The Emancipation of Robert Sadler

by Robert Sadler

  ———

  September came at last and I started school. I was in the first grade and sat in a classroom with six-year-olds. I loved every minute of it and was hardly even aware of how ridiculous I looked.

  I was much too big for the desks and had to sit sideways in them. The children giggled at me, but they were never cruel. We got along fine. During recess I threw the ball to the children and played with them.

  When we did our arithmetic, Mrs. Garner, the teacher, gave us problems to figure out. One morning she told us that we were going to learn Roman numerals. I was deeply disappointed because I had wanted to learn American ones.

  Story time was a favorite time for me. I loved the stories as much as, if not more than, the little children did. One of my favorites was The Little Red Hen.

  Summer came and the principal told Margie and me about a boarding school in Seneca that was all black and free. I was better at reading and writing even though I was only reading elementary school books. I applied to get in, thinking they’d never take me, but to my surprise, I got accepted to start in the summer session. This meant I had to leave Margie and live on the school campus.

  Before I went away to Seneca Junior College, I asked my dad to go to church with me. He did, and he gave his heart to Jesus. He wept and prayed, and it was the most touching thing you ever did see. I actually was able to tell him, shaking, “Dad, I forgive you.” Only God could have worked that one out.

  Janey, too, asked God to forgive her sins and became a believer in Jesus, and I felt God sure did know how to answer prayers. I didn’t want to leave them, but another major part of my life was about to begin in Seneca, South Carolina.

  26

  “Have a seat, and we’ll have one of the students show you to your room,” said the scrawny, bird-like woman in the school office. I sat timidly by the window. From there I could see the brick dormitories and the three-story brick classroom building that had the dining hall in the basement, along with the log cabin library, and the dirt paths lined with English ivy. The grounds were spotlessly groomed, and the grass looked as though it had been shaved with a straight-edge razor. There were colorful flower beds, oak, ash, and sweetgum trees, and rhododendron grew along the buildings. I sat in the college office with an unfamiliar feeling: excitement about the future.

  A young man about my age, thin and slightly built, came through the door. He smiled, “Hello, I’m Bo Brocke. You must be the new student I’m supposed to show around.”

  I stood up and smiled back. “Uh-huh.” I introduced myself and he put his hand out to shake mine. It was the first time anyone had ever done that to me. I didn’t know why he held his hand out, but I figured it was to hold mine, so I gave him one of my hands. I would have given him my other hand, or possibly my arm or leg, if he had given me a chance. He shrugged and said, “This way.” I was thankful the Lord had Bo be the first person I met at school. He was soft-spoken and likable, and he looked real nice in his clean shirt and pants, shoes with laces and socks.

  Bo showed me to my room and told me about mealtimes and gave me my schedule. “What time do school start?” I asked him.

  “Everything is right there on your schedule,” he said, “and lights has to be out at 10:30. They’re very strict about that.” He told me where to report the next day for job duty. My job was to be in the kitchen.

  Each of the students worked for four hours every day at the school, and the jobs were rotated at the start of each new quarter. Bo told me his job was cleaning the classroom building. He had only two years of school left, he told me, and then he was going to go on to university. “I’m thinking about being a lawyer,” he said with a hint of pride in his soft voice.

  I didn’t know what a lawyer was. “Oh!” I said, nodding my head. “A lawyer! Uh-huh! A lawyer!”

  He told me he was going to summer school to try to graduate early.

  “The more credits I take, the faster I’ll be in university!”

  “Yoll make it, yessuh, yoll got what it takes.”

  When he was gone, I looked around my room and sat down on the bed that was assigned to me. The springs creaked and my body sank deep into the center to within inches of the floor. I chuckled. “I can see whey I’ll be sleepin on the floor!” The room was small, with two single beds, two small desks with chairs, and a long chest of drawers along the wall.

  It was better than the plantation, better than Cousin Bessie’s, better than the boarding house in Jacksonville, better than Cousin Gertrude’s, better than Cousin Caldojah’s, better than Aunt Julie’s, better than Sister Janey’s and Sister Margie’s—it was better than anything. It was school. At last I was at school.

