CHAPTER XIIFromJudge 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 whocould 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 littlepatience 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 seemedJane 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 andexperienced 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 amountwas 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.
FromJudge 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 whocould 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 littlepatience 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 seemedJane 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 andexperienced 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 amountwas 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.