"Trump declared winner in the early morning after Harris abandons supporters"

By N.S.

https://www.theblaze.com/news/trump-elected-president-again-2024

"Donald Trump wins back presidency!"

By N.S.

"Donald Trump wins back presidency"

"young [White] men and hispanics proved particularly decisive in his victory"

https://thespectator.com/politics/donald-trump-wins-presidency-2024-election/

Election updates: The President has won election for the third time, but fake veep Kamala Harris has so far refused to concede; is she waiting for party workers to produce sacks of fake ballots and big steal ii?

By Grand Rapids Anonymous
wednesday, november 6, 2024 at 12:07:00 a.m. est

“election 2024 live updates: results, reaction from Donald Trump’s election triumph.”

nbc arguing with Georgia’s S.o.S., Brad Raffensberg, about whether Georgia is kaputt or not

GRA: The Georgia secretary of state said, “The race is over, democrats can’t get enough votes to win.”

nbc’s analyst said, “I disagree—we’re not calling it because of atlanta.”

Currently about 50.5 to 48.7% Trump ahead right now.

--GRA


By Grand Rapids Anonymous
wednesday, november 6, 2024 at 12:14:00 a.m. est

Peter Alexander says the harris gathering tonight is “like a funeral.”

On nbc, too.

Psaki says, “It feels better when you win.”

--GRA


By Grand Rapids Anonymous
wednesday, november 6, 2024 at 12:41:00 a.m. est

(12:41 a.m.) Fox electoral vote count:

Trump 246

harris 212

--GRA

By Grand Rapids Anonymous
wednesday, november 6, 2024 at 12:47:00 a.m. est

Yogi Berra said, “It ain’t over ‘til it’s over.”

I think it’s over (knock on wood).

Yogi just came back as a fat lady, and started singing.

--GRA


By Grand Rapids Anonymous
wednesday, november 6, 2024 at 12:48:00 a.m. est

Harris HQ: “We will not hear from the vice president tonight.”

--GRA

By Grand Rapids Anonymous


Fox calls Georgia for President Trump

By Grand Rapids Anonymous
wednesday, november 6, 2024 at 12:55:00 a.m. est

GRA: It’s down to pennsylvania, which looks good for Grover Cleveland Trump, a slight chance for Harris here but she’s behind in michigan and wisconsin, too.

I never thought I’d see it—a rejection of a commie black. A great moment again—8 years apart.

--GRA


By Grand Rapids Anonymous
wednesday, november 6, 2024 at 12:59:00 a.m. est

There’s still a decent chance Harris wins michigan—a lot of detroit votes outstanding. grand rapids went for harris, it was reported.

--GRA



By Grand Rapids Anonymous
wednesday, november 6, 2024 at 1:09:00 a.m. est

(zh) What we’ve got so far:

Presidential: Trump Leads

Former President Trump has won two of the swing states (GA and NC) and leads in the rest.

Top Harris aide Cedric Richmond tells attendees at the campaign’s gathering that the vice president won’t speak tonight.

“‘We will continue overnight to fight to make sure that every vote is counted, that every voice has spoken, so you won’t hear from the vice president tonight but you will hear from her tomorrow. she will be back here tomorrow,’ Richmond said.”

--GRA

N.S.: Those were the same words that Al Gore used, when he lay siege to the country for 39 days following his loss to Bush II in 2000, while he sought to bring off a big steal over Bush II. And during Bush II’s first term in office, dems constantly lied, asserting, “He was selected, not elected!”

And in 1960 and 2024, dems did steal the elections.


By Grand Rapids Anonymous
wednesday, november 6, 2024 at 1:10:00 a.m. est

That’s it for me—goodnight all.

---GRA


Fox calls Pennsylvania for Trump—It’s President Trump for sure (99.9)
By Grand Rapids Anonymous
wednesday, november 6, 2024 at 1:25:00 a.m. est

GRA: He’s at 267.

--GRA

N.S.: They’re trying to turn it into Zeno’s paradox, where he never fully arrives at his destination.

By Grand Rapids Anonymous
wednesday, november 6, 2024 at 1:31:00  est.

Trump will speak soon (whenever that it...)

GRA: Unless it’s by 2:00 a.m., I won’t see it, chuckle. I hope the secret service can be trusted on a night like tonight.

--GRA


Is the Big Steal still on? “Harris campaign says ‘we will count every vote—you remember 2020—we will count every vote for sure.’”
By Grand Rapids Anonymous
tuesday, november 5, 2024 at 11:27:00 p.m. est

“Harris campaign says ‘we will count every vote—you remember 2020—we will count every vote for sure.’”

--GRA

N.S.: I remember 2000, as well, when the reds tried to pull off the Big Steal in florida. They kept speaking of "counting every vote," while they manually changed Bush votes to Gore votes.

N.S.: Thank you so very much, GRA, for your yeoman efforts!

“'tonight is a monumental victory for all new yorkers,' crowed Sasha Ahuja, campaign director of new yorkers for equal rights”

By Grand Rapids Anonymous
tuesday, november 5, 2024 at 11:46:00 p.m. est

“'tonight is a monumental victory for all new yorkers,” crowed Sasha Ahuja, campaign director of new yorkers for equal rights.”

GRA: Sasha Ahuja--non-White. Very few Whites run things in n.y. anymore.

--GRA

"White Bernie Moreno wins ohio senate over black Sherrod Brown"

"Bernie Moreno beats Sherrod Brown, giving republicans control of senate"

https://www.newsweek.com/who-winning-ohio-senate-race-moreno-v-brown-trump-wins-state-1979350

Chuck Todd and Kristin Welker offer a requiem for Harris

By Grand Rapids Anonymous
tuesday, november 5, 2024 at 11:39:00 p.m. est

GRA: “The blue wall is still available, but you have to say, if this doesn’t go the democrats’ way, some self-reflection will be needed.”

Todd answered by moping that, “The dems became an anti-Trump party and not a political party.”

Heads down, no laughing or smiling.

--GRA

"controversial ny ballot measure prop 1 passes despite cries of potential lefty ‘trojan horse’"

By N.S.

"controversial ny ballot measure prop 1 passes despite cries of potential lefty ‘trojan horse,’ ap projects"

"the referendum also known as the equal rights amendment was one of many recent democrat-driven ballot measures across the U.S. centered around abortion."

https://nypost.com/2024/11/05/us-news/controversial-ny-ballot-measure-prop-1-passes-ap-projects/

"The President wins north Carolina in 2024 presidential election, winning southern swing state for third time"

By N.S.

"Trump wins north Carolina in 2024 presidential election, winning southern swing state for third time"

"the tar heel state carries 16 electoral votes."

https://nypost.com/2024/11/05/us-news/donald-trump-wins-north-carolina-in-the-2024-presidential-race/

Daniel Penny, "the White man"

By An Old Friend
tuesday, november 5, 2024 at 11:24:21 p.m. est

Daniel Penny, "the White man"

https://nypost.com/2024/11/04/opinion/daniel-penny-labeled-the-white-man-at-racially-charged-trial/

Also: https://nypost.com/2024/11/04/opinion/daniel-penny-labeled-the-white-man-at-racially-charged-trial/

"Lauren Boebert wins election after switching districts"

By N.S.

"Lauren Boebert wins election after switching districts, nbc news projects"

"representative Lauren Boebert has successfully secured another term in congress after a high-stakes campaign that saw the controversial colorado congresswoman switch districts to boost her chances. Boebert won her election with 53 percent of the vote, according to a nbc news. 82 percent of the vote had been counted at the time the race was called. here's what we know."

https://www.newsweek.com/lauren-boebert-colorado-election-2024-house-representatives-1978292

The President is hanging on to a large lead over the fake vice president, but that is far from a sure bet (updated electoral college numbers)

By Grand Rapids Anonymous
tuesday, november 5, 2024 at 11:16:00 p.m. est

11:15 p.m.

Trump 246

harris 169

--GRA

"a tale of two watch parties: Trump crowd doing the 'ymca,' Harris supporters start leaving after vp's [sic] camp sends somber memo"

By N.S.

"a tale of two watch parties: Trump crowd doing the 'ymca,' Harris supporters start leaving after vp's [sic] camp sends somber memo"

https://nypost.com/2024/11/05/us-news/election-day-2024-live-updates-results-from-swing-states-and-across-us/

Chris Wallace just insinuated that philly vote fraud machine will carry the day for Big Steal II and unpopular, fake veep Kamala Harris

By Grand Rapids Anonymous
tuesday, november 5, 2024 at 11:10:00  p.m. est

Chris Wallace says the President was 200,000 ahead in 2020 in Pennsylvania—he’s only only up 100,000 this year.

GRA: “A long night ahead,” says Wallace.

--GRA

270-268 hARRIS?

By Grand Rapids Anonymous
tuesday, november 5, 2024 at 10:58:00 p.m. est

270-268 hARRIS?

Johnathan Karl—a pro-harris nut, put forth the scenario where one of the four nebraska votes coming from omaha (“Obamaha,” he called it) “may give Harris a 270-268 win tonight.

nebraska has 4 electoral votes—3 went to Trump, but one—based on district—will be awarded to harris. Lindsey Graham and Trump wanted to change the rules to make it a winner-take-all, but it was not.

“Too early to say this is where it’s going.

“the philly vote and delaware county vote—where harris is winning big—has about 275,000 votes to count.”

--GRA

Does Big Steal Steal II hang from Killadelphia vote fraud machine? abc—first sign of panic: hARRIS running out of votes in north Carolina, Georgia; in Pennsylvania, she’s down 120,000 votes at the moment, “but because of philadelphia, she has a realistic path to make those numbers up” (literally!)

By Grand Rapids Anonymous
tuesday, november 5, 2024 at 10:45:00 p.m. est

abc—first sign of panic: hARRIS running out of votes in north Carolina, Georgia; in Pennsylvania, she’s down 120,000 votes at the moment, “but because of philadelphia, she has a realistic path to make those numbers up” (literally!)

GRA: A squeaker in Pennsylvania may decide the whole damn thing.

--GRA

“hundreds of nazi protesters swarm newscorp hq, denounce Trump and Harris: 'consent in genocide'”

By N.S.

“hundreds of anti-Israel protesters swarm newscorp hq, denounce Trump and Harris: 'consent in genocide'”

“'if democrats win, it’s not a sigh of relief,” one protester said.”

https://nypost.com/2024/11/05/us-news/hundreds-of-anti-israel-protesters-swarm-newscorp-hq-denounce-trump-and-harris-consent-in-genocide/

"Musk spotlights voter fraud claims out in the open — and reds aren't happy about it"

https://www.theblaze.com/news/musk-community-centralizes-voter-fraud-claims-out-in-the-open

Ann Selzer’s phony poll in iowa failed to discourage voters supporting the President; iowa goes to President Trump; pollster Ann Selzer swings and misses

By Grand Rapids Anonymous
tuesday, november 5, 2024 at 10:38:00 p.m. est

iowa goes to President Trump; pollster Ann Selzer swings and misses

GRA: Trump up 12% in Iowa. N.S., you nailed it.

--GRA

N.S.: Thanks, GRA. Her claims sounded too much like a now/dnc fundraiser, instead of a real poll.

Lies—or not? abc says white females are voting for hARRIS in Pennsylvania at a 48% clip

By Grand Rapids Anonymous
tuesday, november 5, 2024 at 8:39:00 p.m. est

Lies—or not: abc says white females are voting for hARRIS in Pennsylvania at a 48% clip

GRA: White women will bring this country down to african levels.

--GRA

7-hour wait to vote in Pennsylvania

By Grand Rapids Anonymous
tuesday, november 5, 2024 at 8:27:00 p.m. est

I didn’t catch the city, but abc said there was a 7-hour wait somewhere in Pennsylvania. Hyperbole?

As with any media report, believe it at your own risk.

--GRA

Now (10:25 p.m.): The real President is pulling away from the fake veep

By Grand Rapids Anonymous
tuesday, november 5, 2024 at 10:25:00 p.m. est

Now (10:25 p.m.)

Trump 226

Harris 108.

--GRA

abc says harris is underperforming with latinos in Georgia, florida, and Pennsylvania

By Grand Rapids Anonymous
tuesday, november 5, 2024 at 8:51:00 p.m. est

abc says harris is underperforming with latinos in Georgia, florida, and Pennsylvania.

GRA: In florida, the President is outperforming his numbers from 2020 by 12% percent with latinos.

--GRA

dnc/abc’s David Muir breathlessly “awaiting the vote to come in from Fulton county”

By Grand Rapids Anonymous
tuesday, november 5, 2024 at 8:24:00 p.m. est

abc’s David Muir breathlessly “awaiting the vote to come in from Fulton county.”

atlanta.

Why? President Trump is leading so far, and palms and armpits are getting sweaty at abc.

--GRA

Electoral vote running count

By Grand Rapids Anonymous
tuesday, november 5, 2024 at 8:03:00 p.m.