  The summer on campus gave me a chance to get used to the school before the fall came when the place filled with full-time students again. My roommate was gone for the summer, and so I was alone in the room assigned me. The classes weren’t crowded, and I worked out many fears and backward ideas with the help of the instructors.

  My speech problem was back, for one thing, and I often got words mixed up. I had never been taught how to say words, and so sometimes I made dreadful mistakes which brought a lot of laughter.

  “I don’t care much about classified music,” I said seriously in class one day. “I feel I is standing on a firm soundation singin jes plain music.”

  Another time I confided I didn’t know how to “mangle and co-mangle with people.” Mistakes like this were common. I did improve a little, but to this day I have trouble with words.

  September came and my roommate arrived. His name was Luke Small, an ironic name because he stood about six feet, four inches tall. When he looked down at you, his shoulders seemed broader, his legs longer, and his long black arms tougher than anyone you’d ever seen. You had to decide whether to pick a fight with him or admire him. I chose to admire him.

  Most of the other students at Seneca chose to admire Luke Small too. He was the football hero, the basketball hero, and the dance-floor hero. He had most of the girls crazy about him and most of the guys jealous of him. He hardly even glanced at me when Bo Brocke introduced us. Of all people to have as a roommate! He was slick, sharp, and popular. I was backward, practically illiterate, and fat, and on top of that, I had a speech problem.

  If Luke asked me to hand him the talcum powder, I would freeze before the row of bottles and cans on the dresser, not knowing the talcum powder from the toothpaste. I remembered the bottles of pretty-smelling things that Mistress Beal always kept on top of her dresser, but nobody had ever told me the names of them or what any of them were for.

  Luke seemed to like me, though, as time went on, and even encouraged me to try out for the football team. I did try out, and I made the team because I was so strong. I played left tackle throughout all my school years at Seneca.

  I loved my classes and I loved studying. I had never owned a book before and I loved everything about books. I loved the smell of the paper, I loved the feel of the edges of the pages when you fanned them, I loved the print, the binding, the textures of the covers. At last I was learning how to read and write. Every night before going to bed I got on my knees and thanked Jesus, and every morning before going to my job in the kitchen, I did the same. “And thank you for givin me such a nice roommate as Luke Small, Lord. Please help him, Lord. He need a Savior!”

  The whole school would assemble for chapel one hour a week on Wednesday morning, and the dean of students solemnly warned us, “Remember, when you are off this campus, you must conduct yourselves in an orderly manner. Never be caught off campus after dark. Watch yourselves and keep your noses clean. Never tell a white person what to do, don’t act uppity or too smart. Jim Crow is alive, students, and he tacked a poster up on the wall for us to look at and think about. Always have a friend with you when you leave the campus! And again, don’t go out after dark.”

  JIM CROW SAYS

  A Black male is not to offer his hand (to shake hands) with a White male because it implies being socially equal. A
Black male is not to offer his hand or any other part of his body to a White woman, because he risks being accused of rape.

  Under no circumstance is a Black male to offer to light the cigarette of a White female—that gesture implies intimacy.

  Blacks are not allowed to show affection toward one another in public, especially kissing, because it offends Whites.

  Blacks are introduced to Whites, never Whites to Blacks. For example: “Mr. Peters (the White person), this is Charlie (the Black person), that I spoke to you about.”

  Whites do not use courtesy titles of respect when referring to Blacks, for example, Mr., Mrs., Miss, Sir, or Ma’am. Instead, Blacks are called by their first names. Blacks use courtesy titles when referring to Whites, and are not allowed to call them by their first names.

  If a Black person rides in a car driven by a White person, the Black person sits in the back seat, or the back of a truck.

  White motorists have the right-of-way at all intersections.

  Rules for Blacks When Speaking to Whites:

  Never assert or even intimate that a White person is lying.

  Never impute dishonorable intentions to a White person.

