Incident is one of the most famous poems by the prominent African-American poet and author Countee Cullen who is a leading figure in the Harlem Renaissance. The conflict described in the poem is one of the keen conflicts within the American society in the 20th century.
It cannot be stated for sure where exactly Countee Cullen was born. Some sources say that he comes from New York, Baltimore (Perry, 1971, p. 5), others that he was born in Lexington, Kentucky (Shucard, 1984, p.14). He was raised in Harlem where he was brought at the age of nine. While studying at DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx, he took an active part in the school life and graduated with honor in Latin, Greek, Mathematics, and French. After the high school graduation, he entered the New York University, where he took part in various poetry contests. Some of his works even got published in the national periodicals like Opportunity, Poetry, Crisis, etc. After the graduation from the NYU, Cullen went to Harvard, and that was the time when his first poetry book Color was published. Color was the second poetry book of an African-American author of US origin reprinted by the major American publishing house (Wintz, & Finkelman, 2004, p. 235). Dedicated to the problems of racism that black people faced, Color included two of his most famous poems Heritage and Incident.
The poem shows the drastic change in the mood of the eight-year-old boy, excited about his visiting the new city, who was “heart-filled, head-filled with glee” (Jarrett, p. 182) and who was suddenly seriously offended by the treatment given him by a coeval. Though its short form, Incident sharply reflects the common problem of the neglectful and aggressive attitude, given to the representatives of color society by white people. The attitude is clearly depicted by Hughes (2002):
“The word nigger, you see, sums up for us who are colored all the bitter years of insult and struggle in America: the slave-beatings of yesterday, the lynchings of today, the Jim Crow cars, the only movie show in town with its sign up FOR WHITES ONLY, the restaurants where you may not eat, the jobs you may not have, the unions you cannot join. The word nigger in the mouths of little white boys at school, the word nigger across the whole face of America!”(p. 205)
Therefore, the only short word thrown by the little white boy in the face of the little colored boy spoils the entire seven-month visit to the beautiful Baltimore, everything good and interesting that occurred to him for this time and all the positive thoughts he had there.
Despite Incident may be taken as author’s child memory, the poem describes a made-up situation. “In 1939 Cullen described Incident as poetry, as an account of a child’s reaction, and not as a biographical fact.” (Witalec, 2003, p. 228) The problem was so keen that every black person could easily imagine himself in the place of the eight-year-old character.
Though its short form and a simple composition Incident reflects one of the deepest problems of the American society through the 20th century. That is the problem of neglecting the people of other race, the unjustifiably rude treatment that black people faced from the early childhood; the attitude that hurt deeply and spoiled all the experiences, the entire social atmosphere, all the bright side of life lived by these people.
References
Hughes, L. (2002). The Collected Works of Langston Hughes. Vol. 13. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press.
Jarrett, G. A. (2014). The Wiley Blackwell Anthology of African American Literature, Volume 2: 1920 to the Present. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons
Perry, M. (1971). A Bio-bibliography of Countée P. Cullen, 1903-1946. Westport, CT: ABC-CLIO.
Shucard, A. R. (1984). Countee Cullen. Boston: Twayne Publishers.
Wintz, C. D., Finkelman, P. (2004). Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance: A-J. New York, NY: Taylor & Francis.
Witalec, J. (2003). The Harlem Renaissance: Authors A-H. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale.