On the political level, Sarah Wright was most influenced by a strong Left tradition whose heroes and models in the black community were Paul Robeson, W.E.B. Dubois, and which had its literary representative in the 1960s in the journal Freedomways, edited by Esther Jackson. While Ms. Wright’s primary focus was on the plight of African-Americans, she embraces the struggles of all oppressed and exploited peoples–and that ideology and politics dictated the writing of This Child’s Gonna Live only in the sense that the subject matter of the book were working people, a poor peasant people rarely considered worthy of depiction, depicted with respect. And the depiction of the suboordinate status of women in the community, and the efforts of the women to cope with and in some cases to challenge that status did not come from any modern-day feminist consciousness of the author. Nor was the depiction of the giant Mariah inspired by a feminist consciousness. First and foremost it was inspired by the example of the real women who inhabited that community, especially Sarah Wright’s own mother, brought to us through Ms. Wright’s supreme artistry and expansive humanity.
That Black Nationalism should find This Child’s Gonna Live congenial to their world view because of its biting expose of white terror and plunder of Black people in the Depression south, that Feminism should find inspiration in the character of Mariah, surely one of the strongest heroines in American literature, is perfectly natural. But such ideologies, including Garveyism, are completely alien to the characters of Tangierneck. The character who speaks of Ethiopia stretching forth its wings is inspired by the Bible, not Garvey. And the fact is that the community, while strongly resentful of white racism look to the paternalism of rich whites to shield and assist them, even as they strove through the sweat of their brow to improve their condition or arrest the decline of that condition. They perceived that they lacked the strength to take on the system head-on, a realistic assessment in their time and place.
Further, it is important to note that there is no editorializing narrative voice, one that represents an awareness that goes beyond the community consciousness, one expressing the author’s own point of view. Nor is that point of view given voice by any character created to act as a stand-in for the author–a common literary device. There is no “prophetic” telescoping of the consciousness of a later generation.
All this is powerfully projected by a novelist who is at the same time a poet. The aesthetic qualities, the innovative form of the writing, is not often appreciated. Regardless, any discussion of the novel that does not lend time to dwell on the novel’s artistry is doing the work a grave injustice.
The link tying the people of Tangierneck to the mass struggles of the 1960s is not Garveyism nor any incipient manifestation of feminism. The continuity that exists in the movement around women’s rights–of which feminism is only one strand–was incarnated in the abundance of strong Black women, tempered by slavery and the trials of neo-slavery imposed after Reconstruction, a trail of strong women in the tradition of Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth right up to Fannie Lou Hamer and Ella Baker, a line of women who fought alongside their men, who plowed alongside their husbands–and often plowed alone. As for resistance to racist oppression, that is the story of Blacks in America in a long line of generations which led in a number of political directions, including that represented by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Black Nationalism, Pan-Africanism, and Left Radicalism. But for the rural people of Tangierneck and most other communities of the South, the path would be mainly to Dr. King, as the Southern civil rights movement later demonstrated.
This Child’s Gonna Live is a history textbook. It is a sociological case study–it is the proud affirmation of the dignity of Ms. Wright’s people. It is a beating heart bursting with love and compassion–it is music.
The novel should not be twisted into serving categories that suit contemporary academics, violating the book’s integrity. That this book is a monument to the greatness of the Black community, to the greatness of its men and the special power and greatness of its women, may hopefully inspire those who embrace Black Nationalism, as well as those who embrace Feminism. But above all it is meant to be an inspiration to all who seek a new kind of society of universal justice and peace.
