For over two years now had Black-No-More, Incorporated, been carrying
on its self-appointed task of turning Negroes into Caucasians. The
job was almost complete, except for the black folk in prisons, orphan
asylums, insane asylums, homes for the aged, houses of correction
and similar institutions. Those who had always maintained that it
was impossible to get Negroes together for anything but a revival,
a funeral or a frolic, now had to admit that they had coöperated
well in getting white. The poor had been helped by the well-to-do,
brothers had helped sisters, children had assisted parents. There had
been revived some of the same spirit of adventure prevalent in the
days of the Underground Railroad. As a result, even in Mississippi,
Negroes were quite rare. In the North the only Negroes to be seen
were mulatto babies whose mothers, charmed by the beautiful color of
their offspring, had defied convention and not turned them white. As
there had never been more than two million Negroes in the North, the
whitening process had been viewed indifferently by the masses because
those who controlled the channels of opinion felt that the country was
getting rid of a very vexatious problem at absolutely no cost; but not
so in the South.
When one-third of the population of the erstwhile Confederacy had
consisted of the much-maligned Sons of Ham, the blacks had really been
of economic, social and psychological value to the section. Not only
had they done the dirty work and laid the foundation of its wealth, but
they had served as a convenient red herring for the upper classes when
the white proletariat grew restive under exploitation. The presence of
the Negro as an under class had also made of Dixie a unique part of the
United States. There, despite the trend to industrialization, life was
a little different, a little pleasanter, a little softer. There was
contrast and variety, which was rare in a nation where standardization
had progressed to such an extent that a traveler didn't know what
town he was in until someone informed him. The South had always been
identified with the Negro, and vice versa, and its most pleasant
memories treasured in song and story, were built around this pariah
class.
The deep concern of the Southern Caucasians with chivalry, the
protection of white womanhood, the exaggerated development of race
pride and the studied arrogance of even the poorest half-starved white
peon, were all due to the presence of the black man. Booted and starved
by their industrial and agricultural feudal lords, the white masses
derived their only consolation and happiness from the fact that they
were the same color as their oppressors and consequently better than
the mudsill blacks.
The economic loss to the South by the ethnic migration was
considerable. Hundreds of wooden railroad coaches, long since condemned
as death traps in all other parts of the country, had to be scrapped
by the railroads when there were no longer any Negroes to jim crow.
Thousands of railroad waiting rooms remained unused because, having
been set aside for the use of Negroes, they were generally too
dingy and unattractive for white folk or were no longer necessary.
Thousands of miles of streets located in the former Black Belts, and
thus without sewers or pavement, were having to be improved at the
insistent behest of the rapidly increased white population, real and
imitation. Real estate owners who had never dreamed of making repairs
on their tumble-down property when it was occupied by the docile
Negroes, were having to tear down, rebuild and alter to suit white
tenants. Shacks and drygoods boxes that had once sufficed as schools
for Negro children, had now to be condemned and abandoned as unsuitable
for occupation by white youth. Whereas thousands of school teachers
had received thirty and forty dollars a month because of their Negro
ancestry, the various cities and counties of the Southland were now
forced to pay the standard salaries prevailing elsewhere.
Naturally taxes increased. Chambers of Commerce were now unable to send
out attractive advertising to Northern business firms offering no or
very low taxation as an inducement to them to move South nor were they
able to offer as many cheap building sites. Only through the efforts
of the Grand Exalted Giraw of the Knights of Nordica were they still
able to point to their large reserves of docile, contented, Anglo-Saxon
labor, and who knew how long that condition would last?
Consequently, the upper classes faced the future with some misgivings.
As if being deprived of the pleasure of black mistresses were not
enough, there was a feeling that there would shortly be widespread
revolt against the existing medieval industrial conditions and
resultant reduction of profits and dividends. The mill barons viewed
with distaste the prospect of having to do away with child labor.
Rearing back in their padded swivel chairs, they leaned fat jowls on
well-manicured hands and mourned the passing of the halcyon days of
yore.