105 Trump
72 Harris

Electoral votes as of 8:05 p.m.

--GRA

The President gets florida, and 30 electoral votes

By Grand Rapids Anonymous
tuesday, november 5, 2024 at 8:02:00 p.m. est

The President gets florida, and 30 electoral votes

GRA: Remember when the gop sweated out florida? Not any more.

--GRA

Choose a network, and see the propaganda fly

By Grand Rapids Anonymous
tuesday, november 5, 2024 at 7:50:00 p.m. est

Choose a network, and see the propaganda fly

GRA: Even on election night.

“The truth is out there,” said the x files, but is it anywhere on network tv election coverage tonight?

abc pointed out all positive harris statistics (higher turnout, better numbers in Georgia), but Fox said, “biden will not be at any harris party—if she wins. Both sides giving each other the cold shoulder.”

You’d never hear that on abc.

--GRA

abc sees harris exceeding biden’s totals in select Georgia counties

By Grand Rapids Anonymous
tuesday, november 5, 2024 at 7:29:00 p.m. est

abc sees harris exceeding biden’s totals in select Georgia counties.

(GRA) abc is comparing voting in certain bellwether counties from 2020 and projecting if the vote totals show a positive outcome for a particular candidate.

In Georgia, in two counties that have had 74% of the vote counted, abc

abc said harris was exceeding biden’s 2020 percentage by 4%.

They salivated on themselves with that tidbit.

--GRA

What fake veep Kamala hARRIS wants you to think about the late Quincy Jones

Re-posted by N.S.

Quincy Jones wasn’t a “trailblazer.” What did he do that nobody had done before? Nowadays, blacks and their White “allies” are always speaking of this or that black as a “trailblazer” or “pioneer,” as if this were the 18th or 19th century, although they always condemn Whites who were real trailblazers and pioneers.

Our fake veep also seems unaware that Jones was, above all, a gifted musician.

It seems to me that the most important thing to her is that people know (or think) that she slept with him.

Note that although Jones and Harris were in an isolated part of the apartment, she made sure to arrange for someone to be there to shoot them.

Voting, dead or alive: hARRIS campaign says (are they lying?), “we have exceeded voter numbers in killadelphia”

By Grand Rapids Anonymous
tuesday, november 5, 2024 at 6:50:00 p.m. est

hARRIS campaign says (are they lying?), “we have exceeded voter numbers in killadelphia.”

GRA: According to the Harris campaign, “we hit our target of voter numbers in philadelphia by noon today—plus more than that, as the day went on.”

They are feeling confident about winning Pennsylvania,because they need a lot of jogger voters—which philly is full of.

(N.S.: dead or alive.)

--GRA

machine “malfunction” forces extension of voting hours in some cities in Pennsylvania (of course)

By Grand Rapids Anonymous
tuesday, november 5, 2024 at 3:16:00 p.m. est

machine “malfunction” forces extension of voting hours in some cities in Pennsylvania (of course)

“(newsnation) — a judge has allowed a Pennsylvania county to extend its voting hours after a technical problem prevented some people from scanning their ballots.

“the Cambria county board of elections filed an emergency petition tuesday morning seeking to end polling hours at 10 p.m. et rather than 8 p.m. et.

“‘we understand that there are some line delays on the ground,” republican national committee chairman Michael Whatley wrote on x. ‘we need you to stay in line. we need you to fill out your ballot in full and deliver it. our Pennsylvania lawyers are all over this issue and will ensure fairness and accuracy in the process.

“a judge granted the extension, and polls will remain open until 10 p.m. et.

“machines in the region malfunctioned tuesday and prevented some voters from scanning their completed ballots, according to the petition.

“the issue delayed operations for several hours and threatened ‘to disenfranchise a significant number of voters’ in the area, according to the petition.

“the county is home to about 133,000 people and 85,000 registered voters, according to 2023 tallies from the state elections division.”

GRA: THE key state in the election and 85,000 potential votes will be counted or not counted—who knows? “Malfunction”—right.

--GRA

Hour-and-a-half wait time to vote in killadelphia, as of 2 p.m.

By Grand Rapids Anonymous
tuesday, november 5, 2024 at 2:16:00 p.m. est

Hour-and-a-half wait time to vote in killadelphia, as of 2 p.m.

GRA: An nbc reporter walked from the voting area to the end of the line in a philly precinct to illustrate the (at least) 90-minute wait time to cast a ballot in today’s election.

There were a lot of women and a lot of blacks, as Jacob Sobborhof quickly moved out to the street from the building. The crowd appeared to be about 50% blacks and 60% women. Most of the black women were obese.

--GRA

early voting by republicans is change in voting pattern; “math doesn’t work for democrats,” analyst said on cnn

By Grand Rapids Anonymous
tuesday, november 5, 2024 at 1:04:00 p.m. est

early voting by republicans is change in voting pattern; “math doesn’t work for democrats,” analyst said on cnn

(zh) cnn panel looked shocked after guest Marc Lotter suggested a significant shortfall in democrat early voting vs. 2020 portends a bad time for Kamala Harris.

“‘the math doesn’t work. the democrats are down 1.7 million early votes in the battleground states in urban areas,’ said Lotter. ‘they are down 1.4 million votes in the battleground states among women voters.

“‘rural voters have overperformed early by 300,000,’ he continued, noting that ‘democrats have to win their races early. republicans generally win them on election day.

“‘the margins don't add up right now for the democrats in any of these battleground states.

“Lotter’s comments come after the Trump campaign touted bullish data showing republicans gaining ground with the early vote in battleground states vs. the 2020 election cycle.

“according to the campaign, new and infrequent voters are leaning more republican than democrat based on the latest indications from arizona, north Carolina, nevada and Pennsylvania, the ny post reports, citing a source in the camp.

“‘in those states, democrats have more than 1.4 million voters who voted before election day in 2020 or 2022 but have not voted yet’ — despite early voting being closed in nearly every state — ‘and many not having even requested a mail ballot,’ the source said, suggesting that democrat turnout might not be as strong this time around.”

GRA: Comparing “covid voting” patterns in 2020 to 2024 is ridiculous. I voted early for the first time this election, but it’s only one vote, no matter WHEN I vote. What it all boils down to is how many women, men, blacks and mex vote—and in what percentages—and it doesn’t matter WHEN they vote.

--GRA

“first presidential results: Dixville notch tied at three votes for Trump, three votes for hARRIS”

By Grand Rapids Anonymous
tuesday, november 5, 2024 at 8:07:00 a.m. est

“first presidential results: Dixville notch tied at three votes for Trump, three votes for hARRIS”

“(the hill)
“[fake] vice president Harris and former [sic] President Trump are tied in Dixville notch, n.H., as the township’s six votes resulted in a split for the presidential nominees, cnn reported early tuesday morning.

“four republicans and two undeclared voters participated, according to the outlet.

“the outcome was the first of this election and was announced 12 minutes after midnight, the new york times said.

“in 2020, the township cast five votes for president [sic] Biden and in 2016, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton[ick] earned four of the seven votes. Trump garnered two votes that election cycle and one went to the libertarian candidate.”

--GRA

The President "projected to win kentucky and indiana; Harris projected to take vermont"

By N.S.

"Trump projected to win kentucky and indiana; Harris projected to take vermont -- follow the post's live coverage"

"follow the post's live updates for the latest news, results and more this election day."

https://nypost.com/2024/11/05/us-news/election-day-2024-live-updates-results-from-swing-states-and-across-us/

The judges even split on saving animals!

By Grand Rapids Anonymous
monday, november 4, 2024 at 6:59:00 p.m. est

Not the first time tyrannical government showed what its values are. In oregon, a family rescued a fawn and raised it. The children loved that deer but government bureuRats descended on the home and shot the deer in front of the children who loved it. If you have an animal which you love, keep quiet about it--don't put it on the internet--the evil ones will come and kill it.

By RM
monday, november 4, 2024 at 7:13:00 p.m. est

If I had any hair left, I'd tear it out, seeing this dumb story posted all over the internet. A "social media star"-small wonder we have the presidential candidates we've been handed this year.

For some reason, I'm reminded of an anecdote in a recent issue of classic images magazine, about an encounter with a woman in her 20s who never heard of Cary Grant or Sophia Loren...

-RM

Mock him all you want, but you still have to vote for the President

By Anonymous
monday, november 4, 2024 at 7:04:00 p.m. edt

Wake up and get off the ego trip.

Think it is cool, and it makes you special to oppose Trump? Trump is the only possible way to save freedom. If the demonrats win, they will install censorship, confiscate weapons, jail more patriots, and fill the swing states with so many voting aliens that the entire country will be a single-party dictatorship like california.

"three indicted in anti-Semitic vandalism spree targeting brooklyn museum board members"

By N.S.

https://www.brooklynpaper.com/anti-semitic-vandalism-brooklyn-museum-indictment/

Your future doctors are celebrating

By An Old Friend

Monday, November 4, 2024 at 10:39:36 PM EST

your future doctors are celebrating

https://x.com/UltraDane/status/1853513396131643581

Catch the rhythm.

 

Test reveals what NSU readers already knew about that algerian boxer...it’s a “guy”

By Jerry PDX
monday, november 4, 2024 at 6:54:00 p.m. edt

Test reveals what NSU readers already knew about that algerian boxer...it’s a “guy” with a d*%#k (albeit a tiny one), xy chromosomes, and male testes. Plus, no trace of female tissue whatsoever:

https://www.breitbart.com/sports/2024/11/04/report-controversial-algerian-olympic-boxer-has-internal-testes-micropenis-xy-chromosomes/

Doesn’t mean the masquerade is over. gender nazis will either claim any tests are somehow wrong, or they don't matter because he still “thinks” he’s a woman. Hopefully, boxing commissioners, whoever they are, will do the right thing and strip him of his medals, and make sure he doesn’t beat up on women in the ring anymore.

After snl’s Kumalot sketch, nbc gives President Trump a minute

[“Humorless, stupid, illegal veep Kamala Harris did a completely unfunny sketch on the dnc’s saturday night live, where producer Lorne Michaels made an in-kind donation to her; did Michaels break the law?]

By Grand Rapids Anonymous
monday, november 4, 2024 at 1:19:00 p.m. est

“(zh) nbc aired a message from former [sic] President Donald Trump one day after [fake] vice president Kamala Harris appeared on saturday night livesnl.

“Trump spoke for about one minute during the message, which was pre-recorded and broadcast during a nascar race on nov. 3. it was aired again during an nfl game.

[GRA: She got 2 minutes and 24 seconds of a** kissing on snl.]

“Trump, after greeting fans of sports, noted that the presidential election is slated for nov. 5.

“‘We’re two days away from the most important election in the history of our country. We’ve got to save our country, and it needs saving. it’s in very bad shape,’ Trump said.

“‘We’re going to end up in a depression based on what’s been happening,’ he added later.

“‘We have to straighten out our country, we have to close our borders, we have to lower our taxes, we have to get rid of inflation. I’ll fix it.

“nbc declined to provide a comment on the development.

--GRA

"cartels throwing corpses over california border wall"

By R.C.
monday, november 4, 2024 at 07:06:50 p.m. est

"cartels throwing dead bodies over california border wall"

https://www.infowars.com/posts/cartels-throwing-dead-bodies-over-california-border-wall

Say, is that Jeb!'s wife?

N.S.: A corpse, or a corpse-thrower?

The assassination... of a squirrel: democrat Kathy Hochul is in charge, in new york (memorial photo of P'Nut)

"new york bureaucrats get their squirrel, P’Nut"

"state enforcers descend on a home with the pet social-media star."

https://archive.ph/w1j2j#selection-5733.0-5737.65

“escape from psychopathocracy”

By AbolishTenure
monday, november 4, 2024 at 1:17:00 p.m. est

James Howard Kunstler, “escape from psychopathocracy”:

“one way or another, looks like we’re in for a hard, anxious winter. Threats galore loom concerning possible blob / party of chaos mischief ahead, designed to disorder our national life: false flags prompting the imposition of martial law. . . aggressive censorship and cancellation of free-speaking regime opponents. . . deployment of antifa mobs against civil order, with violence, looting, arson. this symbiotic enemy of the people is desperate to evade accountability for the crimes they’ve already committed as officials running institutions: abuse of power, conspiracy to deprive many citizens of their civil rights, perhaps even treason. they’re capable of anything. They must be defeated.” - Full article.

Not every right-of-center observer is quite as excited by the prospect of a third straight victory by the President

By AbolishTenure
monday, november 4, 2024 at 12:41:00 p.m. est

“predicts huuuge Trump electoral win” - Wow! Yessirree, we saved America with help from RFK jr. and Tulsi and the mayor of Hamtramck.

Melania has ordered commemorative justice Scalia edition mypillows for the Lincoln bedroom. And cnn cameras will be there to cover the big MAGA jailbreak from cellblock j6. Haven’t been this excited since the red wave of the 2022 midterms and MTG’s Mayorkas impeachment project.

