If He Hollers Let Him Go
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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If He Hollers Let Him Go is a novel by Chester Himes, published in 1945, about an African American shipyard worker in Los Angeles during World War II. A 1968 film adaptation with Raymond St. Jacques, Barbara McNair, Kevin McCarthy, and Arthur O'Connell bore little resemblance to the book.
The story spans four days in the life of Bob Jones, a newcomer to L.A. from Ohio, who has some college education, and works as a crew leader in a naval shipyard. Jones lives in a time when black workers experience a new-found authority as supervisors and garner decent wages as a result of union efforts. However for Bob Jones this is no escape from the pressures of racism. It quickly becomes apparent that he was promoted only in order to facilitate the cooperation of black workers in the war-time effort. He is forced to deal with anti-communist paranoia, resentment from whites on the floor at working on the same jobs as "negro boys", and the vicious baiting of the black workers by white females. These manifest as fears which invade his dreams, his aspirations, and his passions. His dream of making something of himself in California is jeopardized as he reacts with emotion to the actions of the white people around him. He fights back the urges to fight, to kill, and to rape as ways to overcome the power that "color" has over him.
Themes addressed in the novel include black racism, color differentiation, racism on the job, and the division of classes. Communism is dealt with generously, as the Communist unionists ("agitators") are the only ones who talk about the issue of race in any way with which the protagonist agrees. There are also some references to jazz.
