for example, in the South where it’s shown most clearly—I think all the southern politicians have failed their responsibility to the white people of the South. Somebody in the South must know that obviously the situation, the status quo, will not exist another hundred
In the same way Bessie Smith was much freer—always and
terrible as this may sound—much freer than the people who murdered her, or let her die, you know. And Big Bill Broonzy was a much freer man than the success-ridden people running around on Madison Avenue today. If you can accept the worst, as someone said to me, then you can see the best. But if you think life is a great big, glorious plum pudding, you’ll end up in the madhouse, which is where, you know . . .
To perhaps even extend the examples you just offered: the little girl who walked into the Little Rock schoolhouse, or the Charlotte, North Carolina, schoolhouse, and was spat on was much freer than the white child who sat there with a misconceived notion.
Yes, yes, exactly. Well, I think the proof that Negroes are much stronger in the South today is simply, you know—
She knew who she was.
She knew who she was. And after all, that child has been coming for a very long time. She didn’t come out of nothing. That Negro families are able to produce such children, whereas the good white people of the South have yet to make any appearance, proves something awful about the moral state of the South. Those people in Tallahassee who are never in the streets when the mobs are there, well, you know, why aren’t they? It’s their town, too.
What about someone like Lillian Smith? 1
Lillian Smith is a great—I think a very great—and heroic, and very lonely figure, obviously. She has very few friends in that little hamlet in Georgia where she carries on so gallantly. She’s paid a tremendous price for trying to do what she thinks is right. And the price is terribly, terribly high. The only way for the price to become a little less is for more people to pay it.
Of course, here is someone of the South, a minority of one, and perhaps there are a few prototypes here and there. This leads to the—I’m looking through your book now, and I feel guilty for not having finished it before interviewing you. I’m sure you have something about majority-minority, perhaps, about the majority is not necessarily right all the time.
The majority is usually—I hate to say this—wrong. I think there’s a great confusion in this country anyway about that.
Ibsen’s Enemy of the People.
Yes, yes. I really think seriously there’s a division of labor in the world. And some people are here to, I can see . . . Let me put it this way: There are so many things I’m not good at. I can’t drive a truck. I couldn’t run a bank. Well, all right. Other people have to do that. Well, in a way they’re responsible to me and I’m responsible to them, you know.
My responsibility to them is to try to tell the truth as I see it—not so much about my private life as about their private lives, you know. So that there is in the world a standard for all of us, which will get you through your trouble. Because your trouble’s always coming, you know. And Cadillacs don’t get you through it. And neither do psychiatrists, incidentally. All that gets you through it, really, is some faith in life, which is not so easy to achieve.
Now, when you talk about majorities and minorities, I always have the feeling that this country’s talking about a kind of popularity contest in which everybody works together toward some absolutely hideous, hideously material end. But in truth, I think that politicians—for example, in the South where it’s shown most clearly—I think all the southern politicians have failed their responsibility to the white people of the South. Somebody in the South must know that obviously the situation, the status quo, will not exist another hundred
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