African/American: Lorraine Hansberry's Les Blancs and the American Civil Rights Movement - Critical Essay

African American Review, Fall, 2001 by Joy L. Abell

Hansberry herself believed religion was a crutch, a means by which humans can create answers to as yet unanswered questions (To Be Young 195-97), and this belief is reflected in her near-dismissal of both Christianity and the native religion of Zatembe in Les Blancs. Preparing for his father's funeral, Tshembe dresses in traditional clothing and paints his face with yellow ochre, rituals in which he admits he does not believe. He is willing to enact these rituals out of respect for the traditions of his father, however, and condemns Abioseh for abandoning them. For Tshembe the impious remembrance of native traditions and beliefs is far less offensive than Abioseh's appropriation of European religion, which he likens to the selling of his brother's soul, a priestly robe the receipt (Les Blancs 62). Tshembe's attitude toward Christianity, then, aligns Hansberry with those who were uneasy with its often prominent place in the Civil Rights Movement.

Another aspect of the Movement with which Hansberry seems to have been uneasy was King's strict adherence to nonviolence. In a letter to one of her readers, the playwright sees King's movement "as a reflection of the sense of tactical reality which a desperate people constantly demonstrate," and argues that many African Americans, herself included, "have no illusion that it is enough" (To Be Young 221). Hansberry believed instead that

Negroes must concern themselves with every single means of struggle: legal, illegal, passive, active, violent and non-violent. ... they must harass, debate, petition, give money to court struggles, sit-in, lie-down, strike, boycott, sing hymns, pray on steps--and shoot from their windows when the racists come cruising through their communities. (222)

This philosophy closely corresponds with Malcolm X's exhortation to fight racism "by any means necessary" (373), a maxim Hansberry includes in a key scene in which Tshembe must decide whether to lead the revolutionary forces. He is initially reluctant to embrace violence as a catalyst for change, even informing the spirit that haunts him that he has "renounced all spears" (Les Blancs 81). He places his hopes for peace on his former mentor, Amos Kumalo. Kumalo's attempt to negotiate with the Europeans, however, ends in his arrest and imprisonment, and Tshembe resigns himself to the fact that violence is the only means of communication their oppressors have left open to the revolutionaries of Zatembe. When he finds that Abioseh has betrayed their kinsman Ngago, a leader in the liberation movement, Tshembe knows he must kill his brother to ensure his own safety and the success of the movement. Tshembe's choice illustrates the level of sacrifice Hansberry believed was needed for true change to occur and demonstra tes the profound commitment she brought to the idea of liberation.

Hansberry's acceptance of the necessity of violence, however, does not signal her complete support of Malcolm X and his philosophies; the two sharply diverged on the issue of white involvement in the cause of liberation. Malcolm, before his conversion from the Black Muslims to a more traditional sect of Islam, regarded all whites as "blue-eyed devils" bent on the destruction of African Americans. Hansberry, however, did not "blindly worship one group to indict another" (Haley 279) and believed modem Africans and African Americans are bound not only to each other but also, inextricably, to Europeans. Hansberry demonstrates this belief by filling the play with characters who are socially, biologically, and spiritually tied to European traditions, and she uses these links to illustrate the difficulties faced by her African characters and their African-American counterparts. In Les Blancs, the European (and thus the American) is not evil solely on the basis of his or her nationality. Madame Neilsen is one such sy mpathetic character; her friendship with Tshembe and his family is genuine, as is her love for her adopted home of Zatembe.