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A Comprehensive Guide
to Solar Energy Systems
With Special Focus on
Photovoltaic Systems

Edited by
Trevor M. Letcher
Universit y of Kw a Zu lu -Na t a l, Du r b a n, So u t h Afr ica

Vasilis M. Fthenakis
Center f or L if e Cycle Ana ly s is, Co lu mb ia Unive r s it y,
Ne w Yo rk, N Y, Unit e d St a t e s
A Comprehensive Guide
to Solar Energy Systems
With Special Focus on
Photovoltaic Systems

Edited by
Trevor M. Letcher
Universit y of Kw a Zu lu -Na t a l, Du r b a n, So u t h Afr ica

Vasilis M. Fthenakis
Center f or L if e Cycle Ana ly s is, Co lu mb ia Unive r s it y,
Ne w Yo rk, N Y, Unit e d St a t e s
Academic Press is an imprint of Elsevier
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List of Contributors
Tom Baines
Stephenson Institute for Renewable Energy, The University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom

Charles J. Barnhart
Western Washington University, Bellingham; Institute for Energy Studies,
Western Washington University, Bellingham, WA, United States

Vítězslav Benda
Czech Technical University in Prague, Prague, Czech Republic

Khagendra P. Bhandari
Center for Photovoltaics Innovation and Commercialization, University of Toledo,
Toledo, OH, United States

Rhys G. Charles
SPECIFIC-IKC, Swansea University, Swansea; Materials Research Centre,
Swansea University, Swansea, United Kingdom

Fangliang Chen
Columbia University, New York, NY, United States

Matthew L. Davies
SPECIFIC-IKC, Swansea University, Swansea; Materials Research Centre,
Swansea University, Swansea, United Kingdom

Thomas Döring
SolarPower Europe, Brussels, Belgium

Peter Douglas
Chemistry Group, Medical School, Swansea University, Swansea, United Kingdom;
University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa

Beatrice Dower
MVGLA, Comrie, United Kingdom

Randy J. Ellingson
Center for Photovoltaics Innovation and Commercialization, University of Toledo,
Toledo, OH, United States
xv
xvi List of Contributors

Nesimi Ertugrul
University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia

Vasilis M. Fthenakis
Center for Life Cycle Analysis, Columbia University, New York, NY, United States

Michael Ginsberg
Center for Life Cycle Analysis, Columbia University, New York, NY, United States

Andrés Pinto-Bello Gómez

SolarPower Europe, Brussels, Belgium

Steven M. Grodsky
University of California, Davis; Wild Energy Initiative, John Muir Institute of the Environment,
Davis, CA, United States

Ajay Gupta
EROI Energy Advisors Inc., Brampton, ON, Canada

Ingrid L. Hallin
Freelance Researcher, Edmonton, AB, Canada

Ross A. Hatton
Warwick University, Coventry, United Kingdom

Xiaoping He
China Center for Energy Economics and Research, The School of Economics, Xiamen University, Xiamen, China

Rebecca R. Hernandez
University of California, Davis; Wild Energy Initiative, John Muir Institute of the Environment, Davis, CA,
United States

Zicong Huang
Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou, P.R. China

Aruna Ivaturi
University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, United Kingdom

Trevor M. Letcher
University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa; Laurel House, FosseWay,
Stratton on the Fosse, United Kingdom
 List of Contributors xvii

Jonathan D. Major
Stephenson Institute for Renewable Energy, The University of Liverpool, Liverpool,
United Kingdom

Michelle Murphy-Mariscal
Mt. San Jacinto College, Menifee, CA, United States

Frank Pao
Columbia University, New York, NY, United States

Alyssa Pek
SolarPower Europe, Brussels, Belgium

Alexandre Roesch
SolarPower Europe, Brussels, Belgium

Michael Schmela
SolarPower Europe, Brussels, Belgium

Thomas P. Shalvey
Stephenson Institute for Renewable Energy, The University of Liverpool, Liverpool,
United Kingdom

Katie Shanks
Environment and Sustainability Institute (ESI), University of Exeter, Penryn, United Kingdom

Graham Stein
National Grid, Warwick, United Kingdom

Senthilarasu Sundaram
Environment and Sustainability Institute (ESI), University of Exeter, Penryn, United Kingdom

Kristina Thoring
SolarPower Europe, Brussels, Belgium

David Timmons
University of Massachusetts Boston, Boston, MA, United States

Hari Upadhyaya
Wolfson Centre for Materials Processing, Institute of Materials and Manufacturing, Department of
Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering, Brunel University, London, Uxbridge, United Kingdom
xviii List of Contributors

Zhangyuan Wang
Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou, P.R. China

James Watson
SolarPower Europe, Brussels, Belgium

Huiming Yin
Columbia University, New York, NY, United States

Eduardo Zarza-Moya
CIEMAT-PSA, Almería, Spain

Xudong Zhao
University of Hull, Hull, United Kingdom

Siming Zheng
Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou, P.R. China
Preface

Our book, A Comprehensive Guide to Solar Energy Systems: With Special Focus on Photo­
voltaic Systems is a companion volume to the recent book: Wind Energy Engineering:
A Handbook for Onshore and Offshore Wind Turbines (Elsevier, 2017). It was felt that the solar
energy industry like the wind turbine industry was developing so rapidly that it was now
necessary to compile a collection of solar energy-related topics into one volume.
The use of renewable energy sources such as solar and wind for electricity genera-
tion is becoming commonplace in our society as we move away from fossil fuels to more
sustainable forms of energy, free from carbon dioxide pollution. The move cannot come
quickly enough as each month we hear that the previous month was the hottest month
since records began and that CO2 levels are increasing every year and have now passed the
410 ppm level.
Our book gives an all round view of solar energy with a special focus on technical is-
sues surrounding photovoltaic cells. The 25 chapters are divided into the following six
sections: Introduction; Solar Energy Resource and Worldwide Development; Thermal
Solar Energy Technology; Photovoltaic Solar Energy—Generation of Electricity; Environ-
mental Impacts of Solar Energy; Economics, Financial Modeling, and Investment in PVs,
Growth Trends, and the Future of Solar Energy. In more detail, the book includes chapters
on the following areas:
• Scientific aspects (basic theory of photovoltaic solar energy, global potential for
producing electricity from the sun’s energy);
• Wind energy in China, Europe, Africa, and the USA, to give a flavor of developments
in very different countries but all with the same aim of reducing global warming while
providing affordable, abundant, and sustainable energy;
• Thermal solar power in solar heaters, concentrated solar systems.
• Photovoltaics in all its different forms—crystalline silicon cells, cadmium telluride
cells, perovskite cells, and organic cells;
• Large scale PV Integrated technologies (buildings);
• Integration into national grids;
• Small scale PV systems;
• Storing energy from PVs;
• Environmental issues and comparisons;
• Materials’ abundance, purification, and energy cost for Si, CdTe, and CIGS
photovoltaics;
• Life Cycle Analysis and Energy Return on Investment;

xix
xx Preface

• Growth trends and the future of solar power;

