It goes a long way back, some twenty years. All my life I had been looking
or something, and everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it
was. I accepted their answers too, though they were often in contradic-
tion and even self--contradictory. I was naive. I was looking or myself
and asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only I, could
answer. It took me a long time and much painful boomeranging o my
expectations to achieve a realization everyone else appears to have been
born with: That I am nobody but myself. But first I had to discover that
I am an invisible man!
And yet I am no freak of nature, or of history. I was in the cards,
other things having been equal (or unequal) eighty-five years ago.
I am not ashamed o my grandparents or having been slaves. I am
only ashamed of myself or having at one time been ashamed. About
eighty-five years ago they were told that they were ree, united with
others o our country in everything pertaining to the common good,
and, in everything social, separate like the fingers of the hand. And
they believed it. They exulted in it. They stayed in their place, worked
hard, and brought up my father to do the same. But my grandfather
is the one. He was an odd old guy, my grandfather, and I am told I
take after him. It was he who caused the trouble. On his deathbed
he called my father to him and said, “Son, after I’m gone I want you
to keep up the good night. I never told you, but our life is a war and
I have been a traitor all my born days, a spy in the enemy’s country
ever since I gave up my gun back in the Reconstruction. Live with
your head in the lion’s mouth. I want you to overcome ’em with yeses,
undermine ’em with grins, agree ’em to death and destruction, let
’em swoller you till they vomit or bust wide open.” They thought the
old man had gone out o his mind. He had been the meekest o men.
The younger children were rushed rom the room, the shades drawn
and the lame o the lamp turned so low that it sputtered on the wick
like the old man’s breathing. “Learn it to the young-uns,” he whis-
pered fiercely; then he died.
But my folks were more alarmed over his last words than over his
dying. It was as though he had not died at all, his words caused so much
anxiety. I was warned emphatically to forget what he had said and,
indeed, this is the first time it has been mentioned outside the family circle. It had a tremendous eect upon me, however. I could never be
sure o what he meant. Grandfather had been a quiet old man who
never made any trouble, yet on his deathbed he had called himself a
traitor and a spy, and he had spoken o his meekness as a dangerous
activity. It became a constant puzzle which lay unanswered in the back
Of my mind. And whenever things went well or me I remembered my
grandfather and felt guilty and uncomfortable. It was as though I was
carrying out his advice in spite of myself. And to make it worse, every-
one loved me or it. I was praised by the most lily-white men o the town.
I was considered an example o desirable conduct — just as my grandma-
ther had been. And what puzzled me was that the old man had dened
it as treachery. When I was praised or my conduct I elt a guilt that in
some way I was doing something that was really against the wishes o
the white olks, that i they had understood they would have desired
me to act just the opposite, that I should have been sulky and mean,
and that that really would have been what they wanted, even though
they were ooled and thought they wanted me to act as I did. It made
me araid that some day they would look upon me as a traitor and I
would be lost. Still I was more araid to act any other way because they
didn’t like that at all. The old man’s words were like a curse. On my
graduation day I delivered an oration in which I showed that humility
was the secret, indeed, the very essence o progress. (Not that I believed
this — how could I, remembering my grandather? — I only believed that
it worked.) It was a great success. Everyone praised me and I was invited
to give the speech at a gathering o the town’s leading white citizens. It
was a triumph or our whole community.
It was in the main ballroom o the leading hotel. When I got there
I discovered that it was on the occasion o a smoker, and I was told that
since I was to be there anyway I might as well take part in the battle royal
to be ought by some o my schoolmates as part o the entertainment.
The battle royal came rst.