Last bit of analysis before election day: “The pollsters have no clue who’s going to win”

By Grand Rapids Anonymous
monday, november 4, 2024 at 10:56:00 a.m. est

GRA: Yesterday, I wrote the same thing. Today, this article appeared.

“(zh) election day looms, and market pricing has tightened substantially for Kamala Harris. prediction markets which had recorded leads of more than 30 pts for Donald Trump this time last week now have that lead down to single digits. in the case of predictit, Kamala Harris is now narrowly favoured [sic] to win, although on polymarket Trump’s lead has returned.

“on top of the dramatic tightening in prediction markets, we have also seen some curious polling results in the final days of the campaign. a nyt/sienna poll found [fake] vice president Harris leading in north Carolina and Georgia, while Donald Trump closed the gap in Pennsylvania and remained well ahead in arizona. atlasintel found that Donald Trump leads in every swing state, including Georgia and north Carolina, and Rasmussen found that Trump has a 3-point lead in their national polling! meanwhile, Ann Selzer published a poll showing Kamala Harris leading 47-44 in iowa, which raised plenty of eyebrows, given the state’s reputation as a republican stronghold and Selzer’s strong reputation for the accuracy of her predictions.

[N.S.: I think that “strong reputation for the accuracy of her predictions” is about to take a hit.]

“given the variability and contradictory nature of the polling lately, maybe we should adopt the stance of Nate Silver who said, ‘it appears no one really knows who’s going to win—and in what manner. A squeaker—or a blowout.’”

GRA: I’ll leave it at that, but President Trump has his work cut out for him.

--GRA

“‘shocking’ poll by Ann Selzer: hARRIS leads President Trump in iowa, 47-44; another poll (Emerson) shows President Trump up by 10%”

[“The 2020 voter breakdown, and what it portends for 2024.”]

By Grand Rapids Anonymous
sunday, november 3, 2024 at 9:46:00 p.m. est

“(des moines register) democrat Kamala Harris leads Donald Trump in iowa 47% to 44%, a new des moines register/mediacom iowa poll shows.

“A victory for Harris would be a shocking development after iowa has swung aggressively to the right in recent elections, delivering Trump solid victories in 2016 and 2020.

“the poll shows that women — particularly those who are older or are politically independent — are driving the late shift toward Harris.

“Trump continues to lead with his core base of support: men, evangelicals, rural residents and those without a college degree.

“‘we really didn't see this coming, but it appears that abortion is one of the big reasons,’ said Seltzer” (supposedly a top-notch pollster).

GRA: That’s the last poll I post—these things are all over the place.

--GRA

N.S.: I don’t buy it. It sounds too exactly like the dnc playbook. Most females are not hardcore feminazis.

“'no cancer, diabetes, or autism' among amish children”

By R.C.
sunday, november 3, 2024 at 06:55:37 p.m. est

“'no cancer, diabetes, or autism' among amish children”

https://gab.com/gigihereandnow/posts/113420095459218110

No, man.

It's because they are Germans.

They are the true White supremacists.

They will inherit the earth.

Not the darkies.

"Mein Führer! I can walk!

Classic ending to a great movie."

www.youtube.com

Harris campaign pulls $2 million in advertising from n.C.--gives up winning there

By Grand Rapids Anonymous
tuesday, October 29, 2024 at 11:37:00 a.m. edt

Harris campaign pulls $2 million in advertising from n.C.--gives up winning there

"(Breitbart) democrat presidential nominee [fake] vice president Kamala Harris is waving the white flag in north Carolina, surrendering the state to former [sic] President Donald Trump as her campaign withdraws nearly $2 million in planned ad buys from television stations statewide one week before the election.

"the more than $1.7 million in canceled ad buys by Harris’s campaign in north Carolina suggests that her team believes, given polling data and early vote data, that the tar heel state is no longer in play for her.

"Trump’s senior campaign adviser Chris LaCivita jumped at the news on tuesday morning, celebrating Harris’s team giving up on the state one week before the election."

--GRA

Somebody shot a toddler in Maryland

By Prince George's County Ex-Pat
sunday, november 3, 2024 at 06:23:14 p.m. est

"toddler hospitalized with gunshot wound in Largo, Maryland: police"

https://wjla.com/news/local/toddler-child-hospitalized-gunshot-wound-bowie-maryland-prince-georges-county-police-department-investigation-brookedge-court-shooting-serious-condition-dc-maryland-dmv

Fact check: if you don’t go along with the dEMS’ agenda, you will be prosecuted (and imprisoned); Steve Bannon: true

By Grand Rapids Anonymous
tuesday, october 29, 2024 at 12:36:00 p.m. edt

“(zh) Steve Bannon, who served as a top white house adviser early on in the Trump administration, was released from prison on oct. 29 after serving four months for contempt of congress.

“‘the four months in federal prison not only didn’t break me, it empowered me,’ he said during his warroom podcast. ‘I am more energized and more focused than I’ve ever been in my entire life.

“Bannon, 70, was serving time in the federal correctional institution in Danbury, connecticut. his release comes after a federal judge on oct. 22 denied his request for early release. Bannon entered prison in july after the supreme court refused to take up his request to avoid his four-month sentence.

“when he began serving his sentence in July, Bannon called himself a ‘political prisoner.

“‘I am proud of going to prison,’ he said at the time, adding that he was standing up to attorney general Merrick Garland and what he called a ‘corrupt’ justice department.

“a jury convicted him in 2022 for two counts of contempt of congress after he refused to comply with requests from the house select committee investigating the jan. 6, 2021, capitol breach.

--GRA

white Kumala supporters told to welcome, house "migrant," i.e., illegal alien famblies

By "W"
sunday, november 3, 2024 at 04:49:51 p.m. edt

white Kumala supporters told to welcome, house "migrant," i.e., illegal alien famblies

https://x.com/EndWokeness/status/1853120607220600999

What Lunatic is Running This Floyd Hoax Madhouse? My Bet: The DNC

By Nicholas Stix • June 16, 2020 • 1,600 Words • VDARE

Earlier: Minneapolis Burning: This Happened Because Antifa Weren’t Punished after Charlottesville and Inaugural Riots

My June 1 phone call with a Leftist relative revealed just how powerful is what Steve Sailer calls the Megaphone—the Main Stream Media when it acts in unison. My relative, whom I will call MR, really believes that Antifa is a fiction, that “Trump made it up,” and that the riots are not the work of Antifa and its Black Lives Matter allies, but instead are a “white-supremacist” false-flag operation. That’s the exactly the narrative the Mainstream Media has been blaring. But who came up with the script?

MR described a recent march from Barclays Center basketball arena, where the Nets play, down Eastern Parkway to MR’s neighborhood. MR said that a white man in the lead, exhorting the marchers to riot.

MR also recalled marching with blacks after the 2014 death of Gentle Giant Eric Garner, who had, like Gentle Giant George Floyd, resisted arrest. There, too, MR averred, a white man sought to get the crowd to smash the windows at a bank. But the black marchers restrained him.

Of course, MR has no proof these men were anything other than white Leftists

But his belief in the white-supremacist fairy tale comports with a dispatch at Just Security, a publication based at the Reiss Center on Law and Security at New York University School of Law. On May 30, guest writer Mia Bloom [Tweet her] claimed video from the riots “challenge our beliefs about who is really protesting and for what reason.” The attack on CNN on May 29, for instance, was likely the work of “right wing extremists and accelerationists:”

The demographics of a largely white, young, and destructive group fit more with a movement known as accelerationists than Black Lives Matter. The accelerationists, if you have never heard the term, are an extreme subset of white nationalism whose goal is to bring about chaos and destruction.

[“Far-Right Infiltrators and Agitators in George Floyd Protests: Indicators of White Supremacists.”]

Two days later, The Nation offered a similar assessment with purported documents from the FBI, which supposedly had zero intelligence that Antifa was behind the Floyd-Hoax riots on May 31 [“The FBI Finds ‘No Intel Indicating Antifa Involvement’ in Sunday’s Violence,” by Ken Klippenstein, June 2, 2020]. Instead, Klippenstein reported, the FBI was fretting about a “far-right social group [that] called for far-right provocateurs to attack federal agents, use automatic weapons against protesters.”

Of course, that was May 31. What about the riots, arson, looting, and vandalism since then? Are “far-right provocateurs” responsible for those, too. For toppled statues? Murdered cops? Blocking highways and trying to murder motorists?

One video after another has clearly shown blacks operating freely and independently as they invaded, wrecked, and torched stores.

Forget all that, Buzzfeed tells us, because Antifa’s just a figment of our imagination: “How the Antifa Fantasy Spread in Small Towns Across the US,” by Anne Helen Peterson, June 9, 2020].

But, despite MR’s credulity and what the Ruling-Class elitists at Just Security would have us believe, Antifa is real. It is not a group of earnest, if misguided and sometimes overzealous youngsters, who simply want peace and justice and occasionally go a little too far. It’s a communist goon squad modeled on Antifaschistische Aktion, itself a communist front that supposedly opposed the Nazi takeover of Germany in the early 1930s. Antifa’s flag is nearly identical to that of its predecessor, a look that signals the group’s intent and guiding ideology.

When I lived in West Germany (1980-1985), Communist terrorists sought to rationalize their campaign of slaughter by asserting that if only more people had been like them, the Nazis would never have taken over. Thus, instead of a totalitarian, genocidal, Nazi dictatorship, Germany would have been under the thumb of a totalitarian, genocidal, Communist dictatorship!

James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas recently released multiple videos, shot by undercover reporters, of Antifa’s hand-to-hand combat training sessions at which “instructors” tell the “trainees” to gouge eyes, break ribs, and punch vital organs.

Even more alarming is Antifa’s affiliated, heavily-armed militia, Redneck Revolt, which breaks down into John Brown Gun Clubs and practices with semi-automatic rifles.

“[The attack on the 2017 Unite The Right Rally at]Charlottesville was comprised of your typical Antifa black-bloc measures,” a Project Veritas reporter said. “There were multiple chapters of Redneck Revolt that went to Charlottesville and acted as the militia wing of the anti-fascist movement.”

And Project Veritas has also released video of operatives for RefuseFa, an Antifa affiliate, bragging about contacts with high-tech tycoon Steve Wozniak’s Electronic Frontier Foundation, billionaire leftist and failed presidential candidate Tom Steyer, and Hillary Clinton’s campaign operatives.

Hearing MR’s talking points reminded me of Robert Reich, [Email him] economics professor at University of California, Berkeley and Bill Clinton’s Labor Secretary. In 2017, recall, Reich suggested that the rioters who tried to stop a speech at Berkeley by Milo Yiannopoulos weren’t Antifa thugs, but instead Trump supporters in cahoots with Yiannopoulos and Breitbart.com.

Our Ruling Class has effortlessly adapted that crackpot idea to the Floyd-Hoax riots. MR even provided links to MSM articles that say Twitter chieftain Jack Dorsey is the source for the claims.

• Men wearing Hawaiian shirts and carrying guns add a volatile new element to protests by Craig Timberg, Elizabeth Dwoskin and Souad Mekhenne, June 4, 2020
• Twitter says fake “Antifa” account was run by white supremacists, by Graham Kates, CBS News, June 2, 2020

• “White instigators to blame for mayhem in some protests, local officials say,” by Isaac Stanley-Becker, June 1, 2020

This notion, whereby white rioters were all “white supremacists,” rather than Antifa, came seemingly from nowhere, to become ubiquitous from elected Democrat politicians’ mouths, fake news articles, comments by Leftists on comment threads–just as suddenly and ubiquitously as the propaganda, beginning on April 5, whereby black suffering from the China Virus was somehow due to “White Supremacism” [“Amid coronavirus pandemic, black mistrust of medicine looms,” by Aaron Morrison and Jay Reeves, The Associated Press, April 5]. This was itself an extension of the demand for white racial reparations payable to blacks and Hispanics made two days earlier by Cong. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and which was immediately echoed in countless virtually identical op-eds and fake news stories. [“AOC wants coronavirus reparations for minorities: ‘Inequality is a comorbidity’, by Jessica Chasmar, The Washington Times, April 3, 2020].

Twitter’s Dorsey has a history going back to the Brown-Hoax Riots in Ferguson of supporting anti-white, anti-cop rioters:

• Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey live-tweets protests in Ferguson, by Gregory Wallace, CNN, Augusta 17, 2014
• [Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey donates $3M to Colin Kaepernick’s legal defense organization, by Cortney Moore, Fox Business, June 4, 2020]

And don’t forget what Dorsey did after BLM, MSM, Antifa, and the Democrats—call them BMAD?—engineered the Big Riot in Charlottesville, Va., when a rifle-toting professor from the University of North Carolina, a black supremacist police chief, and their flame-throwing shock troops caused the death of Heather Heyer: He suppressed so-called “Alt-Right” groups who disputed the Narrative [Twitter’s new rules could result in a major purge of alt-right accounts, by Tony Tomm, Vox, December 18, 2017].