  Never suggest that a White person is from an inferior class.

  Never lay claim to, or overly demonstrate, superior knowledge or intelligence.

  Never curse a White person.

  Never laugh derisively at a White person.

  Never comment upon the appearance of a White female.[1]

  The boy beside me sneered, “Yeah, Whitey is jes waitin for one of us to stick our black necks in his noose! They hates this school. They hates it because they don’t think niggers got any brains for learning.” I nodded and quietly said to myself, “I’ve come this far. . . . I’ve come this far.”

  Football was the big thing during the fall quarter. Being on the team and being a friend of Small’s, the girls hung around me, too. With my schoolwork, football, and new social life, I hardly had time to sleep.

  The football coach was a short, stocky man named Rufus McGovern. He was also a preacher, but he wasn’t the Lord’s preacher.

  Rufus loved to party. He could really whoop it up. He influenced many a boy in the ways of sin and ruin.

  Sometimes Rufus would be so drunk after partying on a Saturday night, we’d think he’d never make it to his pulpit in the A.M.E. Church on Sunday morning, but he never missed a service. Many a Saturday night when we weren’t supposed to be out, the boys carried Rufus to his door, their last glimpse of him being his rubbery body sliding into a heap on the floor inside his door. But on Sunday morning at 11:00 sharp he’d be standing behind that pulpit, with his wife playing the organ right beside him.

  It bothered many of the boys in school. They didn’t mind his partying, but they sure hated hypocrisy.

  Luke Small had at least four girlfriends all the time, with four more waiting in line. It was still hard for me to be around girls, or to know how to act around anybody, for that matter. I remembered Buck Moore telling me, “Jes watch me,” and where his partying got him, but I wanted to fit in. I discovered that I really liked people and so it wasn’t so painful learning how to get along.

  Small received big packages of food, clothing, and personal items every week from his home in Bellaire, Ohio. He never told me who was sending them. I received packages from home, too. Every now and then Margie sent me delicious pound cakes filled with walnuts, along with stick candy and new clothes that she had sewn for me. I knew how dearly she must have paid to make a fancy pound cake for me—and to sew me clothes. I earnestly prayed that the Lord would make me a blessing to her and her boy, Alan, and that one day I’d be able to repay her for all she was doing for me.

  Several months after I had arrived at school, I received a letter addressed in a childlike scrawl. I opened it carefully.

  Dear Robet

  Holy greeetin in Jesus name amen. We are well and hop the same to you. I writing this myself. I thank the lord is so wounderful he has did so meany things for me. I will be glad to see you when the day com. Close with love.

  MARgIE

  I could hardly believe my eyes. Margie had written a letter! Now where did that girl learn how to write? It was a puzzlement to me. I read the letter again and again, often with tears in my eyes. Had she known all along how to read and write?

  Bo Brocke wasn’t on the football team, being small and skinny, and it seemed he was always studying. There wasn’t really anybody as intent on his future as Bo was. I admired him for his dedication. I wanted to be like him. We would have long talks, and he would tell me of his vision to help black people. “When they’s trouble, they’s all kinds of law on the side of the white man and none for the black man. Did you read that poster the Dean put up? Somebody should tear it down. Nobody represents the black man when he’s in front of the judge. I’m gonna be that one, yessuh. I’m gonna be a lawyer, Robert.”

  I respected Bo more than any other boy on campus, and we became good friends. I was in his room one night when a couple of the guys came by to tell us about a party off campus that night.

  “It sound like it gonna be a real nice party,” they told us. Bo wasn’t interested. “I’ve got to study,” he said, “and I really don’t want to go to no party. Especially off campus.” I didn’t want to go to the party either, but the guys convinced both Bo and me that we were dandies if we didn’t go with them.

  At 9:00 Bo and I were outside the dorm, sneaking down the path to the road.

  ______________

  [1]. Stetson Kennedy, Jim Crow Guide: The Way It Was (Boca Raton, FL: Atlantic University Press, 1959/1990), 216–217.