If the South had lost its Negroes, however, it had certainly not lost
its vote, and the political oligarchy that ruled the section was losing
its old assurance and complacency. The Republicans had made inroads
here and there in the 1934 Congressional elections. The situation
politically was changing and if drastic steps were not immediately
taken, the Republicans might carry the erstwhile Solid South, thus
practically destroying the Democratic Party. Another Presidential
election was less than two years off. There would have to be fast work
to ward off disaster. Far-sighted people, North and South, even foresaw
the laboring people soon forsaking both of the old parties and going
Socialist. Politicians and business men shuddered at the thought of
such a tragedy and saw horrible visions of old-age pensions, eight-hour
laws, unemployment insurance, workingmen's compensation, minimum-wage
legislation, abolition of child labor, dissemination of birth-control
information, monthly vacations for female workers, two-month vacations
for prospective mothers, both with pay, and the probable killing of
individual initiative and incentive by taking the ownership of national
capital out of the hands of two million people and putting it into the
hands of one hundred and twenty million.
Which explains why Senator Rufus Kretin of Georgia, one of the old
Democratic war horses, an incomparable Negro-baiter, a faithful
servitor of the dominant economic interests of his state and the lusty
father of several black families since whitened, walked into the office
of Imperial Grand Wizard Givens one day in March, 1935.
"Boys," he began, as closeted with Rev. Givens, Matthew and Bunny in
the new modernistic Knights of Nordica palace, they quaffed cool and
illegal beverages, "we gotta do sumpin and do it quick. These heah damn
Yankees ah makin' inroads on ouah preserves, suh. Th' Republican vote
is a-growin'. No tellin' what's li'ble tuh happen in this heah nex'
'lection."
"What can we do, Senator?" asked the Imperial Grand Wizard. "How can we
serve the cause?"
"That's just it. That's just it, suh; jus' what Ah came heah fo',"
replied the Senator. "Naow sum o' us was thinkin' that maybe yo'all
might be able to he'p us keep these damn hicks in line. Yo'all are
intelligent gent'men; you know what Ah'm gettin' at?"
"Well, that's a pretty big order, Colonel," said Givens.
"Yes," Matthew added. "It'll be a hard proposition. Conditions are no
longer what they used to be."
"An'," said Givens, "we can't do much with that nigger business, like
we used to do when th' old Klan was runnin'."
"What about one o' them theah Red scares," asked the Senator, hopefully.
"Humph!" the clergyman snorted. "Better leave that there Red business
alone. Times ain't like they was, you know. Anyhow, them damn Reds'll
be down here soon enough 'thout us encouragin' 'em none."
"Guess that's right, Gen'ral," mused the statesman. Then brightening:
"Lookaheah, Givens. This fellah Fisher's gotta good head. Why not let
him work out sumpin?"
"Yeah, he sure has," agreed the Wizard, glad to escape any work except
minding the treasury of his order. "If he can't do it, ain't nobody
can. Him and Bunny here is as shrewd as some o' them old time darkies.
He! He! He!" He beamed patronizingly upon his brilliant son-in-law and
his plump secretary.
"Well, theah's money in it. We got plenty o' cash; what we want now
is votes," the Senator explained. "C'ose yuh caint preach that white
supremacy stuff ve'y effectively when they haint no niggahs."
"Leave it to me. I'll work out something," said Matthew. Here was a
chance to get more power, more money. Busy as he was, it would not do
to let the opportunity slip by.
"Yuh caint lose no time," warned the Senator.
"We won't," crowed Givens.
A few minutes later they took a final drink together, shook hands and
the Senator, bobbing his white head to the young ladies in the outer
office, departed.
Matthew and Bunny retired to the private office of the Grand Exalted
Giraw.
"What you thinkin' about pullin'?" asked Bunny.
"Plenty. We'll try the old sure fire Negro problem stuff."
"But that's ancient history, Brother," protested Bunny. "These ducks
won't fall for that any more."
"Bunny, I've learned something on this job, and that is that hatred
and prejudice always go over big. These people have been raised on the
Negro problem, they're used to it, they're trained to react to it. Why
should I rack my brain to hunt up something else when I can use a dodge
that's always delivered the goods?"
"It may go over at that."
"I know it will. Just leave it to me," said Matthew confidently.
"That's not worrying me at all. What's got my goat is my wife being in
the family way." Matthew stopped bantering a moment, a sincere look of
pain erasing his usual ironic expression.
"Congratulations!" burbled Bunny.
"Don't rub it in," Matthew replied. "You know how the kid will look."
