MRS. TUCKER was operated on at Atlanta on Thursday morning at the
Auburn Infirmary, owned and conducted by a group of coloured
physicians of that city, as none of them could operate in the white
hospitals. Kenneth keenly enjoyed being in a hospital again, with
all its conveniences. The operation finished and Mrs. Tucker resting
easily, he purchased, after much picking and choosing, Jane's
engagement ring—a beautiful, blue-white diamond solitaire.
That important task performed, he telephoned Dr. Scott, to whom
Judge Stevenson had given him a letter of introduction. So engrossed
had he been in the operation and the purchasing of the ring, he had
almost forgotten the promise made to the judge to see and talk with
Dr. Scott, known to be a liberal leader of Southern public opinion
and one deeply concerned with the problem of race relations.
"That's a mighty intelligent plan you've worked out," Dr. Scott
boomed over the wire. "I'd like to have you talk that over with me
and one or two others here. Can you do it before going home?"
Kenneth told him he had to leave early next morning for Central
City. As Dr. Scott had a meeting that would keep him engaged all
afternoon, it was decided that they should meet that evening at an
office in a building downtown in the business section.
It was with a deal of eagerness—and with some degree of anxiety, for
he did not know how he would be received by Dr. Scott and the
others—that Kenneth set forth that evening for the meeting. He found
three men awaiting him in the office of John Anthony, who was one of
the three. His footsteps echoed in ghostlike fashion as he walked
down the hallway of the deserted building. From the open window
there floated from the street below the subdued clatter of
automobiles, the cries of newsboys, the restless shuffling of the
leisurely crowd as it moved up and down Peachtree Street. Kenneth
sought to weigh the three, who were, he felt, representatives of
that "new South" of which so much was heard, but signs of whose
activities he had so seldom seen. He was seeking to find out their
motives, their plans of accomplishing that spirit of fair play
toward the Negro, to determine how far they would go towards
challenging the established order that was damning the South
intellectually, morally, economically. Kenneth, with too-high ideals
for his environment, was almost naïve in his eager search for the
great champion he had dreamed of who would brave danger and
contumely and even death itself for a newer and brighter day for his
people in the South. That hope had been dulled somewhat by the
things he had seen since his return to Central City, for he was not
of an unreflective mind. Yet he had not seen far enough beneath the
surface of that volcano of passion and hate and greed which is the
South to realize that the South had never produced a martyr to any
great moral cause one who had possessed sufficient courage to
oppose, regardless of consequences, any one of the set, dogmatic
beliefs of the South. True it was that there were some who had
fought in the Civil War with firm belief that the South was
right—even though it had been shown that their idealism was a
perverted one. But even then these had moved with the tide of
sectional sentiment and not against it.
Educated in Southern schools where the text-books of history always
exalted the leaders of the Confederacy, raising Lee and Jackson and
Johnston and Gordon to heights but little lower than the heroes of
Grecian mythology, and ever tending to disparage and revile the
Union cause and its leaders, Kenneth, like many coloured youths, had
accepted the readymade and fallacious estimates set before him. It
was, therefore, but natural that he set his hopes for stalwart,
unafraid leadership too high and, at the same time, failed to
realize that the South had never begotten an Abraham Lincoln, a
Garrison, a Sumner, or even a meteor-like John Brown, bursting into
brilliance born of indignation against stupidity or ignorance or
wrong and dying gloriously for that cause. Kenneth's eyes had
partially been opened by his memorable talk with Judge Stevenson.
Etched upon his mind by the acid of bitter truths were the judge's
words that the boasted Anglo-Saxonism of the South had curdled into
moral cowardice on all subjects by the repression incident to the
race problem. Nevertheless Kenneth was too inexperienced as yet in
the ways of life to comprehend the full import of the older man's
cynicism. He yet sought him who would fulfil his ideal of a great
leader who, like a latter-day Crusader, would guide white and black
together out of the impasse in which the South seemed to be. Kenneth
thus anxiously examined the three before him to see if by chance any
one of them bore the accolade which would stamp him the Moses that
he sought.
Naturally enough, his eyes first went to Dr. Scott, as it was of him
that Judge Stevenson had spoken most favourably. Minister to one of
the larger Atlanta churches, he had spoken frequently and with
considerable vigour for Georgia in behalf of greater kindness and
fairness toward the Negro. He was very tall. His more than ordinary
height with his attenuated and lanky slenderness gave him an almost
cadaverous appearance which the loose suit of black mohair he wore
accentuated. From beneath the folds of a low collar there sprang a
white starched-linen bow tie, the four ends standing stiffly, each
in a separate direction, like the arms of a windmill. His rather
large head was bald on top but around the edges ran a fringe of
yellowish-white hair with curling ends that made his face appear
rounder than it was. Bushy eyebrows shaded pale blue eyes that
twinkled in unison with the ready smile which revealed large yellow
teeth. Into his conversation Dr. Scott injected at frequent
intervals ministerial phrases—"the spirit of Jesus"—"being
Christians"—"our Lord and Saviour." He always addressed his white
companions as "Brother Anthony" and "Brother Gordon." Kenneth he
always called "Doctor."
