In A Little Devil in America, Hanif Abdurraqib set out to celebrate black artists across music, dance, comedy and more, who succeeded even when their own country refused to honour them
When I began A Little Devil in America, I was thinking about Josephine Baker. The title of the book comes from Baker, from her speech at the March on Washington in 1963. It is a speech that is often overlooked. The legacy of the march so often centres on its male speakers (Martin Luther King Jr, A Philip Randolph), and Baker was well past her most notable prime. At 57, she chose to return to the US from France and make a small speech – but also to confront the country she’d left and vowed to not return to. The speech is at times tender, at times funny, at times teeming with rage. There was a fullness to it; Baker considering the vastness of her life and the many lives she’d lived. Her speech is defiant and brilliant, punctuated by Baker aligning her experiences with the national plight of black people in America:
You know, friends, that I do not lie to you when I tell you I have walked into the palaces of kings and queens and into the houses of presidents. And much more. But I could not walk into a hotel in America and get a cup of coffee, and that made me mad. And when I get mad, you know that I open my big mouth. And then look out, ’cause when Josephine opens her mouth, they hear it all over the world.
The book is a catalogue of excitements – Beyoncé’s Super Bowl show, Dave Chapelle’s standup
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