Gold Coast Information Service, 151, 216, 217, 218, 231, 291, 356, 357
Gold Coast Youth Organization, 247
Golden Ax, famous Ashanti symbol, 332
Golden Stool, symbol of Akan religion, 150–51, 168, 263, 323, 328, 336, 345, 355, 369
Gonzales, Antonia, Portuguese navigator, 55
Graphic, newspaper, 105
Guinea Coast, 56, 114, 191
Hagerson, Mr., 222–227
Hall, Wynyard Montagu, 322
Hauser, Gayelord, 31
History of the Gold Coast, A, book, 63, 150
Hodgson, Sir Frederic, Colonial Secretary of the Gold Coast, 150
Hodgson, Lady, 323
House of Commons, 332
Husserl, Edmund, 289
Hyde Park, 284
Ideas, book, quoted, 289
Independent Press, Ltd., 229
India, 121
Indirect Rule (Native Authority), 126
James Town, 75, 105, 107, 126–27, 157, 229
Jesus, ship, 77
John Baptist, ship, 77
John Evangelist, ship, 77
John II, 61, 64
Juju, 199, 245, 296, 298, 372, 392
Kenke, 378
Kenke cloths, 353, 354
Kessie, Kobina, 370
King of Ashanti, 150
Kingsway Stores, 329
Koforidua, 294, 305, 313, 329
Korle Bu Lagoon, 205
Kra, spirit, 260–61
Krus, people from Liberia, 364
Kumasi, capital of Ashanti, 21, 150, 172, 195, 252, 292, 306, 313, 314, 322, 324, 332, 335, 364, 366, 370–71; compared with Accra, 327; core of “Divine Communism,” 328; method of telephoning in, 350–51
Labadi, 177, 181
Lagos, Nigeria, 51
Lake Bosomtwe, 332–33
Lamptey, Obetsebi, 121
Las Palmas, 42, 45; Fascism in, 42
Lawrence, D. H., 22
Legislative Assembly, 125–26, 206–7
Lenin, 82, 130, 271
Liberia, 232, 364
Liverpool, 22, 23, 24; as slave port, 27, 28
London, 27
London Daily Mirror, 229
Malan, Dr., 51
“Mammies,” 22, 102, 142, 143, 378
Mampong, 241, 242, 293, 323
Manya Krobo, 271
Marginal Man, The, book, 49
Marx, Karl, 130, 271
Marxism, 418
Mau Mau, 343
Meyerowitz, Eva L. R., 401
Mfantsipim Secondary School, 194, 242
Middle Passage, 25
Militarization of African life, 415–18
Mississippi, 55
Moore, George, 22
Mumford, 47
Nii Arde Nkpa, 229
Nana, head of Golden Stool, 263
Nana Asofo Kamtantea II, Mamponghene, 335, 337
Nana Kwame Dua Awere II, Efiduasihene, 344
New Jauben, 306
New Orleans, 18
Newgate, 24
Nietzsche, Friedrich, 210
Nigeria, 32, 51, 52
Nigerian Supreme Court, 29
Nkawkaw, 314, 316, 321
Nkrumah, Kwame, Prime Minister of Gold Coast, 18, 21, 30, 53, 72–73, 74–75, 78, 80, 82–83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 93, 99, 100, 101, 103–4, 105, 111, 112–13, 114, 115, 116, 117–118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 151, 152, 171, 184, 189, 195, 198, 206, 207, 208, 210, 212, 231, 243, 248, 249, 250, 252, 262, 266, 267, 268, 272, 274, 280, 305, 326, 330, 386, 392, 409, 410; appointed Leader of Government Business, 125; appraisal of, 31, 74; arrested, 124; forms youth committee, 122; heads membership list of Convention People’s Party, 136; and Legislative Assembly, 228; letter to, 409–20; opinion of missionaries, 77; released from prison, 208; termed Tufuhene—Warrior Chief, 247; wins election, 125
Northern Nigeria, 325
Northern Territories, 49, 66, 121, 126, 206, 235, 253, 278, 365
