by Tonya Bolden
“I’ve known the family for years,” Savannah replied.
Thanks goodness! Lloyd came through the door with a glass of water in one hand, and Glenna sat back in her seat.
Lloyd rested the glass on the podium, brought out a piece of paper from his pocket, cleared his throat.
Hubbub ceased. And Savannah savored the sight of him.
“Brothers and sisters,” Lloyd began. “This evening I have the distinct honor of introducing a true Moses, a man born at the bottom in Saint Croix, a man who through mighty force of will trained his mind by reading every newspaper, magazine, every book he put his hands on, a man who talks just as deep about Alice in Wonderland as he talks about the German philosopher Immanuel Kant.”
Lloyd knows of Kant?
“And this man, one of this new era’s fiercest champions of the Negro people, he comes with the same spirit of the Crucian brothers and sisters who led the great uprising of 1848. He comes with the spirit of the Crucian brothers and sisters who rallied up people for the great Fireburn of 1878. Brothers and sisters, I present you Hubert Henry Harrison.”
Amid fervent applause, a dark-skinned shortish stocky man stepped through the door. Full lips. Full nose. Huge, bulging head. Savannah saw a boxer determined to defeat every foe.
Reaching the podium, Harrison shook hands with Lloyd, then Lloyd took his seat beside Savannah.
“Thank you, Brother Lloyd. And I thank all of you for the fine welcome,” said Harrison. “You to whom I bring greetings from comrades in Harlem.”
He took a sip of water.
“Tonight I want to speak to you on what I call our larger duty.” He cleared his throat. “The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line.”
“Fuh true, fuh true!” a man shouted.
Harrison smiled. “But what is the color line?”
“Hell from the devil!” That was Glenna.
Harrison nodded. “It is the practice of the theory that the colored and supposed other weaker races of the earth shall not be free to follow their own way of life, but shall live, work and be governed as the dominant white race may decide.”
His diction so precise, biting. His voice a martial song.
“Consider for a moment the full meaning of this fact. Of the seventeen hundred million people that dwell on our earth today more than twelve hundred million are colored—black and brown and … not white at all.”
He paused, small, intense eyes afire, brow glistening with sweat.
“Let me say that again: Of the seventeen hundred million people that dwell on our earth today, twelve hundred million are colored.”
“So you mean there is only five hundred million white people?” a man asked. Savannah looked back to see the speaker was an elderly man clutching a handmade cane. In his cloudy eyes, his wrinkled skin, those gnarled hands clutching that cane, Savannah saw a thousand sorrows borne.
Harrison nodded, smiled, pointed to the elderly man. “Is everyone in the capital as smart as this group?”
Giggles, chortles, guffaws. When the crowd settled into silence—
“The so-called white race is, of course, the superior one. That is to say, it is on top by virtue of its control of the physical force of the world—ships, guns, soldiers, money. By virtue of this control, England rules and robs India, Egypt, Africa, and the West Indies. By virtue of this control, the United States can tell Haitians, Hawaiians, and Filipinos how much they shall get for their labor and what shall be done in their lands. By virtue of this control, Belgium can still say to the Congolese whether they shall have their hands hacked off or their eyes gouged out.”
Harrison whipped out a handkerchief, mopped his gleaming brow.
“It is thus clear that, as long as the color line exists, all the perfumed protestations of Democracy on the part of the white race must be simply downright lying!”
The crowd erupted into applause.
Joining in with gusto, Savannah thought, How plainly, wonderfully put. Downright lying. “Sweet Land of Liberty”— Another lie!
Coins she and others carried in pockets and purses—
Ten-cent piece: Winged Liberty.
Twenty-five-cent piece: Standing Liberty.
Fifty-cent piece: Walking Liberty.
Downright lying!
As for the five-cent piece … On one side a buffalo. On the other, in profile, a stoic-looking Indian man with a weathered face.
Was the buffalo nickel an apology or a boast?