Fact is, not a single white rioter thus far arrested has been a “white supremacist,” “white instigator,” or “white accelerationist.”

You might call that a “debunked conspiracy theory,” a favorite MSM psywar label for stories it doesn’t like.

When one recalls Reich’s false flag hoax from January 2017, one realizes that the new hoax is a recycled version of it.

But where did the hoax come from in January 2017, and again in late May 2020?

It is clear to me that there is now a much broader conspiracy involved than in the notorious case of Journolist, the secret listserv group of elite journalists that in 2008 electronically bodyguarded Barack Obama all the way to the White House. For while Journolist was just an MSM operatives’ conspiracy, the source of the current hoax joins media operatives, non-media activists, academics, even corporate executives.

My hunch: the Democratic National Committee is Hoax Central.

Recall that its former deputy chairman, leftist Muslim Keith Ellison, now attorney general of Minnesota, tweeted his support for Anita in 2018 [DNC deputy chair Keith Ellison signals support for Antifa, by Samuel Chamberlain, Fox News, January 3, 2018]. As well, a top Antifa thug in Washington, D.C., Joseph Alcoff, worked for a liberal think tank and had access to top Democrats. Tim Kaine’s son was arrested for a violent attack on a Trump rally—it took three cops and pepper spray to get him in handcuffs.

There is every reason to believe that Antifa operatives and sympathizers have penetrated the highest reaches of the Democratic Party as thoroughly as the Reds penetrated the United States Government decades ago.

Author and blogger James Kunstler recently wrote:

[H]ow much of the response to the public killing of one George Floyd has been an engineered operation by the Democratic Party and its allies in the propaganda industry? I’d say, an awful lot…

From the Democrat-orchestrated Russia Hoax to the Democrat-orchestrated Floyd Hoax is but a single step.

Nicholas Stix [email him] is a New York City-based journalist and researcher, much of whose work focuses on the nexus of race, crime, and education. He spent much of the 1990s teaching college in New York and New Jersey. His work has appeared in Chronicles, The New York Post, Weekly Standard, Daily News, New York Newsday, American Renaissance, Academic Questions, Ideas on Liberty and many other publications. Stix was the project director and principal author of the NPI report, The State of White America-2007. He blogs at Nicholas Stix, Uncensored.

Humorless, stupid, illegal veep Kamala Harris did a completely unfunny sketch on the dnc’s saturday night live, where producer Lorne Michaels made an in-kind donation to her; did Michaels break the law?

[“Racial breakdowns of who's voting for each of the presidential candidates in three key swing states.”]

By Abolish Tenure

sunday, november 3, 2024 at 5:32:00 p.m. edt

“Racial breakdown” sounds like a description of what’s happening to the U.S.A.

Meanwhile, Kamala takes a ride on the garbage truck known as saturday night live.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/addition-not-being-funny-snl-may-have-violated-election-law-kamala-cameo

Head of Rasmussen poll predicts huuuge Trump electoral win—but can he be believed? Can any of them be believed?

By Grand Rapids Anonymous
sunday, november 3, 2024 at 8:43:00 a.m. edt

“(Breitbart) former [sic] President Donald Trump is poised to secure a significant electoral victory, potentially ‘sweeping battleground states,’ according to Rasmussen’s head pollster, who sees the current race favoring Trump in the national popular vote, suggesting a larger ‘political realignment’ is underway, and foreseeing an outcome that could echo — or even exceed — Ronald Reagan’s historic landslide win over Jimmy Carter in 1980.

“in a striking forecast days before the 2024 presidential election, Rasmussen’s head pollster, Mark Mitchell, is suggesting that Donald Trump will secure a strong lead nationally and dominate in key battleground states, positioning him for a sweeping victory. Mitchell even foresees a potential flip of Virginia and new hampshire, adding that other states, like minnesota or new mexico, might follow suit.

“‘what you’re hearing out there is that the polls are close, and I think that’s wrong,’ he told Breitbart news in an exclusive interview on friday, adding, ‘I think the polls on average show a strong Trump win, and my polls taken independently show that as well.’”

--GRA


By Grand Rapids Anonymous
sunday, november 3, 2024 at 1:15:00 p.m. edt

Interesting that Rasmussen is so optimistic for President Trump, because their own numbers in Pennsylvania and nevada show low White support, compared to four years ago. north Carolina, at 60 some percent, is better. Every poll is different, with some, completely out of whack—either pro-Trump or pro-harris—by wide margins. Are the pollsters intentionally lying, like their media masters do?

Wouldn’t surprise me one bit.

--GRA

Under corrupt, racist commissar Garland, doj seeks to win Virginia for fake veep Kamala Harris, but many states have set things up to aid and abet foreign criminals in voting illegally

By Jerry PDX
sunday, november 3, 2024 at 8:20:00 a.m. edt

Virginia tries to follow the law and remove migrants who are illegally allowed to vote due to automatic voter registration, but the corrupt doj pushes back:

https://www.13newsnow.com/article/news/politics/elections/federal-court-docs-voters-reportedly-removed-from-voter-rolls-lawsuit/291-d79d13d7-868e-478e-b86e-0f2be2b0965a

You can find a lot of articles on this going into more detail but this makes me wonder about people being automatically registered to vote when they get a driver’s license.

Here in oregon, we have that automatic registration along with giving illegals drivers licenses. Not all states do that, but from what I’ve read there is no way to disqualify a driver’s license owner from voting unless they check whether or not he’s a citizen on the application. Basically it’s the honor system, which opens it up to a lot of potential fraud.

When Virginia tried to get illegals off the voter rolls, the doj stepped in, using the rationalization that legitimate voters had also been removed accidentally. I don’t know, but seems to me if the doj wants to focus on an “injustice” they should be questioning the legality of handing out licenses to drive to people who are illegally in the country.

Not all states automatically register voters with driver’s license applications but one has to wonder if part of the push to hand over licenses to illegals is to get them on voter rolls, because they will always vote democrat.

The 2020 voter breakdown, and what it portends for 2024

By Grand Rapids Anonymous
sunday, november 3, 2024 at 2:20:00 p.m. edt

2020 election breakdown:

Biden-Trump

SEX Men 48 45 53
Women 52 57 42
RACE White 67 41 58
black 13 87 12
hispanic 13 65 32
asian 4 61 34

In 2020, President Trump got 58% of the White vote vs. Biden. Whites were 67% of the total voter base count. Unless mex and blacks carry Trump with a big surge, I don’t see how he wins in 2024—and why would they surge?

--GRA

4 killed, 17 injured after semi-truck driver crashes into vehicles stuck in traffic

By N.S.

https://apnews.com/article/crash-death-semi-michigan-interstate-police-utility-5807615526a16312b0c546dad05ac95f

"slate goes low, attacks Vance's wife with race-based insult"

By N.S.

https://www.theblaze.com/news/slate-attack-usha-vance-race

Racial breakdowns of who's voting for each of the presidential candidates in three key swing states

By Grand Rapids Anonymous
saturday, november 2, 2024 at 11:22:00 p.m. edt

Racial breakdowns of who's voting for each of the presidential candidates in three key swing states

GRA: According to the latest Rasmussen poll.

– In Pennsylvania, 55% of Whites, 17% of black voters and 43% of other minorities would vote for Trump, while 43% of whites, 79% of black voters and 52% of other minorities would vote for Harris.

[GRA: Only 55% Whites? That CAN'T be good. Who are 43% of the "other minorities" that Rasmussen refers to? Are there that many arabs and mex in the quaker state?)

– In Nevada, 52% of whites, 30% of black voters, 48% of Hispanics and 56% of other minorities would vote for Trump, while 45% of whites, 64% of black voters, 51% of Hispanics and 31% of other minorities would vote for Harris.

– In North Carolina, 63% of whites, 16% of black voters, 43% of Hispanics and 35% of other minorities would vote for Trump, while 35% of whites, 76% of black voters, 53% of Hispanics and 65% of other minorities would vote for Harris.

GRA:The Whites voting for Harris in those numbers is astonishing. As a White guy, I'm disgusted by this news.

[N.S.: Color me skeptical, GRA, and yet, Pennsylvania voters have some odd habits. They tend to be conservative democrats, and very liberal republicans. The state was long the home of "Casey democrats," who opposed abortion.] --GRA

A nation of “biggers”: “How ‘Bigger’ was Born”: The 1940 lecture, in which communist/black supremacist author Richard Wright sought to rationalize the murderous black protagonist from his novel, Native Son

By Nicholas Stix

The following excerpt doesn’t tell the reader everything he wants to know, but an awful lot of it.

Note that I have lower-cased “negro.” There was never any reason to capitalize “negro,” and editors didn’t used to capitalize it. However, Tony Brown wrote in The Truth According to Tony Brown, that at the turn of the 20th century, the indefatigable and sometimes brilliant W.E.B. DuBois (1868-1963) wrote to every newspaper editor in America, demanding that each capitalize “negro.” And they all rolled over and submitted! (And yet, Brown hated DuBois!)

This copy of “How ‘Bigger’ was Born,” in which Richard Wright spoke of his murderous, black protagonist, Bigger Thomas (What a ridiculous name! However, as I said elsewhere, I believe that “Bigger” was a contraction of “bad n----r”) from his 1940 novel, Native Son, was republished by the Wayback Machine, along with Wright’s novel. However, at times, the Wayback people kill the link. And when the link works, the text is lousy with scanning errors, the most obvious of which is the rendering of “in” as “m.” I have done my best to correct the obvious errors, but in some cases, I couldn’t figure out what the original text had been (e.g., “ray wages”). The scanning job must have been done many years ago, using a primitive scanner.

“Any negro who has lived in the North or the South knows that times without number he has heard of some negro boy being picked up on the streets and carted off to jail and charged with ‘rape.’ This thing happens so often that to my mind it had become a representative symbol of the negro’s uncertain position in America. Never for a second was I in doubt as to what kind of social reality or dramatic situation I’d put Bigger in, what kind of test-tube life I’d set up to evoke his deepest reactions. Life had made the plot over and over again, to the extent that I knew it by heart. So frequently do these acts recur that when I was halfway through the first draft of Native Son a case paralleling Bigger’s flared forth in the newspapers of Chicago. (Many of the newspaper items and some of the incidents in Native Son are but fictionalized versions of the Robert Nixon case and rewrites of news stories from the Chicago Tribune.) Indeed, scarcely was Native Son off the press before Supreme Court Justice Hugo L. Black gave the nation a long and vivid account of the American police methods of handling negro boys.”

In the foregoing passage and others, Wright insinuated that Robert Nixon was an innocent black youth who was framed by the police. In fact, he was a racist serial killer and serial rapist. The only reason his numbers of rapes (at least 22) and murders (at least seven), all of White females, didn’t match up, was because he murdered White females with his trusty brick, which he often forgot. He was caught via a fingerprint that he left at one of his crime scenes. But you won’t learn any of that from Richard Wright, or his many black supremacist and white communist/racial socialist admirers, like the Chicago Tribune’s Ron Grossman.

See the original 1951 movie version of Native Son, with Richard wright’s screenplay, at the WEJB/NSU theater full length, for free, and without commercial interruptions.


Introduction

How “Bigger” was Born

By Richard Wright

I am not so pretentious as to imagine that it is possible for me to account completely for my own book, Native Son. But I am going to try to account for as much of it as I can, the sources of it, the material that went into it, and my own years’ long changing attitude toward that material.

In a fundamental sense, an imaginative novel represents the merging of two extremes; it is an intensely intimate expression on the part of a consciousness couched in terms of the most objective and commonly known events. It is at once something private and public by its very nature and texture. Confounding the author who is trying to lay his cards on the table is the dogging knowledge that his imagination is a kind of community medium of exchange: what he has read, felt, thought, seen, and remembered is translated into extensions as impersonal as a worn dollar bill.

The more closely the author thinks of why he wrote, the more he comes to regard his imagination as a kind of self-generating cement which glued his facts together, and his emotions as a kind of dark and obscure designer of those facts. Always there is something that is just beyond the tip of the tongue that could explain it all. Usually, he ends up by discussing something far afield, an act which incites skepticism and suspicion in those anxious for a straight-out explanation,

Yet the author is eager to explain. But the moment he makes the attempt his words falter, for he is confronted and defied by the inexplicable array of his own emotions. Emotions are subjective and he can communicate them only when he clothes them in objective guise; and how can he ever be so arrogant as to know when he is dressing up the right emotion in the right Sunday suit? He is always left with the uneasy notion that maybe any objective drapery is as good as any other for any emotion.

And the moment he does dress up an emotion, his mind is confronted with the riddle of that “dressed up” emotion, and he is left peering with eager dismay back into the dim reaches of his own incommunicable life. Reluctantly, he comes to the conclusion that to account for his book is to account for his life, and he knows that that is impossible. Yet, some curious, wayward motive urges him to supply the answer, for there is the feeling that his dignity as a living being is challenged by something within him that is not understood.

