Research Catalog
Why I left America, and other essays
- Title
- Why I left America, and other essays / by Oliver W. Harrington ; edited, with an introduction, by M. Thomas Inge.
- Author
- Harrington, Oliver W. (Oliver Wendell), 1912-1995
- Publication
- Jackson : University Press of Mississippi, [1993]
- ©1993
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| Status | Format | Access | Call Number | Item Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Text | Use in library | N6537.H365 I54 1993 | Off-site |
Details
- Additional Authors
- Description
- xxix, 113 pages : illustrations; 21 cm
- Summary
- To American Black newspapers of the 1930s and 1940s "Ollie" Harrington was a prolific contributor of humorous and editorial cartoons. He emerged as an artist during the Harlem Renaissance and created Bootsie, the popular cartoon figure that became a fixture in Black newspapers. Langston Hughes praised Harrington as America's greatest Black cartoonist. After serving as a war correspondent in Italy, he returned to his homeland and the impediment of racism that pervaded American life. As director of public relations for the NAACP, he crusaded against America's policies of institutionalized racism, openly supporting leftist reform leaders. Upon hearing in this era of "red-baiting" that he was targeted for investigation, Harrington left America. In the culturally rich American community on the Left Bank in Paris that would come to include Chester Himes, James Baldwin, and Richard Wright, he became a fixture. In 1961 he found himself trapped behind the Berlin Wall, but he chose to remain in East Germany. His cartoons appeared in East German magazines and in the American Communist newspaper The Daily World. Although he became a favorite with Eastern Bloc students and intellectuals, in America Harrington was mainly forgotten. The autobiographical pieces included in Why I Left America and Other Essays, written mainly during the 1960s and 1970s, detail Oliver W. Harrington's experiences as an African American artist in exile. One theme that persists in these writings and his cartoons is his intolerance of racism. Hence, as an artist, he has found it impossible not to be political. "Although I believe that 'art for art's sake' has its merits," he says, "I personally feel that my art must be involved, and the most profound involvement must be with the Black liberation struggle." One essay, from Ebony magazine, fuels speculation about the mysterious circumstances in the death of his friend Richard Wright. In another piece Harrington details how he created the celebrated Bootsie. He writes in others of his life in New York during the Harlem Renaissance and in Paris with fellow Black expatriate figures. Why did this African American choose to live in exile for over forty years? In an affectionate foreword to this volume Richard Wright's daughter Julia gives clues to the answer. Her insights, along with M. Thomas Inge's introductory essay about Harrington's life and achievements, bring special focus to the experiences of an outstanding African American artist and social critic who has been virtually without recognition in his homeland.
- Subject
- Genre/Form
- essays.
- autobiographies (literary works)
- Essays
- Biographies
- Autobiographies.
- Essays.
- Essais.
- Bibliography (note)
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- Contents
- Foreword: a friendship revisited / by Julia Wright -- Introduction / by M. Thomas Inge -- The last days of Richard Wright -- The mysterious death of Richard Wright -- How Bootsie was born -- Our beloved Pauli -- Look homeward baby -- Through Black eyes -- Like most of us kids -- Where is the justice? -- Why I left America.
- ISBN
- 9780878056552
- 0878056556
- 9780878057399
- 0878057390
- 9781604738988
- 1604738987
- LCCN
- 93025039
- OCLC
- ocm28213704
- 28213704
- SCSB-9025086
- Owning Institutions
- Princeton University Library