All o the town’s big shots were there in their tuxedoes, wolng
down the buet oods, drinking beer and whiskey and smoking black
cigars. It was a large room with a high ceiling. Chairs were arranged in
neat rows around three sides o a portable boxing ring. The ourth side
was clear, revealing a gleaming space o polished foor. I had some mis-
givings over the battle royal, by the way. Not rom a distaste or ghting,
but because I didn’t care too much or the other ellows who were to
take part. They were tough guys who seemed to have no grandather’s
curse worrying their minds. No one could mistake their toughness. And
besides, I suspected that ghting a battle royal might detract rom the
dignity o my speech. In those pre-invisible days I visualized mysel as
a potential Booker T. Washington. But the other ellows didn’t care too
much or me either, and there were nine o them. I elt superior to them
in my way, and I didn’t like the manner in which we were all crowded
together into the servants’ elevator. Nor did they like my being there. Inact, as the warmly lighted foors fashed past the elevator we had words
over the act that I, by taking part in the ght, had knocked one o their
riends out o a night’s work.
We were led out o the elevator through a rococo hall into an ante-
room and told to get into our ghting togs. Each o us was issued a pair
o boxing gloves and ushered out into the big mirrored hall, which we
entered looking cautiously about us and whispering, lest we might acci-
dentally be heard above the noise o the room. It was oggy with cigar
smoke. And already the whiskey was taking eect. I was shocked to see
some o the most important men o the town quite tipsy. They were all
there — bankers, lawyers, judges, doctors, re chies, teachers, merchants.
Even one o the more ashionable pastors. Something we could not see
was going on up ront. A clarinet was vibrating sensuously and the men
were standing up and moving eagerly orward. We were a small tight
group, clustered together, our bare upper bodies touching and shin-
ing with anticipatory sweat; while up ront the big shots were becom-
ing increasingly excited over something we still could not see. Suddenly I
heard the school superintendent, who had told me to come, yell, “Bring
up the shines, gentlemen! Bring up the little shines!”
We were rushed up to the ront o the ballroom, where it smelled
even more strongly o tobacco and whiskey. Then we were pushed into
place. I almost wet my pants. A sea o aces, some hostile, some amused,
ringed around us, and in the center, acing us, stood a magnicent
blonde — stark naked. There was dead silence. I elt a blast o cold air
chill me. I tried to back away, but they were behind me and around me.
Some o the boys stood with lowered heads, trembling. I elt a wave o
irrational guilt and ear. My teeth chattered, my skin turned to goose
fesh, my knees knocked. Yet I was strongly attracted and looked in spite
o mysel. Had the price o looking been blindness, I would have looked.
The hair was yellow like that o a circus kewpie doll, the ace heavily
powdered and rouged, as though to orm an abstract mask, the eyes hol-
low and smeared a cool blue, the color o a baboon’s butt. I elt a desire
to spit upon her as my eyes brushed slowly over her body. Her breasts
were rm and round as the domes o East Indian temples, and I stood
so close as to see the ne skin texture and beads o pearly perspiration
glistening like dew around the pink and erected buds o her nipples. I
wanted at one and the same time to run rom the room, to sink through
the foor, or go to her and cover her rom my eyes and the eyes o the
others with my body; to eel the sot thighs, to caress her and destroy
her, to love her and murder her, to hide rom her, and yet to stroke
where below the small American fag tattooed upon her belly her thighs
ormed a capital V. I had a notion that o all in the room she saw only
me with her impersonal eyes.
And then she began to dance, a slow sensuous movement; the smoke
o a hundred cigars clinging to her like the thinnest o veils. She seemed
like a air bird-girl girdled in veils calling to me rom the angry surace o some gray and threatening sea. I was transported. Then I became aware
o the clarinet playing and the big shots yelling at us. Some threatened
us i we looked and others i we did not. On my right I saw one boy aint.
And now a man grabbed a silver pitcher rom a table and stepped close
as he dashed ice water upon him and stood him up and orced two o us
to support him as his head hung and moans issued rom his thick bluish
lips. Another boy began to plead to go home. He was the largest o the
group, wearing dark red ghting trunks much too small to conceal the
erection which projected rom him as though in answer to the insinuat-
ing low-registered moaning o the clarinet. He tried to hide himsel with
his boxing gloves.