• Minimizing the cost of resolving variability and energy storage.
It is hoped that the book will act as a springboard for new developments and perhaps
lead to synergistic advances by linking ideas from different chapters. Another way that this
book can help in serving the solar energy industry is through contact between readers and
authors and to this effect addresses of the authors have been included.
Each topic is covered at the highest level with the very latest research and information,
each chapter of this book has been written by an expert scientist or engineer, working in
the field. Authors have been chosen for their expertise in their respective fields and come
from ten countries: Australia, Belgium, Canada, Czechoslovakia, China, India, Spain, South
Africa, United Kingdom, and the United States. Most of the authors come from developed
countries as most of the research and development in this relatively new field is based in
these countries. However, we look forward to the future when new approaches to solar en-
ergy, focusing on local conditions in emerging countries, are developed by scientists and
engineers working in those countries. We are sure this new book will aid in this endeavor.
The chapters in this book can be considered as snapshots, taken in 2017, of the state of
the solar PV industry. Our book goes hand in hand with four other books we have recently
published: Climate Change: Observed Impacts on Planet Earth, 2nd edition, (Elsevier
2015); Storing Energy: With Special Reference to Renewable Energy Sources (Elsevier, 2016);
Wind Energy Engineering: A Handbook for Onshore and Offshore Wind Turbines (Elsevier,
2017); and Electricity From Sunlight: Photovoltaics Systems Integration and Sustainability
(Wiley, 2017).
For consistency and to appeal to an international audience, the International System
of Units and Quantities is reflected in the book with the use of the Système International
d’Unités (SI) throughout. Other units such as Imperial units are written in parenthesis. The
index notation is used to remove any ambiguities; for example, billion and trillion are writ-
ten as 109 and 1012 respectively. To avoid further ambiguities the concept of the quantity
calculus is used. It is based on the equation: physical quantity = number × unit. To give an
example: power = 200 W and hence: 200 = power/W. This is of particular importance in the
headings of tables and the labeling of graph axes.
A vital concern related to development and use of renewable and sustainable forms of
energy, especially solar, is the question of what can be done when it appears that politi-
cians misunderstand or ignore, and corporations overlook the realities of climate change
and the importance of renewable energy sources. The solution lies in sound scientific data
and education. As educators we believe that only a sustained grassroots movement to edu-
cate citizens, politicians, and corporate leaders of the world has any hope of success. Our
book is part of this aim. It gives an insight into the subject, which we hope readers will
consider and discuss. The book is written not only for students, teachers, professors, and
researchers into renewable energy, but also for politicians, government decision-makers,
captains of industry, corporate leaders, journalists, editors, and all other interested people.
 Preface xxi

We wish to thank all 42 authors and coauthors for their cooperation, help, and espe-
cially, for writing their chapters. It has been a pleasure working with each and every one
of the authors. Trevor thanks his wife, Valerie and Vasilis his wife Christina for their help,
support, and encouragement they gave us over these long months of putting the book to-
gether. We also wish to thank Elsevier editors and staff for their professionalism and help
in producing this well-presented volume.

Trevor M. Letcher
Stratton on the Fosse, Somerset
Vasilis M. Fthenakis
Columbia University, New York
 1
Why Solar Energy?
Trevor M. Letcher
UNI VERSI T Y O F K WA Z U L U - N ATA L , D U R B A N , S O U T H A F R I C A
[email protected]

1.1 Introduction
The importance of the sun in sustaining life has probably been known to humans in all
ancient societies, and many of these people, including the Babylonians, ancient Hindus,
Persians, and Egyptians worshipped the sun. From written records, the ancient Greeks
were the first to use passive solar designs in their homes and no doubt experimented with
harnessing the sun’s energy in many different ways. There is a story that, Archimedes in
the 2nd century BC reflected the sun’s rays from shiny bronze shields to a focal point and
was thus able to set fire to enemy ships. The Romans continued the tradition of using the
sun in their homes and introduced glass, which allowed the sun’s heat to be trapped. The
Romans even introduced a law that made it an offence to obscure a neighbor’s access to
sunlight.
By contrast, PV technology (the creation of a voltage by shining light on a substance)
and the main focus of this book, is a very recent application. Scientists, as early as 1818,
noticed that the electrical conductivity of some materials, such as selenium, increased by
a few orders of magnitude when exposed to sunlight; however, it was not until the 1950s
that scientists working on transistors at the Bell Telephone Laboratories showed that sili-
con could be used as an effective solar cell. This very soon led to the use of silicon solar
cells in spacecraft; and in 1958, Vanguard 1 was the first satellite to use this new invention.
This application paved the way for more research into better and cheaper solar cells. The
work was further encouraged after the rapid oil price rise in the 1970s. In 1977, the US
Government created the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. A further indication of
the rapid rise of silicon solar cell technology was the building of the first solar park in 1982
in California, which could generate 1 MW; this was followed a year later by a larger Cali-
fornian solar park, which could generate, at full capacity, 5.2 MW. The United States has
now built several PV power plants in the range of 250–550 MW. It is amazing to think that
just 34 years after the first solar farm was built in California, China has built a solar farm of
850 MW. Furthermore, the solar PV worldwide generating capacity, at the end of 2016, was
in excess of 300 GW. To put this into perspective, 1000 MW (1 GW) is the power generated
by a traditional fossil-fueled power station.

A Comprehensive Guide to Solar Energy Systems. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-811479-7.00001-4

Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
3
4 A Comprehensive Guide to Solar Energy Systems

In January 2017, it was reported that Chinese companies plan to spend US$1 billion
building a giant solar farm (of 1 GW) on 2500 ha in the Ukraine, on the exclusion zone
south of the land contaminated by the 1986 nuclear explosion.
The amount of solar energy shining on the earth (with wavelengths ranging from 0.38
to 250 µm) is vast. It heats our atmosphere and everything on the Earth and provides
the energy for our climate and ecosystem. At night, much of this heat energy is radiated
back into space but at different wavelengths, which are in the infrared range from 5 to
50 µm [1]. This energy heats the greenhouse gas molecules (such as carbon dioxide and
methane) and water molecules in the atmosphere. The explanation is as follows. Us-
ing CO2 and H2O as examples, this heating process takes place because the radiated IR
frequency is in sync (resonates) with the natural frequency of the carbon─oxygen bond
of CO2 and the oxygen─hydrogen bond of H2O. The increased vibration of the bonds ef-
fectively heats the CO2 and H2O molecules. These heated molecules then pass the heat to
the other molecules in the atmosphere (N2, O2) and this keeps the Earth at an equitable
temperature. The vibrating frequencies of the O─O bond in oxygen and the N─N bond
in nitrogen molecules are very different from these radiation frequencies and so are rela-
tively unaffected. As there are many more water molecules than CO2 or CH4 molecules
in the atmosphere, the overall contribution of the H2O molecules to the greenhouse ef-
fect is larger than the contribution by CO2 or CH4 or the other minor greenhouse gases
(GHGs), such as chlorinated hydrocarbons. However, as the CO2 concentration has in-
creased from 280 ppm (280 parts per million or 280 molecules per million molecules)
before the industrial revolution, to 410 ppm (observed at Mauna Loa Observatory on
April 21, 2017), and as the H2O concentration in the atmosphere remains relatively con-
stant, it is the CO2 (together with other GHGs) that is largely responsible for present-day
global warming.
Sunlight can be harnessed in a number of ever-evolving and ingenious ways, which
include solar heating (usually water, Chapter 6), photovoltaics (for electricity production
and the main focus of this volume), concentrated solar thermal energy (Chapter 7) and
also solar ponds [2], space heating [3], molten salt power plants [4], and even artificial
photosynthesis. Some of these technologies have been developed only in the past 30 years
as ways of mitigating climate change and the build-up of atmospheric carbon dioxide
from the burning of fossil fuel. The strength of solar energy lies in its inexhaustibility and
also in the wide variety of ways that it can be harnessed ranging from small scale to large-
scale applications.
In 2016, renewable energy supplied less than a quarter of electricity in the world. The
renewable energy total of 23.7% is made up of: pumped hydroelectricity being the most
prevalent, with 16.6%; wind 4%; and solar only 1.5% (Section 1.7). In spite of the rela-
tively low values for wind and solar energy, their rate of implementation is amazingly
rapid and the predictions for the future are promising. As an indication of things to
come, we note that on May 15, 2017 Germany received almost all of its electricity from
renewable and for 4 days (May 7–10, 2017) Portugal ran on renewable energy (wind,
solar, and hydro) alone [5].
 Chapter 1 • Why Solar Energy? 5

