FROM Judge Stevenson's office Kenneth went directly to tell Jane of
the interview. So absorbed was he in contemplation of the wider
vision of the problem he was attacking which the judge's words had
given him, he forgot to telephone her to ask if it was agreeable for
him to call at so unconventional an hour. He found her clad in a
bungalow apron busily cleaning house and singing as she worked.
They sat on the steps of the back porch while he told her all that
had been said. Taken out of his preoccupation with his own affairs,
Kenneth had shaken off his negative air and now he talked
convincingly of their plans. Jane said nothing until he had
finished.
"That's fine!" she exclaimed when he had ended. "Even if Judge
Stevenson is doubtful of how much we can accomplish, we can do
something. Now all that remains is for you to present your plan⸺"
"Not mine, yours," he corrected
"No, it will have to be yours," she answered. "You know how folks
are in the South—they think all that women can do is cook and keep
house and bear children. If you want the thing to go, it'll be best
to make them think it's your scheme."
Kenneth demurred, but in vain. She would have it no other way. She
felt no jealousy. She knew of the peculiar Southern prejudice which
relegated women to a position of eternal inferiority. Though she
felt the injustice of such arbitrary assumptions, she did not resent
it. Like all women, coloured women, she realized that most of the
spirit of revolt against the wrongs inflicted on her race had been
born in the breasts of coloured women. She knew, and in that
knowledge was content, that most of the work of the churches and
societies and other organizations which had done so much towards
welding the Negro into a racial unit had been done by women. It was
amusing to see men, vain creatures that they are, preen themselves
on what they had done. It was not so amusing when they, in their
pride, sought to belittle what the women had done and take all the
credit to themselves. Oh, well, what did it matter? The end was the
all-important thing—not the means. Jane appreciated Kenneth's
thoughtfulness and felt no tinge of jealousy if her idea—their
idea—should be a success in forming societies to help poor, helpless
Negroes out of the morass in which they were bogged. Of such
material has the coloured woman been made by adversity.
She watched Kenneth as he told her the developments of which he had
thought, the details he had worked out. Each day, it seemed to her,
Kenneth became more keenly alive each day saw a brighter sparkle in
his eyes, a springiness in his step that had not been there before.
There are many men who could willingly have followed—and do
follow—without revolt or much inward conflict a course of
self-abnegation such as he had mapped out for himself. Not so,
however, with Kenneth. He was almost puritanical in his devotion to
the fixed moral code he had worked out for his own guidance. It was
not a superimposed one, but an integral part of his very being.
Nothing could have induced him to surrender to deliberate malice or
guile or what he considered dishonesty or cowardice. His was a
simple nature, free from the barnacles of pettiness which encumber
the average man. He was not essentially religious in the accepted
meaning of the word. He believed, though he had not thought much on
the subject of religion, so immersed had he been in his beloved
profession, in some sort of a God. Of what form or shape this being
was, he did not know. He had more or less accepted the beliefs his
environment had forced upon him. He doubted the malignity of the God
described by most of the ministers he had heard. As a matter of
fact, he was rather repelled and nauseated by the religion of the
modern Church. Narrow, intolerant of contrary opinion, prying into
the lives and affairs of its communicants with which it had no
concern, its energies concentrated on raising money and not on
saving souls, of little real help to intelligent people to enable
them to live more useful lives here on earth, and centering instead
on a mysterious and problematical life after death, he felt the
Church of Jesus Christ had so little of the spirit of the Christ
that he had little patience with it. He went to services more as a
perfunctory duty than through any deep-rooted belief that he could
get any real help from them in meeting the problems of life he
faced. He bore the Church no grudge or ill will—it simply was not a
factor in the life of to-day as he saw it.
Nevertheless he had a deep religious or, better, an ethical sense.
When he was about to return to Central City, that ethical code had
been adapted to conditions he expected to find there. It was galling
to him to accept a position of subserviency to things he knew were
unjust and wrong, tacitly to admit his inferiority to men to whom he
knew he was superior in morals and training and in all the decencies
of life, solely because of the mere accident that they had been born
with skins which were white and he with one which was not white.