Kenneth felt a certain doubt of Dr. Scott's sincerity. He tried to
penetrate what seemed to be a mask over the minister's face that
effectively hid all that revolved in the mind behind it. Something
intangible but nevertheless real blocked his path—an unctuous
affability that seemed too oily to be sincere. No, Kenneth
reflected, Dr. Scott is not the man. All of this examination had
taken but a few seconds, yet Kenneth's mind was made up. In
prejudging him so hastily, Kenneth did an injustice to Dr. Scott
that was unconscious but real. In his heart of hearts Dr. Scott had
realized that to accomplish anything at all in the South towards
enlightenment he must necessarily become, at least as discretion
seemed to dictate, a mental chameleon. He had suffered because of
that decision, for had circumstances placed him in a more liberal
and intelligent environment, he would have been far more advanced in
his religious and other beliefs. The traces of gold in the ore that
was his mind had been revealed in the suffering which had come to
him through his speaking out against a system that seemed to him
wrong.
He had been reviled, misunderstood both deliberately and by those
who were not so advanced as he. He had borne in silence whatever had
come to him, even threats of tarring and of death from the Ku Klux
Klan, seeking a course directed by wisdom if not by valour.
While he was being introduced by Dr. Scott, Kenneth examined
critically the other two men. Mr. Anthony, who had volunteered the
use of his office for the conference, as no comment would be likely
if the four of them were seen in the office building, was first
presented.
John Anthony might well have posed as model for a typical American
business man or lawyer. Of rotund figure, well-fed appearance, hair
close-cut, his face clean-shaven, clad in neatly tailored but
undistinguished clothing, he sat leaning slightly forward, his
fingers interlocked, his thumbs and forefingers holding his cravat
while his elbows rested on the arms of his chair. He acknowledged
the introduction to Kenneth with a brief "Pleased t' meetcha." He
did not rise, nor extend his hand in greeting, but he at once
shrewdly appraised and catalogued Kenneth. John Anthony's interest
in interracial affairs had been first aroused by the war-time
migration of Negroes to the North. His personal fortunes had been
touched directly by this loss of labour, and the resultant decrease
in profits had caused him to inquire into the problem of the
labourers who had been always so plentiful. Like most Americans, and
particularly those in Southern States, he had had no idea of, or
interest in, what Negroes were forced to endure. Though near to this
problem, he had been a living example of those in the proverb who
"live so close to the trees, they cannot see the woods." His
inquiry, conducted with the clear-sightedness and energy he had
acquired from long business training, had revealed brutalities and
vicious exploitation that had amazed and sickened him. He was too
shrewd to believe that Negroes would be restrained from leaving the
South by attempts to picture Negroes freezing to death in the North,
or to try to beguile them by transparent falsehoods to the effect
that the Southern white man is the Negro's best friend. Though he
did not voice it save to his more intimate friends, he felt naught
but contempt for the hypocrisy of those who too late were attempting
to flatter the Negro to keep him in the South. His motives were
therefore curiously mixed in his support of efforts toward
interracial goodwill. Economic in part were they, because retention
of Negro labour meant the continuation of his own successful
business career. Equally, almost, did they proceed from a hitherto
latent sense of moral indignation against the treatment which the
South had accorded to Negroes in the past. Direct of speech,
analytical of mind, he went straight to the heart of the problem
with that same perspicacity that had won for him more than usual
success in his business of conducting one of the South's largest
department stores.
Here again did Kenneth figuratively shake his head and decide that
John Anthony was not destined to be the Moses of the new South. He
could not for the life of him dissociate Anthony's interest in
behalf of justice from his direct financial interest in keeping
Negroes in the South, where, with the inevitable working of the law
of demand and supply, a surplusage of Negro labour would mean
continued high profits for men like Anthony. Kenneth was too young
to know that the more largely a man profits from a liberal cause,
the more loyal will be his support of that cause and the lesser
likelihood of his defection when difficulties arise.
