But there are certain very practical things American Negro writers can do. And must do. There’s a song that says, “the time ain’t long.” That song is right. Something has got to change in America-and change soon. We must help that change to come.
A picture, to be an interesting picture, must be more than a picture, otherwise it is only a reproduction of an object, and not an object of value in itself.
Politics in any country in the world is dangerous. For the poet, politics in any country had better be disguised as poetry. Politics can be the graveyard of the poet. And only poetry can be his resurrection.
The first of the month falls every month, too, North or South. And them white folks who sends bills never forgets to send them-the phone bill, the furniture bill, the water bill, the gas bill, insurance, house rent.
I did not believe political directives could be successfully applied to creative writing . . . not to poetry or fiction, which to be valid had to express as truthfully as possible the individual emotions and reactions of the writer.
We younger Negro artists who create now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased we are glad. If they aren?t it doesn?t matter.
