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Books by Marcus Bruce
Christian
Song of the Black Valiants: Marching Tempo
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High Ground: A Collection of Poems /
Negro soldiers in the Battle of New Orleans
I Am New Orleans:
A Poem
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Negro Ironworkers of Louisiana, 1718–1900 /
The Liberty Monument
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Marcus B. Christian and
the WPA
History of Black People
in Louisiana
By Jerah Johnson
Department of History, University of
New Orleans
The piece in the
Summer 1978 issue of Louisiana History on “The
Federal Writers Project for Blacks in Louisiana,”
especially its conclusion, may give rise to
misunderstanding. Therefore, I offer the following in
the hope that it will lay most of the questions to rest.
There is no mystery
about the fate of the materials collected by the
WPA Dillard
Writers Project or the manuscript history of black
people in Louisiana by the project’s remarkable
director, Marcus
B. Christian. The materials—and it was not a large
collection—were left at the Dillard library in the
custody of the former head of the project, Marcus B.
Christian. The collection consisted primarily of notes
cards drawn from various published sources but mostly
from the city’s nineteenth- and twentieth-century
newspaper. Unlike projects in other states, the black
investigators in Louisiana did not collect many oral
histories of former slaves.
The collection of
notes on cards, taken by various workers, were the basis
for a number of studies written by the project’s staff,
studies that were to be eventually distilled into a
history of black people in Louisiana by the director,
Marcus Christian.
Some of the studies done by the project staff seem to
have turned up, at least in substance, in the Guides
published by the statewide WPA Writers Project. The rest
Christian began working into the planned history, and
continued on his own after the project officially shut
down in early 1943.
After Christian
left Dillard in 1950, the collection was closed and
stored in the upstairs of the old library building.
Subsequently, storm rains damaged the greater part of
the collection beyond restoration. Only a small portion
of the cards and other materials were saved. They remain
at the Dillard library today.
Fortunately,
Marcus Christian had made extensive notes on the
collection, including duplicates of the original note
cards for his personal use. When he left Dillard, he
took those, as well as his manuscript history with him.
And he continued to work on the manuscript, on and off,
for the rest of his life. After Christian’s death in
1976, his family deposited the manuscript in the
collection of historical materials that he had already
organized at the University of New Orleans where he
spent the last six years of his life as Special Lecturer
and Writer-in-Residence.
The collection,
including Christian’s notes from the Dillard Project as
well as his manuscript and his other, rather more
substantial materials, have been available to all
scholars and students at the Archives of the University
of New Orleans Library for more than a year.
The real mystery
and tragedy of the matter have to do with the question
why so many forgot about this man or cared so little
about his work. He was, of course, not a trained and
accredited academic. Born near Houma, Louisiana in 1898,
Christian symbolized the painful trek of Black people in
our state. His father-teacher had survived
Reconstruction and encouraged his son to write poetry
and to believe in himself. After his arrival in New
Orleans, Christian fashioned himself into a writer and
student of Black history. Some recognized and encouraged
his talents such as
Lyle
Saxon,
Rudolph Moses, W.E.B.
DuBois, Benjamin
Quarles, and
Charles Rousseve.
The support which
society in general and universities in particular gave
to such men and their work was always temporary and
insufficient. Christian understood this tragedy and
dedicated his life, despite terrible personal
sacrifices, to the continuation of his major life’s
work. His inability to finish the manuscript is a
complicated story known only by his closest friends.
It was difficult
for Christian to bring the work to completion. It had
become his dream and his life-line to dignity and
personal esteem. Some grew discouraged when he did not
quickly finish the project. But he had no patron; he had
no publisher; and, after he left Dillard, he had no
regular income or leisure. Indeed, he sank into
desperate poverty. He grew understandably suspicious of
many and gathered up his manuscript and his copies of
the WPA materials in a Ninth Ward shack, hoping someday
to complete the history. He believed that hardly anyone
cared what happened to him or the materials. A few, to
be sure, like
Atty. A. P. Tureaud, tried to raise funds through
subscriptions within the Black community in order to
publish the manuscript. The obstacles facing such a
project, however, proved insurmountable. Christian tried
desperately to pull off the task singlehandedly: drove
himself to master the art of handset type and printing
but managed to complete only several collections of his
poems.
In 1968, efforts
succeeded on the part of some, including
A. P. Tureaud and
Joseph Logsdon, to provide Christian with a position
at the University of New Orleans where he could continue
his work on his own terms and conditions. In the next
six years, Christian completed an important monograph,
Negro Ironworkers of Louisiana; a major poem, “I
Am New Orleans”; and several articles in different
journals. He also sent his manuscript to several
publishers, including LSU Press and Macmillan, but had
it summarily rejected each time.
Perhaps with
greater academic tone and some updated research, the
manuscript would have gained more serious consideration
from a publisher. Christian, however, jealously guarded
the work, did not invite alteration of his creation.
After his death, I considered organizing a project to
edit the manuscript and seek its publications. But
because the manuscript was in far from finished
condition—really little more than a collection of raw
materials arranged topically—and because much of what it
contained had been available by the more complete
scholarship of others, I finally judged that the best
disposition was to place it with the rest of his
collection.
Christian is not
the first artist to leave an unfinished masterpiece. It
remains today an open monument to document the history
of Black Louisianians and to encourage further work and
study. It also remains unfinished to mock all those
forces that made for the tragedy of Christian’s life and
work.
In conclusion, let
me add that the University of New Orleans is in the
process of establishing a Marcus B. Christian
Lectureship in his honor. Several distinguished scholars
and artists who knew of his work will initiate the
series this year. Christian deserved this and much more.