Of the three men, Kenneth felt greatest hope in the third—David
Gordon—younger than Kenneth, alert, capable, and with an engaging
frankness of face and of manner to which Kenneth warmed
instinctively. Gordon was a graduate of Harvard, where he for the
first time in his life had learned to know coloured fellow-students
as men and human beings instead of as "niggers." At first he had
rebelled strenuously, his every instinct had revolted against dining
in the same room, however large, with a "nigger." So indignant had
he been that he had taken it up with the president. Benign, kindly,
clearheaded, and patriarchal, the older man calmly and
dispassionately and without rancour had shown Gordon the injustice
of his position—how unfair it was to deny an education to a man for
the sole offence of having been born with a black skin. Before he
quite knew how it had happened, Gordon found himself ashamed of what
now was seen to be petty nastiness on his part. So interested had he
become after his eyes were thus opened that he had made a special
study of the Negro problem. After finishing both his college and law
courses, he had returned to Atlanta to practise law with his father.
His interest in the race question had increased since his return. He
was now one of that liberal and intelligent few who are most free
from prejudice an emancipated Southerner. Some inner voice told
Kenneth instantly that greatest hope of the three lay in David
Gordon—and men like him. …
The introductions completed, Dr. Scott opened the conversation.
"Doctor, we've heard of the society you've started in Central City.
Tell us how you're getting along."
"You have heard of it?" asked Kenneth in surprise. He did not know
his fame had preceded him.
"Oh, yes," answered Dr. Scott. "You see, I know a man in the Klan
headquarters here. They've got, so I understand, a pretty full
account of your movements."
"They honour me," laughed Kenneth, a note of irony in his voice. He
was not a physical coward—threats bothered him little. He had paid
little attention to the report of the Klan meeting at Central City,
though it had worried his mother and Bob considerably. No more would
he be perturbed by any reports of his activities the Klan might have
in their files.
"Then, too, Judge Stevenson's been writing me about you," continued
Dr. Scott. "We are all interested in what you're doing, Doctor, and
we want you to talk frankly. You can to us," he added.
The three men were genuinely interested in the plan on which Kenneth
was working. They were too intelligent to fail to see that something
would have to be done towards adjustment of race relations in the
South to avert an inevitable clash. What that something was they did
not know. They felt the time was not ripe for a challenge to the
existing order, and they would not, in all probability, have been
willing to issue such a fiat had the time been propitious. Yet they
were anxious to examine the plans of this coloured man, hoping
against hope that therein might lie an easy solution of the problem.
Frankly and clearly Kenneth told of the simple scheme. Occasionally
one of his hearers would interrupt him with a question, but for the
most part they heard him through in silence. The story ended, the
three men sat in silence as each revolved in his mind the
possibilities of the plan. John Anthony was the first to speak, and
then he approached the whole race problem instead of Kenneth's plan
for attacking one phase of it.
"Doctor," asked Mr. Anthony, "do you believe there is any solution
to the race problem? Just what is the immediate way out, as you see
it?"
"It would take a wiser man than I to answer that," laughed Kenneth.
"You see, we're in the habit of thinking that we can find a simple
A-B-C solution for any given problem, and the trouble is there are
mighty few that are simple enough for that."
"Yes—yes—I know all that," interjected Mr. Anthony, rather testily.
"What I want to hear is what you, as an intelligent Negro, think. I
want you to tell us exactly what men like you are saying among
yourselves."
"Well, we're talking about lynching—poor schools—the way Negroes are
denied the ballot in the South" began Kenneth.
"Er—that's a thing we can't discuss," hastily interrupted Dr. Scott.
"Conditions in the South are too unsettled to talk about giving the
Negro the vote as yet."
"As yet," echoed Kenneth. "If we can't discuss it now, when can we
talk about it?"
"It'll be a long time," answered Dr. Scott frankly. "There are a lot
of white people in the South who know disfranchisement is wrong. We
know that we can't keep the ballot from the Negro always. But," he
ended with a shrug of his shoulders and a thrust-ing-out of his
hands, palms upward, in a gesture of perplexity and despair Kenneth
was learning to know so well that he was associating it
instinctively with the Southern white man, "we'd stir up more
trouble than we could cope with."
"And while you're waiting for the opportune time, conditions are
getting steadily worse, the problem is getting more complicated, and
it'll be harder to solve the longer you put off trying to solve it,"
urged Kenneth. It was with an effort that he kept out of his voice
the impatience he felt. "Why don't men like you three band together
with those who think as you do, so you can speak out?" he asked.
"That's just what we are trying to do, but we have to go very
cautiously," answered Dr. Scott. "We must use discretion. How much
are Negroes thinking about voting?"
"They think about it all the time," replied Kenneth. "We know the
mere casting of a ballot isn't going to solve all our problems, but
we also know we'll never be able to do much until we do vote."
"You must be patient—wait until the time is ripe⸺" cautioned
Dr. Scott.
