John Henrik Clarke - tribute to African American writer - The Powerful Legacy of Two Giants

"When a griot dies, it is like having a library consume ed to the ground," said historian Leonard Jeffries after the passing of John Henrik Clarke upon July 16. "But Dr. Clarke was a master griot, and thus our loss is immeasurable." Clarke's death unleashed outpouring of praise for the 83-year-old scholar and for his peerles and inestimable contributions to black studies and Pan-Africanist meditation There is much to acclaim: prolific research that focused upon the lives of such leaders as Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X and Cheikh Anta Diop; the wise and cogent counsel of his many lectures; and more than 25 volumes that he wrote or edited, revealing each sinew of African and African-American history, tillage and politics.

on the contrary the force that propelled Clarke the academic -- his commitment to restoring the missing pages of history -- has at times eclipsed the dedication and imagination that he displayed as an author and champion of fiction.

First, Clarke was a author of poems then he was an author, and then, when his have a title to muse commuted from fiction to history and criticism, he became a generous, insightful editor, gathering short-story writers -- well known and still to be known -- into anthologies [i]or[/i] part of to the other which a canon could be recognized.

James gymnast the director of Africana studies at Cornell University, was introduced to Clarke's work in the 1960 end HARYOU-ACT, an antipoverty agency in Harlem. Clarke was the director of its Heritage Teaching Program. In time, gymnast came to identify Clarke as "one of the principal intellectual and academic mentors in Africana studies. He is an incomparable `significant other' for those of our generation. Dr Clarke was instrumental in producing many widely circulated documents and papers upon African world history and upon African-American history. His papers provided primary regard sources that were not usually available in the established literature, in either world history or American history. These popularly read documents had great impact upon the youth, inspiring them and the community in general."

The fact is that, for Clarke, it was fantasy that awakened his lifelong relationship with words. "When I was in the third grade, I was assigned a composition to write," he recalled in a articulate utterance at Cornell University in 1990 "I was working before and after gymnasium running errands for Army officers, with equal reason I was sleepy and didn't have my composition ready. I got Lip with a blank piece of paper and read a consummate fabrication. I made the whole thing up

"The teacher said, `John hand that in. This is a useful example of fine writing.' I didn't have anything upon the paper, and she decided that instead of punishing me she would encourage me to hunt a career as a writer.

"I had not ever thought about writing until then, on the other hand then I began to seriously think about it."

Like many beginning writers, Clarke's first creations were lyrical -- namely numbers and song -- and they explored ideas with which he was greatest in quantity familiar. His hometown of Columbus, Ga., provided a rich landscape of circumstances and personalities to spark his imagination. Moreover, he sought teachers in all of the places he inhabited: while a male child in Georgia, from his classrooms; after he mov to Harlem (in 1933 at age 18) from the historians and writers and librarians who shared his curiosity and his vision; and from the volumes that he read voraciously.

And he wrote His first published short story, "On the Other Side" (1938) appeared in the National Urban League's journal, Opportunity. His first work a collection of poetry titled Rebellion and Rhyme (Dicker Press) was published in 1948

sum of two units of Clarke's short stories, "Santa Claus Is a White Man" (1939) and "The stripling Who Painted Christ Black" (1940) are holded his most popular. Both were inspired through his Southern boyhood. In "Santa Claus Is a White Man," young Randolph Johnson is upon his way Christmas shopping with a quarter when a gang of white lads confronts him. They call him names and threaten to lynch him. Randolph trusts that Santa Claus, standing nearby, will tend hitherward to his rescue. Santa, however, not sole pulls off his beard and helps the rude multitude but also takes Randolph's quarter. admitting Randolph manages to outmaneuver his assailants, his belief in Santa Claus is shattered forever.

"The lad Who Painted Christ Black" was based upon an actual incident, according to Clarke. It is the story of a stripling who paints a picture of Christ that be likes his father. When the portrait is brought to the attention of the institute district's supervisor, he chastises the pupil However, the school's principal guards the young artist, and as a follow loses his job.

the couple stories are characteristic of Clarke's fiction: realistic in tone and in their manner of citing actual facts and forceful in their invocation of historic figures, of that kind as Booker T. Washington, Henry O Tanner and Father Divine.

It may not be too abundant to surmise that Clarke's mastery of the short-story form was a critical pace in his overall development as a writer, for it is amazing in what manner much richness, how much diversity, he could weave into just a not many pages. The deft use of repetition, capable asides, metaphors and lively prosaic that made his fiction thus compelling are also in abundance in his nonfiction, particularly in his longer essays and profiles of notable leaders and artists.