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BOOK REVIEW JACKSON of life in the larger society, thanks to more sophisticated audiences. Langston Hughes is no newcomer to Negro humor. In his very funny and penetrating Simple books he delightfully pokes fun at the incongruities of life as they affect the Negro American. His most recent work The Book of Negro Humor allows the reader to get a full view and even enjoy how Negro Humor allows the reader to get a full view and even enjoy how Negro Americans from all walks of life interpret their own behavior and condition as well as that of the white man. Hughes has collected pieces from vaudeville, sports, men of letters, folklore and even television. Some of the pieces have been around among Negro audiences for many years and as Hughes says, "A great many jokes with which Negroes regale each other but seldom tell white folks are hardly complimentary to themselves. Mantan Moreland, one of the favorite older Negro comics who toured the vaudeville circuit playing mostly for Negro audiences, had a subtle humor that sometimes got a bit risque [(e accent)]. Stepin Fetchit, with his rolling eyes, listlessly shuffling along with hat in hand, was never a real favorite among Negro film audiences, but he turned his white audiences over in laughter. Contrast this with Dick Gregory, a "Cool Comic," who tells a joke, perhaps to an all-white audience, on Governor Orval Faubus being caught in an air raid while he is passing through a Negro neighborhood. The question that arises among Negroes in the air raid shelter is, would Faubus accept protection in the same shelter with them? But as Gregory says, "My type of person is the one who builds a fallout shelter with a doorbell." Or take the joke about the Ku Klux Klansman who hires a Negro to baby-sit while he goes to a Klan meeting. Among Hughes' selections are jokes on the Negro preacher that depict some preachers as comical and great chicken-eaters. But as we can all laugh at these storis now since Martin Luther King has whipped the conscience of a nation. And to take a look at the other side of the con, one gets a realistic glimpse of life in the short poem, "Look at That Gal," penned by Julian Bond: Look at that Gal Shake that thing We cannot all be Martin Luther King.... There are in Mr. Hughes' book selected tales from Texas and Louisiana. Tales that have no known authors, but that ring of the "true" folk tale, some of which go back a hundred years or more. One need not think any more that Joel Chandler Harris and his 281
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[(I tried Alt-130 to get the e accent, but it didn't work)]