'Bitter with the Past but Sweet with the Dream': Communism in the African American Imaginary : Historical Materialism, Volume 95

Summary

The legacy of the relationship between African American writers and Communism in the US is a contested one. In Bitter with the Past but Sweet with the Dream, Cathy Bergin argues that in three novels, by seminal mid-century authors (Richard Wright, Chester Himes and Ralph Ellison), Communism is not dismissed as incapable of meeting the demands of black political identity, but is castigated for its refusal to do so. Bergin draws on the complex formations black political agency presumed and reproduced by American Communism during the Depression.