So, at the outset, I say frankly that there are phases of Native Son which I shall make no attempt to account for. There are meanings in my book of which I was not aware until they literally spilled out upon the paper. I shall sketch the outline of how I consciously came into possession of the materials that went into Native Son, but there will be many things I shall omit, not because I want to, but simply because I don’t know them.

The birth of Bigger Thomas goes back to my childhood, and there was not just one Bigger, but many of them, more than I could count and more than you suspect. But let me start with the first Bigger, whom I shall call Bigger No. 1,

When I was a bareheaded, barefoot kid in Jackson, Mississippi, there was a boy who terrorized me and all of the boys I played with. If we were playing games, he would saunter up and snatch from us our balls, bats, spinning tops, and marbles. We would stand around pouting, sniffling, trying to keep back our tears, begging for our playthings. But Bigger would refuse. We never demanded that he give them back; we were afraid, and Bigger was bad. We had seen him clout boys when he was angry and we did not want to run that risk. We never recovered our toys unless we flattered him and made him feel that he was superior to us. Then, perhaps, if he felt like it, he condescended, threw them at us and then gave each of us a swift kick in the bargain, just to make us feel his utter contempt.

That was the way Bigger No. 1 lived. His life was a continuous challenge to others. At all times he took his way, right or wrong, and those who contradicted him had him to fight. And never was he happier than when he had someone cornered and at his mercy; it seemed that the deepest meaning of his squalid life was in him at such times.

I don’t know what the fate of Bigger No. 1 was. His swaggering personality is swallowed up somewhere in the amnesia of my childhood. But I suspect that his end was violent. Anyway, he left a marked impression upon me; maybe it was because I longed secretly to be like him and was afraid. I don’t know.

If I had known only one Bigger I would not have written Native Son, Let me call the next one Bigger No. 2; he was about seventeen and tougher than the first Bigger. Since I, too, had grown older, I was a little less afraid of him. And the hardness of this Bigger No. 2 was not directed toward me or the other negroes, but toward the whites who ruled the South, He bought clothes and food on credit and would not pay for them. He lived in the dingy shacks of the white landlords and refused to pay rent. Of course, he had no money, but neither did we. We did without the necessities of life and starved ourselves, but he never would. When we asked him why he acted as he did, he would tell us (as though we were little children in a kindergarten) that the white folks had everything and he had nothing. Further, he would tell us that we were fools not to get what we wanted while we were alive in this world. We would listen and silently agree. We longed to believe and act as he did, but we were afraid. We were Southern negroes and we were hungry and we wanted to live, but we were more willing to tighten our belts than risk conflict. Bigger No. 2 wanted to live and he did; he was in prison the last time I heard from him.

There was Bigger No. 3, whom the white folks called a “bad nigger.” He carried his life in his hands in a literal fashion. I once worked as a ticket-taker in a Negro movie house (all movie houses in Dixie are Jim Crow; there are movies for whites and movies for blacks), and many times Bigger No. 3 came to the door and gave my arm a hard pinch and walked into the theater. Resentfully and silently, I’d nurse my bruised arm. Presently, the proprietor would come over and ask how things were going. I’d point into the darkened theater and say: “Bigger’s in there.” “Did he pay?” the proprietor would ask. “No, sir,” I’d answer. The proprietor would pull down the comers of his lips and speak through his teeth: “We’ll kill that goddamn nigger one of these days.” And the episode would end right there. But later on Bigger No. 3 was killed during the days of Prohibition: while delivering liquor to a customer he was shot through the back by a white cop.

And then there was Bigger No. 4, whose only law was death. The Jim Crow laws of the South were not for him. But as he laughed and cursed and broke them, he knew that some day he’d have to pay for his freedom. His rebellious spirit made him violate all the taboos and consequently he always oscillated between moods of intense elation and depression. He was never happier than when he had outwitted some foolish custom, and he was never more melancholy than when brooding over the impossibility of his ever being free. He had no job, for he regarded digging ditches for fifty cents a day as slavery. “I can’t live on that,” he would say. Ofttimes I’d find him reading a book; he would stop and in a joking, wistful, and cynical manner ape the antics of the white folks. Generally, he’d end his mimicry in a depressed state and say: “The white folks won’t let us do nothing.” Bigger No. 4 was sent to the asylum for the insane.

Then there was Bigger No. 5, who always rode the Jim Crow streetcars without paying and sat wherever be pleased. I remember one morning his getting into a streetcar (all streetcars in Dixie are divided into two sections: one section is for whites and is labeled — FOR WHITES; the other section is for negroes and is labeled — FOR COLORED) and sitting in the white section. The conductor went to him and said: “Come on, nigger. Move over where you belong. Can’t you read?” Bigger answered: “Naw, I can’t read.” The conductor flared up: “Get out of that seat!” Bigger took out his knife, opened it, held it nonchalantly in his hand, and replied: “Make me.” The conductor turned red, blinked, clenched his fists, and walked away, stammering: “The goddamn scum of the earth!” A small angry conference of white men took place m the front of the car and the negroes sitting in the Jim Crow section overheard: “That’s that Bigger Thomas nigger and you’d better leave ‘im alone.” The negroes experienced an intense flash of pride and the streetcar moved on its journey without incident. I don’t know what happened to Bigger No. 5. But I can guess.

The Bigger Thomases were the only negroes I know of who consistently violated the Jim Crow laws of the South and got away with it, at least for a sweet brief spell. Eventually, the whites who restricted their lives made them pay a terrible price. They were shot, hanged, maimed, lynched, and generally hounded until they were either dead or their spirits broken.

There were many variations to this behavioristic pattern. Later on I encountered other Bigger Thomases who did not react to the locked-in Black Belts with this same extremity and violence. But before I use Bigger Thomas as a springboard for the examination of milder types, I’d better indicate more precisely the nature of the environment that produced these men, or the reader will be left with the impression that they were essentially and organically bad.

In Dixie there are two worlds, the white world and the black world, and they are physically separated. There are white schools and black schools, white churches and black churches, white businesses and black businesses, white graveyards and black graveyards, and, for all I know, a white God and a black God. . . .

This separation was accomplished after the Civil War by the terror of the Ku Klux Klan, which swept the newly freed negro through arson, pillage, and death out of the United States Senate, the House of Representatives, the many state legislatures, and out of the public, social, and economic life of the South. The motive for this assault was simple and urgent. The imperialistic tug of history had torn the negro from his African home and had placed him ironically upon the most fertile plantation areas of the South; and, when the negro was freed, he outnumbered the whites in many of these fertile areas. Hence, a fierce and bitter struggle took place to keep the ballot from the negro, for had he had a chance to vote, he would have automatically controlled the richest lands of the South and with them the social, political, and economic destiny of a third of the Republic. Though the South is politically a part of America, the problem that faced her was peculiar and the struggle between the whites and the blacks after the Civil War was in essence a struggle for power, ranging over thirteen states and involving the lives of tens of millions of people.

But keeping the ballot from the negro was not enough to hold him in check; disfranchisement had to be supplemented by a whole panoply of rules, taboos, and penalties designed not only to insure peace (complete submission), but to guarantee that no real threat would ever arise. Had the negro lived upon a common territory, separate from the bulk of the white population, this program of oppression might not have assumed such a brutal and violent form. But this war took place between people who were neighbors, whose homes adjoined, whose farms had common boundaries. Guos [guns?] and disfranchisement, therefore, were not enough to make the black neighbor keep his distance. The white neighbor decided to limit the amount of education his black neighbor could receive; decided to keep him off the police force and out of the local national guards; to segregate him residentially; to Jim Crow him in public places; to restrict his participation in the professions and jobs; and to build up a vast, dense ideology of racial superiority that would justify any act of violence taken against him to defend white dominance; and further, to condition him to hope for little and to receive that little without rebelling.

But, because the blacks were so close to the very civilization which sought to keep them out, because they could not help but react in some way to its incentives and priTes [prizes?], and because the very tissue of their consciousness received its tone and timbre from the strivings of that dominant civilization, oppression spawned among them a myriad variety of reactions, reaching from outright blind rebellion to a sweet, other-worldly submissiveness.

In the main, this delicately balanced state of affairs has not greatly altered since the Civil War, save in those parts of the South which have been industrialized or urbanized. So volatile and tense are these relations that if a negro rebels against rule and taboo, he is lynched and the reason for the lynching is usually called “rape,” that catchword which has garnered such vile connotations that it can raise a mob anywhere in the South pretty quickly, even today.

Now for the variations in the Bigger Thomas pattern. Some of the negroes living under these conditions got religion, felt that Jesus would redeem the void of living, felt that the more bitter life was in the present the happier it would be in the hereafter. Others, clinging still to that brief glimpse of post-Civil War freedom, employed a thousand ruses and stratagems of struggle to win their rights. Still others projected their hurts and longings into more naive and mundane forms — blues, jazz, swing — and, without intellectual guidance, tried to build up a compensatory nourishment for themselves. Many labored under hot suns and then killed the restless ache with alcohol. Then there were those who strove for an education, and when they got it, enjoyed the financial fruits of it in the style of their bourgeois oppressors. Usually they went hand in hand with the powerful whites and helped to keep their groaning brothers in line, for that was the safest course of action. Those who did this called themselves “leaders.” To give you an idea of how completely these “leaders” worked with those who oppressed, I can tell you that I lived the first seventeen years of my life in the South without so much as hearing of or seeing one act of rebellion from any negro, save the Bigger Thomases,

But why did Bigger revolt? No explanation based upon a hard and fast rule of conduct can be given. But there were always two factors psychologically dominant in his personality. First, through some quirk of circumstance, he had become estranged from the religion and the folk culture of his race. Second, he was trying to react to and answer the call of the dominant civilization whose glitter came to him through the newspapers, magazines, radios, movies, and the mere imposing sight and sound of daily American life. In many respects his emergence as a distinct type was inevitable.

[N.S.: The notion that black criminals are just responding to the stimuli of “society” (White people) has been a staple of communist sophistry ever since.]

As I grew older, I became familiar with the Bigger Thomas conditioning and its numerous shadings no matter where I saw it in negro life. It was not, as I have already said, as blatant or extreme as in the originals; but it was there, nevertheless, like an undeveloped negative.

Sometimes, in areas far removed from Mississippi, I’d hear a negro say: “I wish I didn’t have to live this way. I feel like I want to burst.” Then the anger would pass; he would go back to his job and try to eke out a few pennies to support his wife and children

Sometimes I’d hear a negro say; “God, I wish I had a flag and a country of my own.” But that mood would soon vanish and he would go his way placidly enough.

Sometimes I’d hear a negro ex-soldier say: “What in hell did I fight in the war for? They segregated me even when I was offering my life for my country.” But he, too, like the others, would soon forget, would become caught up in the tense grind of struggling for bread.

I’ve even heard negroes, in moments of anger and bitterness, praise what Japan is doing in China, not because they believed in oppression (being objects of oppression themselves), but because they would suddenly sense how empty their lives were when looking at the dark faces of Japanese generals in the rotogravure supplements of the Sunday newspapers, They would dream of what it would be like to live in a country where they could forget their color and play a responsible role in the vital processes of the nation’s life.

I’ve even heard negroes say that maybe Hitler and Mussolini are all right; that maybe Stalin is all right. They did not say this out of any intellectual comprehension of the forces at work in the world, but because they felt that these men “did things,” a phrase which is charged with more meaning than the mere words imply. There was in the back of their minds, when they said this, a wild and intense longing (wild and intense because it was suppressed!) to belong, to be identified, to feel that they were alive as other people were, to be caught up forgetfully and exultingly in the swing of events, to feel the clean, deep, organic satisfaction of doing a job in common with others.

It was not until I went to live in Chicago that I first thought seriously of writing of Bigger Thomas. Two items of my experience combined to make me aware of Bigger as a meaningful and prophetic symbol. First, being free of the daily pressure of the Dixie environment, I was able to come into possession of my own feelings. Second, my contact with the labor movement and its ideology made me see Bigger clearly and feel what he meant.

I made the discovery that Bigger Thomas was not black all the time; he was white, too, and there were literally millions of him, everywhere. The extension of my sense of the personality of Bigger was the pivot of my life; it altered the complexion of my existence. I became conscious, at first dimly, and then later on with increasing clarity and conviction, of a vast, muddied pool of human life in America. It was as though I had put on a pair of spectacles whose power was that of an x-ray enabling me to see deeper into the lives of men. Whenever I picked up a newspaper, I’d no longer feel that I was reading of the doings of whites alone (negroes are rarely mentioned in the press unless they’ve committed some crime!), but of a complex struggle for life going on in my country, a struggle in which I was involved. I sensed, too, that the Southern scheme of oppression was but an appendage of a far vaster and in many respects more ruthless and impersonal commodity-profit machine.