“The hypocritical talk of ‘Democracy,’ ” Harrison bellowed, “is intended as dust in the eyes of white voters, incense on the altar of their own self-love. The good news?”
During the pause, like others, Savannah leaned forward.
“Colored people around the world have taken the measure of this cant and hypocrisy. And whatever the white world may think, it will have these peoples to deal with during this twentieth century.”
More applause.
Savannah was seeing such a wider world as Harrison spoke of movements for liberty on the rise, his emphasis on Africa, speaking of the Ethiopian Movement, of Zulus, of the Ekoi of Nigeria.
She could listen to Harrison all day, all night.
“In short, the darker races, chafing under the domination of the alien white, are everywhere showing a disposition to take Democracy at its word and to win some measure of it—for themselves!”
More applause.
“For themselves!” Harrison banged his fist on the podium. The water in his glass trembled.
Over her shoulder Savannah saw tears streaming down that elderly man’s face.
Harrison looked out over the audience. “What part in this great drama of the future are the Negroes of the Western world to play?”
He let the question hang in the air.
What part might I play in this great drama? wondered Savannah. What is my reason for being?
Harrison called on the crowd to stay informed about movements for freedom, for true democracy around the world, to be in solidarity with the oppressed and downtrodden everywhere.
“Africa! Africa! Africa!” he cried out. “So will we profit by a wider experience and perhaps be able to lend some assistance to that ancient Mother Land of ours to whom we may fittingly apply the words of Milton.”
Eyes closed, arms outstretched, Hubert Henry Harrison spoke now in the softest of voices.
“ ‘Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep …’ ”
It struck a chord.
“ ‘And shaking her invincible locks …’’’
It triggered a memory.
“ ‘Methinks I see her as an eagle mewing her mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full noon-day beam …’ ”
As Harrison rolled on, Savannah mouthed words memorized two, three years ago, meaningless then. And she had had to look up “puissant.”
Powerful.
The crowd was on its feet.
“ ‘… while the whole noise of timorous and flocking birds, with those also that love the twilight, flutter about, amazed at what she means …’ ”
The applause, the cheering drowned out the rest of Harrison’s recitation of Areopagitica.
“A-re-o-pa-git-i-ka—Remember soft ‘g.’ ” Dunbar’s nasally Mr. Neval had said when he assigned that piece of prose. “The title derives from ancient Greece’s Areopagus, a hill in Athens where judges once ruled, where a sage urged reform, where the Apostle Paul preached.”
During the hope-spawned applause, Lloyd returned to the podium. He and Harrison embraced, then Lloyd turned to the audience, motioned for folks to settle down. Room quiet, Lloyd beckoned for someone to come forward.
Spencer with the bent back. He made his way to the front with a cut-glass punch bowl.
“Brothers and Sisters,” said Lloyd, “you know talk really is not cheap, not good talk like what Brother Hubert Henry Harrison provide. So we ask you to search your hearts, be as gen
erous as you can.”
Spencer began to walk the rows with the punch bowl.
Savannah opened her purse, reached for two dollar bills, paused, looked around. She saw only coins being dropped into the punch bowl.
You not from around here?
From her change purse Savannah brought out a Walking Liberty.
“No matter how much you are able to give,” said Lloyd, “when you exit, help yourself to a copy of the latest issue of a magazine Harrison associates with, The New Negro. You’ll also find some pamphlets by another Moses, Marcus Mosiah Garvey.”
By the time Savannah made her way through the crowd to the camping table, all the pound cake was gone. But she didn’t care. She wasn’t there for cake, but to shake Mr. Harrison’s hand.
“I just want to thank you, sir. You really have me thinking!”
“It is what I live for. And you, I saw you reciting Areopagitica along with me.”
“I had to memorize it for a school program. But I never felt the words until tonight.” Savannah made a cat’s cradle of her hands as she floundered for something more to say.
Then this. “My brother, he lives in Harlem.”
“Does he, now?”
“Yes, on 135th Street. His name is Charlie Riddle.”