Ntoro, male principle of life, 403
Nyame, Saturday Sky-God, 263
Odumase, 271
Ofinsu, 323
Okomfo-Anotihi, fetish man, 280, 369
Old Slave Market Castle, 222, 223, 224, 226
Old Town, native section of Bibiani, 371
Omanhene, 145
Otumfuo, Sir Osei Agyeman Prempeh II, 334; installed as Asantehene, 324; made Omanhene of Kumasi, 324
Oxford, 284
Padmore, Dorothy, 18, 19
Padmore, George, 18
Palm, meaning of, 161
Pidgin English, 68, 234–35
Pine, Mr., British Governor, 332
Plange, Kwesi, 111, 116
Position of the Chief in the Modern Political System of Ashanti, The, book, 276
Prampram, 257–58
Prempeh, King of Ashanti, 322, 409
Queen Anne’s Point, 47
Quist, Sir Emmanuel, Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, 206, 224
Rattray, Capt. R. S., 151, 314, 348, 397
Richmond, 18
Richter, Henry, 223
Richter, John, 223–224
Sacred State of the Akan, The, book, 401
Sahara, 293
St. Paul, quoted, 109
Saloway, R. H., Minister of Defense and Foreign Affairs, 207
Saltpond, 120
Samreboi, 379, 381, 382, 384, 393; entertainment in, 384–85
San Thomé, 365
Scott, Sir Francis, 322
Seaview Hotel, 218
Sekondi, German fort, 66
Sekyi, Mr. W. E. G., 171
Shirer, Lloyd, 235–36, 239, 240–41
Sierra Leone, 325
“Silent trade,” 56
Social Survey Sekonde-Takoradi, book, 227, 393, 394
Soldier ant, 391
Southern Nigeria, 325
Spectator, newspaper, 229
Stalin, 271
Stockholm, 242
Stonequist, Everett V., 48
Stool House, 175, 270, 271–72, 339, 341, 370
Stool-makers, 339
Strafford, 28
Straits of Gibraltar, 26
Swish hut, 57
Takoradi, 51, 54, 66, 152, 154, 172, 252, 329, 366, 393, 397
Tano, sacred river of Ashanti, 333, 379, 389, 390
Tema, 177, 191–94
Territorial Council, 125
Thomas, Justice, 29–34, 39–46, 51–52
Tiber, 379
Timbuktu, 293
Togoland, 39–40
Tsiboe, Mr. John, 330
Tufuhene, 247
Twi, language, 235
Union Square, 283
United Africa Company, 294, 328–29, 364, 379
United African Missionary Alliance, 233
United Gold Coast Convention, 121, 122
United States Information Service, 127
United Trading Company, 329
University of Paris, 17
Volta Project, 231–32, 346
Volta River, 231
Ward, W. E. F., 150
Washington Park, 283
Watson, Aiken, 121
Watson Commission, 121–22
Weekend in Havana, dance arena, 137
Wesleyan Collegiate School, 194
West Africa, 29, 44–45, 55, 206; beggars in, 72; Dutch in, 65–66; English in, 65; Portuguese in, 55, 56, 61–62, 63–64
West Africa Graphic Company, 229
West Indies, 26, 30
Westend Arena, 99
“When Malindy Sings,” 168–169
Whitman, Walt, 420
Williams, Eric, 15, 22, 26, 27–28
Women’s Division of the Convention People’s Party, 130
The Color Curtain
A Report on the Bandung Conference
WITH A FOREWORD BY GUNNAR MYRDAL AND AN AFTERWORD BY AMRITJIT SINGH
Under thy shadow by the piers I waited:
Only in darkness is thy shadow clear.
The City
’s fiery parcels all undone,
Already snow submerges an iron year…
O Sleepless as the river under thee,
Vaulting the sea, the prairies’ dreaming sod,
Unto us lowliest sometime sweep, descend
And of the curveship lend a myth to God.
