The Fire in the Flint

The novel was written during the Harlem Renaissance and contains themes consistent with the New Negro Movement as well as promoting anti-racist themes and shedding light on racial oppression during the early 20th century. . Walter White’s The Fire in the Flint (1924) focused on the career of Black physician and veteran of World War I. Protesting racial oppression and exposing its most barbaric expressions White’s novel also brought attention to a distinguished Black professional class whose progress was being blocked by prejudice.. In the novel Kenneth Harper a southern born but northern trained African American physician returns from World War I to start a medical clinic and practice in southern Georgia. He is flush from his good treatment by whites in the north and in Europe so he expects such treatment in the south. His brother warns him but he soon learns that southern white treatment for negroes will not allow him to set up the clinic for all that he wants to. The novel is the story of his slow downfall as he finds out that even sympathetic whites will not challenge the racism of their colleagues runs afoul of the Ku Klux Klan has his brother lynched and his sister raped by white men. He ends being lynched himself while killing some whites in the process. The novel was published in 1923 and met with success. He tried unsuccessfully to have the novel turned into a play or movie.