And all the while the blonde continued dancing, smiling aintly at
the big shots who watched her with ascination, and aintly smiling at
our ear. I noticed a certain merchant who ollowed her hungrily, his lips
loose and drooling. He was a large man who wore diamond studs in a
shirtront which swelled with the ample paunch underneath, and each
time the blonde swayed her undulating hips he ran his hand through the
thin hair o his bald head and, with his arms upheld, his posture clumsy
like that o an intoxicated panda, wound his belly in a slow and obscene
grind. This creature was completely hypnotized. The music had quick-
ened. As the dancer fung hersel about with a detached expression on
her ace, the men began reaching out to touch her. I could see their beey
ngers sink into the sot fesh. Some o the others tried to stop them
as she began to move around the foor in graceul circles, as they gave
chase, slipping and sliding over the polished foor. It was mad. Chairs
went crashing, drinks were spilt, as they ran laughing and howling ater
her. They caught her just as she reached a door, raised her rom the foor,
and tossed her as college boys are tossed at a hazing, and above her red,
xed-smiling lips I saw the terror and disgust in her eyes, almost like my
own terror and that which I saw in some o the other boys. As I watched,
they tossed her twice and her sot breasts seemed to fatten against the
air and her legs fung wildly as she spun. Some o the more sober ones
helped her to escape. And I started o the foor, heading or the ante-
room with the rest o the boys.
Some were still crying in hysteria. But as we tried to leave we were
stopped and ordered to get into the ring. There was nothing to do but
what we were told. All ten o us climbed under the ropes and allowed
ourselves to be blindolded with broad bands o white cloth. One o the
men seemed to eel a bit sympathetic and tried to cheer us up as we stood
with our backs against the ropes. Some o us tried to grin. “See that boy
over there?” one o the men said. “I want you to run across at the bell
and give it to him right in the belly. I you don’t get him, I’m going to get
you. I don’t like his looks.” Each o us was told the same. The blindolds
were put on. Yet even then I had been going over my speech. In my mind
each word was as bright as fame. I elt the cloth pressed into place, and
rowned so that it would be loosened when I relaxed. But now I elt a sudden t o blind terror. I was unused to darkness.
It was as though I had suddenly ound mysel in a dark room lled with
poisonous cottonmouths. I could hear the bleary voices yelling insis-
tently or the battle royal to begin.
“Get going in there!”
“Let me at that big nigger!”
I strained to pick up the school superintendent’s voice, as though to
squeeze some security out o that slightly more amiliar sound.
“Let me at those black sonsabitches!” someone yelled.
“No, Jackson, no!” another voice yelled. “Here, somebody, help me
hold Jack.”
“I want to get at that ginger-colored nigger. Tear him limb rom
limb,” the rst voice yelled.
I stood against the ropes trembling. For in those days I was what
they called ginger-colored, and he sounded as though he might crunch
me between his teeth like a crisp ginger cookie.
Quite a struggle was going on. Chairs were being kicked about and I
could hear voices grunting as with a terric eort. I wanted to see, to see
more desperately than ever beore. But the blindold was tight as a thick
skin-puckering scab and when I raised my gloved hands to push the lay-
ers o white aside a voice yelled, “Oh, no you don’t, black bastard! Leave
that alone!”
“Ring the bell beore Jackson kills him a coon!” someone boomed in
the sudden silence. And I heard the bell clang and the sound o the eet
scufing orward.
A glove smacked against my head. I pivoted, striking out stify as
someone went past, and elt the jar ripple along the length o my arm to
my shoulder. Then it seemed as though all nine o the boys had turned
upon me at once. Blows pounded me rom all sides while I struck out as
best I could. So many blows landed upon me that I wondered i I were
not the only blindolded ghter in the ring, or i the man called Jackson
hadn’t succeeded in getting me ater all.
Blindolded, I could no longer control my motions. I had no dignity.