When doubts had assailed him, he had quieted or salved his
conscience by the constant reminder that he was following such a
course for greater eventual good. On his return, when he had found a
course such as he had charted for himself was becoming increasingly
difficult, he had refused to face the facts his mind told him were
true and had plunged more deeply into his work, seeking in it an
opiate. Only when Jane had confronted him with the utter futility of
his course and had, in effect, accused him of being a moral quitter
in considering only himself and blinding himself to the far greater
problems of those so closely bound to him by race, did his eyes
begin to be opened. Wearied of illusory hopes of peace through
compromise, he had grasped the tangible reality of work towards a
definite end, through means which he had created and which he would
guide and develop as far as he could. With the buoyant hopes and
ambitions of the young, especially of the very young, he felt that
he had already created that which he was hoping to create.
Like a traveller who has lost his way in a dense forest, an
indefinable restlessness had pervaded his being and made him sorely
discontented. Now that he had found what seemed the path which would
lead him into the clear, open air, the clouds of doubt and
perplexity were cleared away just as the bright sun, as it bursts
forth after a shower in spring, drives away the moisture in the air.
They sat there in the warm sunlight of early summer, dreaming and
planning all the great things they were going to accomplish. It had
rained earlier in the morning and from the ground rose a misty
vapour. The odour of warm wet earth mingled with the aroma of the
flowers. Hens scratched industriously for food to feed the cluster
of tiny chicks around them. A cat sneaking along the fence slyly
crept near. With a great fluttering of wings and raucous cackling,
the hens drove him away. From afar off came the voices of two women,
resting for a minute from their morning toil, gossiping with much
loud laughter. It was a peaceful, restful scene. To Kenneth as he
sat there, problems seemed remote and out of place in that place
where all was so calm.
He looked at the girl by his side. It seemed Jane had never looked
more charming clad in her bungalow apron, dust-cloth in hand. He was
glad she had made no silly, conventional excuses because of her
dress. The usual girl would have tried to rush indoors and change
her dress. Most women, he reflected, looked like angels at night,
but in the harsh glare of morning looked terrible. Jane seemed to
him to be even prettier without powder or the soft light of evening.
He felt a thrill of pleasure as he saw her dusting furniture in
their home.
They rose as Kenneth started to leave. Jane was telling him of some
trivial incident, but Kenneth heard nothing of what she said. He
turned towards her suddenly.
She divined his intentions—she could almost feel the words that were
on his lips. Quickly wishing him success in the meeting to be held
that next evening, she bade him good-bye.
After Kenneth had gone, Jane sat for some time struggling with the
problem she was facing. What was she to do? As a little girl she had
loved Kenneth with a simple, childlike love though he, with the
infinite difference of eight years of age, had paid no attention to
her. She was not at all sure now of the nature of her feelings
towards him. She liked him, it is true, but when it came to anything
deeper than that, she was not so certain. She had been told, and had
always believed, that love came as a blinding, searing, devastating
passion which swept everything before it. She felt none of this
passion and experienced no bit of that complete surrender which she
had believed was a part of the thing called love. Jane was much in
the position of the sinner on the mourner's bench who had been told
that when he became a Christian, angels and all sorts of heavenly
apparitions would miraculously appear before him, and, seeing none,
feels that he is being cheated.
Jane had seen in Kenneth's eyes that soon he would make some sort of
declaration of his love. What was she going to say? She did not
know. …
So pleasant had it been sitting there in the warm sunlight talking
with Jane, Kenneth had forgotten the time. Entering his office, he
found half a dozen patients waiting somewhat impatiently for him. As
he entered his private office, he heard old Mrs. Amos, in her
chronic quarrelsomeness, mutter:
"Dat's just what I allus say. Soon's a nigger begin to get up in the
world, he thinks hisself better'n us po' folks. Thinks he can treat
us any way he please."
Kenneth laughed and, with a few bantering words, mollified the
irascible old woman. The coloured doctor has to be a diplomat as
well as a physician—he must never allow the humblest of his patients
to gain the impression that he thinks himself better than they. Of
all races that make up the heterogenous populace of America, none is
more self-critical than the Negro—its often unjust and carping
criticism of those who stand out from the mass serves as an
excellent antidote for undue pride and conceit. …
The next evening the seven men met again at Mr. Wilson's. Kenneth
stopped by for Mr. Phillips, but he did not see Jane. The Reverend
Stewart, Tucker, Tracy, Swann, and Mr. Wilson sat awaiting them. Tom
Tracy was exhibiting, somewhat proudly it seemed, a note he had
found tacked to his door that morning. It was crudely lettered in
red ink on a cheap-quality paper. It read:
NIGGER! YOU'VE BEN TALKING TOO DAM MUCH! IF YOU DON'T SHUT YOUR
MOUTH WE WILL SHUT IT FOR YOU AND FOR GOOD! LET THIS BE A
WARNING TO YOU. NEXT TIME WE WILL ACT!