1.2 How Much Solar Energy Falls on the Earth and How
Much is Used to Make Electricity?
There are many ways of expressing how much solar energy falls on the earth. Chris Goodall
writes in The Switch that the sun supplies enough power in 90 min to meet the world’s total
energy needs for a year [6]. In more scientific language, the Earth receives 174 × 1015 W
[174 PW (petawatts)] of incoming solar radiation (insolation) at the upper atmosphere.
Approximately 30% of this is reflected back to space, while the rest is absorbed by the
oceans and landmasses and things on the earth. At night this 70% absorbed energy is radi-
ated back into space keeping the earth at a constant temperature.
The total solar energy absorbed by the Earth’s atmosphere, oceans, and land masses is
approximately 3.85 × 1024 J a−1 [3.85 YJ a−1 (yottajoules per annum)] [7]. Photosynthesis
captures less than 0.1% of this, approximately 3.0 × 1021 ZJ a−1 (zettajoules per annum), in
biomass [8]. The total energy consumption in the world today is less than 0.02% of the total
solar energy shining on the earth.
Most people in the world live in areas with insolation levels of 150–300 W m−2 or 3.5–
7.0 kW h m–2 d–1, where d refers to day [9]. This magnitude of solar energy available makes
it an appealing source of electricity. The United Nations Development Programme in its
2000 World Energy Assessment found that the annual potential of solar energy was be-
tween 16 000 and 50 000 × 1018 J (16 000–50 000 EJ). This is many times larger than the total
world energy consumption, which was 559.8 EJ in 2012 [10].
Solar energy supplied only 0.45% of the total primary energy consumption in 2015. This
is far below traditional forms of energy or other renewable forms of energy (Table 1.1) and
reference [11]. Additionally, as mentioned earlier, solar energy produces 1.5% of all the
electricity used globally. Therefore, much work has to be done to realize the suggestion of
the International Energy Agency (IEA) that the sun could be the largest source of electricity
by 2050, ahead of fossil fuels, wind, hydro, and nuclear. According to a recent report by IEA,
solar PV systems could generate up to 16% of the world’s electricity by 2050, while solar
thermal electricity (STE) from concentrated solar power (CSP) plants could provide an
additional 11%; this will require an early and sustained investment in existing and future
solar technologies [12].
Table 1.1 World Energy Primary Consumption, 2015, Percentages [11]
Energy Types Percentages (%)
Oil 32.9
Coal 29.2
Gas 23.9
Nuclear 4.4
Hydro 6.8
Wind 1.4
Solar 0.45

Note this table is not referring to electricity production. For the breakdown of electricity production see
Table 1.3 in Section 1.7.
6 A Comprehensive Guide to Solar Energy Systems

1.3 Types of Technology That Can Harness Solar Energy

There are two main types of solar power:solar thermal and solar PV.
Solar thermal includes domestic hot water systems (Chapter 6), cooking [13], solar-
disinfecting water [14], energy storage—molten salts [4], solar power transport [15], fuel
production [16], and CSP (Chapter 7). The latter involves focusing and tracking the sun’s
rays using mirrors (usually parabolic troughs or dishes) onto a working fluid, which vapor-
izes and expands and is used to drive a turbine. The temperature of the working fluid can
reach 800oC. The great advantage of CSP is that the sun’s energy is converted into heat,
which can be readily stored. This is not true for PV systems, because electricity is more dif-
ficult to store, although battery technology is rapidly improving.
It has been estimated that solar energy could be used to supply up to 70% of household
hot water in the United Kingdom and in sunnier climates, providing almost all domes-
tic hot water. Today worldwide solar water heaters are responsible for 435 GWth [17]. CSP
supplies 5.01 GW electricity globally, this being less than 2% of all electricity supplied by
solar energy; Spain is the CSP world leader with 2.5 GW investment followed by the United
States (1.9 GW) [17].
Solar PV panels (Chapters 8 to 12) produce electricity directly and can be effective in
both, direct, or diffuse cloudy solar radiation, although the systems are obviously more
efficient in direct sunlight. Electricity is produced as a result of the sun’s energy strik-
ing a solar panel (at present usually pure silicon), which causes electrons to be released;
these in turn then travel through wires (Chapter 8). Until recently, the only solar panels
(wafers) available were made of pure silicon (99.9999 purity), which is both costly and
energy-intensive to manufacture (Chapters 9 and 21). Recent research into wafer technol-
ogy has produced a range of new solar wafers, which include materials, such as cadmium
telluride (Chapter 10) interesting alloys of copper indium and gallium (Chapter 21) and
more ­recently perovskites (Chapter 11). Some of these involve elements, which are in short
supply; and some involve elements, which are toxic, for example, cadmium (Chapter 21).
Silicon wafers have improved significantly over the past 2 decades and the efficiency is
of the order of 20%. Furthermore, with mass production, the price of silicon wafers has
decreased enormously.
A recent report by Fraunhofer stated that in Germany, in 1990, the price for a typical
rooftop system of 10–100 kWp PV, was around 14 € (kWp)−1. At the end of 2016, such sys-
tems cost about 1.3 € (kWp)−1. This is a net-price regression of about 90% over a period of
26 years [18]. Solar panels suitable for use on roofs are now manufactured in such quanti-
ties that the electricity generated in several favorable locations, according to the World
Economic Forum (WEF), has reached grid parity; that is the point where the direct, un-
subsidized, cost of PV generated electricity is equal to that of fossil fuel generated power
[19]. The growth in PV manufacturing has been driven by government incentives where,
for example, in countries, such as the UK, Germany, Spain, and Australia the cost of elec-
tricity and technological innovation is subsidized. Under such schemes a premium tariff
 Chapter 1 • Why Solar Energy? 7