Harrison smiled. “The photographer?”
Savannah nodded rapidly. “Yes, that’s him.”
Harrison was still smiling. “He’s covered some Liberty League events.”
As soon as Savannah got home, she’d telephone Charlie, tell him that she’d met Harrison and pepper him with questions about the Liberty League. She had to know more.
Savannah took a quick peek at her bracelet watch. “Mr. Harrison, sir, I must be going. And, again, thank you for a stirring, riveting, and most puissant speech, for such a—for such an awakening.”
Harrison responded with a slight bow.
Savannah looked around for Lloyd, spotted him in a corner talking with Glenna.
She hurried over. “Excuse me, Glenna, I just need a word with Lloyd.”
Once they were off to the side, Savannah pointed at her watch. “It’s after nine.”
“Right,” said Lloyd. “Just a few more minutes. We’re waiting for a buddy who’s to drive Harrison to his lodgings for the night. I want to see him off.”
As minutes ticked by, Savannah grew increasingly antsy. She had to get home before her parents. If she didn’t—
Her plan was falling apart.
Finally Lloyd’s buddy came, he saw Harrison off, and they were on their way.
The night was even steamier. Not a breeze to be had.
“Thanks for tonight,” said Savannah. “I wouldn’t have missed this for the world.” She had them walking fast-fast. “Mr. Harrison has me dreaming of seeing the pyramids, of learning more about Zulus and the—”
“The Ekoi.”
“Right, the Ekoi.”
They walked for a while in silence.
“I’ve never really thought …”
“Thought what?”
“About the world. Not the way he spoke of it. Never thought that I might have something in common with, say, a girl in India or in—”
Commotion up ahead.
Cursing, shouting, feet running hard, fast.
A shatter of glass.
Savannah and Lloyd stopped.
The trouble was coming their way.
A bloodied Negro man rounded the corner followed by another, his shirt halfway ripped off.
Hard on their heels a sea of white men.
People scattered.
The next thing Savannah knew, Lloyd snatched her into a crevice of an alley. It reeked of piss and beer and vomit.
Back against the wall, frightened out of her mind, Savannah did her best to hold her breath.
More feet pounding pavement was coming their way.
White men passed by as if marching off to war. Savannah saw hands clutching knives, cudgels, sticks, bricks. One man banged a drum. Many, she could tell from carriage and gait, were drunk.
Some in sailor suits.
Others in khaki and olive drab.
They were shouting out a name, sounded like “Walls.”
Windows smashed.
Shots rang out.
Not far away a sickening chant.
Eeny, meeny, miny, moe!
Catch a—
Tears burned down Savannah’s face.
If he hollers, cut his throat!
Eeny, meeny, miny, moe!
Chaos owned the night.
Savannah looked to her right.
Nothing but pitch black.
She tried not to tremble, tried to stop the tears. Something skittered past her feet.
Eeny, meeny, miny, moe!
Catch a—
But the tears wouldn’t cease.
If he hollers, cut his throat!
Eeny, meeny, miny, moe!
From near and far Savannah heard voices—men, women—crying out for mercy, heard bloodcurdling screams, smelled burning.
Lloyd eased down to the ground. When he rose, she made out that he had a brick or a stone or something in one hand and in the other—
He handed her a lead pipe. Her stomach churned and lurched.
The chanting was drowned out by cries and shouts, howls, rebel yells, more banging of pots and pans.
Cacophony from hell.
Savannah clamped a hand over her mouth as tears continued down her cheeks, hoping, praying.
Soon, the clamor grew fainter, fainter, a wave rolling out to sea.
Is this happening all over? Savannah was stiff with panic.
What time is it?
Are Mother and Father safe? At the Lees’? At home?
Mother says thank heavens we live in the capital … whitefolks here are not nearly so barbaric.
The lull didn’t last.
Again feet pounding the cobblestone street were coming their way.
Savannah shut tight her eyes.
Every second an eternity.
