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Inequality in the 'Land of the Free'
When you read The Color Purple for the first time you may be mistaken
in thinking that all of the novel’s background is rooted in slavery and
missionary activity. Though this is true in part, the novel makes casual
references to prohibition, the Ku Klux Klan and music during the 1920s.
An important idea to grasp is that although the novel is not year-for-year perfect, the general setting and time frame we are looking at is 1908 to 1940 in America’s Deep South. This is important, as the American states were all going through radical change.
This page does not aim to give a history lesson as to what went on the 1920s regarding the Wall Street Crash and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Indeed, it may be true that the South of the USA did not embrace the prosperity of the 1920s or the relief of the 1930s. The American South had its own problems however, and it is here to which my attention now turns.
Publishing,
music and film dominated the entertainment scene during the 1920s. Writers
such as Walter Lippmann, John Steinbeck, Sinclair Lewis and actors
including Clark Gable and Errol Flynn began their path to stardom in the
1920s. Jazz was the main source of music in American homes
during this period. By the end of the 1930s there were over fifteen
million sets inside American homes, and band-players such as Louis
Armstrong and Fats Waller were household names. Duke Ellington and Sophie
Tucker [pictured] were also big names [both being mentioned in The Color
Purple] and in many American towns jukejoints allowed many youngsters
without a radio to sip coke and listen to their favourite tunes.
Inequality
in the ‘Land of the Free’
As perhaps I suggested in the paragraph before, the economic
prosperity was not shared equally between all peoples. While states in the
northern half of America enjoyed the Henry Ford automobile and an abundant
supply of cookers heaters and refrigerators, older industries that were
based in the south such as plantations specialising in tobacco and cotton
were going under. Poverty predominated, indeed, one commentator in a
southern newspaper during the 1920s wrote:
"Poverty becomes more painful in the shadow of great wealth . . . America can show greater contrasts in such matters than any other country I know."
However, these contrasts would not last. A soaring economy and a saturated market meant unemployment for millions of Americans. The effect was devastating; banks were forced to go into liquidation and many people committed suicide out of a realisation that they may lose their house and all of their money. Drastic results called for drastic measures and soon after 1933 Roosevelt, the new President gave Americans a ‘New Deal’ that included employment, and new found confidence.
Those in the south however, again lost out. Beaten down and tormented by racial and financial pressures, many black men such as those in The Color Purple crushed their wives along with them as a sign of the frustration they were suffering. One laundry worker, recalled:
"’Slavery’ is the only word that would describe the conditions under which we worked. At least fifty-five hours a week. It was speed up, speed up, eating lunch on the go, perspiration dripping from every pore . . . the toilet at our place wasn’t fit for animals."
Despite the financial prosperity, forms of southern extremism also took centre-stage during the 1920s. The Ku Klux Klan [pictured] were a right-wing, white Protestant group, who usually targeted Jews, Catholics and foreigners, though the Klan chiefly aimed their most fearsome violence against people who they called ‘inferior negroes.’
Despite the apparent anti-Klan attitude by the people at the time of this unrest, the group’s membership reached approximately five million by 1924. Regular lynching took place during their torchlight marches and many affluent black people, mainly men with their families would be taken out of their homes in the night and burnt in the street. Their reason for this was the belief that black people were only good enough to serve other people.
Though there is no direct mention of this in the novel, the mbeles tribe, who plan for white people's destruction are known to provide a good contrast against the racial narrow-mindedness of the Ku Klux Klan. It could also be noted that Celie’s father could have suffered at the hands of an earlier version of the Klan.
After the First World War had ended many businessmen became worried by their worker’s excessive drinking habits and began to believe that it had an effect on production. The church supported this, believing that it was a sin to intoxicate oneself. One lady in particular, Carrie Nation became famous for over-turning drinking saloons with a hatchet at the turn of the century, and this attitude had continued among people during and after the war.It was because of the war that prohibition first came into being. People believed that alcoholism hampered the war effort and as a result, the Volstead Act [1919] was passed, meaning it was illegal to import, transport and sell drink of an intoxicating substance.
This however led to bootlegging and many people broke the law by smuggling in drink and then selling it in speak-easies. Gangsters such as Al Capone became famous and in one year he took sixty million dollars. After the Wall Street Crash however, prohibition was relaxed, the President’s first words on the matter being: "I think it would be a good time for a beer."
Written by Matthew Kane [2001]
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