HART CRANE’S THE BRIDGE
FOREWORD
This book does not pretend to be a heavily documented analysis of the Bandung Conference and of the forces of world history in the making which converged there. It is, rather, Richard Wright telling us what he, a visiting stranger and a good reporter, heard and saw there, and what he himself thought and felt.
His interest was focused on the two powerful urges far beyond Left and Right which he found at work there: Religion and Race. These urges unite the peoples—keep them apart from, and against, the West—and at the same time divide them internally and in their mutual relations; they call to concerted action but tend also to frustrate such efforts. Religion is their cultural heritage from many thousands of years of living and dying, longing and fearing, and it has molded their institutions and loaded their valuations. Race is the explosive pressure of their reaction to West European prejudice and discrimination, stored and accumulated under centuries of colonial domination. Asia and Africa thus carry the irrationalism of both East and West.
In Richard Wright’s own individual development from a childhood amongst the remnants of slavery to his present life as a free and lonely intellectual lie the foundations for his absorbing interest in these matters and his deep and spontaneous understanding. The specific objectivity of his observations and inferences is determined by the clear definition of the very personal point from which he views things. As a writer—and this is his approach to greatness, giving distinction also to the collection of snapshots in the present volume—he is the scrupulously honest artist who gives himself fully, without any opportunistic reserves.
GUNNAR MYRDAL
GENEVA, 18 SEPTEMBER, 1955
PART I
Bandung: Beyond Left and Right
In order to spend Christmas with my family, I’d returned to Paris from a long, tiring trip in Spain where I’d been gathering material for a book. The holidays had passed, but, in one corner of the living room, sheltering a pile of children’s presents, the glittering pine tree was still up. It was evening; I was alone; and my mind drifted toward Andalusia where I had work to finish….
Idly, I picked up the evening’s newspaper that lay folded near me upon a table and began thumbing through it. Then I was staring at a news item that baffled me. I bent forward and read the item a second time. Twenty-nine free and independent nations of Asia and Africa are meeting in Bandung, Indonesia, to discuss “racialism and colonialism”…What is this? I scanned the list of nations involved: China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Burma, Egypt, Turkey, the Philippines, Ethiopia, Gold Coast, etc. My God! I began a rapid calculation of the populations of the nations listed and, when my total topped the billion mark, I stopped, pulled off my glasses, and tried to think. A stream of realizations claimed my mind: these people were ex-colonial subjects, people whom the white West called “colored” peoples…. Almost all of the nations mentioned had been, in some form or other, under the domination of Western Europe; some had been subjected for a few decades and others had been ruled for three hundred and fifty years…. And most of the leaders of these nations had been political prisoners, men who had lived lonely lives in exile, men to whom secret political activity had been a routine matter, men to whom sacrifice and suffering had been daily companions…. And the populations of almost all the nations listed were deeply religious. This was a meeting of almost all of the human race living in the main geopolitical center of gravity of the earth.
I tried to recall what I knew of their leaders and my memory dredged up: Ali Sastroamidjojo, Prime Minister of Indonesia: exile, prison, war…Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime Minister of India: long years in prison…Kwame Nkrumah, Prime Minister of the Gold Coast: ex-political prisoner and gifted organizer of tribal masses…Chou En-lai, Premier of China: a disciplined Communist of the classical, Bolshevik mold, a product of war and conspiracy and revolution…Ho Chi Minh, Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam: soldier, staunch Bolshevik, sagacious and pitiless leader of guerrilla armies…. The despised, the insulted, the hurt, the dispossessed—in short, the underdogs of the human race were meeting. Here were class and racial and religious consciousness on a global scale. Who had thought of organizing such a meeting? And what had these nations in common? Nothing, it seemed to me, but what their past relationship to the Western world had made them feel. This meeting of the rejected was in itself a kind of judgment upon that Western world!
