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On Being Negro in America

Chapter 1: ON BEING NEGRO IN AMERICA
By J. Saunders Redding
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About This Book

A collection of personal essays and reflections about the lived experience of Black people in the United States, blending autobiography, anecdote, and cultural critique. It examines the psychological double-consciousness produced by racial oppression, the everyday indignities and moral compromises imposed by segregation, and the strain on sympathy and identity. Through candid episodes and critical observation the author analyzes social institutions, literary attitudes, and personal responsibility, ending with sober meditations on dignity, resilience, and the ongoing struggle for honest social recognition.

The Project Gutenberg eBook of On Being Negro in America

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Title: On Being Negro in America

Author: J. Saunders Redding

Release date: April 12, 2020 [eBook #61818]
Most recently updated: October 17, 2024

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Richard Tonsing, Tim Lindell, and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
book was produced from images made available by the
HathiTrust Digital Library.)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ON BEING NEGRO IN AMERICA ***

Transcriber’s Note:

The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

“What a self-conscious people your Negroes are!” a recent French visitor exclaimed. He was right. The Negro lives constantly on two planes of awareness. Watching the telecast of a boxing match between Ezzard Charles, the Negro who happened to be heavyweight champion, and a white challenger, a friend of mine said, “I don’t like Charles as a person but I’ve got to root for him to beat this white boy—and good.”

One’s heart is sickened at the realization of the primal energy that goes undeflected and unrefined into the sheer business of living as a Negro in the United States—in any one of the United States.

J. Saunders Redding has also written:

  • TO MAKE A POET BLACK
  • NO DAY OF TRIUMPH
  • STRANGER AND ALONE
  • THEY CAME IN CHAINS
  • READING FOR WRITING (A college text with Ivan E. Taylor)
  • AN AMERICAN IN INDIA
  • LONESOME ROAD

Charter Books represent a new venture in publishing. They offer at paperback prices a set of modern masterworks, printed on high quality paper with sewn bindings in hardback size and format.

ON BEING NEGRO IN AMERICA

J. Saunders Redding
Charter Books
Copyright 1951 by J. Saunders Redding
All rights reserved
Bobbs-Merrill hardcover edition published September 1951
Charter edition published August 1962
This book is the complete text of the hardcover edition
Printed in the U.S.A.
CHARTER BOOKS
Published by
THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY, INC.
A subsidiary of HOWARD W. SAMS & CO., INC.
Publishers Indianapolis and New York
Distributed by the Macfadden-Bartell Corp., Inc.,
205 East 42nd Street, New York 17, New York