is paid for PV-generated electricity that is fed into the grid. This premium can be several
times higher than the normal tariff paid for fossil-fuel-generated electricity. This has led
to the establishment of a large number of wind farms, as well as many rooftop PV systems
for individual houses.
In spite of its intermittent nature, solar power from PV panels has many advantages:
• The wafer panels are manufactured in modular form and can be retrofitted to roofs
anywhere the sun shines.
• PV panels can be installed where the power is needed thus eliminating the need to
integrate into grid systems. This is particularly important in areas, which do not have
grid electricity.
• Often, particularly in hot countries, which have a high demand for air conditioning,
the generation of PV electricity coincides with the greatest need for electricity during
the day.
• PV electricity is useful over a wide range from the charging of mobile phones, street
lighting using LEDs, telecommunications [20], space vehicles, solar pumps [21], and
grid electricity.
Concentrated photovoltaics (CPV) use optical lenses or curved mirrors to concentrate
light onto small but highly efficient solar cells. Often these systems are fitted with cooling
systems because the efficiency of PV decreases with cell temperature [18].
Most (99%) of European solar cells are connected to the grid while off-grid systems are
more common in Australia, South America, Africa, and South Korea [22].
PV systems are found in three marketing area: residential rooftop, commercial roof-
top, and ground-mounted utility-scale systems (solar farms). In 2013, rooftop systems ac-
counted for 60% of the global installations; this is changing rapidly with a shift toward util-
ity-scale systems and as of 2017 utility systems in the United States have a higher installed
capacity than the sum of residential and commercial. Residential systems are typically
around 10 kW while commercial systems reach megawatt scale. The utility-scale power
plants are in the range of 100–500 MW and moving to the 1 GW capacity, and are becoming
more common especially in hot regions of the world. Three years ago, California’s 550 MW
(Topaz Solar farm) was the world’s largest solar project. A year later, another large Califor-
nian solar farm (the 579 MW Star Solar farm) was built followed in 2016 by India’s 648 MW
Kamuthi Solar Power Project. This was surpassed in 2017 by China’s Longyangxia Dam
Solar Park of 850 MW [23].
A solar farm PV system connected to the grid, consists of the solar array and additional
components usually called “balance of system” (BOS), which includes power conditioning
equipment, and DC to AC power converters (called inverters) (Chapter 15).
The efficiency of commercial PV modules is about 16% and the modules are expected
to have a life-time of 25 years. Higher efficiencies have been recorded [24].
Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
damned nigger!" The boxer hauled back and hit him in the mouth
and he dropped to the pavement.
We hurried away to the restaurant. We sat around, the poor woman
among us, endeavoring to woo the spirit of celebration. But we were
all wet. The boxer said: "I guess they don't want no colored in this
damned white man's country." He dropped his head down on the
table and sobbed like a child. And I thought that that was his
knockout.
I thought, too, of Bernard Shaw's asking why I did not choose
pugilism instead of poetry for a profession. He no doubt imagined
that it would be easier for a black man to win success at boxing than
at writing in a white world. But looking at life through an African
telescope I could not see such a great difference in the choice. For,
according to British sporting rules, no Negro boxer can compete for a
championship in the land of cricket, and only Negroes who are
British subjects are given a chance to fight. These regulations have
nothing to do with the science of boxing or the Negro's fitness to
participate. They are made merely to discourage boxers who are
black and of African descent.
Perhaps the black poet has more potential scope than the pugilist.
The literary censors of London have not yet decreed that no book by
a Negro should be published in Britain—not yet!

VII
A Job in London
YET London was not wholly Hell, for it was possible for me to
compose poetry some of the time. No place can be altogether a
God-forsaken Sahara or swamp in which a man is able to discipline
and compose his emotions into self-expression. In London I wrote
"Flame-heart."
 So much I have forgotten in ten years,
So much in ten brief years! I have forgot
What time the purple apples come to juice,
And what month brings the shy forget-me-not.
I have forgot the special, startling season
Of the pimento's flowering and fruiting;
What time of year the ground doves brown the fields
And fill the noonday with their curious fluting.
I have forgotten much, but still remember
The poinsettia's red, blood-red in warm December.

I still recall the honey-fever grass,

But cannot recollect the high days when
We rooted them out of the ping-wing path
To stop the mad bees in the rabbit pen.
I often try to think in what sweet month
The languid painted ladies used to dapple
The yellow by-road mazing from the main,
Sweet with the golden threads of the rose-apple.
I have forgotten—strange—but quite remember
The poinsettia's red, blood-red in warm December.