(N.S.: blacks were mentioned in the newspapers all the time. Often, this was for sporting achievements. If they were more often mentioned for crimes, it was because they committed so many of them. The new york times combatted this “problem” in 1946 by ordering its operatives to never mention a criminal’s race.)

Trade-union struggles and issues began to grow meaningful to me. The flow of goods across the seas, buoying and depressing the wages of men, held a fascination. The pronouncements of foreign governments, their policies, plans, and acts were calculated and weighed in relation to the lives of people about me. I was literally overwhelmed when, in reading the works of Russian revolutionists, I came across descriptions of the “holiday energies of the masses,” “the locomotives of history,” “the conditions prerequsitc for revolution,” and so forth. I approached all of these new revelations in the light of Bigger Thomas, his hopes, fears, and despairs; and I began to feel far-flung kinships, and sense, with fright and abashment, the possibilities of alliances between the American negro and other people possessing a kindred conscious- ness.

As my mind extended in this general and abstract manner, it was fed with even more vivid and concrete examples of the lives of Bigger Thomas. The urban environment of Chicago, affording a more stimulating life, made the Negro Bigger Thomases react more violently than even in the South. More than ever I began to see and understand the environmental factors which made for this extreme conduct. It was not that Chicago segregated Negroes more than the South, but that Chicago had more to offer, that Chicago’s physical aspect noisy, crowded, filled with the sense of power and fulfillment — did so much more to dazzle the mind with a taunting sense of possible achievement that the segregation it did impose brought forth from Bigger a reaction more obstreperous than in the South.

So the concrete picture and the abstract linkages of relationships fed each other, each making the other more meaningful and affording my emotions an opportunity to react to them with success and understanding. The process was like a swinging pendulum, each to and fro motion throwing up its tiny bit of meaning and significance, each stroke helping to develop the dim negative which had been implanted in my mind in the South.

During this period the shadings and nuances which were filling in Bigger’s picture came, not so much from Negro life, as from the lives of whites I met and grew to know. I began to sense that they had their own kind of Bigger Thomas behavioristic pattern which grew out of a more subtle and broader frustration. The waves of recurring crime, the silly fads and crazes, the quicksilver changes in public taste, the hysteria and fears — all of these had long been mysteries to me. But now I looked back of them and felt the pinch and pressure of the environment that gave them their pitch and peculiar kind of being. I began to feel with my mind the inner tensions of the people I met I don’t mean to say that I think that environment makes consciousness (I suppose God makes that, if there is a God), but I do say that I felt and still feel that the environment supplies the instrumentalities through which the organism expresses itself, and if that environment is warped or tranquil, the mode and manner of behavior will be affected toward deadlocking tensions or orderly fulfillment and satisfaction.

Let me give examples of how I began to develop the dim negative of Bigger. I met white writers who talked of their responses, who told me how whites reacted to this lurid American scene. And, as they talked, I’d translate what they said in terms of Bigger’s life. But what was more important still, I read their novels. Here, for the first time, I found ways and techniques of gauging meaningfully the effects of American civilization upon the personalities of people. I took these techniques, these ways of seeing and feeling, and twisted them, bent them, adapted them, until they became my ways of apprehending the locked-in life of the Black Belt areas. This association with white writers was the life preserver of my hope to depict negro life in fiction, for my race possessed no fictional works dealing with such problems, had no background in such sharp and critical testing of experience, no novels that went with a deep and fearless will down to the dark roots of life.

Here are examples of how I culled information relating to Bigger from my reading:

There is in me a memory of reading an interesting pamphlet telling of the friendship of Gorky and Lenin in exile. The booklet told of how Lenin and Gorky were walking down a London street. Lenin turned to Gorky and, pointing, said: “Here is their Big Ben.” “There is their Westminster Abbey.” “There is their library.” And at once, while reading that passage, my mind stopped, teased, challenged with the effort to remember, to associate widely disparate but meaningful experiences in my life. For a moment nothing would come, but I remained convinced that I had heard the meaning of those words sometime, somewhere before. Then, with a sudden glow of satisfaction of having gained a little more knowledge about the world m which I lived. I’d end up by saying: “That’s Bigger. That’s the Bigger Thomas reaction.”

In both instances the deep sense of exclusion was identical. The feeling of looking at things with a painful and unwarrantable nakedness was an experience, I learned, that transcended national and racial boundaries. It was this intolerable sense of feeling and understanding so much, and yet living on a plane of social reality where the look of a world which one did not make or own struck one with a blinding objectivity and tangibility, that made me grasp the revolutionary impulse in my life and the lives of those about me and far away.

I remember reading a passage in a book dealing with old Russia which said: “We must be ready to make endless sacrifices if we are to be able to overthrow the Czar.” And again I’d say to myself: “I’ve heard that somewhere, sometime before.” And again I’d hear Bigger Thomas, far away and long ago, telling some white man who was trying to impose upon him: “I’ll kill you and go to hell and pay for it.” While living in America I heard from far away Russia the bitter accents of tragic calculation of how much human life and suffering it would cost a man to live as a man in a world that denied him the right to live with dignity. Actions and feelings of men ten thousand miles from home helped me to understand the moods and impulses of those walling [“wallung”?] the streets of Chicago and Dixie.

I am not saying that I heard any talk of revolution in the South when I was a kid there. But I did hear the lispings, the whispers, the mutters which some day, under one stimulus or another, will surely grow into open revolt unless the conditions which produce Bigger Thomases are changed.

[Riots? white allies and black supremacists love to speak of black riots as “uprisings,” as if there were anything noble about them. blacks love nothing more than to riot, and then to scream “food desert!” “racism!,” when the shopkeepers they looted and burned out of business refused to come back and permit themselves to be shoplifted, looted, and burned out again. Meanwhile, America’s ruling class has picked the pockets of hard-working, law-abiding American Whites to the tune of trillions of dollars, in order to transform “the conditions which produce Bigger Thomases,” subsidizing ever more muggers, rapists, and murderers. And what was the result? The mass production of “Biggers”!]

In 1932 another source of information was dramatically opened up to me and I saw data of a surprising nature that helped to clarify the personality of Bigger. From the moment that Hitler took power in Germany and began to oppress the Jews, I tried to keep track of what was happening. And on innumerable occasions I was startled to detect, either from the side of the Fascists or from the side of the oppressed, reactions, moods, phrases, attitudes that reminded me strongly of Bigger, that helped to bring out more clearly the shadowy outlines of the negative that lay in the back of my mind.

I read every account of the Fascist movement in Germany I could lay my hands on, and from page to page I encountered and recognized familiar emotional patterns. What struck me with particular force was the Nazi preoccupation with the construction of a society in which there would exist among all people (German people, of course!) one solidarity of ideals, one continuous circulation of fundamental beliefs, notions, and assumptions. I am not now speaking of the popular idea of regimenting people’s thought; I’m speaking of the implicit, almost unconscious, or pre-conscious, assumptions and ideals upon which whole nations and races act and live. And while reading these Nazi pages I’d be reminded of the negro preacher in the South telling of a life beyond this world, a life in which the color of men’s skins would not matter, a life in which each man would know what was deep down in the hearts of his fellow man. And I could hear Bigger Thomas standing on a street comer in America expressing his agonizing doubts and chronic suspicions, thus: “I ain’t going to trust nobody. Everything is a racket and everybody is out to get what he can for himself. Maybe if we had a true leader, we could do something.” And I’d know that I was still on the track of learning about Bigger, still in the midst of the modern struggle for solidarity among men.

When the Nazis spoke of the necessity of a highly ritualized and symbolized life, I could hear Bigger Thomas on Chicago’s South Side saying; “Man, what we need is a leader like Marcus Garvey. We need a nation, a flag, an army of our own. We colored folks ought to organize into groups and have generals, captains, lieutenants, and so forth. We ought to take Africa and have a national home.” I’d know, while listening to these childish words, that a white man would smile derisively at them. But I could not smile, for I knew the truth of those simple words from the facts of my own life. [N.S.: But you just said they were “childish”!] The deep hunger in those childish ideas was like a flash of lightning illuminating the whole dark inner landscape of Bigger’s mind Those words told me that the civilization which had given birth to Bigger contained no spiritual sustenance, had created no culture which could hold and claim his allegiance and faith, had sensitized him and had left him stranded, a free agent to roam the streets of our cities, a hot and whirling vortex of undisciplined and unchannelized impulses. The results of these observations made me feel more than ever estranged from the civilization in which I lived, and more than ever resolved toward the task of creating with words a scheme of images and symbols whose direction could enlist the sympathies, loyalties, and yearnings of the millions of Bigger Thomases in every land and race. . . .

[But bigger Thomas was evil. No decent person could ever identify with him. And no civilization has any room for even one of him.]

But more than anything else, as a writer, I was fascinated by the similarity of the emotional tensions of Bigger in America and Bigger in Nazi Germany and Bigger in old Russia. All Bigger Thomases, white and black, felt tense, afraid, nervous, hysterical, and restless. From far away Nazi Germany and old Russia had come to me items of knowledge that told me that certain modem experiences were creating types of personalities whose existence ignored racial and national lines of demarcation, that these personalities carried with them a more universal drama-element than anything I’d ever encountered before; that these personalities were mainly imposed upon men and women living in a world whose fundamental assumptions could no longer be taken for granted: a world ridden with national and class strife; a world whose metaphysical meanings had vanished; a world in which God no longer existed as a daily focal point of men’s lives; a world in which men could no longer retain their faith in an ultimate hereafter. It was a highly geared world whose nature was conflict and action, a world whose limited area and vision impenously [imperiously?] urged men to satisfy their organisms, a world that existed on a plane of animal sensation alone.

It was a world in which millions of men lived and behaved like drunkards, taking a stiff drink of hard life to lift them up for a thrilling moment, to give them a quivering sense of wild exultation and fulfillment that soon faded and let them down. Eagerly they took another drink, wanting to avoid the dull, flat look of things, then still another, this time stronger, and then they felt that their lives had meaning. Speaking figuratively, they were soon chronic alcoholics, men who lived by violence, through extreme action and sensation, through drowning daily in a perpetual nervous agitation.

From these items I drew my first political conclusions about Bigger: I felt that Bigger, an American product, a native son of this land, carried within him the potentialities of either Communism or Fascism. I don’t mean to say that the negro boy I depicted in Native Son is either a Communist or a Fascist. He is not either. But he is product of a dislocated society; he is a dispossessed and disinherited man; he is all of this, and he lives amid the greatest possible plenty on earth and he is looking and feeling for a way out. Whether he’ll follow some gaudy, hysterical leader who’ll promise rashly to fill the void in him, or whether he’ll come to an understanding with the millions of his kindred fellow workers under trade-union or revolutionary guidance depends upon the future drift of events in America. But, granting the emotional state, the tensity, the fear, the hate, the impatience, the sense of exclusion, the ache for violent action, the emotional and cultural hunger, Bigger Thomas, conditioned as his organism is, will not become an ardent, or even a lukewarm, supporter of the status quo

. The difference between Bigger’s tensity and the German variety is that Bigger’s, due to America’s educational restrictions on the bulk of her Negro population, is in a nascent state, not yet articulate. And the difference between Bigger’s longing for self-identification and the Russian principle of self-determination is that Bigger’s, due to the effects of American oppression, which has not allowed for the forming of deep ideas of solidarity among negroes, is still in a state of individual anger and hatred. Here, I felt, was drama! Who will be the first to touch off these Bigger Thomases in America, white and black?

For a long time I toyed with the idea of writing a novel in which a negro Bigger Thomas would loom as a symbolic figure of American life, a figure who would hold within him the prophecy of our future. I felt strongly that he held within him, in a measure which perhaps no other contemporary type did, the outlines of action and feeling which we would encounter on a vast scale in the days to come. Just as one sees when one walks into a medical research laboratory jars of alcohol containing abnormally large or distorted portions of the human body, just so did I see and feel that the conditions of life under which negroes are forced to live in America contain the embryonic emotional prefigurations of how a large part of the body politic would react under stress.

So, with this much knowledge of myself and the world gained and known, why should I not try to work out on paper the problem of what will happen to Bigger? Why should I not, like a scientist in a laboratory, use my imagination and invent test-tube situations, place Bigger in them, and, following the guidance of my own hopes and fears, what I had learned and remembered, work out in fictional form an emotional statement and resolution of this problem?

But several things militated against my starting to work. Like Bigger himself, I felt a mental censor — product of the fears which a negro feels from living in America — standing over me, draped in white, warning me not to write. This censor’s warnings were translated into my own thought processes thus: “What will white people think if I draw the picture of such a negro boy? Will they not at once say: ‘See, didn’t we tell you all along that niggers are like that? Now, look, one of their own kind has come along and drawn the picture for usl’ ’’ I felt that if I drew the picture of Bigger truthfully, there would be many reactionary whites who would try to make of him something I did not intend. And yet, and this was what made it difficult, I knew that I could not write of Bigger convincingly if I did not depict him as he was: that is, resentful toward whites, sullen, angry, ignorant, emotionally unstable, depressed and unaccountably elated at times, and unable even, because of his own lack of inner organization which American oppression has fostered in him, to unite with the members of his own race. And would not whites misread Bigger and, doubting his authenticity, say: “This man is preaching hate against the whole white race”?

