American Hunger by Richard Wright Page A

life reflected the crude hopes and frustrations of the peasant in the city. Distrustful but aggressive, he was a bundle of the weaknesses and virtues of a man struggling blindly between two societies, of a man living on the margin of a culture. I felt that if I could get his story I would make known some of the difficulties inherent in the adjustment of a folk people to an urban environment; I would make his life more intelligible to othersthan it was to himself. I would reclaim his disordered days and cast them into a form that people could grasp, see, understand, and accept.
    I approached Ross and explained my plan. He was agreeable. He invited me to his home, introduced me to his Jewish wife, his young son, his friends. I talked to Ross for hours, explaining what I was about, cautioning him not to relate anything that he did not want to divulge.
    “I’m after the things that made you a Communist,” I said.
    It was arranged that I was to visit Ross each morning and take notes for two hours. At last, I thought, I would reveal dramas of hope, fear, love, and hate that existed in these humble people. I would make these lives merge with the lives of the mass of mankind. I knew I could. My life had prepared me for this.
    Word spread in the Communist party that I was taking notes on the life of Ross and strange things began to happen. A quiet black Communist came to my home one night and called me out to the street to speak to me in private. He made a prediction about my future that frightened me.
    “Intellectuals don’t fit well into the party, Wright,” he said solemnly.
    “But I’m not an intellectual,” I protested. “I sweep the streets for a living.” I had just been assigned by the relief system to sweep the streets for thirteen dollars a week.
    “That doesn’t make any difference,” he said. “We’ve kept records of the trouble we’ve had with intellectuals in the past. It’s estimated that only 13 per cent of them remain in the party.”
    “Why do they leave, since you insist upon calling me an intellectual?” I asked.
    “Most of them drop out of their own accord,” he said.
    “Well, I’m not dropping out,” I said.
    “Some are expelled,” he hinted gravely.
    “For what?”
    “General opposition to the party’s policies,” he said.
    “But I’m not opposing anything in the party.”
    “But you have to prove yourself.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “You’ll have to prove your revolutionary loyalty.”
    “That’s what I’m trying to do through writing.”
    “That’s not the way to do it,” he said. “You must act.”
    “How?”
    “The party has a way of testing people.”
    “Well, talk. What is this?”
    “How do you react to police?”
    “I don’t react to them,” I said. “I’ve never been bothered by them.”
    “Do you know Evans?” he asked, referring to a local, militant Negro Communist.
    “Yes. I’ve seen him; I’ve met him.”
    “Did you notice that he was injured?”
    “Yes. His head was bandaged.”
    “He got that wound from the police in a demonstration,” he explained. “That’s proof of revolutionary loyalty.”
    “Do you mean that I must get whacked over the head by cops to prove that I’m sincere?” I asked.
    “I’m not suggesting anything,” he said. “I’m explaining.”
    “That’s a primitive way to measure sincerity,” I gasped.
    “It’s a practical way,” he said.
    “Look, suppose a cop whacks me over the head and I suffer a brain concussion. Suppose I’m nuts after that? Can I write then? What will I have proven?”
    He did not answer. He shook his head.
    “The Soviet Union has had to shoot a lot of intellectuals,” he said.
    “Good God!” I exclaimed. “Do you know what you’re saying? You’re not in Russia. You’re standing on a sidewalk in Chicago. You talk like a man lost in a fantasy.”
    He said nothing. I did not know that the notes I was taking of Ross’s life were being discussed by the local Communist leaders,