Source:
Louisiana History • Vol. XX • No. 1 • 1979
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Marcus Bruce
Christian
Selected Diary Notes
/ Selected Poems
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Selected Letters
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Profiles on Marcus Bruce Christian and the Federal
Writers Project
Bryan, Violet Harrington.
The Myth of New Orleans in Literature.
Knoxville: University of Tennessee, 1993.
Clayton, Ronnie W. “The Federal
Writers Project for Blacks in Louisiana.” Louisiana
History 19(1978): 327-335.
Dent, Tom. “Marcus
B. Christian: A Reminiscence and an Appreciation.”
Black American Literature Forum, 1984, Volume 18,
Issue 1, pp. 22-26.
Hessler, Marilyn S. “Marcus
Christian: The Man and His Collection.” Louisiana
History 1 (1987):37-55.
Johnson, Jerah. “Marcus B.
Christian and the WPA History of Black People in
Louisiana.” Louisiana History 20.1 (1979):
113-115.
Larson, Susan. “Poems in the Key of Life.” Times-Picayune (Book Section), July 4,
1999.
Lewis, Rudolph. “Introduction.”
I Am New Orleans and Other Poems by Marcus Bruce
Christian. Edited by Rudolph Lewis and Amin Sharif.
New Orleans: Xavier Review Press, 1999. Reprinted in
revised form in Dillard Today 2.3 (2000): 21-24.
Lewis, Rudolph. “Magpies,
Goddesses, & Black Male Identity in the Romantic Poetry
of Marcus Bruce Christian.” Paper presented at
College Language Association, April 2000, Baltimore, MD.
Lewis, Rudolph. “Marcus
Bruce Christian and a Theory of a Black Aesthetic.”
Paper presented at the Zora Neale Hurston Society
Conference held June 1999 at University of Maryland
Eastern Shore. Published in ZNHS FORUM (Spring 2000).
Peterson, Betsy. “Marcus Christian:
Portrait of a Poet.” Dixie 18 (January 1970).
Redding, Joan. “The Dillard
Project: The Black Unit of the Louisiana Writers’
Project.” Louisiana History 32.1 (1991): 47-62
Source:
Wikipedia
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Southern Journey
A Return to the Civil Rights Movement
By
Tom Dent
A black
youth reared in segregated New Orleans, Dent
went to Mississippi for the civil rights
movement, and that experience stuck with
him. So in 1991, he decided to work his way
south from Greensboro, N.C., to Mississippi,
skirting both large cities and important
officials, to talk to (mostly) black folk
and to assess the movement's legacy. At
times, Dent's meandering approach lacks
depth and is unwieldy, but his personal
connection to his inquiry informs his story
with commitment. In Greensboro, the
unresolved gap between blacks and whites,
exemplified in an anniversary celebration of
the city's historic sit-ins, remind Dent "of
the strained interracial meetings of the
1950s." |
In Orangeburg, S.C., a black academic
tells him ruefully that many social-work students go
into "criminal justice" lacking the broader awareness of
the politics behind the new programs. In Albany, Ga.,
Dent discerns signs of material progress but deep
divisions not only between the races but also within the
black community. In Mississippi, where he sees black
political victories as having had a relatively small
payoff, he becomes convinced that a new black
organization is needed to supplant the NAACP to address
national political issues of special concern to blacks
(education, unemployment) and to monitor cases of police
and official abuse and discrimination. Though not quite
a complete plan, it's a constructive response to Dent's
conclusion that the civil rights movement opened up
doors, but "once inside, well, there was hardly anything
there."—Publishers
Weekly
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Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in
America
By Melissa V.
Harris-Perry
According to the
author, this society has historically exerted
considerable pressure on black females to fit into one
of a handful of stereotypes, primarily, the Mammy, the
Matriarch or the Jezebel. The selfless
Mammy’s behavior is marked by a slavish devotion to
white folks’ domestic concerns, often at the expense of
those of her own family’s needs. By contrast, the
relatively-hedonistic Jezebel is a sexually-insatiable
temptress. And the Matriarch is generally thought of as
an emasculating figure who denigrates black men, ala the
characters Sapphire and Aunt Esther on the television
shows Amos and Andy and Sanford and Son, respectively.
Professor Perry
points out how the propagation of these harmful myths
have served the mainstream culture well. For instance,
the Mammy suggests that it is almost second nature for
black females to feel a maternal instinct towards
Caucasian babies.
As for the source
of the Jezebel, black women had no control over their
own bodies during slavery given that they were being
auctioned off and bred to maximize profits. Nonetheless,
it was in the interest of plantation owners to propagate
the lie that sisters were sluts inclined to mate
indiscriminately.
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Weep Not, Child
By
Ngugi wa Thiong'o
This is
a powerful, moving story that details the
effects of the infamous Mau Mau war, the
African nationalist revolt against colonial
oppression in Kenya, on the lives of
ordinary men and women, and on one family in
particular. Two brothers, Njoroge and Kamau,
stand on a rubbish heap and look into their
futures. Njoroge is excited; his family has
decided that he will attend school, while
Kamau will train to be a carpenter. Together
they will serve their country—the
teacher and the craftsman. But this is Kenya
and the times are against them. In the
forests, the Mau Mau is waging war against
the white government, and the two brothers
and their family need to decide where their
loyalties lie. For the practical Kamau the
choice is simple, but for Njoroge the
scholar, the dream of progress through
learning is a hard one to give up.—Penguin
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The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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Ancient African Nations
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Enjoy!
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
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The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
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Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery /
George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
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January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
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posted 31 January 2011
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