"That's right," agreed his pal. "You know, sometimes I forget who we
are."
"Well, I don't. I know I'm a darky and I'm always on the alert."
"What do you intend to do?"
"I don't know, Big Boy, I don't know. I would ordinarily send her to
one of those Lying-in Hospitals but she'd be suspicious. Yet, if the
kid is born it'll sure be black."
"It won't be white," Bunny agreed. "Why not tell her the whole thing
and since she's so crazy about you, I don't think she'd hesitate to go."
"Man, you must be losing your mind, or else you've lost it!" Matthew
exploded. "She's a worse nigger-hater than her father. She'd holler for
a divorce before you could say Jack Robinson."
"You've got too much money for that."
"You're assuming that she has plenty of intelligence."
"Hasn't she?"
"Let's not discuss a painful subject," pleaded Matthew. "Suggest a
remedy."
"She don't have to know that she's going to one of Crookman's places,
does she?"
"No, but I can't get her to leave home to have the baby."
"Why?"
"Oh, a lot of damn sentiment about having her baby in the old home, and
her damned old mother supports her. So what can I do?"
"Then, the dear old homestead is the only thing that's holding up the
play?"
"You're a smart boy, Bunny."
"Don't stress the obvious. Seriously, though, I think everything can be
fixed okeh."
"How?" cried Matthew, eagerly.
"Is it worth five grand?" countered Bunny.
"Money's no object, you know, but explain your proposition."
"I will not. You get me fifty century notes and I'll explain later."
"It's a deal, old friend."
Bunny Brown was a man of action. That evening he entered the popular
Niggerhead Café, rendezvous of the questionable classes, and sat down
at a table. The place was crowded with drinkers downing their "white
mule" and contorting to the strains issuing from a radio loud-speaker.
A current popular dance piece, "The Black Man Blues," was filling
the room. The songwriters had been making a fortune recently writing
sentimental songs about the passing of the Negro. The plaintive voice
of a blues singer rushed out of the loud-speaker:
"I wonder where my big, black man has gone;
Oh, I wonder where my big, black man has gone.
Has he done got faded an' left me all alone?"
When the music ceased and the dancers returned to their tables, Bunny
began to look around. In a far corner he saw a waiter whose face
seemed familiar. He waited until the fellow came close when he hailed
him. As the waiter bent over to get his order, he studied him closely.
He had seen this fellow somewhere before. Who could he be? Suddenly
with a start he remembered. It was Dr. Joseph Bonds, former head of the
Negro Data League in New York. What had brought him here and to this
condition? The last time he had seen Bonds, the fellow was a power in
the Negro world, with a country place in Westchester County and a swell
apartment in town. It saddened Bunny to think that catastrophe had
overtaken such a man. Even getting white, it seemed, hadn't helped him
much. He recalled that Bonds in his heyday had collected from the white
philanthropists with the slogan: "Work, Not Charity," and he smiled as
he thought that Bonds would be mighty glad now to get a little charity
and not so much work.
"Would a century note look good to you right now?" he asked the former
Negro leader when he returned with his drink.
"Just show it to me, Mister," said the waiter, licking his lips. "What
you want me to do?"
"What will you do for a hundred berries?" pursued Bunny.
"I'd hate to tell you," replied Bonds, grinning and revealing his
familiar tobacco-stained teeth.
"Have you got a friend you can trust?"
"Sure, a fellow named Licorice that washes pots in back."
"You don't mean Santop Licorice, do you?"
"Ssh! They don't know who he is here. He's white now, you know."
"Do they know who you are?"
"What do you mean?" gasped the surprised waiter.
"Oh, I won't say anything but I know you're Bonds of New York."
"Who told you?"
"Oh, a little fairy."
"How could that be? I never associate with them."
"It wasn't that kind of a fairy," Bunny reassured him, laughing. "Well,
you get Licorice and come to my hotel when this place closes up."
"Where is that?" asked Bonds. Bunny wrote his name and room number down
on a piece of paper and handed it to him.
Three hours later Bunny was awakened by a knocking at his door. He
admitted Bonds and Licorice, the latter smelling strongly of steam and
food.
"Here," said Bunny, holding up a hundred dollar bill, "is a century
note. If you boys can lay aside your scruples for a few hours you can
have five of them apiece."