I stumbled about like a baby or a drunken man. The smoke had become
thicker and with each new blow it seemed to sear and urther restrict
my lungs. My saliva became like hot bitter glue. A glove connected with
my head, lling my mouth with warm blood. It was everywhere. I could
not tell i the moisture I elt upon my body was sweat or blood. A blow
landed hard against the nape o my neck. I elt mysel going over, my
head hitting the foor. Streaks o blue light lled the black world behind
the blindold. I lay prone, pretending that I was knocked out, but elt
mysel seized by hands and yanked to my eet. “Get going, black boy! Mix
it up!” My arms were like lead, my head smarting rom blows. I managed
to eel my way to the ropes and held on, trying to catch my breath. A
glove landed in my mid-section and I went over again, eeling as though
the smoke had become a knie jabbed into my guts. Pushed this way and that by the legs milling around me, I nally pulled erect and discovered
that I could see the black, sweat-washed orms weaving in the smoky-
blue atmosphere like drunken dancers weaving to the rapid drumlike
thuds o blows.
Everyone ought hysterically. It was complete anarchy. Everybody
ought everybody else. No group ought together or long. Two, three,
our, ought one, then turned to ght each other, were themselves
attacked. Blows landed below the belt and in the kidney, with the
gloves open as well as closed, and with my eye partly opened now there
was not so much terror. I moved careully, avoiding blows, although
not too many to attract attention, ghting rom group to group. The
boys groped about like blind, cautious crabs crouching to protect their
mid-sections, their heads pulled in short against their shoulders, their
arms stretched nervously beore them, with their sts testing the smoke-
lled air like the knobbed eelers o hypersensitive snails. In one cor-
ner I glimpsed a boy violently punching the air and heard him scream
in pain as he smashed his hand against a ring post. For a second I saw
him bent over holding his hand, then going down as a blow caught his
unprotected head. I played one group against the other, slipping in and
throwing a punch then stepping out o range while pushing the others
into the melee to take the blows blindly aimed at me. The smoke was
agonizing and there were no rounds, no bells at three minute intervals
to relieve our exhaustion. The room spun round me, a swirl o lights,
smoke, sweating bodies surrounded by tense white aces. I bled rom
both nose and mouth, the blood spattering upon my chest.
The men kept yelling, “Slug him, black boy! Knock his guts out!”
“Uppercut him! Kill him! Kill that big boy!”
Taking a ake all, I saw a boy going down heavily beside me as
though we were elled by a single blow, saw a sneaker-clad oot shoot into
his groin as the two who had knocked him down stumbled upon him. I
rolled out o range, eeling a twinge o nausea.
The harder we ought the more threatening the men became. And
yet, I had begun to worry about my speech again. How would it go?
Would they recognize my ability? What would they give me?
I was ghting automatically when suddenly I noticed that one ater
another o the boys was leaving the ring. I was surprised, lled with
panic, as though I had been let alone with an unknown danger. Then
I understood. The boys had arranged it among themselves. It was the
custom or the two men let in the ring to slug it out or the winner’s
prize. I discovered this too late. When the bell sounded two men in tuxe-
does leaped into the ring and removed the blindold. I ound mysel ac-
ing Tatlock, the biggest o the gang. I elt sick at my stomach. Hardly
had the bell stopped ringing in my ears than it clanged again and I saw
him moving switly toward me. Thinking o nothing else to do I hit him
smash on the nose. He kept coming, bringing the rank sharp violence o
stale sweat. His ace was a black blank o a ace, only his eyes alive — with hate o me and aglow with a everish terror rom what had happened to
us all. I became anxious. I wanted to deliver my speech and he came at me
as though he meant to beat it out o me. I smashed him again and again,
taking his blows as they came. Then on a sudden impulse I struck him
lightly and as we clinched, I whispered, “Fake like I knocked you out, you
can have the prize.”
“I’ll break your behind,” he whispered hoarsely.
“For them?”
“For me, sonoabitch!”
They were yelling or us to break it up and Tatlock spun me hal
around with a blow, and as a joggled camera sweeps in a reeling scene,
I saw the howling red aces crouching tense beneath the cloud o blue-
gray smoke. For a moment the world wavered, unraveled, fowed, then
my head cleared and Tatlock bounced beore me. That futtering shadow
beore my eyes was his jabbing let hand. Then alling orward, my head
against his damp shoulder, I whispered,
“I’ll make it ve dollars more.”
“Go to hell!”
But his muscles relaxed a trife beneath my pressure and I breathed,
“Seven?”
“Give it to your ma,” he said, ripping me beneath the heart.
