["PRESERVATION PHOTOCOPY: ORIGINAL MATERIAL RESTRICTED", "July 18", "1937", "181 West 135 St\nNew York City", "Dear Miss Boardman", "Thank you for your letter and your appreciation of my writings and I want to tell you how profoundly sorry I feel that a person of your intellect and whose social attitude and ability I admire should be the \"goat\" in the organizational difficulties of our little Guild. I am certain that intellectually I may have more in common with you than any member of the Guild. (I read your brilliant impartial report (written in collaboration with Miss Gruening) on the Crawford case.)", "But my attitude in the Guild is merely part of a plan I hope to hope to formulate for intensive group work and consolidation. It is possible that 65 per cent or more of Negro Americans will disagree with me at first. And those who agree with me might be mostly women and for the wrong reasons. But the Negro group badly needs self-confidence, self-reliance and group unity in order that it may 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July 27

1937

181 West 135 St
New York

Dear Miss Boardman

If you cannot see the difference between a group soul (ethnos) and mob spirit, then perhaps you cannot see any between a national democratic spirit and a nationalistic spirit. We think along different lines. You begin your thesis with a saucy sentimental paragraph about personal suffering and pain as it affects the individual as if the individual can stand suspended out of environment.

Then you go on to infer that a group soul means the recognition of "a common enemy" which implies the raising of "an army". In this statement I seem to see the prompting of an agent provocateur. In positive contradiction about whom your idea of race, there are many great organizations based upon race, which do not increase racial barriers, but help to break them down. I name one: The Spanish Fiesta de la Raza, which emphasizes the best traditions and achievements of the entire Spanish-speaking world and embraces all the people regardless of nation or government. Race is a big word covering all of humanity, but it seems that for some neurotic reason you are willfully limiting it to the perverted Nazi interpretation.

Your indietnent of family and country sounds childish to me. For although the institution of the family is not perfect, it still remains the foundation and cradle of all life. And whether one is patriotic or unpatriotic, the country in which one is born and raised or lives puts special obligations upon a person, quite different from these beyond the border.

You don't agree that a "leader is needed" but speak romantically of the "masses as individuals who have to learn by themselves". But what are the facts: the language you write, the mail you use, in medicine, chemistry, sculpture, music--all outstanding achievements in science and art were accomplished by leaders who were observed with ideas and gave them shape and form which their less inventive colleagues copied and popularised. So it is clear to me that your idea of the masses is chaotic and anarchistic, the very negation of reality of the strength and growth of human life. It goes to prove also that if you had your way you would let the mass of Negrees remain as they are without any decent leadership, objects of contempt for the white workers and of pity for nice sentimental white ladies.

What organization are you prodding me about, my dear Miss Boardman? I have none. And I am not excluding whites from anything since their (your) overwhelming curiosity and inherited aggressiveness compel them to adventure into the remotest nooks and corners, even where they are obviously not wanted. When I speak of plans I mean my brain children, my ideas which I am organizing to put in a book. When they are published they will be available. Are you expecting me to divulge them to you beforehand?

Your sentimental indictment of the Angle-Saxon in your last paragraph is unconvincing. For I see in your letters, in your attitude in the Guild, in your ideas regarding Negroes, those very qualities you condemn in Angle-Saxons and the main one is, aggressiveness. Of course, your approach is from a different angle, but one could not mistake you for anything but a chip of that block.

There are many interpretations of the word "inferior" which, since the era of Freud's neurotic complexes, has been bandied about so much by educated and superior people. Personally I am not exclusive because I feel inferior, but because I feel superior. Without the slightest spirit of chauvinism I must say that I feel superior to the great majority of whites. And that is why I find the attitude of most of them so amusing. They do assume so much. Even the radicals. They unconsciously imagine that a superior economic position also makes them intellectually and physically superior. They lose equilibrium when they approach minority people of a different breed. If they are not stupid, brutish and vicious on one extreme, they are often offensively nice and sweet on the other, trying so unsuccessfully to convince the poor minority person that they do not consider themselves superior. As I am one minority person who without flaunting a feather in his cap, thinks himself as superior as anybody else, the results of my contacts with % members of the majority breed is often exasperatingly funny.