"Well," said Bonds, "neither Santop nor I have been overburdened with
them."
"That's what I thought," Bunny murmured. He proceeded to outline the
work he wanted them to do.
"But that would be a criminal offense," objected Licorice.
"You too, Brutus?" sneered Bonds.
"Well, we can't afford to take chances unless we're protected," the
former President of Africa argued rather weakly. He was money-hungry
and was longing for a stake to get back to Demerara where, since there
was a large Negro population, a white man, by virtue of his complexion,
amounted to something. Yet, he had had enough experience behind the
bars to make him wary.
"We run this town and this state, too," Bunny assured him. "We could
get a couple of our men to pull this stunt but it wouldn't be good
policy."
"How about a thousand bucks apiece?" asked Bonds, his eyes glittering
as he viewed the crisp banknotes in Bunny's hand.
"Here," said Bunny. "Take this century note between you, get your
material and pull the job. When you've finished I'll give you nineteen
more like it between you."
The two cronies looked at each other and nodded.
"It's a go," said Bonds.
They departed and Bunny went back to sleep.
The next night about eleven-thirty the bells began to toll and the
mournful sirens of the fire engines awakened the entire neighborhood in
the vicinity of Rev. Givens's home. That stately edifice, built by Ku
Klux Klan dollars was in flames. Firemen played a score of streams onto
the blaze but the house appeared to be doomed.
On a lawn across the street, in the midst of a consoling crowd, stood
Rev. and Mrs. Givens, Helen and Matthew. The old couple were taking
the catastrophe fatalistically, Matthew was puzzled and suspicious,
but Helen was in hysterics. She presented a bedraggled and woebegone
appearance with a blanket around her night dress. She wept afresh every
time she looked across at the blazing building where she had spent her
happy childhood.
"Matthew," she sobbed, "will you build me another one just like it?"
"Why certainly, Honey," he agreed, "but it will take quite a while."
"Oh, I know; I know, but I want it."
"Well, you'll get it, darling," he soothed, "but I think it would be a
good idea for you to go away for a while to rest your nerves. We've got
to think of the little one that's coming, you know."
"I don't wanna go nowhere," she screamed.
"But you've got to go somewhere," he reasoned. "Don't you think so,
Mother?" Old Mrs. Givens agreed it would be a good idea but suggested
that she go along. To this Rev. Givens would not listen at first but
he finally yielded.
"Guess it's a good idea after all," he remarked. "Women folks is always
in th' way when buildin's goin' on."
Matthew was tickled at the turn of affairs. On the way down to the
hotel, he sat beside Helen, alternately comforting her and wondering as
to the origin of the fire.
Next morning, bright and early, Bunny, grinning broadly walked into the
office, threw his hat on a hook and sat down before his desk after the
customary salutation.
"Bunny," called Matthew, looking at him hard. "Get me told!"
"What do you mean?" asked Bunny innocently.
"Just as I thought," chuckled Matthew. "You're a nervy guy."
"Why, I don't get you," said Bunny, continuing the pose.
"Come clean, Big Boy. How much did that fire cost?"
"You gave me five grand, didn't you?"
"Just like a nigger: a person can never get a direct answer from you."
"Are you satisfied?"
"I'm not crying my eyes out."
"Is Helen going North for her confinement?"
"Nothing different."
"Well, then, why do you want to know the why and wherefore of that
blaze?"
"Just curiosity, Nero, old chap," grinned Matthew.
"Remember," warned Bunny, mischievously, "curiosity killed the cat."
The ringing of the telephone bell interrupted their conversation.
"What's that?" yelled Matthew into the mouthpiece. "The hell you say!
All right, I'll be right up." He hung up the receiver, jumped up
excitedly and grabbed his hat.
"What's the matter?" shouted Bunny. "Somebody dead?"
"No," answered the agitated Matthew, "Helen's had a miscarriage," and
he dashed out of the room.
"Somebody dead right on," murmured Bunny, half aloud.
* * * * *
Joseph Bonds and Santop Licorice, clean shaven and immaculate, followed
the Irish red cap into their drawing room on the New York Express.
"It sure feels good to get out of the barrel once more," sighed Bonds,
dropping down on the soft cushion and pulling out a huge cigar.
"Ain't it the truth?" agreed the former Admiral of the Royal African
Navy.