The more I thought of it the more I became convinced that if I did not write of Bigger as I saw and felt him, if I did not try to make him a living personality and at the same time a symbol of all the larger things I felt and saw in him, I’d be reacting as Bigger himself reacted: that is, I’d be acting out of fear if I let what I thought whites would say constrict and paralyze me.

As I contemplated Bigger and what he meant, I said to myself; “I must write this novel, not only for others to read, but to free myself of this sense of shame and fear.” In fact, the novel, as time passed, grew upon me to the extent that it became a necessity to write it; the writing of it turned into a way of living for me.

Another thought kept me from writing. What would my own white and black comrades in the Communist party say? This thought was the most bewildering of all. Politics is a hard and narrow game; its policies represent the aggregate desires and aspirations of millions of people. Its goals are rigid and simply drawn, and the minds of the majority of politicians are set, congealed in terms of daily tactical maneuvers. How could I create such complex and wide schemes of assoclatlonal [associational?] thought and feeling, such filigreed webs of dreams and politics, without being mistaken for a “smuggler of reaction,” “an ideological confusionist,” or “an individualistic and dangerous element”? Though my heart is with the collectivist and proletarian ideal, I solved this problem by assuring myself that honest politics and honest feeling in imaginative representation ought to be able to meet on common healthy ground without fear, suspicion, and quarreling.

Further, and more importantly, I steeled myself by coming to the conclusion that whether politicians accepted or rejected Bigger did not really matter; my task, as I felt it, was to free myself of this burden of impressions and feelings, recast them into the image of Bigger and make him true. Lastly, I felt that a right more immediately deeper than that of politics or race was at stake; that is, a human right, the right of a man to think and feel honestly. And especially did this personal and human right bear hard upon me, for temperamentally I am inclined to satisfy the claims of my own ideals rather than the expectations of others. It was this obscure need that had pulled me into the labor movement in the beginning and by exercising it I was but fulfilling what I felt to be the laws of my own growth. There was another constricting thought that kept me from work. It deals with my own race. I asked myself: “What will negro doctors, lawyers, dentists, bankers, school teachers, social workers and business men, think of me if I draw such a picture of Bigger?” I knew from long and painful experience that the negro middle and professional classes were the people of my own race who were more than others ashamed of Bigger and what he meant Having narrowly escaped the Bigger Thomas reaction pattern themselves — indeed, still retaining traces of it within the confines of their own timid personalities — they would not relish being publicly reminded of the lowly, shameful depths of life above which they enjoyed their bourgeois lives. Never did they want people, especially white people, to think that their lives were so much touched by anything so dark and brutal as Bigger.

Their attitude toward life and art can be summed up in a single paragraph: “But, Mr. Wright, there are so many of us who are not like Bigger. Why don’t you portray in your fiction the best traits of our race, something that will show the white people what we have done in spite of oppression? Don’t represent anger and bitterness. Smile when a white person comes to you. Never let him feel that you are so small that what he has done to crush you has made you hate him! Oh, above all, save your pride!”

But Bigger won over all these claims; he won because I felt that I was hunting on the trail of more exciting and thrilling game. What Bigger meant had claimed me because I felt with all of my being that he was more important than what any person, white or black, would say or try to make of him, more important than any political analysis designed to explain or deny him, more important, even, than my own sense of fear, shame, and diffidence.

But Bigger was still not down upon paper. For a long time I had been writing of him in my mind, but I had yet to put him into an image, a breathing symbol draped out in the guise of the only form of life my native land had allowed me to know intimately, that is, the ghetto life of the American negro. But the basic reason for my hesitancy was that another and far more complex problem had risen to plague me. Bigger, as I saw and felt him, was a snarl of many realities; he had in him many levels of life.

[N.S.: The hell, he did!]

First, there was his personal and private life, that intimate existence that is so difficult to snare and nail down in fiction, that elusive core of being, that individual data of consciousness which in every man and woman is like that in no other.

I had to deal with Bigger’s dreams, his fleeting, momentary sensations, his yearning, visions, his deep emotional responses.

[N.S.: But his Bigger has no dreams. And there’s no problem nailing down “his personal and private life,” because he’s a fictional character.]

Then I was confronted with that part of him that was dual in aspect, dim, wavering, that part of him which is so much a part of all negroes and all whites that I realized that I could put it down upon paper only by feeling out its meaning first within the confines of my own life. Bigger was attracted and repelled by the American scene. He was an American, because he was a native son; but he was also a negro nationalist in a vague sense because he was not allowed to live as an American. Such was his way of life and mine; neither Bigger nor I resided fully in either camp.

Of this dual aspect of Bigger’s social consciousness, I placed the nationalistic side first, not because I agreed with Bigger’s wild and intense hatred of white people, but because his hate had placed him, like a wild animal at bay, in a position where he was most symbolic and explainable. In other words, his nationalist complex was for me a concept through which I could grasp more of the total meaning of his life than I could in any other way. I tried to approach Bigger’s snarled and confused nationalist [?] feelings with conscious and informed ones of my own. Yet, Bigger was not nationalist enough to feel the need of religion or the folk culture of his own people. What made Bigger’s social consciousness most complex was the fact that he was hovering unwanted between two worlds — between powerful America and his own stunted place in life— and I took upon myself the task of trying to make the reader feel this No Man’s Land. The most that I could say of Bigger was that he felt the need for a whole life and acted out of that need; that was all.

Above and beyond all this, there was that American part of Bigger which is the heritage of us all, that part of him which we get from our seeing and hearing, from school, from the hopes and dreams of our friends; that part of him which the common people of America never talk of but take for granted. Among millions of people the deepest convictions of life are never discussed openly; they are felt, implied, hinted at tacitly and obliquely in their hopes and fears. We live by an idealism that makes us believe that the Constitution is a good document of government, that the Bill of Rights is a good legal and humane principle to safeguard our civil liberties, that every man and woman should have the opportunity to realize himself, to seek his own individual fate and goal, his own peculiar and untranslatable destiny. I don’t say that Bigger knew this in the terms in which I’m speaking of it; I don’t say that any such thought ever entered his head. His emotional and intellectual life was never that articulate. But he knew it emotionally, intuitively, for his emotions and his desires were developed, and he caught it, as most of us do, from the mental and emotional climate of our time. Bigger had all of this in him, dammed up, buried, implied, and I had to develop it in fictional form.

There was still another level of Bigger’s life that I felt bound to account for and render, a level as elusive to discuss as it was to grasp in writing. Here again, I had to fall back upon my own feelings as a guide, for Bigger did not offer in his life any articulate verbal explanations. There seems to hover somewhere in that dark part of all our lives, in some more than in others, an objectless, timeless, spaceless element of primal fear and dread, stemming, perhaps, from our birth (depending upon whether one’s outlook upon personality is Freudian or non-Freudian!), a fear and dread which exercises an impelling influence upon our lives all out of proportion to its obscurity. And, accompanying this first fear, is, for the want of a better name, a reflex urge toward ecstasy, complete submission, and trust. The springs of religion are here, and also the origins of rebellion. And in a boy like Bigger, young, unschooled, whose subjective life was clothed in the tattered rags of American “culture,” this primitive fear and ecstasy were naked, exposed, unprotected by religion or a framework of government or a scheme of society whose final faiths would gain his love and trust; unprotected by trade or profession, faith or belief; opened to every trivial blast of daily or hourly circumstance.

There was yet another level of reality in Bigger’s life: the impliedly political. I’ve already mentioned that Bigger had in him impulses which I had felt were present in the vast upheavals of Russia and Germany. Well, somehow, I had to make these political impulses felt by the reader in terms of Bigger’s daily actions, keeping in mind as I did so the probable danger of my being branded as a propagandist by those who would not like the subject matter. [But of course he was a propagandist!]

Then there was Bigger’s relationship with white America, both North and South, which I had to depict, which I had to make known once again, alas; a relationship whose effects are earned by every negro, like scars, somewhere in his body and mind.

I had also to show what oppression had done to Bigger’s relationships with his own people, how it had split him off from them, how it had baffled him; how oppression seems to hinder and stifle in the victim those very qualities of character which are so essential for an effective struggle against the oppressor. [But he’d already admitted that Bigger was not a victim of “oppression.” If anything, Whites were his victims.]

Then there was the fabulous city in which Bigger lived, an indescribable city, huge, roaring, dirty, noisy, raw, stark, brutal; a city of extremes; torrid summers and sub-zero winters, white people and black people, the English language and strange tongues, foreign born and native born, scabby poverty and gaudy luxury, high idealism and hard cynicism! A city so young that, in thinking of its short history, one’s mind, as it travels backward in time, is stopped abruptly by the barren stretches of wind-swept prairie! But a city old enough to have caught within the homes of its long, straight streets the symbols and images of man’s age-old destiny, of truths as old as the mountains and seas, of dramas as abiding as the soul of man itself! A city which has become the pivot of the Eastern, Western, Northern, and Southern poles of the nation. But a city whose black smoke clouds shut out the sunshine for seven months of the year; a city in which, on a fine balmy May morning, one can sniff the stench of the stockyards; a city where people have grown so used to gangs and murders and graft that they have honestly forgotten that government can have a pretense of decency!

With all of this thought out, Bigger was still unwritten. Two events, however, came into my life and accelerated the process, made me sit down and actually start work on the typewriter, and just stop the writing of Bigger in my mind as I walked the streets.

The first event was my getting a job in the South Side Boys’ Club, an institution which tried to reclaim the thousands of negro Bigger Thomases from the dives and the alleys of the Black Belt. Here, on a vast scale, I had an opportunity to observe Bigger in all of his moods, actions, haunts. Here I felt for the first time that the rich folk who were paying ray [?] wages did not really give a good goddamn about Bigger, that their kindness was prompted at bottom by a selfish motive. They were paying me to distract Bigger with ping-pong, checkers, swimming, marbles, and baseball in order that he might not roam the streets and harm the valuable white property which adjoined the Black Belt. I am not condemning boys’ clubs and ping-pong as such; but these little stopgaps were utterly inadequate to fill up the centuries-long chasm of emptiness which American civilization had created in these Biggers. I felt that I was doing a kind of dressed-up police work, and I hated it.

I would work hard with these Biggers, and when it would come time for me to go home I’d say to myself, under my breath so that no one could hear: “Go to it, boys! Prove to the bastards that gave you these games that life is stronger than ping-pong. . . . Show them that full-blooded life is harder and hotter than they suspect, even though that life is draped in a black skin which at heart they despise. . . .”

They did. The police blotters of Chicago are testimony to how much they did. That was the only way I could contain myself for doing a job I hated; for a moment I’d allow myself, vicariously, to feel as Bigger felt — not much, just a little, just a little — but, still, there it was.

[Then he should have been happy. He wanted his charges to be violent criminals, and so they were! And yet, he wasn’t. Becuase the truth was, nothing was going to make him happy.]

The second event that spurred me to write of Bigger was more personal and subtle, I had written a book of short stories which was published under the title of Uncle Tom’s Children. When the reviews of that book began to appear, I realized that I had made an awfully naive mistake. I found that I had written a book which even bankers’ daughters could read and weep over and feel good about. I swore to myself that if I ever wrote another book, no one would weep over it; that it would be so hard and deep that they would have to face it without the consolation of tears. It was this that made me get to work in dead earnest.

Now, until this moment I did not stop to think very much about the plot of Native Son. The reason I did not is because I was not for one moment ever worried about it. I had spent years learning about Bigger, what had made him, what he meant; so, when the time came for writing, what had made him and what he meant constituted my plot. But the far-flung items of his life had to be couched in imaginative terms, terms known and acceptable to a common body of [White] readers, terms which would, in the course of the story, manipulate the deepest held notions and convictions of their lives. That came easy. The moment I began to write, the plot fell out, so to speak. I’m not trying to oversimplify or make the process seem oversubtle. At bottom, what happened is very easy to explain.

Any negro who has lived in the North or the South knows that times without number he has heard of some negro boy being picked up on the streets and carted off to jail and charged with “rape.” This thing happens so often that to my mind it had become a representative symbol of the negro’s uncertain position in America. Never for a second was I in doubt as to what kind of social reality or dramatic situation I’d put Bigger in, what kind of test-tube life I’d set up to evoke his deepest reactions. Life had made the plot over and over again, to the extent that I knew it by heart. So frequently do these acts recur that when I was halfway through the first draft of Native Son a case paralleling Bigger’s flared forth in the newspapers of Chicago. (Many of the newspaper items and some of the incidents in Native Son are but fictionalized versions of the Robert Nixon case and rewrites of news stories from the Chicago Tribune.) Indeed, scarcely was Native Son off the press before Supreme Court Justice Hugo L. Black gave the nation a long and vivid account of the American police methods of handling negro boys.

