Banjo: A Story Without A Plot 1929 by Claude McKay

INTRODUCTION Banjo: A Story without a PlotBanjo: A Story without a Plot –published by Claude McKay in 1929, between the World Wars. –Draws on his personal experiences living in France to depict dockworkers and drifters in the port town of Marseilles. –The novel follows one group of “beach boys,” combining semi-autobiographical accounts of their pleasure-seeking lifestyle with their conversations about race relations and race politics, in France and abroad.

Political Basics The men in the novel represent various positions on race politics. Below are the four most prominent categories of positions in the novel—remember that each character nuances his views differently, and there are many distinctions to be made within these categories. (You might recognize some of the oppositions between these positions from later conflicts within the Civil Rights movement; they have some features in common with, for example, the political disagreements between Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X.)The men in the novel represent various positions on race politics. Below are the four most prominent categories of positions in the novel—remember that each character nuances his views differently, and there are many distinctions to be made within these categories. (You might recognize some of the oppositions between these positions from later conflicts within the Civil Rights movement; they have some features in common with, for example, the political disagreements between Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X.)

Political Basics 1.Black Internationalism: This political culture linked blacks from around the world by connecting struggles against slavery, colonialism, and racism. Many of these connections are made in Banjo, like when Ray notes the similarities between the list of atrocities the French were committing in the colonies and the treatment endured by blacks in the United States.

Political Basics 2.Racial Assimilationism/Integrationism: During the early 20 th century, assimilation was one possible answer to the question of how black people were to recover their full humanity: by being fully integrated into existing white society. Assimilation might include pursuing higher education and joining the professions, two things that were seen as allowing blacks to move out of their marginal position and into the respectable middle classes, as discussed in Banjo.

Political Basics 3.Black Nationalism: Opposed to assimilationists, black nationalists argued that black people should affirm and fight for their own culture and values, demanding their rights on their own terms rather than gaining a place in the existing system that had excluded them. W.E.B. Du Bois was associated with this position, which reflects the views of many of the characters in Banjo.

Political Basics 4.Black Separatism and Garveyism: These two positions are subsets of black nationalism that advocate the creation of essentially separate societies for black and white people. Whereas some black separatists thought that these two nations could be created within the United States, Marcus Garvey sought to bring blacks “Back to Africa,” a position represented in the novel by Taloufa