Read, Baby, Read: A First Step to Action

“But what can I do?” White Americans have asked this question in regard to the racial crisis in our land so often it has become a cliché. Discussions with blacks usually yield the answer: Go home and get yourself together. Try to begin to understand what is involved in the problem.

“The greatest thing you can do is deal with the problem where you are,” says black evangelist Tom Skinner. “White society has to have its attitude changed.”

In the Chicago Daily News, columnist L. F. Palmer, Jr., wrote: “Many do not recognize the new mood of the black man because they simply do not want to. Others cannot comprehend because their isolation makes it impossible to understand the kind of life a black person lives in this country.”

At the recent U. S. Congress on Evangelism, white evangelist Leighton Ford warned: “If we do not seek to heal the gaping, rubbed-raw wounds of racial strife, then we shall deserve ‘the fire next time.’ It is to the shame of the Christian Church that we have been so slow to face the demands of the Gospel in the racial revolution.”

Before one can begin to solve any problem, says Palmer, “there must be an honest understanding of what the problem is. There is one answer, then, to the perplexed white American who asks in obvious sincerity: ‘What can I do?’ The answer: embark on a mission of undertanding.”

An evangelical pastor who has worked to foster friendly relations between blacks and whites in the inner city points out that “understanding precedes fellowship.” One cannot begin to understand others until he begins to feel with them, to gain insight into their lives, and to respect them.

The vicarious experience of reading is an excellent means of launching the journey to understanding. But the knowledge explosion has hit this subject as well as many others, and the number of books available is enough to make a librarian turn pale. How can a person who wants to become more informed about the racial crisis decide which books would be most helpful?

The following list of suggested reading is the result of a survey of eleven evangelicals, both black and white, who are well acquainted with the racial situation and with the current literature. The respondents included an editor, historian, sociologist, anthropologist, author, evangelist, pastor, social worker, college professor, graduate student, and counselor. Each was asked to recommend ten books. The ten with the most votes make up a mini-library that is available in paperback for about $15. They are listed in order of popularity, with the number of votes each received given in parentheses. Each book received a vote from at least one of the black respondents.

1. The Autobiography of Malcolm X (nine), by Malcolm X and Alex Haley (Grove Press, 1966, 460 pages, $1.25). From tape-recorded conversations, black writer Alex Haley put together the memoirs of this onetime Black Muslim leader. Malcolm X never expected to live long enough to read the results, and he proved to be a prophet. Assassins’ bullets cut him down in February, 1965. This is the story of a former thief, dope peddler, and pimp who rose to become a leader of the black revolution. Initially committed to the Black Muslim separatist philosophy, Malcolm broke with Elijah Muhammad and his racist doctrines in 1964. After his conversion to the Orthodox Islamic religion, he set to work to build what he called “an all-black organization whose ultimate objective would be to help create a society in which there could exist an honest white-black brotherhood.” He pointed black Americans toward an ultimate awareness of themselves and their individual worth. This emotion-packed account of a sensitive, proud, highly intelligent black leader cannot be ignored.
2. Crises in Black and White (eight), by Charles E. Silberman (Vintage, 1964, 370 pages, $1.95). This perceptive and accurate diagnosis probably gives more solid information than any other book written on race relations in the United States in recent years. Silberman, a member of the board of editors of Fortune magazine, sees blacks and whites trapped together in a vicious circle from which no one seems able to escape. But they must escape. A man cannot deny the humanity of his fellow man without ultimately destroying his own. “If we cannot learn now to reorder the relations between black and white we will never be able to handle the new problems of the age in which we find ourselves.” Without sustained preaching or special pleading, Silberman reflects a kind of social and moral commitment that is badly needed today.
3. Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (six), (Bantam, 1968, 609 pages, $1.25). After the racial disorders of the summer of 1967, President Johnson established the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders to discover answers to three basic questions: What happened? Why did it happen? What can be done to prevent it from happening again? This report (the “Kerner Report”) places the blame on “white, moderate, responsible America.” Its basic conclusion: America is moving toward two societies, one black and one white, separate and unequal. But racial division is not inevitable. Common opportunities for all can be realized within a single society, the commission believes, and it makes numerous recommendations for bringing this to pass. But it warns that to achieve this all Americans will have to undergo some changes of attitude, and acquire new understanding and new will. A twenty-nine-page summary is included in the opening pages of this detailed, sobering document.

1. Black Power: The Politics of Liberation in America (six), by Stokely Carmichael and Charles Hamilton (Vintage, 1967, 198 pages, $1.95). In this outstanding statement of the philosophy of black power, the authors explain the origins, development, and goals of the movement. Disclaiming the idea that “democratic” America will allow democracy for all people, they argue that a revolutionary approach is needed. Blacks must build their own power base from which they can make substantial and lasting improvements in their lives. With this independent power they can enter coalitions with white organizations and gain equal decision-making authority.
2. Dark Ghetto: Dilemmas of Social Power (five), by Kenneth B. Clark (Torch, 1965, 251 pages, $1.75). This scholarly and impassioned study of the black man’s environment explodes the fallacy that inhabitants of the ghetto are responsible for their own condition. Dr. Clark, psychology professor at City College of New York, writes from his experiences as chief consultant to Harlem Youth Opportunities Unlimited. He analyzes the poverty, crime, low aspirations, family instability, and exploitation of the blacks, and presents facts about the political, religious, economic, and intellectual leadership that raises questions about their effectiveness in dealing with ghetto conditions.
3. Black Rage (five), by William H. Grier and Price M. Cobbs (Bantam, 1969, 179 pages, $.95). Two assistant professors of psychiatry at the University of California Medical Center (San Francisco) tell of the desperation, conflict, and anger of the black man’s life in America today. They give insight into the history of black men, methodically dehumanized and exploited by society; the development of womanhood and manhood; marriage and family life; character traits; education; mental illness; and many other subjects. The message is grim: It is still no easy thing to be a black person in America. The New York Times calls Black Rage “one of the most important books on the Negro to appear in the last decade.”

