Blacker The Berry: A Novel Of Negro Life eBook

The Blacker the Berry (1929), Wallace Thurman’s debut novel, broke new ground as an exploration of issues of "colorism," intra-racial prejudice, and internalized racism in African American life. Its protagonist, the young Emma Lou Morgan, is simply "too dark" for a world in which every kind of advancement seems to require a light complexion. Seeking acceptance and opportunity, she moves--much like the dark-skinned young Thurman had, four years before the novel’s publication--from Idaho to California to New York. Harlem, the "city of surprises," is in many ways the novel’s true subject, its low-down, licentious streets, glittering cabarets, and variegated cast of characters offering a rich backdrop for Emma Lou’s ambivalent, picaresque progress.