K. K. K.
Beneath the three initials was a crude skull and cross-bones. Though
all seven of the men knew that the warning was not to be
disregarded, that it might possibly portend a serious attempt on the
life of Tracy, that any or all of them present might receive a
similar grim reminder of the ill will of the hooded band, there was
a complete absence of fear as they sat around the table and
conjectured as to the possible result of the warning. The calmness
with which they accepted the omen of trouble would probably have
amazed the senders of the warning. Perhaps the clearest indication
of how little the South realizes the changes that have taken place
in the Negro is this recrudescence of the Klan. Where stark terror
followed in the wake of the Klan rides of the seventies, the net
result of similar rides to-day is a more determined union of Negroes
against all that the Klan stands for, tinctured with a mild
amusement at the Klan's grotesque antics. It was fortunate for
Kenneth, in a measure, that Tracy had received the threat on the day
it came. With such a reminder before them, the seven felt there was
greater need than ever before for organization for mutual
protection.
They discussed means of protecting Tracy, but he assured them he was
amply able to take care of himself. He had sent his parents that day
to stay with friends until the trouble had blown over, telling them
nothing of the warning, as he did not want them to be worried by it.
Two of his friends had agreed to stay with him at night. He was well
supplied with ammunition and was sure the three of them could
successfully repel any attack that might be made upon him. Such
trying periods have happened to Negroes so frequently in the South
that they have become inured to them. The subject was soon dropped.
Then Kenneth presented his plan. He outlined in detail how the
society should be organized. He proposed that the first lodge be
formed at Ashland, then gradually spread until there was a branch in
every section of the county. They left until later the problem of
extending the society's activities to other parts of Georgia and the
neighbouring States. Each member would be required to pay an
initiation fee of one dollar. Men would pay monthly dues of fifty
cents each, women twenty-five. The sums thus secured were to be
pooled. Half of the amount was to purchase supplies like sugar,
flour, shoes, clothing, fertilizer, seeds, farm implements, and the
other things needed to satisfy the simple wants of the members. To
make up any deficit, Kenneth and Mr. Phillips agreed to lend money
that the supplies might be purchased for cash, effecting thereby a
considerable saving. The other half was to be used as the nucleus of
a defence fund with which a test case might be made in the courts
when any member was unable to secure a fair settlement with his
landlord.
Similarly were other details presented and discussed and adopted or
modified. A name had to be chosen. Kenneth would have preferred a
short, simple one, but here he was overruled. That it might appeal
to the simple, illiterate class to which most of the prospective
members belonged, a sonorous, impressive name was necessary. They
decided on "The National Negro Farmers' Co-operative and Protective
League."
At first the plan was considered a bit too ambitious, but as Kenneth
warmed up to it in presenting it as simply and forcefully as he
could, the objections, one by one, were overcome. One change,
however, had to be made. It came from Hiram Tucker.
"Ain't you figgerin' on havin' no signs and passwords and a grip
like dey have with de Odd Fellers and de Masons and de Knights of
Pythias?" he asked.
"I didn't think that was necessary," replied Kenneth.
"Well, lemme tell you somethin', son. Ef you figgers on gettin' a
big passel of these cullud folks 'round here to jine in with us,
you'll have t' have some ‘ficials with scrumptious names, and
passwords and grips. Dese here ign'ant folks needs somethin' like
dat to catch their 'magination. If you put dat in, they'll jine like
flies 'round molasses."
Kenneth had hoped that the society would be run on a dignified and
intelligent basis, but he realized that Hiram Tucker might be right
after all. Most of the share-croppers were ignorant—at least,
illiterate. Mere show and pomp and colourful uniforms and
high-sounding names played a large part in their lives, which, after
all, wasn't so much a racial as a human trait. Hadn't the Ku Klux
Klan outdone, in absurdity of name and ceremony and dress, anything
that Negroes had ever even thought of?
This question was disposed of, after more discussion, by the
adoption of Hiram Tucker's suggestion. Kenneth was appointed to work
out the details of organization, and the meeting adjourned. The
National Negro Farmer's Co-operative and Protective League had been
born.