1. Soul on Ice (five), by Eldridge Cleaver (Dell, 1968, 210 pages, $1.95). The essays and letters collected in this book were written while the Black Panther leader was in California’s Folsom State Prison. (He now is self-exiled in Algeria, to escape return to prison for a parole violation.) Cleaver tells—sometimes with sweeping generalizations—about the forces that shaped his life and are currently affecting our national destiny. Included are sections on the Watts riots and Cleaver’s religious conversion. The major theme of the book is hatred. Cleaver “rakes our favorite prejudices with the savage claws of his prose until our wounds are bare, our psyche is exposed, and we must either fight back or laugh with him for the service he has done us.” Soul on Ice is a disturbing report of what a black man reacting to a society he detests can become.
2. Before the Mayflower: A History of the Negro in America, 1619–1964 (four), by Lenore Bennett, Jr. (Penguin, 1966, 435 pages, $2.45). This survey evokes the tragedy and the glory of the black man’s role in the American past. It begins with the American Negro’s origins in the great empires of the Nile Valley and the western Sudan and concludes with the black revolt of the 1960s. In a highly readable and provocative style, the senior editor of Ebony magazine tells of the part black Americans played during the colonial period, the Revolutionary War, the slavery era, the Civil War, the years of reconstruction, and the period from Booker T. Washington to Martin Luther King, Jr. The book has both emotional and intellectual impact, though as history it is limited by its partisan approach.
3. The Souls of Black Folk (four), by W. E. B. DuBois (Fawcett, 1961, 192 pages, $.75). This classic volume established DuBois as a leading voice of the twentieth-century civil-rights movement. As early as 1903, when the book first appeared, this distinguished social historian called the color line the problem of the century. No serious research in the field of black America can fail to take account of this penetrating and powerful work. DuBois sets forth the spiritual world in which black Americans live and strive and reveals the black man’s feelings as he struggles for his inalienable human rights in this land of the free and home of the brave. In expressing the soul of one people in a time of great stress, DuBois shows its kinship with the timeless soul of all mankind.

1. The Fire Next Time (four—including two votes cast for “any Baldwin book”), by James Baldwin (Dell, 1962, 141 pages, $.75). The fire this black autobiographer kindles burns the reader. James Baldwin, one of the most powerful essayists on the contemporary scene, was once a boy preacher in a Harlem store-front church. He pulls together his fragmented thoughts into a single summary statement: “We, the black and white, deeply need each other if we are really to become a nation.” His book issues a strong warning that it is later than we think.

Three other books received three votes each: My Friend the Enemy, by William E. Pannell (Word), and For This Time, by Howard O. Jones (Moody), and The Other America, by Michael Harrington (Penguin).

The reader should try to approach all these books with an open mind. The white Christian will not like all that these men say, but understanding involves listening.

These authors cannot be dismissed because they are not evangelicals. To read only those whose views are similar to one’s own is little more than listening to oneself talk. “This might be very enjoyable, but it is not likely to be very profitable,” comments Lowell Schoer, professor of education at the University of Iowa. “It is, in fact, likely to be not only unprofitable for us as individuals but quite possibly fatal for us as a society.”

It is well, though, to try to gain some perspective on the various authors before reading their works. Dr. Ron Rietveld, history professor at California State College at Fullerton, cautions that “in reading current literature on black history it is wise to have an awareness of the author’s bias and background so one can perceive his intent and integrate it into constructive thinking.” For example, he disagrees with Bennett’s view of Lincoln as a white racist.

This listing will not meet the needs of all readers. Where a person is in his thinking will determine which books will be most helpful. One respondent warned that “some of the books are so stark that you have to come in gradually or you can’t take what the author presents. However, we have to have the courage to face what these books say.” Reading Baldwin or Cleaver for the first time can be a shocking experience. For the beginning reader, Sarah P. Boyle’s The Desegrated Heart: A Virginian’s Stand in Time of Transition (Apollo) might be a good starting place.

Further insight may be gained by reading the leading black magazines, Ebony, Tan, and Jet. Ebony has a useful column on books. Another aid is The Other Side (formerly Freedom Now; available from Box 158, Savannah, Ohio 44874), an evangelical bi-monthly publication devoted to helping readers sense the needs of others, particularly in social areas.

Black evangelist Tom Skinner testifies that “the white community doesn’t know us—they don’t read Elijah Muhammad’s speeches or Stokely Carmichael’s book on black power or anything.” His associate William Pannell confirms this opinion: “We keep educating the wrong people. It’s the white suburbanite who needs the black studies.”

“But what can I do?” ask concerned white Americans. Well, as a first step, set out on a mission of understanding; try to learn what it is like to be a black in white America. Read, baby, read!

Lois M. Ottaway is manager of the News Service at Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois. She holds the B.S. (Kansas State University) and M.A. (University of Iowa).

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