The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman

by Ernest J. Gaines

  “Can you kill my boy?” I asked him.

  “I must do what they tell me,” he said.

  “Can you kill my boy?” I asked him.

  “Yes,” he said.

  I looked at Albert Cluveau a moment, then I felt my head spinning. I made one step toward the house, then I was down on the ground. I heard somebody way off saying, “Jane, Jane, what’s the matter, Jane?” I opened my eyes and I saw Albert Cluveau with his ugly face kneeling over me. And I thought I was in hell, and he was the devil. I started screaming: “Get away from me, devil. Get away from me, devil. Get away from me, devil.” But all my screaming was inside, and not a sound was coming out. I heard from way off: “You sick, Jane? You sick?” I was screaming, but I wasn’t making any noise. I was struggling to get up, but I couldn’t move.

  “Get away,” I said. “Get away from me.”

  I could hear myself, so I knowed he could hear me too. I saw him standing up, looking funny, like I shouldn’t be talking to him like that. Looked like he wanted to say, “Jane, what I said to make you act like that?” I pushed myself up off the ground and started toward the house.

  “You need a doctor, Jane?” he said. “Jane?”

  I went in and laid down on the bed. That evening I went to Ned. I didn’t tell him I had fell, but I told him to beware of Albert Cluveau. All he said was, “I will build my school. I will teach till they kill me.”

  I went to Vivian.

  “They’ll kill him if he keep on,” I said. “Why don’t you take them children back to Kansas. He’ll have to follow you if you go.”

  “He told me when he was coming here he could get killed,” she said. “But I came with him anyhow. I have to stay now.”

  The Sermon at the River

  Two weeks before Ned was killed he gathered us at the river. It was on a Sunday, a beautiful, blue-sky day. No, you had a few clouds, way up high, paper thin. A little breeze stirred on and off. You could see it moving the willow leaves down near the water.

  The people was at the river when I got there, but Ned hadn’t started his talk yet. He was sitting on the grass with Vivian and the children. When he saw me he told me to come down there and sit with them. One of his students took my arm and helped me down the hill. The bank wasn’t that steep, I had gone down them steeper than that, but he wanted to help me and I couldn’t tell him no.

  I had my head rag on under my straw hat, and I took the head rag off to sit on. I used my straw hat to fan with. Ned was there in his Army uniform looking serious serious. I asked him what was the matter. He told me nothing. But Jane, the oldest girl, told me that white people had been passing by there ever since they came down to the river. She pointed at two men fishing in a boat now. They was close enough for me to see who they was—two of the LeCox brothers from Bayonne. They made their living on seine boats running up and down St. Charles River.

  “Maybe you ought to not talk today,” I said.

  “That’s what they want,” he said.

  When everybody had come there Ned got up and turned his back to the river and to the men out there in the boat. He told us to kneel while he prayed. After the prayer he told us to sit down. I looked back at the people who was there. Mostly children. The old people had stayed home.

  I can’t remember everything Ned said to us that day, I can’t even remember half of what he said, but I can remember some. I can remember it because Ned believed in it so much—and his talk at the river that day definitely hurried him to his grave.

  “This earth is yours and don’t let that man out there take it from you,” he said. “It’s yours because your people’s bones lays in it; it’s yours because their sweat and their blood done drenched this earth. The white man will use every trick in the trade to take it from you. He will use every way he know how to get you wool-gathered. He’ll turn you ’gainst each other. But remember this,” he said. “Your people’s bones and their dust make this place yours more than anything else.

  “I’m not telling y’all men own the earth,” he said. “Man is just a little bitty part of this earth. When he die he go back in the earth just like a tree go back in the earth when it fall, just like iron go back in the earth when it rust. You don’t own this earth, you’re just here for a little while, but while you’re here don’t let no man tell you the best is for him and you take the scrap. No, your people plowed this earth, your people chopped down the trees, your people built the roads and built the levees. These same people is now buried in this earth, and their bones’s fertilizing this earth.”

