The Blacker the Berry: A Novel of Negro Life

Alva is Emma Lou’s long-term romantic partner. She meets him in Harlem and is immediately struck by his dapper fashion sense and light skin. Many men in Harlem scoff at Emma Lou because of her dark skin, and she is often the butt of unkind, colorist jokes, but Alva does not discriminate against her. After their first dance together, Emma Lou is smitten. She eventually begins a relationship with him, and although he does not appear prejudiced toward her and treats her with kindness, his behavior masks an uglier truth. Alva is highly manipulative and typically dates multiple women simultaneously to use them for financial support. He confides to his friend Braxton that Black women with dark skin are especially easy to use in this manner, and his interest in Emma Lou must then be understood as duplicitous. Alva brings his girlfriend Geraldine, who has a lighter skin tone, to cabarets and parties rather than Emma Lou. This shows the pervasiveness of colorism within Black communities and the depth of Alva’s own internalized racism. Although he is tolerant enough of women with darker skin tones to date Emma Lou, he does bow to the social pressure of his peers and is not strong enough in his convictions to be seen openly with Emma Lou.

Although Alva is negatively affected by his alcohol addiction and fathers a child with Geraldine, Emma Lou is unable to shake her love for him through much of the novel. It is only at the very end of the narrative that she finds the strength to leave him, and in this act finally demonstrates love for herself. Alva becomes an important way for Emma Lou to reveal the dynamic nature of her character: A critical part of her growth as an individual manifests in her will to break off her relationship with Alva.

Emma Lou meets Hazel Mason while registering for classes at USC. Hazel is immediately recognizable to Emma Lou as “low class” because of her dark skin, loud voice, poor grammar, and use of Black vernacular. Emma Lou takes an immediate dislike to her, hoping to distance herself from what she has grown up to identify as the “wrong” type of Black person. Emma Lou feels the sting of being associated with Hazel when she sees the way Hazel is scorned by Black students who better conform to white standards of behavior, speech, and dress. Emma Lou believes that her acquaintanceship with Hazel limits her social acceptance on campus, and she makes repeated references to Hazel’s “minstrelsy” and outlandish behavior.

Through Hazel, Thurman reveals Emma Lou’s own colorism. Emma Lou does admit that Hazel is not a bad person and is generous and kind. However, because of her skin color and refusal to conform to The Politics of Black Respectability, Emma Lou marks her as undesirable. Although the bulk of Hazel’s characterization, including appearance and demeanor, seems to portray her as a stereotype, her underlying goodness of spirit marks her as a round rather than flat character. Emma Lou might only see the portions of Hazel that she feels conform to stereotype, but there is more to Hazel than meets her eye. Through Hazel, Emma Lou also demonstrates the internalized Racism in Black Beauty Standards. Hazel does not resemble the well-dressed girls with lighter skin who are popular among their peers at USC, and because of this, Emma Lou finds her innately “unattractive.”

Samuel and Maria Lightfoot are Emma’s maternal grandparents. They are descended from both formerly enslaved people and white southern planters. Their family moved from Kansas to Boise to escape discrimination. Upon establishing her family as part of Boise society, Maria becomes the leader of the “blue veins,” a group so named for their blue veins, made visible by the lightness of their skin. Because they were descended in part from the aristocratic planters of the South, they felt themselves superior to the Black inhabitants with darker skin. Maria passes her colorism down to her daughter, and the two women make Emma Lou painfully aware that her skin tone marks her not only as “different” from her family but as supposedly “inferior” to the other African Americans with lighter skin tones in their community.

Maria in particular illustrates the way that white supremacy, racism, and colorism work their way into Black communities. Although Black herself, she engages in prejudicial treatment of other Black Americans and perpetuates harmful stereotypes about Black people. Her colorism becomes the driving force behind much of Emma Lou’s action, for she moves to Los Angeles and then Harlem to escape colorist prejudice within her family and broader Black communities.

Arline Strange is a white actress who employs Emma Lou as a maid in Harlem. During that era, actresses and actors lacked the cultural capital that they now possess, and theater would have been seen as a low-class occupation for its associations with vice, alcohol, and the unrespectable margins of society. Emma Lou’s employment with Arline is another mark of her refusal to conform to The Politics of Black Respectability, and indeed, her mother repeatedly writes to Emma Lou while she is working for Arline, asking her to return to Boise.

Arline, while playing the role of a woman with both Black and white ancestry in a production of Carmen, darkens her skin to appear less white. This is illustrative of Harlem Renaissance-era cultural practices and reflects both white interest in Black culture and the problematic, often racist representation of Black Americans in white-produced art. Arline’s show is not truly illustrative of Black life in America, but audiences of the time were more interested in stereotypes than in reality. Emma Lou is aware of the problematic aspects of the play, and Thurman uses this moment to speak to broader cultural trends during the early 20th century.

Braxton is Alva’s friend and roommate. A man with an alcohol and gambling addiction, Braxton struggles to pay his rent, is often disrespectful to his female companions, and ultimately drives Alva away with his dissolute behavior. Braxton has nothing but scorn for Emma Lou because of her skin color. He and other like-minded men fully embrace the Racism of Black Beauty Standards and are as hurtful as Emma Lou’s family members. Braxton is emblematic of many of the men whom Emma Lou meets in Harlem, and although he is the face of such racism, the text abounds with instances of gendered, racialized criticism of Emma Lou’s appearance.

Geraldine is Alva’s girlfriend, who has lighter skin. In the initial chapters set in Harlem, she is the woman whom Alva chooses to bring to social events so as not to be seen with Emma Lou because of her skin tone. Ultimately, Geraldine gives birth to Alva’s child, a boy who has a physical disability and whom she eventually leaves in Alva’s care.

Geraldine serves as Emma Lou’s foil. Initially, her contrast with Emma Lou is her skin tone, straight hair, desirability to Alva, and acceptability within the colorist social circles in Harlem. Ultimately, however, the pair contrasts in another way entirely: Geraldine doesn’t take responsibility for her child, and Emma Lou steps in to care for the boy. At this point, Thurman explicitly questions the perceived “superiority” of individuals with lighter skin and shows Emma Lou’s own moral rectitude. Although the more conventionally “beautiful” of the two, Geraldine’s beauty is presented as only relating to her appearance, while Emma Lou reveals herself to be of stronger character.

Gwendolyn Johnson is Emma Lou’s friend during the later sections of the novel set in Harlem. Raised in a family that values equal treatment of all people, Gwendolyn specifically seeks out the friendship of Black people with darker skin tones and often calls out colorism in others. Initially, Gwendolyn seems like a flat character, for she is respectable, upstanding, and staunchly anti-colorist.

However, Gwendolyn is ultimately figured as a complex character. She so objects to Emma Lou’s choice to return to Alva that she accuses her of being the “worst” sort of Black person and suggests there is some truth to the stereotype that Black people with lighter skin tones are morally “superior.” Gwendolyn’s avowed commitment to equality is a critical piece of her identity, but she reveals the depth of her own colorism during this moment of conflict. This is another example of a dynamic character, although in Gwendolyn’s case, the arc is not upward, and her transformation is negative.

Benson Brown is another of Emma Lou’s love interests. She meets him through church and is attracted to him primarily because he has a lighter skin tone and does not mind being seen in public with her. Even though Emma Lou finds him tedious and they have little in common, the two spend quite a bit of time together.

Benson is a deliberately flat character, for he is meant to embody The Politics of Black Respectability and illustrate the kind of archetypal Black man favored by the Black church during the Harlem Renaissance era. His relationship with Emma Lou is also another representation of Emma Lou’s colorism, for his appeal does not extend beyond his skin color.