What weeks, what months, what time of the mild year

We cheated school to have our fling at tops?
What days our wine-thrilled bodies pulsed with joy
Feasting upon blackberries in the copse?
Oh some I know! I have embalmed the days,
Even the sacred moments when we played,
All innocent of passion, uncorrupt,
At noon and evening in the flame-heart's shade.
We were so happy, happy, I remember,
Beneath the poinsettia's red in warm December.
And then I became acquainted with Sylvia Pankhurst. It happened
thus. The Daily Herald, the organ of British organized labor and of
the Christian radicals, had created a national sensation by starting a
campaign against the French employment of black troops in the
subjection of Germany.
The headlines were harrowing:
"Black Scourge in Europe," "Black Peril on the Rhine," "Brutes in
French Uniform," "Sexual Horrors Let Loose by France," "Black
Menace of 40,000 Troops," "Appeal to the Women of Europe."
The instigator of the campaign was the muckraker E.D. Morel,
whose pen had been more honorably employed in the exposure of
Belgian atrocities in the Congo. Associated with him was a male
"expert" who produced certain "facts" about the physiological
peculiarities of African sex, which only a prurient-minded white man
could find.
Behind the smoke screen of the Daily Herald campaign there were a
few significant facts. There was great labor unrest in the industrial
region of the Rhineland. The Communists had seized important
plants. The junkers were opposing the Communists. The Social-
Democratic government was impotent. The French marched in an
army. The horror of German air raids and submarine warfare was still
fresh in the mind of the British public. And it was not easy to work up
and arouse the notorious moral righteousness of the English in favor
of the Germans and against the French. Searching for a propaganda
issue, the Christian radicals found the colored troops in the
Rhineland. Poor black billy goat.
I wrote a letter to George Lansbury, the editor of the Daily Herald,
and pointed out that his black-scourge articles would be effective in
stirring up more prejudice against Negroes. I thought it was the duty
of his paper as a radical organ to enlighten its readers about the real
reasons why the English considered colored troops undesirable in
Europe, instead of appealing indirectly to illogical emotional
prejudices. Lansbury did not print my letter, but sent me a private
note saying that he was not personally prejudiced against Negroes. I
had no reason to think that Lansbury was personally prejudiced. The
previous summer, when colored men were assaulted by organized
bands of whites in the English ports and their bedding and furniture
hurled into the streets and burned, Lansbury had energetically
denounced the action. But I didn't consider the matter a personal
issue. It was the public attitude of the Daily Herald that had aroused
me. An English friend advised me to send the letter to Sylvia
Pankhurst, who was very critical of the policies of the Daily Herald. I
did, and Sylvia Pankhurst promptly printed my letter in her weekly,
the Workers' Dreadnought.
Maybe I was not civilized enough to understand why the sex of the
black race should be put on exhibition to persuade the English
people to decide which white gang should control the coal and iron
of the Ruhr. However, it is necessary to face the fact that prejudices,
however unreasonable they may be, are real—individual, national
and racial prejudices. My experience of the English convinced me
that prejudice against Negroes had become almost congenital
among them. I think the Anglo-Saxon mind becomes morbid when it
turns on the sex life of colored people. Perhaps a psychologist might
be able to explain why.
Sylvia Pankhurst must have liked the style of my letter, for she wrote
asking me to call at her printing office in Fleet Street. I found a plain
little Queen-Victoria sized woman with plenty of long unruly bronze-
like hair. There was no distinction about her clothes, and on the
whole she was very undistinguished. But her eyes were fiery, even a
little fanatic, with a glint of shrewdness.
She said she wanted me to do some work for the Workers'
Dreadnought. Perhaps I could dig up something along the London
docks from the colored as well as the white seamen and write from a
point of view which would be fresh and different. Also I was assigned
to read the foreign newspapers from America, India, Australia, and
other parts of the British Empire, and mark the items which might
interest Dreadnought readers. In this work I was assisted by one
Comrade Vie. Comrade Vie read the foreign-language papers,
mainly French and German.
The opportunity to practice a little practical journalism was not to be
missed. A little more schooling, a few more lessons—learning
something from everything—keeping the best in my mind for future
creative work.
The association with Pankhurst put me in the nest of extreme
radicalism in London. The other male-controlled radical groups were
quite hostile to the Pankhurst group and its rather hysterical
militancy. And the group was perhaps more piquant than important.
But Pankhurst herself had a personality as picturesque and
passionate as any radical in London. She had left the suffragette
legion for the working-class movement, when she discovered that
the leading ladies of the legion were not interested in the condition of
working women.
And in the labor movement she was always jabbing her hat pin into
the hides of the smug and slack labor leaders. Her weekly might
have been called the Dread Wasp. And wherever imperialism got
drunk and went wild among native peoples, the Pankhurst paper
would be on the job. She was one of the first leaders in England to
stand up for Soviet Russia. And in 1918 she started the Russian
Information Bureau, which remained for a long time the only source
of authentic news from Russia.
Comrade Vie was a very young foreigner with a bare bland innocent
face. He read and spoke several languages. I did not know his
nationality and refrained from asking. For the Pankhurst
organization, though small, was revolutionary, and from experience
the militant suffragettes knew a lot about conspiracy. However, I
suspected that Comrade Vie was a foreign revolutionist. The
Pankhurst secretary, a romantic middle-class young woman, had
hinted to me that Comrade Vie was more important than he
appeared to be.
Comrade Vie wrote also and we often compared articles. I criticized
his English and he criticized my point of view, showing me how I
could be more effectively radical.
Soon after I became associated with the Workers' Dreadnought, a
sawmill strike broke out in London. Most of the sawmills were in the
East End, where also the publishing office of the Dreadnought was
located. One mill was directly opposite the Dreadnought office. I was
assigned to do an article on the strike. A few of the sawmill workers
were sympathetic to the Dreadnought organization, and one of the
younger of them volunteered to take me round.
There were some sixty sawmills in London, one of the most
important of which was either owned or partly controlled by George
Lansbury, Labor Member of Parliament and managing editor of the
Daily Herald. Some of the strikers informed me that the Lansbury mill
had in its employ some workers who were not members of the
sawmill union and who were not striking. Technically, such workers
were scabs. The strikers thought it would make an excellent story for
the militant Dreadnought. So did I.
The name of Lansbury was symbolic of all that was simon-pure,
pious and self-righteous in the British Labor movement. As the boss
of the Daily Herald, he stood at the center like an old bearded angel
of picturesque honesty, with his right arm around the neck of the big
trade-union leaders and Parliamentarians and his left waving to the
Independent Labor partyites and all the radical Left. Like a little cat
up against a big dog, the Workers' Dreadnought was always spitting
at the Daily Herald.
I thought the story would give the Dreadnought some more fire to
spit. Here was my chance for getting even with the Daily Herald for
its black-scourge-in-Europe campaign. Comrade Vie helped me put
some ginger into my article. When I showed the article to Miss
Smyth, the upper-middle-class person who was Pankhurst's aid, she
gasped and said: "But this is a scoop." Her gentle-lady poker face
was lit as she read.
Finally the article reached Sylvia Pankhurst. She summoned me and
said: "Your article is excellent but I'm so sorry we cannot print it."
"Why?" I asked. "Because," said she, "we owe Lansbury twenty
pounds. Besides, I have borrowed paper from the Daily Herald to
print the Dreadnought. I can't print that."
It is possible that Miss Pankhurst acted more from a feeling of
personal loyalty. Although Lansbury was centrist and she was
extreme leftist, they were personal friends, ever since they had been
associated in the suffrage cause. And after all, one might concede
that there are items which the capitalist press does not consider fit to
print for capitalist reasons, and items which the radical press does
not consider fit to print for radical reasons.
That summer Sylvia Pankhurst made the underground trip to Russia
to attend the Second Congress of the Third International.
Early in September, 1920, I was sent down to Portsmouth to report
the Trades Union Congress for the Dreadnought. There were
gathered at the Congress some of the leaders who later became
members of the British Labor Government: J.H. Thomas, J.R.
Clynes, Arthur Henderson, A.A. Purcell, Herbert Morrison, Frank
Hodges, and Margaret Bonfield. The most picturesque personage of
them all was Frank Hodges, the secretary of the Miners' Federation,
who in his style and manner appeared like a representative of the
