Fictional Black hero of the Titanic toasts or songs who, after having his warnings about
the ship’s sinking ignored by its White captain, escapes through amazing physical feats
and common sense while ignoring the pleas and bribes of the White passengers. In this
well-known toast, Shine, the stoker and only Black person aboard the ship, initially warns
the captain that the ship is taking on water. His warning is ignored as the captain relies on
the ship’s pumps to save them. Realizing that the ship is sinking, Shine jumps overboard
and swims to safety. Various toasts present different passengers begging for his help and
offering, in exchange, money, sex, or other rewards, all of which he turns down so that he
can save himself:
Here come the captain.
Say, “Shine, Shine, please save me,
I make you rich as any shine can be.”
Shine said, “Captain, to save you would be very fine,
But I got to first save this black ass of mine.”
Shine and the Titanic toast appear throughout Black folklore in various forms. The Shine
character appeared occasionally in 19th–century minstrelsy, but he generally is found in
later toasts that focus on the sinking of the Titanic. Although various suggestions as to the
origin of his name exist, it probably derives from Black slang referring to a very darkskinned person (Levine 1977:428). The Titanic-related character probably originated as a
result of the denial of passage by the ship’s company for Black boxer Jack Johnson.
Langston Hughes notes that while Black people were denied passage on the ship, “folk
versifiers insist that there was one Negro aboard” (Hughes 1959:367). Ironically,
although no Blacks were aboard the ship, this toast is found primarily in Black folklore
(Jackson 1974:35).
While the toast was first collected in the 1930s and early 1940s, it probably appeared
much earlier in Black folk legend (Levine 1977:428). It continues to appear in the 20th
century, and it has even been adopted and modified by White toast-tellers (Johnson
1981).
The importance of Shine in Black narrative is often seen in his representation of the
entire race. His words and actions demonstrate personal empowerment as well as a
challenge to White authority (Jackson 1974:37). Additionally, while he crosses accepted
class and race boundaries in his profane and direct replies to the White passengers’
requests that he save them, his responses also demonstrate the transparency of such
boundaries as well as a practical focus on surviving. He also is able to accomplish this
triumph through rebellion and a rejection of established social rules while, at the same
time, remaining within legal boundaries, thus “defeatfingj [W]hite society on its own
territory and by its own rules” (Levine 1977:420).
Sandra G.Hancock
References
Hughes, Langston, and Arna Bontemps, eds. 1959. The Book of Negro Folklore. New York: Dodd,
Mead.
Jackson, Bruce. 1974. “Get YourAss in the Water and Swim Like Me”: Narrative Poetryfrom Black
Oral Tradition. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Johnson, James D. 1981. An Instance of Toasts among Southern Whites. Western Folklore 40:
329–336.
Levine, Lawrence W. 1977. Black Culture and Black Consciousness. New York: Oxford University
Press.