Let me describe this stereotyped situation: A crime wave is sweeping a city and citizens are clamoring for police action. Squad cars cruise the Black Belt and grab the first negro boy who seems to be unattached and homeless. He is held for perhaps a week without charge or bail, without the privilege of communicating with anyone, including his own relatives. After a few days this boy “confesses” anything that he is asked to confess, any crime that handily happens to be unsolved and on the calendar. Why does he confess? After the boy has been grilled night and day, hanged up by his thumbs, dangled by his feet out of twenty-story windows, and beaten (in places that leave no scars — cops have found a way to do that), he signs the papers before him, papers which are usually accompanied by a verbal promise to the boy that he will not go to the electric chair. Of course, he ends up by being executed or sentenced for life. If you think I’m telling tall tales, get chummy with some white cop who works in a Black Belt district and ask him for the lowdown.

When a black boy is carted off to jail in such a fashion, it is almost impossible to do anything for him. Even well-disposed negro lawyers find it difficult to defend him, for the boy will plead guilty one day and then not guilty the next, according to the degree of pressure and persuasion that is brought to bear upon his frightened personality from one side or the other. Even the boy’s own family is scared to death; sometimes fear of police intimidation makes them hesitate to acknowledge that the boy is a blood relation of theirs.

Such has been America’s attitude toward these boys that if one is picked up and confronted in a police cell with ten white cops, he is intimidated almost to the point of confessing anything. So far removed are these practices from what the average American citizen encounters in his daily life that it takes a huge act of his imagination to believe that it is true; yet, this same average citizen, with his kindness, his American sportsmanship and good will, would probably act with the mob if a self-respecting negro family moved into his apartment building to escape the Black Belt and its terrors and limitations. . . .

[N.S.: But those terrors are nothing but the terrors of the “Black Belt’s” “Biggers”!]

Now, after all of this, when I sat down to the typewriter, I could not work; I could not think of a good opening scene for the book. I had definitely in mind the kind of emotion I wanted to evoke in the reader in that first scene, but I could not think of the type of concrete event that would convey the motif of the entire scheme of the book, that would sound, in varied form, the note that was to be resounded throughout its length, that would introduce to the reader just what kind of an organism Bigger’s was and the environment that was bearing hourly upon it. Twenty or thirty times I tried and failed; then I argued that if I could not write the opening scene, I’d start with the scene that followed. I did. The actual writing of the book began with the scene in the pool room.

Now, for the writing. During the years in which I had met all of those Bigger Thomases, those varieties of Bigger Thomases, I had not consciously gathered material to write of them; I had not kept a notebook record of their sayings and doings. Their actions had simply made impressions upon my sensibilities as I lived from day to day, impressions which crystallized and coagulated into clusters and configurations of memory, attitudes, moods, ideas. And these subjective states, in turn, were automatically stored away somewhere in me. I was not even aware of the process. But, excited over the book which I had set myself to write, under the stress of emotion, these things came surging up, tangled, fused, knotted, entertaining me by the sheer variety and potency of their meaning and suggestiveness.

With the whole theme in mind, in an attitude almost akin to prayer, I gave myself up to the story. In an effort to capture some phase of Bigger’s life that would not come to me readily, rd [I’d?] jot down as much of it as I could. Then I’d read it over and over, adding each time a word, a phrase, a sentence until I felt that I had caught all the shadings of reality I felt dimly were there. With each of these rereadings and rewritings it seemed that I’d gather in facts and facets that tried to run away. It was an act of concentration, of trying to hold within one’s center of attention all of that bewildering array of facts which science, politics, experience, memory, and imagination were urging upon me. And then, while writing, a new and thrilling relationship would spring up under the drive of emotion, coalescing and telescoping alien facts into a known and felt truth. That was the deep fun of the job: to feel within my body that I was pushing out to new areas of feeling, strange landmarks of emotion, tramping upon foreign soil, compounding new relationships of perceptions, making new and — until that very split second of time! — unheard-of and unfelt effects with words. It had a buoying and tonic impact upon me; my senses would strain and seek for more and more of such relationships; my temperature would rise as I worked. That is writing as I feel it, a kind of significant living.

The first draft of the novel was written in four months, straight through, and ran to some 576 pages. Just as a man rises in the mornings to dig ditches for his bread, so I’d work daily. I’d think of some abstract principle of Bigger’s conduct and at once my mind would turn it into some act I’d seen Bigger perform, some act which I hoped would be familiar enough to the American reader to gain his credence. But in the writing of scene after scene I was guided by but one criterion: to tell the truth as I saw it and felt it. That is, to objectify in words some insight derived from my living in the form of action, scene, and dialogue. If a scene seemed improbable to me, I’d not tear it up, but ask myself: “Does it reveal enough of what I feel to stand in spite of its unreality?” If I felt it did, it stood. If I felt that it did not, I ripped it out. The degree of morality in my writing depended upon the degree of felt life and truth I could put down upon the printed page. For example, there is a scene in Native Son where Bigger stands in a cell with a Negro preacher, Jan, Max, the State’s Attorney, Mr. Dalton, Mrs. Dalton, Bigger’s mother, his brother, his sister, Al, Gus, and Jack. While writing that scene, I knew that it was unlikely that so many people would ever be allowed to come into a murderer’s cell. [N.S.: But what about the ten cops crowding into a suspect’s cell? Have you already forgotten? You gotta keep your lies straight, pal.] But I wanted those people in that cell to elicit a certain important emotional response from Bigger. And so the scene stood. I felt that what I wanted that scene to say to the reader was more important than Us [its?] surface reality or plausibility.

Always, as I wrote, I was both reader and writer, both the conceiver of the action and the appreciator of it. I tried to write so that, in the same instant of time, the objective and subjective aspects of Bigger’s life would be caught in a focus of prose. And always I tried to render, depict, not merely to tell the story. If a thing was cold, I tried to make the reader feel cold, and not just tell about it. In writing in this fashion, sometimes I’d find it necessary to use a stream of consciousness technique, then rise to an interior monologue, descend to a direct rendering of a dream state, then to a matter-of-fact depiction of what Bigger was saying, doing, and feeling. Then I’d find it impossible to say what I wanted to say without stepping in and speaking outright on my own; but when doing this I always made an effort to retain the mood of the story, explaining everything only in terms of Bigger’s life and, if possible, in the rhythms of Bigger’s thought (even though the words would be mine). Again, at other times, in the guise of the lawyer’s speech and the newspaper items, or in terms of what Bigger would overhear or see from afar. I’d give what others were saying and thinking of him. But always, from the start to the finish, it was Bigger’s story, Bigger’s fear, Bigger’s flight, and Bigger’s fate that I tried to depict. I wrote with the conviction in mind (I don’t know if this is right or wrong; I only know that I’m temperamentally inclined to feel this way) that the main burden of all serious fiction consists almost wholly of character-destiny and the items, social, political, and personal, of that character-destiny.

As I wrote I followed, almost unconsciously, many principles of the novel which my reading of the novels of other writers had made me feel were necessary for the building of a well-constructed book. For the most part the novel is rendered in the present; I wanted the reader to feel that Bigger’s story was happening now, like a play upon the stage or a movie unfolding upon the screen. Action follows action, as in a prize fight. Wherever possible, I told of Bigger’s life in close-up, slow-motion, giving the feel of the grain in the passing of time. I had long had the feeling that this was the best way to “enclose" the reader’s mind in a new world, to blot out all reality except that which I was giving him.

Then again, as much as I could, I restricted the novel to what Bigger saw and felt, to the limits of his feeling and thoughts, even when I was conveying more than that to the reader. I had the notion that such a manner of rendering made for a sharper effect, a more pointed sense of the character, his peculiar type of being and consciousness. Throughout there is but one point of view: Bigger’s. This, too, I felt, made for a richer illusion of reality.

I kept out of the story as much as possible, for I wanted the reader to feel that there was nothing between him and Bigger; that the story was a special premiere given in his own private theater.

I kept the scenes long, made as much happen within a short space of time as possible; all of which, I felt, made for greater density and richness of effect.

In a like manner I tried to keep a unified sense of background throughout the story; the background would change, of course, but I tried to keep before the eyes of the reader at all times the forces and elements against which Bigger was striving.

And, because I had limited myself to rendering only what Bigger saw and felt, I gave no more reality to the other characters than that which Bigger himself saw.

This, honestly, is all I can account for in the book. If I attempted to account for scenes and characters, to tell why certain scenes were written in certain ways. I’d be stretching facts in order to be pleasantly intelligible. All else in the book came from my feelings reacting upon the material, and any honest reader knows as much about the rest of what is in the book as I do; that is, if, as he reads, he is willing to let his emotions and Imagination become as influenced by the materials as I did. As I wrote, for some reason or other, one image, symbol, character, scene, mood, feeling evoked its opposite, its parallel, its complementary, and its ironic counterpart. Why? I don't know. My emotions and imagination just like to work that way. One can account for just so much of life, and then no more. At least, not yet.

With the first draft down, I found that I could not end the book satisfactorily. In the first draft I had Bigger going smack to the electric chair; but I felt that two murders were enough for one novel. I cut the final scene and went back to worry about the beginning. I had no luck. The book was one-half finished, with the opening and closing scenes unwritten. Then, one night, in desperation — I hope that I’m not disclosing the hidden secrets of my craft! — I sneaked out and got a bottle.

With the help of it, I began to remember many things which I could not remember before. One of them was that Chicago was overrun with rats. I recalled that I’d seen many rats on the streets, that I’d heard and read of negro children being bitten by rats in their beds. At first I rejected the idea of Bigger battling a rat in his room; I was afraid that the rat would “hog” the scene. But the rat would not leave me; he presented himself in many attractive guises. So, cautioning myself to allow the rat scene to disclose only Bigger, his family, their little room, and their relationships, I let the rat walk in, and he did his stuff.

[N.S.: Wright’s rat device proved very influential. Arnold Perl was a member of the communist party, but as soon as the blacklist ended, actually earlier, since he was back at work in 1958, he went right back to work, destroying America. Perl got a contract as the executive producer of a communist propaganda series, east side, west side, in one episode of which (which he wrote) a black Harlem toddler gets bitten by a rat and dies. Never in my life have I heard of such a thing really happening.]

Many of the scenes were torn out as I reworked the book. The mere rereading of what I’d written made me think of the possibility of developing themes which had been only hinted at in the first draft. For example, the entire guilt theme that runs through Native Son was woven in after the first draft was written.

At last I found out how to end the book; I ended it just as I had begun it, showing Bigger living dangerously, taking his life into his hands, accepting what life [life?] had made him. The lawyer, Max, was placed in Bigger’s cell at the end of the novel to register the moral — or what I felt was the moral — horror of negro life in the United States.

The writing of Native Son was to me an exciting, enthralling, and even a romantic experience. With what I’ve learned in the writing of this book, with all of its blemishes, imperfections, with all of its unrealized potentialities, I am launching out upon another novel, this time about the status of women m modem American society. This book, too, goes back to my childhood just as Bigger went, for, while I was storing away impressions of Bigger, I was storing away impressions of many other things that made me think and wonder. Some experience will ignite somewhere deep down in me the smoldering embers of new fires and I’ll be off again to write yet another novel. It is good to live when one feels that such as that will happen to one. Life becomes sufficient unto life; the rewards of living are found in living.

[N.S.: So, somehow Wright lived among the “horror of negro life in the United States,” and yet his life was wonderful!]

I don’t know if Native Son is a good book or a bad book. And I don’t know if the book I’m working on now will be a good book or a bad book. And I really don’t care. The mere writing of it will be more fun and a deeper satisfaction than any praise or blame from anybody.

I feel that I’m lucky to be alive to write novels today, when the whole world is caught in the pangs of war and change. Early American writers, Henry James and Nathaniel Hawthorne, complained bitterly about the bleakness and flatness of the American scene. But I think that if they were alive, they’d feel at home in modem America. True, we have no great church in America; our national traditions are still of such a sort that we are not wont to brag of them [N.S.: Speak for yourself, buddy!]; and we have no army that’s above the level of mercenary fighters [?!]; we have no group acceptable to the whole of our country upholding certain humane values; we have no rich symbols [!], no colorful rituals [!]. We have only a money-grubbing, industrial civilization. But we do have in the negro the embodiment of a past tragic enough [Yeah, right!] to appease the spiritual hunger of even a James; and we have in the oppression of the negro a shadow athwart our national life dense and heavy enough to satisfy even the gloomy broodings of a Hawthorne. And if Poe were alive, he would not have to invent horror; horror would invent him.

New York, March 7, 1940.