And while I still held him I butted him and moved away. I elt mysel
bombarded with punches. I ought back with hopeless desperation.
I wanted to deliver my speech more than anything else in the world,
because I elt that only these men could judge truly my ability, and now
this stupid clown was ruining my chances. I began ghting careully
now, moving in to punch him and out again with my greater speed. A
lucky blow to his chin and I had him going too — until I heard a loud
voice yell, “I got my money on the big boy.”
Hearing this, I almost dropped my guard. I was conused: Should
I try to win against the voice out there? Would not this go against my
speech, and was not this a moment or humility, or nonresistance? A
blow to my head as I danced about sent my right eye popping like a
jack-in-the-box and settled my dilemma. The room went red as I ell.
It was a dream all, my body languid and astidious as to where to
land, until the foor became impatient and smashed up to meet me. A
moment later I came to. An hypnotic voice said FIVE emphatically. And
I lay there, hazily watching a dark red spot o my own blood shaping
itsel into a butterfy, glistening and soaking into the soiled gray world
o the canvas.
When the voice drawled TEN I was lited up and dragged to a chair.
I sat dazed. My eye pained and swelled with each throb o my pounding
heart and I wondered i now I would be allowed to speak. I was wring-
ing wet, my mouth still bleeding. We were grouped along the wall now.
The other boys ignored me as they congratulated Tatlock and specu-
lated as to how much they would be paid. One boy whimpered over his smashed hand. Looking up ront, I saw attendants in white jackets roll-
ing the portable ring away and placing a small square rug in the vacant
space surrounded by chairs. Perhaps, I thought, I will stand on the rug to
deliver my speech.
Then the M.C. called to us, “Come on up here boys and get your
money.” We ran orward to where the men laughed and talked in their
chairs, waiting. Everyone seemed riendly now.
“There it is on the rug,” the man said. I saw the rug covered with
coins o all dimensions and a ew crumpled bills. But what excited me,
scattered here and there, were the gold pieces.
“Boys, it’s all yours,” the man said. “You get all you grab.”
“That’s right, Sambo,” a blond man said, winking at me condentially.
I trembled with excitement, orgetting my pain. I would get the gold
and the bills, I thought. I would use both hands. I would throw my body
against the boys nearest me to block them rom the gold.
“Get down around the rug now,” the man commanded, “and don’t
anyone touch it until I give the signal.”
“This ought to be good,” I heard.
As told, we got around the square rug on our knees. Slowly the man
raised his reckled hand as we ollowed it upward with our eyes.
I heard, “These niggers look like they’re about to pray!”
Then, “Ready,” the man said. “Go!”
I lunged or a yellow coin lying on the blue design o the carpet,
touching it and sending a surprised shriek to join those rising around
me. I tried rantically to remove my hand but could not let go. A hot,
violent orce tore through my body, shaking me like a wet rat. The rug
was electried. The hair bristled up on my head as I shook mysel ree.
My muscles jumped, my nerves jangled, writhed. But I saw that this was
not stopping the other boys. Laughing in ear and embarrassment, some
were holding back and scooping up the coins knocked o by the painul
contortions o the others. The men roared above us as we struggled.
“Pick it up, goddamnit, pick it up!” someone called like a bass-
voiced parrot. “Go on, get it!”
I crawled rapidly around the foor, picking up the coins, trying to
avoid the coppers and to get greenbacks and the gold. Ignoring the shock
by laughing, as I brushed the coins o quickly, I discovered that I could
contain the electricity — a contradiction, but it works. Then the men
began to push us onto the rug. Laughing embarrassedly, we struggled
out o their hands and kept ater the coins. We were all wet and slippery
and hard to hold. Suddenly I saw a boy lited into the air, glistening with
sweat like a circus seal, and dropped, his wet back landing fush upon the
charged rug, heard him yell and saw him literally dance upon his back,
his elbows beating a renzied tattoo upon the foor, his muscles twitch-
ing like the fesh o a horse stung by many fies. When he nally rolled
o, his ace was gray and no one stopped him when he ran rom the foor
amid booming laughter. “Get the money,” the M.C. called. “That’s good hard American cash!”
