I got a heads-up about this interview a couple of days ago...it took a while to find a linkable copy. I think it came up because I mentioned how my mom is as color-concious as Dr. Price Cobb's mom.
An Interview With Haki Madhubuti
BY Jonathan Tilove
Haki R. Madhubuti is a poet and director of the MFA program in creative writing at Chicago State University, the founder and publisher of Third World Press and the co-founder of four schools in Chicago. He is the author of 27 books, most recently "Yellow Black: The First Twenty-One Years of a Poet's Life: A Memoir," about his growing up in Detroit's Blackbottom and Chicago's West Side, and has just published "The Covenant With Black America," a project with broadcaster Tavis Smiley.
Q: On the cover of your book is a photo of your mother, Helen Maxine Graves Lee. The title is "Yellow Black." Why?
A: You look at my mother and you see she was a very light-skinned black woman. (Theater director) Woodie King said she looked like Lena Horne. I think that's close. In terms of beauty, I think she would give Lena Horne a run for her money, and that's why she's on the cover of the book.
In the 1960s I was involved in a lot of demonstrations with Dr. King when he came to Chicago -- primarily as a foot soldier. When we would march into the solid white communities like Bridgeport bordering the black community, they'd either call me half-breed, or somebody would say, "look at that yellow black man over there." Yellow black, yellow black. It began to stick.
Q: Was being light-skinned a problem?
A: Being high yellow was always a problem, yes. What happened, early in the struggle in the 1960s, I would always be challenged by men in the struggle that were in some cases darker than I was but not as intellectually referenced. There was always the question, was I black enough, could I be trusted in the deepest of struggle? I decided I was going to have to outwork everybody in the black community, not tangential to it, not parallel to it, not in some academic university setting. I would really have to produce in the black community. That was my mission.
