As luck would have it, I failed to meet Claude the next night. It so happened that I was in Newark or some such place when evening came on, talking to a prospect whom I found fascinating. He was a black man who was working his way through law school as a stevedore. He had been out of work for several weeks and was in a receptive mood to listen to me expound the advantages of the loose-leaf encyclopaedia. Just as he was on the verge of signing his demi-quivers for a set his aged mother poked her head through the doorway and begged me to stay for dinner. She apologized for intruding on us, explaining that they were going to a meeting after dinner and that she had to remind her son to change his clothes. The latter dropped the pen which he had been holding and escaped to the bathroom.
Waiting for him to reappear my eye fell upon an announcement. It was to the effect that the great Negro leader, W. E. Burghardt Dubois, was to speak in the town-hall that very evening. I could hardly wait for the lad to return. I paced up and down the room in a fever. Well I knew this Dubois. Years ago, when I was keen about attending lectures, I had heard Dubois speak on the great heritage of the black race. It was in some little hall on the lower East Side; the audience, oddly enough, was mostly Jewish. I had never forgotten the man. He was handsome, thoroughly Aryan in features, and of an imposing figure; he wore a goatee then, if I remember rightly. I learned later that he had been born in New England; his ancestors were of mixed blood, French, Dutch and other strains. What I remembered best about him was his impeccable diction and his vast erudition. He had a challenging, straightforward way of speaking which won me over to him immediately. He struck me at once as a superior being. And was it not he, I thought to myself, who had accepted and published the first article of mine ever to appear in print?
At the dinner table I met the other members of the family. The sister, a young woman of about twenty-five, was strikingly beautiful. She had decided to go to the lecture too. That settled it for me—Claude could wait. When I made known to them that I had heard Dubois before and that I had an unbounded admiration for him, they insisted that I come along as their guest. The young man now suddenly recalled that he had not signed his name on the dotted line; he begged me to let him do so before he forgot a second time. I felt embarrassed, as though I had tricked him.
Think it over first, I said. If you really want the books you can mail me the slip later.
No, no! cried his mother and sister at once. He’ll sign up right now, ‘cause if he don’t he never will. You know how we folks are.
Now the sister was becoming interested in the subject. I had to explain the whole business to her hurriedly.
Sounds wonderful, she said. Leave me some blanks, I think I can get you a few orders.
We hurried through the meal, then piled into their car. A good-looking car, it seemed to me. On the way to the hall they told me of Dubois’ activities since I had last heard of him. He had assumed an educational post in the South, a world not too congenial for one of his temperament and upbringing. He had grown somewhat bitter, they thought, and more caustic in his speech. Impulsively I told them that he reminded me, in some strange, indefinable way, of Rabindranath Tagore whom I also had heard years ago. What I was thinking of probably was that neither of these men minced words when it came to telling the truth.
By the time we reached the hall I was in the midst of a long drawn-out rhapsody about another Negro, my quondam idol, Hubert Harrison. I was telling them of all I had learned standing at the foot of his soapbox in Madison Square in the days when one could discuss anything freely and publicly. There was no one in those days, I told them candidly, who could hold a candle to Hubert Harrison. With a few well-directed words he had the ability to demolish any opponent. He did it neatly and smoothly too, with kid gloves, so to speak. I described the wonderful way he smiled, his easy assurance, the great sculptured head which he carried on his shoulders like a lion. I wondered aloud if he had not come of royal blood, if he had not been the descendant of some great African monarch.
Yes, he was a man who electrified one by his mere presence. Beside him the other speakers, the white ones, looked like pygmies, not only physically but culturally, spiritually. Some of them, the ones who were paid to foment trouble, carried on like epileptics, always wrapped in the stars and stripes, to be sure. Hubert Harrison, on the other hand, no matter what the provocation, always retained his self-possession, his dignity. He had a way of placing the back of his hand on his hip, his trunk tilted forward, his ears cocked to catch every last word the questioner, or the heckler, put to him. Well he knew how to bide his time! When the tumult had subsided there would come that broad smile of his, a broad, good-natured grin, and he would answer his man—always to the point, always fair and square, always full on, like a broadside. Soon everyone would be laughing, everyone but the poor imbecile who had dared to put the question…
I was rattling on in this vein as we entered the hall. The place was crowded; this time the audience was mainly Negro. As every white man who’s not prejudiced can testify, it’s a privilege to be with a crowd of Negroes. The atmosphere is always supercharged. At intervals there are hearty guffaws, weird ejaculations, genuine peals of laughter such as you never hear from the throats of white people. White people lack spontaneity. When they laugh it seldom comes from the guts. Usually it’s a mocking sort of laughter. The black man’s laugh comes to him as easily as breathing.
It was quite a time before Dubois appeared on the platform. When he did it was with the air of a sovereign mounting his throne. The very majesty of the man silenced any would-be demonstration. There was nothing of the rabble-rouser in this leonine figure—such tactics were beneath him. His words, however, were like cold dynamite. Had he wanted to, he could have set off an explosion that would rock the world. But it was obvious that he had no intention of rocking the world—not yet, at any rate. As I listened to his speech I pictured him addressing a body of scientists in much this same way. I could imagine him unleashing the most devastating truths, but in such a manner that one would be left stunned rather than moved to action.
What a pity, I thought, that a man of his ability, his powers, should be obliged to narrow his range.
Because of his blood he was doomed to segregate himself, to restrict his horizon, his activities. He could have remained in Europe, were he was freely accepted and honored; he could have made a bigger place for himself there. But he had elected to remain with his own kinsmen, to raise them up, and, if possible, to make a better world for them to live in. He must have known from the beginning that it was a hopeless task, that nothing of any importance could be accomplished for his brethren in the space of one short life-time. He was too intelligent a man to have any illusions on the subject. I didn’t know whether to admire or deplore his vain, courageous, stubborn persistence. Involuntarily I was making comparisons in my mind between him and John Brown. One had intelligence, the other blind faith.
John Brown, in his passionate hatred of injustice and intolerance, had not hesitated to set himself up against the holy government of these United States. Had there been just a few hundred souls like himself in this big broad land, I doubt not but that he would have overthrown the existent government of these United States. When John Brown was executed a commotion pervaded this country which has never truly subsided. It is possible that John Brown may have set back the cause of the Negro in America. The fiasco at Harper’s Ferry may have made it forever impossible for the Negro to obtain his just rights by direct action. The amazing deeds of the great Liberator may have made any form of insurrection unthinkable—in the minds of later generations. (Just as the memory of the French Revolution makes a Frenchman quake.) Since John Brown’s day it seems to be silently agreed that the only way to permit a Negro to take his place in our world is through a long and dolorous education. That this is only a pretext for delaying the true event no one wishes to face. Imagine Jesus the Christ advocating such a policy!
The blessing of freedom! Are we to wait forever