I rose, walked the floor for a moment, then sat again and read the aims of the twenty-nine-nation conference:
a. to promote good will and co-operation among the nations of Asia and Africa, to explore and advance their mutual as well as common interests and to establish and further friendliness and neighborly relations;
b. to consider social, economic, and cultural problems and relations of the countries represented;
c. to consider problems of special interest to Asian and African peoples, for example, problems affecting national sovereignty and of racialism and colonialism;
d. to view the position of Asia and Africa and their people in the world of today and the contribution they can make to the promotion of world peace and co-operation.
It was simple; there were no hidden jokers…. The nations sponsoring the conference—Burma, India, Indonesia, Ceylon, and Pakistan—were all religious…. This smacked of something new, something beyond Left and Right. Looked at in terms of history, these nations represented races and religions, vague but potent forces.
It was the kind of meeting that no anthropologist, no sociologist, no political scientist would ever have dreamed of staging; it was too simple, too elementary, cutting through the outer layers of disparate social and political and cultural facts down to the bare brute residues of human existence: races and religions and continents. Only brown, black, and yellow men who had long been made agonizingly self-conscious, under the rigors of colonial rule, of their race and their religion could have felt the need for such a meeting. There was something extra-political, extra-social, almost extra-human about it; it smacked of tidal waves, of natural forces…. And the call for the meeting had not been sounded in terms of ideology. The agenda and subject matter had been written for centuries in the blood and bones of the participants. The conditions under which these men had lived had become their tradition, their culture, their raison d’être. And they could not be classed as proletarians; they comprised princes and paupers, Communists and Christians, Leftists and Rightists, Buddhists and Democrats, in short, just anybody and everybody who lived in Asia and Africa.
I felt that I had to go to that meeting; I felt that I could understand it. I represented no government, but I wanted to go anyhow….
I called my wife and when she came into the living room I said to her:
“Look here, twenty-nine nations of Asia and Africa are meeting in a place called Bandung.”
“Why are they meeting?”
“Read this,” I said, giving her the newspaper.
When she had finished, she exclaimed:
“Why, that’s the human race!”
“Exactly. And that is why I want to go.”
“But you are going to Spain.”
“Sure. But when I’m through in Spain, I could go to Bandung.
“What would you do there?”
“I’d try to report this meeting, what it means—”
“For whom?”
“I don’t know. For somebody…I know that people are tired of hearing of these hot, muddy faraway places filled with people yelling for freedom. But this is the human race speaking…”
“But how would you report twenty-nine nations meeting together?”
“I don’t know. But I feel that my life
has given me some keys to what they would say or do. I’m an American Negro; as such, I’ve had a burden of race consciousness. So have these people. I worked in my youth as a common laborer, and I’ve a class consciousness. So have these people. I grew up in the Methodist and Seventh Day Adventist churches and I saw and observed religion in my childhood; and these people are religious. I was a member of the Communist Party for twelve years and I know something of the politics and psychology of rebellion. These people have had as their daily existence such politics. These emotions are my instruments. They are emotions, but I’m conscious of them as emotions. I want to use these emotions to try to find out what these people think and feel and why.”
There was silence. Then my wife said:
“If you feel that way, you have to go.”
I applied forthwith for a visa at the Consulate of Indonesia. The Press and Cultural Attaché told me with a smile:
“You can go. And I’m not going to try to influence you one way or the other. Go and see for yourself. All that I ask is that you be honest and tell the truth.”
“That’s fair enough,” I said. “Tell me this: how has the press reacted to the Africans being invited to this conference?”
“They don’t understand it,” he told me, laughing, celebrating the bewilderment of the world’s press.
But the Frenchmen and Americans I met on the streets or in the cafés of Paris were more decided, suspicious, skeptical.
“But is not this Asian-African Conference merely racism in reverse?” a young white American asked me; he was obviously worried.
“I think that the Asians and the Africans are trying to gang up on the Western world,” a young woman, a journalist, told me.
“Isn’t this a racism inspired by the Communists?” an American professor asked me.
“It’s those Indonesians!” a young, conservative but fiery Dutch girl said. “The Communists have agitated them so much that they are ‘Dutch crazy.’”