You say: We need you. The Angle Saxon is so accustomed to having everything he needs, I suppose he becomes sometimes like a spoiled rich child who having had every imaginable toy, is exasperated because he cannot hold the soap bubble. Why need me? There are many Negro organizations that will jump at any offer to cooperate with you. And I imagine you know Negroes a lot. Since you are against their organizing to better their conditions, since you are against the idea of a group soul or group unity, why not take your message to the many Negroes who imagine that most efforts towards group unity means Segregation? They will no doubt welcome you. They prefer to remain guinea pigs for sentimental persons to raise and investigate. I am not a guinea pig.

Or since you have posed questions to me I may also pose one.

Why must you work always with Negro organizations? I think you might help the Negro also indirectly. Suppose for instance you started a movement against that Angle Saxon arrogance which you condemn!

Yours Truly

Dear Mr. McKay:

Since you have not yet found time for a discussion with
me which would allow me to reply to the various charges you have
made, I must try to reply to them by letter. You have evidently
forgotten your definite promise to talk to me on this as soon as
you had a vacation. But in common justice I think you ought to
give careful consideration to what I have to say. From what you
have said, I am afraid your mind is closed on the subject but I
wish you would try to look at it without prejudice.

You began your letter, "If you cannot see the difference
between a group soul (ethnos) and mob spirit," etc. If you will
recall, I did not say I saw no difference, I asked you what you
meant by the term "group soul". It is a term used by many kinds
of groups, from the D.A.R. and the K.K.K. to college undergraduates
and with as many meanings. Many of them do mean something which,
put plainly, does not differ essentially from mob spirit--that
emotional contagion which may by accident be right or useful, but
which cannot be intelligent. You did not mean that, but you have
not explained what you did mean. I do not know Greek, so to be
sure, I looked *ethnos* up in the dictionary and find it only means
*race*. Another word, *ethos*, means "the characteristic spirit, dis-
position or tendency of a people or community regarded as an en-
dowment and as expressed in their customs, tastes, etc." If this
is what you mean, how can you say it is lacking? This character-
istic disposition is *there*, I should think, even if it is not
strongly differentiated. Perhaps this is close to your meaning,
though I think it is only part of it.

And I asked if you would base a group on the recognition
of a common enemy, which implies an army; not raising an army,

-2-

but such a group is an army, is it not? In the sense that a trade
union is. And remember, I added that I did not think that was what
you wanted; although it did seem in part implicit in what you said.

I ask you--no, I demand, that you take back agent provo-
cateur! It was wholly unwarranted. I do not think you believed
it. You must, in common honesty, withdraw it.

I am very much interested in the Spanish organization
you mention and would like to know more about it. The racial or-
ganizations I have known most about have been Jewish and as I
observed them they certainly have seemed to increase barriers rather
than to break them down. I am entirely open to conviction about
it, however.

I said, I am not sure a leader is needed, and I meant
just that. I am not sure. There have been so many who turned out
to be misleaders. It would have to be a very great person indeed.
I suppose it depends on the exact purpose in view. I am not against
leadership, but its dangers have to be recognized. People want
security and comfort so much that they will follow anyone who
promises these things and so they lend themselves to exploitation.
This is happening all around us. Perhaps it is inevitable and the
best we can hope for is the emergence of more and more intelligent
leaders who will gradually create a world without barriers. Yet,
if people were individually awakened to clear, independent thought,
they would act of themselves to remove the barriers. This does
happen occasionally, even now, and would happen more if people
were not so rigidly conditioned to fit the system. It is that
conditioning that I am against. I am putting this badly, I am
aware, but I hope you will understand what I am trying to say.

-3-

Of course, when I speak of leaders, I mean people
definitely conducting a following; concerned with adherents.
When you say all great achievements were accomplished by leaders
in various fields, of course you are right, but they were leaders
of human thought, not of any race or group. They became outstand-
ing simply by independent individual thought - as you put it,
"obsessed by ideas" - but not concerned with followers. More
leaders like that are needed everywhere.