  27

  When we were past the gate of the school, we were met by a gang of boys from school. Standing in the middle of the boys was Rufus McGovern. Was this his idea? Something inside me told me to stay away from that party.

  “I’m not going to no party,” I told Rufus. “I’m jes not risky tonight.” But before I knew what was happening, I was being pushed along with the rest of the boys, and we were all running down the side of the road toward the woods. We ran through the trees in the dark, stumbling over brush and undergrowth and branches.

  Finally, winded and breathless, we stopped and Rufus pulled out a quart jug of moonshine. The boys cheered, and they began to pass the jug around, each boy taking a swig. There were probably about ten of us. Small was there, too. The jug came to me, and I took a pull. So did Bo. We looked at each other uncomfortably. The jug went around once more and then Rufus told us to follow him.

  “Now, ain’t nobody gonna see us if we stay in the woods here and outa sight. Jes foller me.”

  We followed him, a little less fearful because of the moonshine pickling our brains. Some of the boys were talking loud, and it made me nervous. They were laughing and joking, glad to be out and having a little fun. We stopped after a while, and Rufus pulled out the jug once more. This time we all sat down in the trees and drank. A couple of other boys pulled out bottles, too.

  I don’t know who heard them first, but the first words I heard were “There’s somethin going on in them trees!” We all scrambled to our feet as car lights aimed at the woods.

  “Niggers?”

  “Gawd, there must be a hundred!”

  “Call for help!”

  I heard running and then other voices. Apparently, a pair of young lovers had been in the woods, too, and they saw us and panicked. Before we knew it, there were flashlights beamed on us and more headlights coming toward us from the road.

  “There they are! See em?”

  “This ain’t nigger territory!”

  “No, it ain’t! They’s comin fuh trouble!”

  “Help! Help! Oh my Gawd, do something!”

  Rufus shouted for us to run. We tore through those woods like a bunch of rats, keeping our eyes on Rufus. None of us knew where we were going except Rufus. We ran so hard, we were gasping and choking for air. I was afraid my lungs would explode. I tried to locate Bo as I r
an, but I didn’t see him anywhere. We reached the street, and Rufus led the way to a little house with a fence around it. “Here! Here! In here!” The boys charged toward the house, leaping the fence. There were sirens in the distance. I still couldn’t see Bo. Oh, Lord, help us. We just wanted to have a good time. I turned, trying to find Bo. I ran back toward the woods to find him. “Bo!” I called, “Bo! Where are you, man?”

  I heard the voices coming closer. Oh, Lord, where is Bo? “Bo! Bo!” I ran into the thicket, straining to see in the dark. If those white men caught Bo, there’s no telling what they might do. “Bo!”

  “I heard one of em, Mike!” a voice called.

  “You! Stop! We heard you!”

  I fell to my stomach in the thicket. I was too close to them to make a run for it. I hoped Bo was hiding somewhere, too. When they got past us, we could make a run for that house.

  Then a siren became louder, and there were more voices. A car pulled up to the edge of the woods, its lights beamed across the top of my head. Oh, Lord, the place is crawling with white men!

  “Whey’d they go, Mike?”

  “I heard one of em!”

  “Hey! Look! Over there! They’re runnin around Lily Spotter’s house!”

  “There they are!”

  “My God they’re tryin to git in Lily Spotter’s house!”

  “That whore’d love to git herself a nigger!”

  “She’s bringin the niggers over here now!”

  A woman’s voice cried, “My God, none of us’ll be safe!”

  Someone asked, “Did you bring your gun?”

  “Damn right I did! We’ll show them!”

  “Bill’s got his gun! I got mine, too!”

  “Them nigger bastards think they kin take our wimmin and git away with it!”

  “Hey! Mike! There’s about a hundred of ’em! Call the sheriff!”

  “Call the marshall!”

  “There they go!”

  Gunfire split the air. Voices screaming and shouting followed. I heard running and then, “Wait! Hey! We got one! We got one!”