As the feet passed by that crevice of an alley, Lloyd took her hand. “Come.”
“But—”
As a trembling Savannah inched out into the street, grateful tears streamed down her face.
Those feet belonged to Negro men. Men with bludgeons, blackjacks, crowbars. Some had pistols, rifles. Spencer was among them.
“Wha going on, fellas?” Lloyd called out.
The men stopped, turned.
When Lloyd and Savannah reached them, Spencer spoke.
“Last night, some white woman claimed two Negro men accosted her, tried to take her umbrella. Husband is a navy man. Last night there was rumblings, but they calmed down when word spread the police had two Negro men in lockup. Then today they found out they was released.”
Savannah stepped over to a streetlamp, checked her watch.
Ten o’clock.
“We’ll see you and the young lady to your door,” said Spencer.
“Come on, Savannah,” said Lloyd. “It’s safest if you stay by us.”
“But my parents? I have to know if—” She turned to Spencer. “Any rioting in Northwest?”
“Some trouble I think,” he replied. “Not so bad as here.”
“I have to call my parents!”
Savannah could see Lloyd thinking fast.
“Spencer, Mr. Fletcher, he has a telephone, right?”
Spencer nodded.
“Joe, Jack, Reuben, Willie, Junius, Jake, come with us, please,” said Lloyd.
Savannah noticed that all the men Lloyd summoned had guns.
FRANKLIN 3159
Upstairs, downstairs dark.
Lloyd banged on the door, stepped back, looked up.
An upstairs light went on.
“Mr. Fletcher, it’s me, Lloyd Walcott. Your telephone. I need it.”
A head poked out a window. “Be right down.”
Soon lights went on downstairs, the door opened.
After everyone poured in, Mr.
Fletcher bolted the door. This freckle-faced giant of a man who brought to mind a walrus was wearing an undershirt and white duck trousers held up by a suspender strap.
“Your telephone, sir?” asked Savannah, eyeing the shotgun in Mr. Fletcher’s hand.
“Back there on the counter.”
“Yes, Operator, Franklin 3159.”
Ring.
Ring.
Ring.
Through a new trickle of tears, Savannah stared at shelves packed with sardines and other tinned goods, at a short counter with giant jars of pickled pigs’ feet.
After what seemed the hundredth ring, she hung up the telephone, felt about to faint.
“Where she live exactly?” asked Spencer.
“M Street Northwest. 900 block.”
Spencer frowned. “I don’t think we chance it. Best she stay by you.”
Lloyd nodded.
“Please!” Savannah cried out. “Just give me a few more minutes, please! Let me try again! Please!”
A squat woman in a blue-check bungalow dress entered through a curtain behind the main counter. After one look at Savannah, she made an about-face. Seconds later the woman reappeared, damp cloth in one hand, a glass of water in the other. “Here ya go, dearie.” She scurried back behind the curtain.
Savannah wiped her face, but she couldn’t get the stench of that crevice of an alley out of her nostrils. After gulping down the water, her breathing slowed.
“Mr. Fletcher,” said Spencer with a nod at a jar of pickled pigs’ feet. “One, please.” He fished in his pocket.
“On me, son,” said Mr. Fletcher, unscrewing the jar. From beneath the counter he brought out a sheet of wax paper and a long two-pronged fork. He speared a pig foot, held it over the jar, let it drip. After a tick of time he wrapped the pig foot in the wax paper, handed it to Spencer. “The rest of you boys?” asked Mr. Fletcher.
Joe, Jack, Reuben, and the others lined up at the short counter.
But not Lloyd. He just stared at Savannah.
She stared back, then reached for the receiver again, gave the operator her exchange and number again.
Ring. Ring. Ring. Ri—
“Father! Are you and Mother all right? … I’m sorry, I’m sorry, but I’m fine … I went to a lecture … Lloyd Walcott … A grocery store … I don’t know where I am … Southwest … We’re with some men … Protection …” She cupped her hand over the receiver. “What’s the address here?”
