159. The reports proved slow in coming: Davis had not received a single one by 23 October. Orin Lehman made it clear to Davis that the former would not back proposals for a permanent society of African culture until he had received all the reports. See John Davis to Horace Mann Bond, 23 October 1956, 36.111B, Bond Papers.
19. John Davis to Richard Wright, 5 September 1956, 96.1276, Richard Wright Papers, Beinecke Library, Yale University.
20. James Baldwin, “Letter from Paris: Princes and Powers,”
21. Horace Mann Bond, “Report on the First Congress of Negro Writers and Artists, Held in Paris, France, The Sorbonne, September 19–22, 1956,” n.d. [1956], 36.111B, Bond Papers. Bond’s report also makes mention of the fact that, just after arriving in Paris a few days before the conference was due to begin, the American delegation met with U.S. embassy officials, raising the possibility that some of their suspicions concerning fellow conferees were officially prompted.
22. Anon., report on Congress, n.d. [1956], 36.111C, Bond Papers.
23. Bond, “Report on the First Congress of Negro Writers and Artists.”
24. Quoted in Margaret Walker,
25. “Origin and Nature of the American Society of African Culture.”
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303
26. Baldwin, “Letter from Paris,” 53.
27. Bond, “Report on the First Congress of Negro Writers and Artists.”
28. “Origin and Nature of the American Society of African Culture.”
29. Baldwin, “Letter from Paris,” 58.
30. Richard Wright, observations about 1956 Congress, n.d. [1956], 104.1557, Wright Papers.
31. Quoted in Rowley,
32. Baldwin, “Letter from Paris,” 58. Given the famously strained relationship between the two men (both African American writers in Parisian exile), the description Baldwin offered of Wright’s predicament at the Paris Congress was notably sensitive and sympathetic. Wright’s controversial interest in the modernizing influence on Africa of western colonialism, which he tried to explain in the final lecture of the Congress, “Tradition and Industrialization,” is discussed in Gaines,
56–64.
33. Quoted in Rowley,
34. Diop’s speech reported in Baldwin, “Letter from Paris,” p. 60. See also “Origin and Nature of the American Society of African Culture.”
35. Alioune Diop to John Davis, 25 January 1957, 36.111C, Bond Papers.
36. John Davis to Richard Wright, 31 January 1957, 17.36, AMSAC Papers, Moorland-Spingarn Center.
37. John Davis to Alioune Diop, 18 February 1957, 104.1557, Wright Papers.
38. Alioune Diop to John Davis, 19 April 1957, 36.111D, Bond Papers.
39. John Davis to Horace Mann Bond et al., 5 May 1957 and 20 May 1957, both 36.111D, Bond Papers.
40. McCloskey had agreed to join the board of directors of the American Information Committee on Race and Caste in March 1957, after receiving an invitation from Davis, Lehman, and Webster explaining that the organization’s purpose was “to present an accurate picture of the development of race relations in the United States . . . [and] correct the distorted version of these relations which has such wide currency abroad.” John Davis, Orin Lehman, and Bethuel Webster to Matthew McCloskey, n.d., 20.9, AMSAC Papers, Moorland-Spingarn Center.
41. Minutes of Coordinating Committee for the American Information Committee on Race and Caste, 24 September 1957, 20.10, AMSAC Papers, Moorland-Spingarn Center.
42. Minutes of Special Meeting of Directors of American Information Committee on Race and Caste, 24 October 1957, 20.10, AMSAC Papers, Moorland-Spingarn Center.
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43. John Davis to Alioune Diop, 18 November 1957, 13.24, AMSAC Papers, Moorland-Spingarn Center.
44. John Davis to Richard Wright, 18 November 1957, 96.1276, Wright Papers.
45. Richard Wright to John Davis, 25 November 1957, 17.36, AMSAC Papers, Moorland-Spingarn Center. Wright also told Davis that Diop had heard the group of black intellectuals in Atlanta around the journal
. . . as a Communist, an accusation that rendered him speechless.”
46. Richard Wright to James Harris, 14 April 1958, 17.36, AMSAC Papers, Moorland-Spingarn Center.
47. James Harris to Richard Wright, 21 March 1958, 93.1173, Wright Papers.
48. “You know our French African brothers far better than we do,” Davis pleaded with Wright. “Please come.” John Davis to Richard Wright, n.d., 96.1276, Wright Papers.