Sterling A. Brown's "Literary Chronicles."

African American Review, Fall, 1997 by Hortense E. Simmons

Brown's rebuttal, three times the length of Hurst's letter, both reinforces his original argument and deflates her comments - logs roll and brickbats heave. Direct and unrelentless in his response, he reiterates his position: "I believe, and have stated time and time again that 'outsiders' have contributed some of the very best interpretations of Negro life. But I do not consider Miss Hurst's book, or the picture, to belong with these" (121). Among his most poignant comments: "My review was a decided failure if it did not reveal the book and picture were uppermost in my - let us call it thinking." He caustically rejects any notion of social value in the movie:

Pity is not enough; sentimentality is not enough. The picture breaks no new ground. The beloved mammy is a long familiar darling in the American consciousness. . . . moving pictures and novels have placed her there. The tragic mulatto . . . is likewise a fixture. She is so woebegone that she is a walking argument against miscegenation. . . . Like her mammy, she contributes to Anglo-Saxon self esteem. It is not easy to see any "social value" in perpetuating these stock characters. . . . To me the social value is still suggested by the subtitle of the review: "Once a pancake, always a pancake." (122)

Regarding Hurst's questioning of his intelligence, Brown responds coolly, "Far be it from me to dispute such a trivial point with a lady." And his final quip about the matter of showing gratefulness to Hurst is characteristically "sterling": "Concerning my ungratefulness, let me cheerfully acknowledge this degree of unintelligence: that I cannot imagine what in the world I would have to be grateful for, either to Universal Pictures or to Miss Hurst" (122).

Sterling Brown in his literary chronicles for Opportunity indisputably remains the teacher par excellence. His curriculum is brilliantly simple, consistent. The foundation he laid more than half a century ago was solid, and the fruit of his labor is manifest both at home and abroad. He was privileged to have witnessed the fruition of his life's work: Ours is, and will continue to be, as he envisioned, a literature orthy of our past; and without a doubt, evidence abounds that an audience worthy of that literature has emerged.

Works Cited

Boston Transcript 4 Feb. 1933: 2.

Brown, Sterling A. "Imitation of Life: Once a Pancake." Opportunity 13 (1935): 87-88.

-----. "The Literary Scene: Chronicle and Comment." Opportunity 9 (1931): 53-54.

-----. "The Literary Scene: Chronicle and Comment." Opportunity 13 (1935): 121-22.

-----. "Our Literary Audience." Opportunity 8 (1930): 42-46, 61.

-----. "Roland Hayes." Opportunity 3 (1925): 173-74.

Gabbin, Joanne V. Sterling A. Brown: Building the Black Aesthetic Tradition. Westport: Greenwood, 1985.

Lewis, David Levering. When Harlem Was in Vogue. New York: Oxford UP, 1989.

Pinckney, Darryl. "The Last New Negro." New York Review of Books 16 Mar. 1989: 14 .

Hortense E. Simmons is Professor of English and Ethnic Studies at California State University, Sacramento.