Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T19:55:23.781Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

On the Use of Force

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Chester Himes  and
Diego A. Millan
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In the mid-1960s, the United States witnessed increasing social unrest: students led protests against the Vietnam war, and many black Americans expressed disillusionment over piecemeal gains of the civil rights movement. Whereas history remembers the antiwar rallies mostly as protests, official records often code black demonstrations in Boston, Cleveland, Buffalo, and the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles as riots. In response to two so-called riots in Newark, New Jersey, in July 1967, Chester Himes wrote “On the Use of Force” for the 24 July 1967 issue of the weekly Gaullist magazine Le nouveau Candide, where it was published in French translation (French version). The essay, never before published in English, offers timely thoughts concerning police brutality and is sure to be valuable for Himes scholarship, the story of black Americans in Europe, and the history of race and violence.

Type
Little-Known Documents
Information
PMLA , Volume 132 , Issue 2 , March 2017 , pp. 471 - 477
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 2017

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Eburne, Jonathan P. “The Transatlantic Mysteries of Paris: Chester Himes, Surrealism, and the Série noire.” PMLA, vol. 120, no. 3, May 2005, pp. 806–21.Google Scholar
Fabre, Michel. Introduction. Himes, Conversations, pp. ix-xiv.Google Scholar
Fiorelli, Julie A. “Imagination Run Riot: Apocalyptic Race-War Novels of the Late 1960s.” Mediations: Journal of the Marxist Literary Group, vol. 28, no. 1, Fall 2014, pp. 127–52, www.mediationsjournal.org/articles/imagination-run-riot.PDFdownload.Google Scholar
Himes, Chester. “Chester Himes Direct.” Interview by Michel Fabre. Himes, Conversations, pp. 125–42.Google Scholar
Himes, Chester. Conversations with Chester Himes. edited by Fabre, Michel and Skinner, Robert E., UP of Mississippi, 1995.Google Scholar
Himes, Chester. French version of “On the Use of Force.” Le nouveau Candide, 24 July 1967, pp. 11–14.Google Scholar
Himes, Chester. “The Man Who Goes Too Fast.” Interview by Philip Oakes. Himes, Conversations, pp. 17–22.Google Scholar
Himes, Chester. My Life of Absurdity. Thunder's Mouth Press, 1995.Google Scholar