After the Miracle by Max Wallace

Author:Max Wallace [WALLACE, MAX]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2023-04-11T00:00:00+00:00

Even as she closely followed world events, Helen continued to read voraciously the novels and poetry that she had loved since she was young. Like millions of Americans, she was captivated by Margaret Mitchell’s 1936 bestseller Gone with the Wind—the epic story set in Civil War and Reconstruction-era Georgia. It stirred in Helen a “nostalgia for the drowsy sweet, spring and early summer days in Tuscumbia” and its depiction of African Americans reminded her of her Black playmates “who so good-naturedly played with the insatiate tomboy that I was.” But as she often did when memories of her childhood turned idyllic, she summoned the harsher reality that she also remembered well: “Sadly I recall the degrading poverty, the ignorance and superstition into which those little ones were born and the bitterness of the Negro problem through which many of them are still living.”47

In a 1938 interview with the Kansas City African American newspaper The Call, she was even more explicit about her feelings. After discussing her personal friendship with the noted Harlem Renaissance poet Countee Cullen, she was asked whether she believed the United States could wield moral influence as long as it tolerated “lynchings and prejudice.” As Polly spelled out the word “lynchings” into her palm, the reporter noted a “perceptible sign of horror” come over Helen’s face. “I am ashamed in my soul over it all,” she declared, invoking the kind of language and tone that had been largely missing from her public utterances about American politics since the days of her public involvement with the Socialist Party and the IWW. She added that the United States would yield far more influence if it “could stand before the world with a clean record of justice and humanity for all its people.”48

And while the issue of anti-Black racism continued to hit home, she soon demonstrated that she was equally indignant at discrimination against other marginalized groups. In July 1939, shortly after she bought an estate in Westport, Connecticut, that she named Arcan Ridge, she received notice that she had been “adopted” as an honorary member of the Stoney Indian Nation—an honor frequently granted to prominent figures such as movie stars and politicians. Traditionally, celebrities offered only platitudes when this honor was bestowed. But at the ceremony accepting her membership, Helen took the opportunity to speak out about an issue rarely discussed during this era when Native people were still routinely portrayed as “savages” in popular books and movies. “Since my childhood,” she told the tribe, “I have read all I could find about the Indians, and my cheeks have burned with shame at the terrible wrongs the white man has done them and his violence against the peaceable disciples of the Great Spirit.”49

After a long period during which Helen had rarely spoken out around any issue unrelated to her AFB advocacy work, it was clear that something had changed. A few years earlier, Helen had informed Major Migel that her working relationship with the AFB was causing her “friction and unhappiness.

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