  I was listening to Ned, but I was keeping my eyes on the LeCox brothers out there in the boat. They pretend they wasn’t listening, but they was listening. Each time they whipped out the lines they was looking over where he was.

  “You got some black men,” Ned was saying, “that’ll tell you the white man is the worst thing on earth. Nothing horrible he wouldn’t do. But let me tell you this,” he said. “If it wasn’t for some white men, none of us would be alive here today. I myself probably’ll be killed by a white man. I know they following me everywhere I go.”

  When he said this everybody looked at the men out in the boat.

  “Look at me,” Ned said. “Not at them.” When the people turned their heads toward him he went on. “But even when he raise the gun or the axe or anything else he might use I won’t blame all white men. I’ll blame ignorance. Because it was ignorance that put us here in the first place. Ignorance on the part of the black man and the white man. Because the white man didn’t have to go in Africa with guns to get us. The white man came with rum and beads. And why? Because we was already waiting for him when he came there in his ships. Our own black people had put us up in pens like hogs, waiting to sell us into slavery. He didn’t tell the white man how to treat us after he got us on his ship, the white man made up them rules himself. It was just his job to hand us over, and he did that. And that he did.”

  Ned went on: “I wish I could stand here and tell y’all our African people fought and fought the white man. And there was war and war and war. But that’s not true. Our people fought each other, and the white man bought the captives for a barrel of rum and a string of beads. I’m telling ya’ll this,” he said, “to show ya’ll the only way you can be strong is stand together. The white man never would have brought us here if we was together. He never would have separated a nation. But little tribes beat each other, and all the white man had to do was wait.”

  Ned was sweating, standing there in the sun, and Vivian got up to wipe his face. He told her to sit down, not to come close to him. If the people in the boat shot at him now, he didn’t want her to get hit.

  “I don’t know how old I am right now,” he said. “I can be thirty-nine, I can be forty or forty-one. But I’ve seen a lot in this world, and I know this: “I’m much American as any man; I’m more American than most. And what is this American? I’ll tell you what he is. Because they didn’t have no such thing as American till we got here. The Indians was the first ones here and they never called themself Americans. Matter of fact they didn’t even call themself Indians till Columbus came here and started that. After him, then here come Vespucci with his stuff.”

  When Ned said Vespucci the children looked at each other and started giggling. Ned had to smile at that too. The funniest name any of us had ever heard—Vespucci.

  After the children had quieted down, Ned went on: “Columbus had a black man with him when he came here and called these red men Indians. By the time Vespucci came here and called this place America you had black people running every which a’ way. America is for red, white, and black men. The red man roamed all over this land long before we got here. The black man cultivated this land from ocean to ocean with his back. The white man brought tools and guns. America is for all of us.” he said, “and all of America is for all of us.

  “I left from here when I was a young man, but most people thought that was the best thing to do then. But I say to you now, don’t run and do fight. Fig
ht white and black for all of this place. You got black people here saying go back to Africa, some saying go to Canada, some saying go to France. Now, who munks y’all sitting here right now want be a Frenchman and talk like they do? Let me see his hand in the air.”

  The children started laughing. Ned had said that to make them laugh.

  “Be Americans,” he told the children. “But first be men. Look inside yourself. Say, ‘What am I? What else beside this black skin that the white man call nigger?’ Do you know what a nigger is?” he asked us. “First, a nigger feels below anybody else on earth. He’s been beaten so much by the white man, he don’t care for himself, for nobody else, and for nothing else. He talks a lot, but his words don’t mean nothing. He’ll never be American, and he’ll never be a citizen of any other nation. But there’s a big difference between a nigger and a black American. A black American cares, and will always struggle. Every day that he get up he hopes that this day will be better. The nigger knows it won’t. That’s another thing about a nigger: he knows everything. There ain’t a thing on earth he don’t know—till somebody with brains come along.