And we snatched and grabbed, snatched and grabbed. I was care-
ul not to come too close to the rug now, and when I elt the hot whis-
key breath descend upon me like a cloud o oul air I reached out and
grabbed the leg o a chair. It was occupied and I held on desperately.
“Leggo, nigger! Leggo!”
The huge ace wavered down to mine as he tried to push me ree.
But my body was slippery and he was too drunk. It was Mr. Colcord,
who owned a chain o movie houses and “entertainment palaces.” Each
time he grabbed me I slipped out o his hands. It became a real struggle.
I eared the rug more than I did the drunk, so I held on, surprising
mysel or a moment by trying to topple him upon the rug. It was such
an enormous idea that I ound mysel actually carrying it out. I tried
not to be obvious, yet when I grabbed his leg, trying to tumble him out
o the chair, he raised up roaring with laughter, and, looking at me with
soberness dead in the eye, kicked me viciously in the chest. The chair leg
few out o my hand and I elt mysel going and rolled. It was as though
I had rolled through a bed o hot coals. It seemed a whole century would
pass beore I would roll ree, a century in which I was seared through the
deepest levels o my body to the earul breath within me and the breath
seared and heated to the point o explosion. It’ll all be over in a fash, I
thought as I rolled clear. It’ll all be over in a fash.
But not yet, the men on the other side were waiting, red aces swol-
len as though rom apoplexy as they bent orward in their chairs. Seeing
their ngers coming toward me I rolled away as a umbled ootball rolls
o the receiver’s ngertips, back into the coals. That time I luckily sent
the rug sliding out o place and heard the coins ringing against the foor
and the boys scufing to pick them up and the M.C. calling, “All right,
boys, that’s all. Go get dressed and get your money.”
I was limp as a dish rag. My back elt as though it had been beaten
with wires.
When we had dressed the M.C. came in and gave us each ve dollars,
except Tatlock, who got ten or being last in the ring. Then he told us
to leave. I was not to get a chance to deliver my speech, I thought. I was
going out into the dim alley in despair when I was stopped and told to go
back. I returned to the ballroom, where the men were pushing back their
chairs and gathering in groups to talk.
The M.C. knocked on a table or quiet. “Gentlemen,” he said, “we
almost orgot an important part o the program. A most serious part,
gentlemen. This boy was brought here to deliver a speech which he made
at his graduation yesterday . . . ”
“Bravo!”
“I’m told that he is the smartest boy we’ve got out there in Green-
wood. I’m told that he knows more big words than a pocket-sized
dictionary.”
Much applause and laughter. “So now, gentlemen, I want you to give him your attention.”
There was still laughter as I aced them, my mouth dry, my eye
throbbing. I began slowly, but evidently my throat was tense, because
they began shouting, “Louder! Louder!”
“We o the younger generation extol the wisdom o that great leader
and educator,” I shouted, “who rst spoke these faming words o wis-
dom: ‘A ship lost at sea or many days suddenly sighted a riendly ves-
sel. From the mast o the unortunate vessel was seen a signal: “Water,
water; we die o thirst!” The answer rom the riendly vessel came back:
“Cast down your bucket where you are.” The captain o the distressed
vessel, at last heeding the injunction, cast down his bucket, and it came
up ull o resh sparkling water rom the mouth o the Amazon River.’
And like him I say, and in his words, ‘To those o my race who depend
upon bettering their condition in a oreign land, or who underestimate
the importance o cultivating riendly relations with the Southern white
man, who is his next-door neighbor, I would say: “Cast down your bucket
where you are” — cast it down in making riends in every manly way o
the people o all races by whom we are surrounded . . .’ ”
I spoke automatically and with such ervor that I did not realize that
the men were still talking and laughing until my dry mouth, lling up
with blood rom the cut, almost strangled me. I coughed, wanting to stop
and go to one o the tall brass, sand-lled spittoons to relieve mysel, but
a ew o the men, especially the superintendent, were listening and I was
araid. So I gulped it down, blood, saliva, and all, and continued. (What
powers o endurance I had during those days! What enthusiasm! What a
belie in the rightness o things!) I spoke even louder in spite o the pain.