nobility. I mentioned this to A.J. Cook, who was a minor official of the
Federation, and he informed me that Hodges was always hunting
foxes with the lords.
At the press table I met Scott Nearing, who, after listening to clever
speeches by the labor leaders, whispered to me that England would
soon be the theater of the next revolution. The speeches were warm;
Labor was feeling its strength in those times. Even J.H. Thomas was
red, at least in the face, about Winston Churchill, who had declared
that "Labor was not fit to govern."
As a Dreadnought reporter, I had been instructed to pay little
attention to the official leaders, but to seek out any significant rank-
and-filers and play them up in my story. I was taken up by delegates
from the Rhondda Valley in South Wales, which was the extreme
leftist element of the Miners' Federation. One of them, A.J. Cook,
was exceptionally friendly and gave me interesting information about
the British Labor movement. He was very proud that it was the most
powerful in the world and included every class of worker. He said he
believed the labor movement was the only hope for Negroes
because they were in the lowest economic group. He pointed out
that J.R. Clynes' General Union of Workers consisted of the lowest
class of people (domestic servants and porters and hotel workers)
and yet it was extremely important in the councils of the Trades
Union Congress.
At that time I could not imagine Cook becoming a very influential
official. He was extremely loquacious, but his ideas were an odd mix-
up of liberal sentiment and socialist thought, and sentimental to an
extreme. He was also a parson, and divided his time between
preaching and the pit. However, the radical miners told me they were
going to push Cook forward to take the place of Hodges, whom they
could no longer stomach. And sure enough, in a few brief years
Cook became the radical secretary of the Miners' Federation.
But the labor official at the Congress who carried me away with him
was Robert Smillie, the president of the Miners' Federation. Crystal
Eastman had given me a note to him and he had said a few wise
words to me about the necessity of colored labor being organized,
especially in the vast European colonies, for the betterment of its
own living standard and to protect that of white organized labor.
Smillie was like a powerful ash which had forced itself up, coaxing
nourishment out of infertile soil, and towering over saplings and
shrubs. His face and voice were so terribly full of conviction that in
comparison the colleagues around him appeared theatrical. When
he stood forth to speak the audience was shot through with
excitement, and subdued. He compelled you to think along his line
whether or not you agreed with him. I remember his passionate
speech for real democracy in the Congress, advocating proportional
representation and pointing out that on vital issues the united Miners'
Federation was often outvoted by a nondescript conglomeration like
J.R. Clynes' General Union of Workers for example. You felt that
Smillie had convinced the Congress, but when the vote was taken it
went against him.
I wrote my article on the Trades Union Congress around Smillie
because his personality and address were more significant in my
opinion than any rank-and-filer's. It was featured on the front page of
the Dreadnought. But when Pankhurst returned from Russia, she
sharply reproved me for it, saying that it wasn't the policy of the
Dreadnought to praise the official labor leaders, but to criticize them.
Naturally, I resented the criticism, especially as Pankhurst had
suppressed my article on Lansbury.
Just before leaving for the Trade Union Congress I was introduced to
a young English sailor named Springhall. He was a splendid chap.
He had been put into the British navy as a boy and had developed
into a fine man, not merely physically, but intellectually. Springhall
was a constant reader of the Dreadnought and other social
propaganda literature and he said that other men on his ship were
eager for more stuff about the international workers' movement. At
that time there was a widespread discontent and desire for better
wages among the rank and file of the navy. Springhall came to the
Dreadnought publishing office in the Old Ford Road and we gave
him many copies of the Dreadnought. The Dreadnought was legally
on sale on the newsstands, so he had the legal right to take as many
as he desired. Before he left he promised to send me some navy
news for the paper.
When I returned to London I found a letter from the young sailor,
Springhall, with some interesting items for the paper and the
information that he was sending an article. The article arrived in a
few days and it was a splendid piece of precious information. But its
contents were so important and of such a nature that I put it away
and waited for Pankhurst to return and pass it.
Pankhurst returned late in September. I turned over Springhall's
document to her. She was enthusiastic, edited the document, and
decided to give it the front page. We used a nom de plume and a
fictitious name for a battleship. Only Pankhurst and myself knew who
the author was. The intelligence of the stuff was so extraordinary that
she did not want to risk having the youth's identity discovered by the
authorities. And she thought he could serve the social cause more
excellently by remaining at his post.
A couple of days after the issue appeared, the Dreadnought office
was raided by the police. I was just going out, leaving the little room
on the top floor where I always worked, when I met Pankhurst's
private secretary coming upstairs. She whispered that Scotland Yard
was downstairs. Immediately I thought of Springhall's article and I
returned to my room, where I had the original under a blotter. Quickly
I folded it and stuck it in my sock. Going down, I met a detective
coming up. They had turned Pankhurst's office upside down and
descended to the press-room, without finding what they were looking
for.
"And what are you?" the detective asked.
"Nothing, Sir," I said, with a big black grin. Chuckling, he let me pass.
(I learned afterward that he was the ace of Scotland Yard.) I walked
out of that building and into another, and entering a water closet I
tore up the original article, dropped it in, and pulled the chain. When I
got home to the Bow Road that evening I found another detective
waiting for me. He was very polite and I was more so. With alacrity I
showed him all my papers, but he found nothing but lyrics.
Pankhurst was arrested and charged with attempting to incite
dissatisfaction among His Majesty's Forces. She was released on
bail and given time to straighten out her affairs before she came up
for trial. She received many messages of sympathy and among them
was a brief telegram from Bernard Shaw asking: "Why did you let
them get you?"
Pankhurst's arrest was the beginning of a drive against the Reds.
For weeks the big press had carried on a campaign against Red
propaganda and alien agitators and Bolshevik gold in Britain. Liberal
intellectuals like Bertrand Russell and Mrs. Snowden had visited
Russia, and labor men like Robert Williams and George Lansbury.
There was an organized labor and liberal demand to end the
Russian blockade. And when the press broadcast the fact that
$325,000 of Bolshevik capital had been offered to the Daily Herald, it
must have struck Scotland Yard like a bomb.
Within a week of Pankhurst's arrest, Comrade Vie was seized just as
he was leaving England to go abroad. He was arrested as he was
departing from the house of a member of Parliament who was a
Communist sympathizer. The police announced that he was a
Bolshevik courier. They discovered on his person letters from
Pankhurst to Lenin, Zinoviev and other members of the Bolshevik
Politbureau; also notes in cipher, documents of information about the
armed forces, the important industrial centers, and Ireland, a manual
for officers of the future British Red army and statements about the
distribution of money. Comrade Vie was even more important than I
had suspected.
One evening when I got back home from Fleet Street I was surprised
to find Springhall, the sailor, there. He had come up to London to see
Pankhurst. He said his ship was leaving England and he would like
to talk to her. He was on one of the crack battleships. I begged him
for God's sake to leave at once, that he could not see Pankhurst,
who had been enjoined from political activity by the court and was
undoubtedly under police surveillance. Also, as editor of the
Dreadnought, she had taken the full responsibility for his article, and
her difficult situation in the movement would be made worse if the
police should get him too.
Springhall returned to his ship. But he was bold with youthful zeal
and extremely incautious. I remember his actively participating in his
uniform in the grand demonstration in Trafalgar Square for the
hunger-striking and dying mayor of Cork. And he marched with the
crowds upon the prison and fought with the police and got severely
beaten up. He wanted to quit the navy, believing that he could be a
better agitator outside. But his friends on the outside thought that he
could be of more importance at his post. Anyway he must have
acted indiscreetly and created suspicion against himself, for when
his ship arrived at its next port, he was summarily dismissed.
However, his revolutionary ardor did not handicap him in being
clever enough to maneuver his dismissal and steer clear of a court-
martial. A few years after he visited Russia, and later I was informed
that he subsequently became an active leader of the British
Communist Youth Movement.
Comrade Vie was convicted under the simple charge of alien non-
registration. He was sentenced to six months' imprisonment and to
