The Revelation of the Past in John A. Williams’ “Clifford’s Blues”

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been teaching John A. Williams’ Clifford’s Blues and exploring the intricate interconnections between Jim Crow and the Holocaust. In a recent post, I wrote some about the Black Horror on the Rhine and Clifford’s Blues. Today, I want to continue some of that discussion, specifically by looking at Clifford’s June 27, 1938, diary entry which covers a few different events and topics that highlight the sinews reaching back and forth between the Jim Crow United States and Nazi Germany.

Clifford begins the entry by relating the lead up to the second match between Joe Louis and Max Schmeling which took place on June 22, 1938, in Yankee Stadium in New York. Clifford writes about the way that SS guards would mock and laugh at him throughout the week leading up to the fight because of their racism and their belief that Scheming, being white, would pummel Louis as he did in their first matchup. Along with the SS guards, those wearing Black (antisocial) and Green (criminal) triangles would join in the mocking, ignoring the fact that the Nazis holding Schmeling up as an Aryan superman, keep them imprisoned alongside Clifford. They would all pass Clifford and say, “Oh, Schmeling’s gonna kill that guy, Sunshine, you watch! That n*****’s gonna get his, Snowball. Schmeling’s of the master race!”