"Patience can be a vice as well as a virtue." It was David Gordon
who spoke.
Kenneth looked at him gratefully.
"Your race's greatest asset," continued Dr. Scott, addressing his
remark to Kenneth, yet seeking to impart a gentle rebuke to Gordon,
"has been its wonderful gentleness under oppression. You must
continue to be sweet-tempered and patient⸺"
"That's all very well to advise, but how would you or any other
white man act if you had to suffer the things the Negro has had to
suffer?" demanded Kenneth. "Suppose you saw your women made the
breeding-ground of every white man who desires them, saw your men
lynched and burned at the stake, saw your race robbed and cheated,
lied to and lied about, despised, persecuted, oppressed—how would
you feel, Dr. Scott, if somebody came to you and said: ‘Be
patient'?"
Kenneth poured forth his words like a burning flood of
lava—indicative of the raging fires of resentment smouldering
beneath. He paused, completely out of breath. Dr. Scott flushed
until his face became a dull brick-red in colour. He restrained with
an effort the anger caused by the coloured man's impetuous words.
"I know—I know," he said soothingly. "It's hard, I know, but you
must remember the words of Jesus to his disciples: ‘When men shall
persecute and revile you⸺' The spirit of Jesus is growing in the
hearts of the South—it will come to your rescue in due season."
"We're always hearing about this liberal white opinion," rejoined
Kenneth, nettled by the unctuous suavity of the words, "but we so
seldom see any signs of it—almost never in places like Central City.
Sometimes I think it's like trying to put your finger on
mercury—when your finger is about to touch it, it rolls away—it's
somewhere else. Meanwhile lynching goes on."
"You're right, Doctor," broke in John Anthony, who had been
following the conversation with deep interest though he had taken
little part in it. "We've got to do something, and that soon—the
only problem is how to do it. Now about your society in Smith
County—tell us how we can help you make it a success. Do you need
any money to get it working properly?"
Kenneth turned to the quiet man who had proposed the first tangible
offer to help.
"Thanks a lot for the offer," replied Kenneth. "There are two things
I can think of that'll be immediately helpful. One is that you and
Dr. Scott and Mr. Gordon do what you can to help mould public
sentiment so this liberal white opinion will become a force in the
South against the Ku Klux Klan and lynching and all the other forms
of prejudice. That's what seems to me to be most needed."
"Yes—yes—I agree with you, but tell us just exactly how we can help
you." Anthony, in his direct way, was impatient of theorizing. "Do
you need any money—credit—legal advice—that is, any we can give
quietly without it getting out that we gave it?"
"Yes, there is something," answered Kenneth. "Most of the men in our
societies have been working on shares for so many years that instead
of having any money, they owe their landlords large sums. The big
problem is credit for the things they need until they sell their
crops next fall."
Kenneth gave a detailed statement of their needs and their plans.
John Anthony took notes as he talked and agreed to see what he could
do towards securing credit when they needed it. David Gordon
volunteered his aid as a lawyer. They rose to go. Anthony gazed
intently at Kenneth as he asked gravely:
"Doctor, have you thought of the possibility of—er—trouble if your
motives are not understood? That is, suppose some of the poor whites
are stirred up by the landlords and merchants you're trying to take
these coloured farmers away from—have you figured out what might be
the result?"
"Yes, I have," responded Kenneth. "I realize there might be some
who'd break up our groups⸺"
"No—No—I mean to you personally," interjected Anthony.
"I don't think they'll bother me," was Kenneth's confident reply.
"But if something should happen—well, if I can feel I've perhaps
pointed a way out for my people, I can die happy. … At any rate,
killing or running me away wouldn't kill the spirit of revolt these
coloured people have it might stir it even higher. Not that I've any
ambition for martyrdom," he ended with a laugh.
Kenneth spoke with no bravado, with none of the cant of the poseur.
His words, rather, were uttered with the simplicity of the earnest
seeker after truth—the unheroic but sincere worker in a cause that
is just.
"Let's hope you'll come through," said Anthony. "I'm a Southerner
with all the traditions and prejudices of the South, but I wish you
luck." He added after a pause: "You'll need it."
After Kenneth had gone, the three men looked at each other
questioningly.
"What do you think of him and his plan?" asked Dr. Scott, half to
himself.
It was Gordon who answered.
"It's a good scheme—if it works. I'm mighty afraid, though, he's
going to run into deep water if his societies grow very large. And
the pity of it is that we in Atlanta can't help him if we dared."
Anthony grunted.
"And yet the South is trying to solve the race problem and leave
educated Negroes like Harper entirely out of the equation. It's
about time we woke up."