pay the costs of his trial and deportation. Upon his release,
Pankhurst's secretary followed him to Russia, where they were
married. Apparently it was his preoccupation with his love affair that
enabled the detectives to trap Comrade Vie. Three years later I saw
them again in Moscow, but he did not seem to be importantly
employed.
 VIII
Regarding Reactionary Criticism
MY little brown book of verse, Spring in New Hampshire, appeared
in the midst of the radical troubles in the fall of 1920. I had not
neglected the feeling of poetry, even while I was listening to Marxian
expositions at the International Club and had become involved in
radical activities. A little action was a nice stimulant for another lyric.
C.K. Ogden, the author of Basic English and The Foundation of
Esthetics, besides steering me round the picture galleries and being
otherwise kind, had published a set of my verses in his Cambridge
Magazine. Later he got me a publisher.
But I was so anxious about leaving London for America that I hardly
felt the excitement I should about the first book I had done since I left
Jamaica. The Pankhurst group had been disrupted by the police
raids. Many of the members were acquainted with Comrade Vie, but
unaware of his real identity. His unexpected arrest and the
disclosures of the police that he was a Bolshevik agent had started
lots of rubberneck gossip. Some asserted that Comrade Vie had
been deliberately betrayed. And members accused other members
of being spies and traitors. A dissident group, headed by Edgar
Whitehead, the secretary of the organization, desired to bring
Pankhurst herself to a private trial and I also had to give an
accounting of my activities.
One evening, when I visited the International Club the secretary
showed me an anonymous letter he had received, accusing me also
of being a spy. I declare that I felt sick and was seized with a crazy
craving to get quickly out of that atmosphere and far away from
London. But I had used up all of my return fare. All I had received
from the Dreadnought was payment for my board. The organization
was always in need of money.
My little book had brought me no money. I hadn't been banking on it.
I had stopped writing for the Negro World because it had not paid for
contributions. An English friend, and I.W.W. who had lived in
America (I think he had been deported thence), undertook to find a
group of friends to put up the fare to get me back there.
While I was hotly preparing my departure, Sylvia Pankhurst was
sentenced to six months' imprisonment. Pankhurst was a good
agitator and fighter, but she wasn't a leader. She possessed the
magnetism to attract people to her organization, but she did not have
the power to hold them. I remember a few of them: William
Gallacher, Saklatvala (the Indian M.P.), A.J. Cook, who became the
secretary of the Miners' Federation, and that very brilliant and
talented writing couple, Eden and Cedar Paul. And I was informed
that before my time there had been others even more brilliant among
the Left literary and artistic set. I remember saying to Springhall that
it was a pity the organization was too small for him. It was a one-
woman show, not broad-based enough to play a decisive rôle in the
labor movement.
At last, when I was safely fixed in my third-class bunk, I had time to
read and ponder over the English reviews of my book. If it is difficult
to ascertain the real attitude of the common people of any country
regarding certain ideas and things, it should be easy enough to find
out that of the élite by writing a book. The reviews will reveal more or
less the mind of the better classes.
In most of the reviews of my poems there was a flippant note, either
open or veiled, at the idea of a Negro writing poetry. After reading
them I could understand better why Bernard Shaw had asked me
why I did not go in for pugilism instead of poetry. I think I got as
much amusement out of reading them from my own angle as the
reviewers had in writing from theirs.
But more than all there was one that deserves special mention. It
was the review published in the Spectator, the property, I think, of
the Strachey family, and the organ of the Tory intellectuals. There
can be little doubt that the London Spectator represents the opinion
of that English group, which, because of its wealth and power, its
facilities for and standards of high education, and its domination of
most of the universe, either directly or indirectly, is the most superior
in the world.
Said the Spectator critic: "Spring in New Hampshire is extrinsically
as well as intrinsically interesting. It is written by a man who is a
pure-blooded Negro.... Perhaps the ordinary reader's first impulse in
realizing that the book is by an American Negro is to inquire into its
good taste. Not until we are satisfied that his work does not overstep
the barriers which a not quite explicable but deep instinct in us is
ever alive to maintain can we judge it with genuine fairness. Mr.
Claude McKay never offends our sensibilities. His love poetry is
clear of the hint which would put our racial instinct against him,
whether we would or not."
So there it bobbed up again. As it was among the élite of the class-
conscious working class, so it was among the aristocracy of the
upper class: the bugaboo of sex—the African's sex, whether he is a
poet or pugilist.
Why should a Negro's love poetry be offensive to the white man,
who prides himself on being modern and civilized? Now it seems to
me that if the white man is really more civilized than the colored (be
the color black, brown or yellow), then the white man should take
Negro poetry and pugilism in his stride, just as he takes Negro labor
in Africa and fattens on it.
If the critic of the organ of British aristocracy had used his facilities
for education and knowledge and tolerance (which the average black
student has not) to familiarize himself with the history and derivations
of poetry he might have concluded that the love poetry of a Negro
might be in better taste than the gory poetry of a civilized British
barbarian like Rudyard Kipling.
It seems to me that every European white lover of lyric and amatory
poetry should be informed that one of the greatest, if not the
greatest, poets of love, was a Negro named Antar. And that
European or white man's love poetry today probably owes much of
its inspiration to Antar, who was the son of a Negro woman and an
Arabian chieftain.
One of the big surprises of my living in North Africa was the
discovery that even the illiterate Moor is acquainted with the history
and the poetry of Antar. Often in the Arab cafés (which I haunted like
a loco, because of the native music), when I was especially
enthralled by the phrasing of a song, I was informed that it was an
Antari (a song from Antar). When I was introduced as a poet there
was not a suspicion of surprise among the natives. Instead I was
surprised by their flattering remarks: "A poet! Mezziane! Mezziane!
Our greatest poet, Antar, was a Negro."
W.A. Clouston, who writes with authority on Arabian poetry, says: "It
is far from impossible that the famous romance of Antar produced
the model for the earliest of the romances of chivalry." Certainly it
was the Arabian poets who, upon the Arab conquest of Spain,
introduced lyric feeling into the rude and barbaric accents of the
Europeans. The troubadours of southern Europe stem directly from
the Arabian poets. The Arab poets and musicians were the original
troubadours. And happily they exist today exactly as they did thirteen
centuries ago, wherever Moslem culture holds sway.
Says Sismondi, the famous scholar: "It is from them that we have
derived that intoxication of love, that tenderness and delicacy of
sentiment and that reverential awe of woman, by turns slaves and
divinities, which have operated so powerfully on our chivalrous
feelings."
But it should not be necessary for me in this place to attempt to
enlighten the English gentlemen. I am not a scholar and this book is
not scholarly. The English gentleman has the means and the
material to educate himself that no Negro has. If he does not make
the proper use of them it must be because he is spoiled by his
modern civilization. The story of Antar was translated from the
Arabian into English way back in 1820, and by an Englishman
named Terrick Hamilton.
Antar is as great in Arabian literature as Homer in Greek. Said the
founder of Islam: "I have never heard an Arab described whom I
should like to have seen so much as Antar." In the universal white
system of education the white school boy learns about Homer and
Virgil and their works, even if he does not read Greek and Latin. He
learns nothing of Antar, although it is possible that European poetry
derives more from Antar than from Homer. Yet the white child is so
rich in its heritage that it may not be such a great loss to him if he
grows up in ignorance of the story and poetry of Antar. The Negro
child, born into an inferior position in the overwhelming white world,
is in a different category. He should know something of the Antar
who was born a slave, who fought for his liberation, who loved so
profoundly passionately and chastely that his love inspired and
uplifted him to be one of the poets of the Arabian pleiades.
Behold the sport of passion in my noble person!
But I have thanked my forebearance, applauded my resolution.
And the slave has been elevated above his master;
For I have concealed my passion and kept my secret,
I will not leave a word for the railers, and I will not ease the hearts
of my enemies by the violation of my honor.
I have borne the evils of fortune, till I have discovered its secret
meaning ...
I have met every peril in my bosom,
And the world can cast no reproach on me for my complexion:
My blackness has not diminished my glory.

