evolution of Hurston’s interest in using Moses as a
vehicle through which to celebrate and explore
African-American history and culture.
Bibliography
Boyd, Valerie. Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora
Neale Hurston.New York: Scribner, 2003.
Caron, Timothy. “‘Tell Ole Pharaoh to Let My People
Go’: Communal Deliverance in Zora Neale
Hurston’s Moses Man of the Mountain,” Southern
Quarterly36, no. 3 (spring 1998): 47–60.
Morris, Robert. “Zora Neale Hurston’s Ambitious
Enigma: Moses, Man of the Mountain,” CLA Jour-
nal40, no. 3 (March 1997): 305–335.
“Fire by Night”Rudolph Fisher(1927)
This short story by RUDOLPHFISHERappeared in
the December 1927 issue of McClure’smagazine. It
is marked for its personification of a vicious NEW
YORKCITY, one in which the description of LENOX
AVENUEis particularly vivid. Fisher imagines the
street, at the heart of HARLEM, as totally besieged
and ambushed: “Ugly, cheap little shops attack it,
cluster like scavenging vermin about it. Trucks
crush blindly, brutally over it, subway eats wormily
into it. Waste clutters over it, odors fume up from it,
sewer-mouths gape like wounds in its back. Swift
changes of complexion come—pallor—grayness—
lividity. Then, less than a mile beyond its start, the
Avenue turns quite black.”
Fire in the Flint Walter White(1924)
The first of two novels by WALTERWHITE, a major
figure in the Harlem Renaissance and prominent
officer of the NATIONALASSOCIATION FOR THE
ADVANCEMENT OFCOLOREDPEOPLE(NAACP).
The book grew out of White’s intensive antilynch-
ing work and activism for the NAACP and com-
plemented his extensive journalistic writings on
the brute violence and inhumanity of lynching.
The novel was published in 1924, just two
years after the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill was passed
in the House of Representatives but blocked by a
filibuster in the Senate. The NAACP, which from
its inception committed itself to the creation of an-
tilynching legislation, supported the bill and
worked tirelessly for its passage. White’s novel may
be considered, in part, a reflection of his earnest
commitment to the organization’s efforts.
White was on staff at the NAACP as national
assistant secretary in 1919 when the organization
published Thirty Years of Lynching in America,
1889–1918.Documented lynchings in the 20th
century were on the decline when White pub-
lished, but as historians have noted, there were sig-
nificant numbers of killings that went unreported.
In 1919, following the end of World War I, racial
unrest increased; there were 83 lynchings. By 1933,
the number of documented attacks stood at 28.
The novel chronicled the life of Kenneth
Harper, a doctor who, after completing his medical
training at HARVARDUNIVERSITY, decides to re-
turn home to Georgia. Harper, who grew up in the
segregated South, confronts the rigid, racist struc-
tures of the South. He allies himself with a group
of sharecroppers and supports their attempts to
create an empowering cooperative. The local
white response, represented by the KU KLUX
KLAN, pits Harper against the life-threatening
racial caste of the early 20th century.Bibliography
Janken, Kenneth Robert. White: The Biography of Walter
White, Mr. NAACP.New York: The New Press,
2003.
White, Walter. Rope and Faggot: A Biography of Judge
Lynch.Knopf, 1929; reprint, Kenneth Janken (ed.),
Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame,
2001.
Zangrando, Robert L. The NAACP Crusade Against
Lynching, 1909–1950.Philadelphia: Temple Univer-
sity Press, 1980.First International Convention of the
Negro Peoples of the World
Organized by MARCUSGARVEYand the UNIVERSAL
NEGROIMPROVEMENTASSOCIATION(UNIA), the
convention was held in HARLEMthroughout August- The unprecedented gathering of Africans and
African Americans included a staggering parade
through Harlem. It was during this event that the
red, green, and black flag symbolizing African unity
was adopted. Hailed by the NEGROWORLD,the of-
ficial UNIA newspaper, as a “unique and glorious
achievement,” the convention succeeded in rallying
162 “Fire by Night”