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BOOK REVIEW DENT after a labored penetration through the opaque waters of academic jargon one discovers no fresh insights into the nature of racism in America, no point of view, no philosophy. One finds facts and facts, but no revelation. Political activity by Negroes, in Chicago or anywhere else in America, is a story of how the impotent must become potent. This reviewer therefore heartily recommends the Autobiography of Malcom X. Thomas C. Dent WILL WHITE AMERICA GET THE MESSAGE? ANGER, AND BEYOND. Edited by Herbet Hill. Harper & Row, New York. 212 pages. $5.95. Little more than a year ago, novelist William Demby stated that the American Negro writer is "free from the need to protest," while author-sociologist Calvin Hernton suggested that "to be a serious black writer is to annihilate America from the ground up!" The latter's criterion notwithstanding, it is indeed likely that Demby thinks himself as serious as the incisive Hernton. Thus, we have two extreme views on Negro Writing, writing which, with its varying philosophies and wide range of psychological complexity, remains, to the country of its origin, a king of enigma- in spite of increased commercial popularity and intensified controversy. That the role of the Negro writer is more controversial today than ever is not surprising. It is, in fact, symbolic of Negro influence in America. (as theorized by many writers, both black and white). So at the heart of America we have a people, a black people, a people who survived slavery and the long road of pathos that followed, who produced- among other things- writers. If America is relevant then so also are her black writers. It then follows that one of the year's most important books is Anger, and Beyond ("The Negro Writer in the United States"), a book of essays (and a symposium) edited by NAACP labor secretary Herbert Hill, whose previous anthology was Soon, One Morning. The book's subtitle is taken from the highly successful seminar of the same name, conducted at the University of California, Berkeley, during the summer of 1964, directed by Mr. Hill. The book is, 271
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