  “I’m telling you all this because I want my children to be men,” Ned told us. “I want my children to fight. Fight for all—not just for a corner. The black man or white man who tell you to stay in a corner want to keep your mind in a corner too. I’m building that school so you’ll have a chance to get from out of that corner.”

  One of the children raised his hand, and Ned told him to stand up. The boy was way in the back and we couldn’t hear him too good and Ned told him to speak louder. Ned told him not to pay any mind to the people out in the boat because if we had anything to hide we wouldn’t be out there in the first place. The boy came closer to the water.

  “Professor Douglass,” he said. “You keep saying we ought to not listen to Mr. Washington, but ain’t Mr. Washington saying that to keep the race from getting slaughtered? Mr. Washington growed up round these white people. He know a man’ll shoot a black man down just for standing on two feet. This something maybe the people in the North don’t know yet. And another thing, Professor Douglass,” the boy said, “ain’t he saying learn a trade because a trade is the thing that’s go’n carry this country?”

  The boy stood there with his hands to his side till Ned told him to sit down. The boy sat down quickly, but looking at Ned all the time. I felt very proud, seeing how well Ned had trained them. Ned smiled and nodded his head. He was proud that one of his students had asked him a question like that. He was always harping on Mr. Washington, and here was another chance to harp on him again.

  “I agree with Mr. Washington on trade,” he said. “But trade is not all. I want to see some of my children become lawyers. I want to see some of my children become ministers of the Bible; some write books; some to represent their people in the law. So trade is not all. Working with your hands while the white man write all the rules and laws will not better your lot.

  “Now, that other thing—don’t mess with the white man and he won’t slaughter you. Well, let me tell you a little story. My own mother was killed by white men, not because she was messing in their business, she was trying to leave the South after she heard of her freedom. Her head and my little sister’s head was bashed in with sticks.

  “But other people was killed on that day,” he said. “And many, many have been killed since. I agree many of them have been killed because they stood up on their two feet. But if you must die, let me ask you this: wouldn’t you rather die saying I’m a man than to die saying I’m a contented slave? Mr. Washington might have had the safety of our race in mind—I think Mr. Washington did—but since he made that statement over five years ago over a thousand men have been lynched. And for no other reason but their black skin.”

  Ned took out his handkerchief and wiped his face, then he folded it carefully and put it back in his pocket.

  “Maybe one day the white man will tell you to leave this country or die in it,” he said. “There’s talk that this can happen. Well, let me tell you this, warriors. He’s got no idea how many of us here. All of us look alike to him anyhow, so he’ll count ten, get tired, and not count the other five. And that’s on our side. So this is what you do. (I might not be with you—and I hope it never come to happen. But if it come to happen, this is what you do.) Let everybody go except one young man in each family. Let that young man hide in the swamps, hide in the field, anywhere he can hide hide. When the rest are safe, let these young men set fire. As many fields, as many woods, as many houses and barns and cribs he can. Let him run, run, run till his black legs refuse to move, till his black arms hang to the ground. Show them, warriors, the difference between black men and niggers.”

  Ned got quiet and looked at us a long time. His eyes was sad again now. Behind him the river was blue and calm: nothing to disturb the water—but that boat over to the right there.

  “Let us pray, warriors, this day never come,” Ned went on. “If it do, it’ll be the worst day of your life.”

  When Ned got through talking his shirt was soaking wet. He came back where we was and laid down side his wife. Everybody was quiet, thinking ’bout what he had said. I felt Ned looking at me. For a while I kept from looking back at him, but keeping my eyes on the people out there in the boat. But the longer I looked at them the more I could feel him looking at me. Then I looked in his face. His eyes said, “I’m go’n die, Mama.” But I knowed he had no fear of death.

