Captain Blackman (iii)
from novelist John A. Williams of the Black Arts Movement
Abraham Blackman, Captain, United States Army, is bleeding out staring at the sky in the last days of the Republic of Viet Nam. The Vietnamese Communists had pinned him down with a few rifles,
luring his men to rescue and suffer overwhelming ambush. Abraham, father to his men, who call out to Captain Brother, instead leaped from cover to draw all the enemy’s fire and so warn the brothers back.
As he lies wounded he finds himself back in time like Hank Morgan, the Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur’s court. Abraham hovers over a meeting at an inn at Delaware where the revolutionary Thomas Jefferson
spells out the racial order of the new confederation to his fellow revolutionaries, laying plans to enslave from sea to shining sea. Then Blackman finds himself marching to Lexington, still wearing fatigues,
which bother no one nearly so much as the musket he carries. The enslaved and freemen are scared that it will draw the attention of the white men, who are just scared.
A white man hits the captain on the head losing a fight to take his weapon. After that all Abraham knows is the long slog through 6 years of war in the ranks of the Continental Army,
where all the black Americans carry guns. So go this first and second chapter of John A. Williams’ novel from the war for Viet Nam in proud recuperation of the bitter past, black American military history.
As the war of independence ends, Major Whittman, who sent Captain Blackman out, presses his radio man Faulkner for news. He rejoices that Abraham is down. Back in 1781, Abraham musters out
then fights off with his stolen bayonet whites who attempt to kidnap him into slavery. He marches South, humming,
We had an Army, twenty thousand men, Five thousand were [expletive deleted], Oh say that again - We had an Army, twenty thousand men, Five thousand were [expletive deleted] - Stop! Don’t say it again.
This was third Viet Nam letter of 5 so far presenting Captain Blackman by John A. Williams. The first posted on April 4, 2022, the second on May 4, 2022, then the fourth on July 23, 2022 and the fifth on February 16, 2023.
Viet Nam letters respects the property of others under paragraph 107 of United States Code Title 17. If we asked for permission it wouldn’t be criticism. We explain our fair use at length in the letter of September 12, 2022.
The colophon of these Viet Nam letters, directly above, shows the janitor speaking with poet David A. Willson on a Veterans Day.
Publicity:
Captain Blackman, bleeding out on a stump of the Republic of Viet Nam, teaches responsibility for the United States of America. He revisits it all in terms of the enslaved and the formerly enslaved fighting since Lexington for our pirate republic.
He has been teaching this burden to his troops in the Black Power moment of the war, when John A. Williams wrote his Blacks Arts novel for us all. Black Americans are the original United States citizens. They built the place and belong nowhere else.
If you want to learn this country, and whatever the hell our occupation of the Republic of Viet Nam could possibly have been about, I suggest you attend to the captain and to his creator.
Here is the third of my Viet Nam letters introducing them. I have put the first 2 in comments below. The fourth is already standing by for next month.
Read what I have to say about reading his novel and you complete my purpose. Should you patronize all the readers at $50/year or this whole public health intervention at $250/year, we will appreciate it.