My mother is Zebeeda,
I disavow not her name and I am Antar,
But I am not vainglorious ...
Her dark complexion sparkles like a sabre in the shades of night
And her shape is like the well-formed spear....
To me these verses of Antar written more than twelve centuries ago
are more modern and full of meaning for a Negro than is Homer.
Perhaps if black and mulatto children knew more of the story and the
poetry of Antar, we might have better Negro poets. But in our Negro
schools and colleges we learn a lot of Homer and nothing of Antar.

PART THREE
 NEW YORK HORIZON

IX
Back in Harlem
LIKE fixed massed sentinels guarding the approaches to the great
metropolis, again the pyramids of New York in their Egyptian majesty
dazzled my sight like a miracle of might and took my breath like the
banging music of Wagner assaulting one's spirit and rushing it
skyward with the pride and power of an eagle.
The feeling of the dirty steerage passage across the Atlantic was
swept away in the immense wonder of clean, vertical heaven-
challenging lines, a glory to the grandeur of space.
Oh, I wished that it were possible to know New York in that way only
—as a masterpiece wrought for the illumination of the sight, a
splendor lifting aloft and shedding its radiance like a searchlight,
making one big and great with feeling. Oh, that I should never draw
nearer to descend into its precipitous gorges, where visions are
broken and shattered and one becomes one of a million, average,
ordinary, insignificant.
At last the ship was moored and I came down to the pavement. Ellis
Island: doctors peered in my eyes, officials scrutinized my passport,
and the gates were thrown open.
The elevated swung me up to Harlem. At first I felt a little fear and
trembling, like a stray hound scenting out new territory. But soon I
was stirred by familiar voices and the shapes of houses and saloons,
and I was inflated with confidence. A wave of thrills flooded the
arteries of my being, and I felt as if I had undergone initiation as a
member of my tribe. And I was happy. Yes, it was a rare sensation
again to be just one black among many. It was good to be lost in the
shadows of Harlem again. It was an adventure to loiter down Fifth
and Lenox avenues and promenade along Seventh Avenue.
Spareribs and corn pone, fried chicken and corn fritters and sweet
potatoes were like honey to my palate.
There was a room for me in the old house on One Hundred Thirty-
first Street, but there was no trace of Manda. I could locate none of
my close railroad friends. But I found Sanina. Sanina was an
attractive quadroon from Jamaica who could pass as white. Before
prohibition she presided over a buffet flat. Now she animated a cosy
speakeasy. Her rendezvous on upper Seventh Avenue, with its pink
curtains and spreads, created an artificial rose-garden effect. It was
always humming like a beehive with brown butterflies and flames of
all ages from the West Indies and from the South.
Sanina infatuated them all. She possessed the cunning and
fascination of a serpent, and more charm than beauty. Her clients
idolized her with a loyalty and respect that were rare. I was never
quite sure what was the secret of her success. For although she was
charming, she was ruthless in her affairs. I felt a congeniality and
sweet nostalgia in her company, for we had grown up together from
kindergarten. Underneath all of her shrewd New York getting-byness
there was discernible the green bloom of West Indian naïveté. Yet
her poise was a marvel and kept her there floating like an
imperishable block of butter on the crest of the dark heaving wave of
Harlem. Sanina always stirred me to remember her dominating
octoroon grandmother (who was also my godmother) who beat her
hard white father in a duel they fought over the disposal of her body.
But that is a West Indian tale.... I think that some of Sanina's success
came from her selectiveness. Although there were many lovers
mixing up their loving around her, she kept herself exclusively for the
lover of her choice.
I passed ten days of purely voluptuous relaxation. My fifty dollars
were spent and Sanina was feeding me. I was uncomfortable. I
began feeling intellectual again. I wrote to my friend, Max Eastman,
that I had returned to New York. My letter arrived at precisely the
right moment. The continuation of The Liberator had become a
problem. Max Eastman had recently resigned the editorship in order
to devote more time to creative writing. Crystal Eastman also was
retiring from the management to rest and write a book on feminism.
Floyd Dell had just published his successful novel, Moon Calf, and
was occupied with the writing of another book.
Max Eastman invited me to Croton over the week-end to discuss the
situation. He proposed to resume the editorship again if I could
manage the sub-editing that Floyd Dell did formerly. I responded with
my hand and my head and my heart. Thus I became associate editor
of The Liberator. My experience with the Dreadnought in London
was of great service to me now.
The times were auspicious for the magazine. About the time that I
was installed it received a windfall of $11,000 from the government,
which was I believe a refund on mailing privileges that had been
denied the magazine during the war.
Soon after taking on my job I called on Frank Harris, I took along an
autographed copy of Spring in New Hampshire, the book of verses
that I had published in London. The first thing Frank Harris asked
was if I had seen Bernard Shaw. I told him all about my visit and
Shaw's cathedral sermon. Harris said that perhaps Shaw was getting
religion at last and might die a good Catholic. Harris was not as well-
poised as when I first met him. Pearson's Magazine was not making
money, and he was in debt and threatened with suspension of
publication. He said he desired to return to Europe where he could
find leisure to write, that he was sick and tired of the editor business.
He did not congratulate me on my new job. The incident between
him and The Liberator was still a rancor in his mind. He wasn't a
man who forgot hurts easily.
But he was pleased that I had put over the publication of a book of
poems in London. "It's a hard, mean city for any kind of genius," he
said, "and that's an achievement for you." He looked through the little
brown-covered book. Then he ran his finger down the table of
contents closely scrutinizing. I noticed his aggressive brow become
heavier and scowling. Suddenly he roared: "Where is the poem?"
"Which one?" I asked with a bland countenance, as if I didn't know
which he meant.
"You know which," he growled. "That fighting poem, 'If We Must Die.'
Why isn't it printed here?"
I was ashamed. My face was scorched with fire. I stammered: "I was
advised to keep it out."
"You are a bloody traitor to your race, sir!" Frank Harris shouted. "A
damned traitor to your own integrity. That's what the English and
civilization have done to your people. Emasculated them. Deprived
them of their guts. Better you were a head-hunting, blood-drinking
cannibal of the jungle than a civilized coward. You were bolder in
America. The English make obscene sycophants of their subject
peoples. I am Irish and I know. But we Irish have guts the English
cannot rip out of us. I'm ashamed of you, sir. It's a good thing you got
out of England. It is no place for a genius to live."
Frank Harris's words cut like a whip into my hide, and I was glad to
get out of his uncomfortable presence. Yet I felt relieved after his
castigation. The excision of the poem had been like a nerve cut out
of me, leaving a wound which would not heal. And it hurt more every
time I saw the damned book of verse. I resolved to plug hard for the
publication of an American edition, which would include the omitted
poem. "A traitor," Frank Harris had said, "a traitor to my race." But I
felt worse for being a traitor to myself. For if a man is not faithful to
his own individuality, he cannot be loyal to anything.
I soon became acquainted and friendly with The Liberator
collaborators and sympathizers: Art Young, Boardman Robinson,
Stuart Davis, John Barber, Adolph Dehn, Hugo Gellert, Ivan Opfer,
Maurice Becker, Maurice Sterne, Arturo Giovanitti, Roger Baldwin,
Louis Untermeyer, Mary Heaton Vorse, Lydia Gibson, Cornelia
Barnes, Genevieve Taggard. William Gropper and Michael Gold
became contributing editors at the same time that I joined The
Liberator staff.

The Liberator was frequently honored by visitors, many of them

women, some beautiful and some strange. Of course they all wanted
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