I do not think that Negroes are "objects of contempt
to white workers and of pity to nice sentimental white ladies.."
White workers fear Negro workers and where there is fear there is
respect. I know what I am talking about, for I have talked with
white workers in mill villages in South Carolina, with share-
croppers in Mississippi and with longshoremen in New Orleans; to
mention a few. They are in mortal terror of the Negro workers,
make no mistake about that. As for sentimental white ladies, I
do not know anything about them. I am sorry I seemed to be
"prodding" you. I didn't mean any discourtesy or inquisitiveness.
I was only interested in your ideas.

What I said about Anglo-Saxons is something I never tried
to express before, and I think never will again. I thought I
could to you because I am quite sure that in my place you would
feel as I do.

Naturally, I suppose a person who is superior must know
it. It is good to meet some one who does not feel obliged to be
mock-modest about it. And I agree that people are likely to dis-
close unconscious attitudes when they meet those who are different.

-4-

It happens both ways, you know. But I do not find it funny.
And there is always a possibility that one is mistaken in one's
interpretation.

When I said, we need you, I meant, white people and
Negroes need each other - don't they? At least, I assume it is
so, I can only know one side. I do not think there is any use in
my going into this, for you wouldn't believe me. But I think it
is sensible to work together when we can; though, if you don't
want to, there is nothing more to say about it. I am not against
a group soul or group unity and I cannot take my message to anyone
because I haven't any message. I don't want a guinea pig and I
agree with you, whatever kind of a pig you may be, it is not a
guinea pig.

I find it difficult to understand why a person of your
mental caliber should reply to a serious letter with vituperation
instead of explanation. If my questions were, as you said, exces-
sively stupid, surely it should have been easy to set me right.
In my simplicity, that is what I looked for. You call me "aggres-
sive", as if that were a fault. But aggressiveness is a useful
quality which I am afraid you are mistaken in thinking I possess to
a very high degree. I admired your own aggressiveness, of which
I was the victim, when you stood up for your own convictions against
the majority at the Guild. Sentimentality, which I take to mean
the enjoyment of a false emotionalism, is another trait I must
repudiate.

Why must I *always* work with Negro organizations? I have
only worked with one in all my life and that was inter-racial. As
for "helping the Negro", what kind of a god-damned patronizing

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philanthropist do you take me for? The Negroes that I know are
perfectly capable of helping themselves. Some of them have helped
me, and if I can do anything for them, I will, but not because
they are Negroes.

I am interested in breaking down prejudice and discrimination and will attack both wherever I meet them, whatever race or class they are directed against. As part of this fight I support, so far as I can, Negro institutions, merchants and professional people. I believe in united action of all races as an effective means of overcoming discrimination.

As for arrogance, it is a contemptible characteristic, whether Anglo-Saxon or Negro, but there cannot be a movement against it. I cannot rid you of arrogance nor you me, we both have to do it for ourselves.

I don't suppose this letter is any use. You will find
plenty of remarks in it capable of misinterpretation and you will
discuss them with anyone in New York except me. You have not been
fair to me and I see no reason to suppose that you will be.

I have just remembered another thing which I may as well
explain. Mrs. Davis told me that you took exception to something
I said to the effect that the Guild affair was inevitable and
would have happened anyway. When I asked whether I was eligible
to membership I was told that I was and that there were several
other prospective white members who would probably join shortly.
If that was the case, it was mere accident that I was the first.
What happened was bound to occur as soon as any white person joined,
surely. I have no idea what you thought I meant, but it is character-
istic that you talked it over with other people and did not think

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of asking me about it.

From the beginning you have refused to credit me with
sincerity or ordinary intelligence. With "no time" to talk to
me, you have discussed this with so many other people that I am
continually astonished at the number who appear to know of it
from you. I have persisted in believing in your good faith.
But you do not give very much evidence of it.

Helen Boardman

4 W. 31 St.

Sept. 4, 1937.