  Assassination

  A month passed—no Albert Cluveau. I didn’t think he was worrying about stopping Ned, I didn’t think he had enough sense to worry; I just thought he was sick and couldn’t get around. I wanted to ask about him—not that I cared about Albert Cluveau—but I wanted to know what he was doing. Why all this quiet all of a sudden? Don’t tell me conscience was catching up with him. It never bothered him before. But no matter who I asked, nobody had seen Albert Cluveau. When I went to Bayonne on Pigeon I had to go by the lane where he lived, but I always found excuse not to go to his house. Coming back home, the same thing: I would look down the lane but I would never lead Pigeon that way. I could have gone to his house in five minutes, but, no, never.

  But I used to see Ned all the time. He used to live just across the road from where he is buried now. He is buried side the place where he was building his school. The people finished the school after his death, but it was destroyed during the second high water. That was back in ’27 when we had a very bad high water. We had one in ’12, but the one in ’27 was much worse. Ned used to live on the field side of the road; his school was on the river bank side of the road. Another house is built in the place where his house stood, but we kept the place where his school was and where he is buried. It will never be sold. We collect from people to pay the taxes and keep up the land, but it is ours. It is for the children of this parish and this State. Black and white, we don’t care. We want them to know a black man died many many years ago for them. He died at the end of the other century and the beginning of this century. He shed his precious blood for them. I remember my old mistress, when she saw the young Secesh soldiers, saying: “The precious blood of the South, the precious blood of the South.” Well, there on that river bank is the precious dust of this South. And he is there for all to see. We have a marker there for people to stop by and see if they want to. No, it is not a tall and showy thing. It’s nothing but a flat piece of concrete, but it’s there for all to see if they just get out the car and look.

  I used to go by all the time when he was alive. He had already cleaned up that acre of land, and now he was laying down the foundation for the school. The children used to help him in the evenings and on the weekends when they didn’t have to work. Sometimes I used to stop by and instead of finding them working I would see them out in the river swimming. I was so scared for Ned’s life, I was scared the white people might pay some of them bigger children to drown him. He would always come out the water when he saw me sitting there on Pigeon. “You call that
building a school?” I would say. “Me, I call that playing.” “I have to teach everything,” he said. “Swimming is good to learn.” Looking at Ned now, you could see how big he was, how powerfully he was built in the chest and shoulders. If he was standing close to me I would put my hand on his shoulder.

  “You worry too much, Mama,” he would say.

  “Do I, Ned?” I would say. Because both of us knowed that day was coming. When and where we didn’t know.

  Two nights before he was killed I had a dream where a bunch of Cajuns had lynched him in the swamps. The next morning I got on Pigeon and went up to his house. When I told him about my dream he brushed it aside like it was nothing. While I was up there he told me he was going to Bayonne to get some lumber for his school. He was taking two boys with him and he was go’n spend the night in Bayonne with a friend. He told me to stop worrying; this was making Vivian worry, too. She was already getting nervous, he said. I stayed up there till he left that evening, then I got on Pigeon and went on back home. The next evening when he was on his way home with the second load, Albert Cluveau shot him down. Alcee Price and Bam Franklin, the two boys he took with him, told us how it happened. They had spent the night in Bayonne with Ned’s friend talking about the school. Nobody went to bed before midnight even when everybody had to get up early the next morning and go to work. They got up around five because they wanted to pick up the lumber and get it back here before the weather got too hot. They got back to the school around eight-thirty. That evening when it got cool again they went back to Bayonne for the second load. After they had loaded up it was around five. They didn’t have far to go, three, four miles, but they had to travel slow because of the road. The road was dirt and full of ruts and the lumber was heavy. Bam said every half mile they had to stop to give the mules a rest. They always stopped in the open. At that time you had cane fields and houses on one side of the road; trees on the river bank side. They always stopped near a house or a yard. After resting the mules a few minutes they would start out again. Bam said they had just driven off after the second or third stop when they looked up and saw Albert Cluveau. He was on his mule at the end of a cane row with the gun already sighted at Ned. He told Ned to get down. Ned stopped the wagon, but nobody moved.