Book Review: Clarence Adams: An American Dream - The Life of an African American Soldier and POW Who Spent Twelve Years In Communist China
Adams, Clarence, Adams, Della & Carlson, Lewis H. (eds.), Clarence Adams: An American Dream — The Life of an African American Soldier and POW Who Spent Twelve Years In Communist China
Publisher: Amherst and Boston, University of Massachusetts Press (2007)
Pagination: 155 pp
ISBN: 978–1–55849–595–1
This is a story that covers US racial segregation, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Cold War and China under Mao. This is a biography of Clarence Adams, written after his death by his daughter, Della Adams and friend, Lewis Carlson. It is a moving life chronicle of a black man born in 1929, in the racially segregated city of Memphis, South of the US.
He joined the US army on September 11, 1947 to avoid police arrest and was sent to Japan and South Korea at the end of the Second World War. Clarence witnessed the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950 and was captured by the Chinese People’s Army as a Prisoner of War (POW). When the Korean War ended in July 1953, in an armistice signed between America-backed South Korea and Chinese and Russian-backed-North Korea, Clarence decided to go to China instead of returning to the US under the care of the Neutral Nations Repatriation Commission. As a poor, working-class black who saw no future in Memphis where racial discrimination dominated the lives of his community, he wanted to start anew. Clarence wanted an education and the People’s Republic of China under the Communist Party of China welcomed foreigners. As a high-school dropout, Clarence became a student at the People’s University in Beijing to study Chinese language and Chinese Literature. He later graduated from Wuhan University with majors in Chinese Language and Political Economy.
He socialized with both local and foreign students, particularly the Koreans, many of whom were high-ranking officers and civil servants sent to China to study and promote Chinese-Korean relations. Clarence’s marriage to his Chinese wife Lin, was welcomed by many fellow students and friends from among the general population, but certain high-ranking officials and party bureaucrats treated their union with skepticism and disapproval. This was not only because of Clarence’s political and racial background but also because Lin came from a former landlord and warlord family, which was then regarded as an ‘unreliable class’ in revolutionary China. After the birth of Della, Clarence got a job at the prestigious Foreign Languages Press and moved to Beijing where the family enjoyed a stable life. They worked alongside eminent figures like Israel Epstein and Rittenberg, non-Chinese Revolutionaries who had joined the resistance against the Japanese during WWII and later, the Mao Tze Tung-led communist struggles against Chiang Kai-Shiek.
During the Vietnam War, Clarence engaged in an anti-war action, which was controversial in the eyes of the US government. He volunteered to speak in a public Vietnamese broadcast to black soldiers in the US Army, in the hope that they would not continue to fight in the war. Clarence’s message was: the African Americans were not enjoying equal rights as human beings and as US citizens back home, so why should they fight for a government that would willingly sacrifice their lives (as he had experienced during the Korean War)? Clarence also questioned the purpose of waging such devastating wars against Vietnam and Korea, who could not threaten the security of the US. Because of his action, when Clarence and his family decided to leave China during the Cultural Revolution to return to the US, he was subpoenaed to the House of Un-American Activities Committee, to ascertain if he had acted unpatriotically during his stay in China.
Even though he was released without charge, public opinion was against him. The press slandered him as a “turncoat and a traitor” and the white racists threatened to kill him and his family. The overt and covert persecution by the US government and its army also took a toll on his family. He was repeatedly denied employment and it was not until late 1968 that he finally got a job despite the resentment of his white colleagues and the all–white trade union. Eventually, Clarence and Lin saved enough money to run their own Chinese Restaurant.
Della published this book because “my father wanted Americans to understand why he went to China. He did not adhere to some abstract or subversive political ideology. To the contrary, he based his decision solely on his inalienable right to live as a human being. America denied him that right, whereas China assured him open and equal opportunities. It was just that simple”.
You can listen to the BBC Podcast here (11 mins.)
This review was originally published in Ethnicity and Race in a Changing World: Extended Review and Book Reviews, 2009
