Kingsblood Royal
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Kingsblood Royal, a novel by Sinclair Lewis, was published in 1947. In it the protagonist Neil Kingsblood, a white middle class man, discovers that he has African American heritage while researching his family background. He then begins to see himself as black, despite his lack of racial features, and is forced to choose between continuing what he now sees as a hollow existence in the white community and the oppressed minority existence of the black community. After admitting his heritage to several white friends, the news quickly spreads, and he engages in a quixotic struggle against the racism prevalent in the community. The climax of the novel comes when a mob comes to evict Neil from his house in the white suburb, and he is able to stand them down.
Shortly after the publication of Kingsblood Royal, a group of white supremacists sent a letter to J. Edgar Hoover encouraging the FBI to seize all copies of the book and declare Lewis's novel an act of sedition (Lingeman, 513). Hoover demurred, yet the perception of the novel as "seditious" is perhaps the most precise interpretation of it. Ebony quickly awarded Kingsblood Royal its annual prize for work that promotes interracial cooperation, and the NAACP endorsed it enthusiastically (Schorer, 760). The reading public bought 1.5 million copies.
[edit] References
Fleming, Robert. "Kingsblood Royal and the Black "Passing" Novel". Critical Essays on Sinclair Lewis. Ed. Martin Bucco. Boston: G. K. Hall & Company, 1986.
Lingeman, Richard. Sinclair Lewis: Rebel from Main Street. New York: Random House, 2002.
Schorer, Mark. Sinclair Lewis: An American Life. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1961.
http://www.racematters.org/kingsbloodroyal.htm
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