But still they talked and still they laughed, as though dea with cotton in
dirty ears. So I spoke with greater emotional emphasis. I closed my ears
and swallowed blood until I was nauseated. The speech seemed a hun-
dred times as long as beore, but I could not leave out a single word. All
had to be said, each memorized nuance considered, rendered. Nor was
that all. Whenever I uttered a word o three or more syllables a group o
voices would yell or me to repeat it. I used the phrase “social responsibil-
ity” and they yelled:
“What’s that word you say, boy?”
“Social responsibility,” I said.
“What?”
“Social . . .”
“Louder.”
“ . . . responsibility.”
“More!”
“Respon — ”
“Repeat!”
“ — sibility.”
The room lled with the uproar o laughter until, no doubt, dis-
tracted by having to gulp down my blood, I made a mistake and yelled a phrase I had oten seen denounced in newspaper editorials, heard
debated in private.
“Social . . .”
“What?” they yelled.
“ . . . equality — ”
The laughter hung smokelike in the sudden stillness. I opened my
eyes, puzzled. Sounds o displeasure lled the room. The M.C. rushed
orward. They shouted hostile phrases at me. But I did not understand.
A small dry mustached man in the ront row blared out, “Say that
slowly, son!”
“What, sir?”
“What you just said!”
“Social responsibility, sir,” I said.
“You weren’t being smart, were you, boy?” he said, not unkindly.
“No, sir!”
“You sure that about ‘equality’ was a mistake?”
“Oh, yes, sir,” I said. “I was swallowing blood.”
“Well, you had better speak more slowly so we can understand. We
mean to do right by you, but you’ve got to know your place at all times.
All right, now, go on with your speech.”
I was araid. I wanted to leave but I wanted also to speak and I was
araid they’d snatch me down.
“Thank you, sir,” I said, beginning where I had let o, and having
them ignore me as beore.
Yet when I nished there was a thunderous applause. I was surprised
to see the superintendent come orth with a package wrapped in white
tissue paper, and, gesturing or quiet, address the men.
“Gentlemen, you see that I did not overpraise this boy. He makes a
good speech and some day he’ll lead his people in the proper paths. And
I don’t have to tell you that that is important in these days and times.
This is a good, smart boy, and so to encourage him in the right direction,
in the name o the Board o Education I wish to present him a prize in
the orm o this . . .”
He paused, removing the tissue paper and revealing a gleaming cal-
skin brie case.
“ . . . in the orm o this rst-class article rom Shad Whitmore’s
shop.”
“Boy,” he said, addressing me, “take this prize and keep it well. Con-
sider it a badge o oce. Prize it. Keep developing as you are and some
day it will be lled with important papers that will help shape the des-
tiny o your people.”
I was so moved that I could hardly express my thanks. A rope o
bloody saliva orming a shape like an undiscovered continent drooled
upon the leather and I wiped it quickly away. I elt an importance that I
had never dreamed.
“Open it and see what’s inside,” I was told. My ngers a-tremble, I complied, smelling the resh leather and nding
an ocial-looking document inside. It was a scholarship to the state college
or Negroes. My eyes lled with tears and I ran awkwardly o the foor.
I was overjoyed; I did not even mind when I discovered that the gold
pieces I had scrambled or were brass pocket tokens advertising a certain
make o automobile.
When I reached home everyone was excited. Next day the neighbors
came to congratulate me. I even elt sae rom grandather, whose death-
bed curse usually spoiled my triumphs. I stood beneath his photograph
with my brie case in hand and smiled triumphantly into his stolid black
peasant’s ace. It was a ace that ascinated me. The eyes seemed to ollow
everywhere I went.
That night I dreamed I was at a circus with him and that he reused
to laugh at the clowns no matter what they did. Then later he told me to
open my brie case and read what was inside and I did, nding an ocial
envelope stamped with the state seal; and inside the envelope I ound
another and another, endlessly, and I thought I would all o weariness.
“Them’s years,” he said. “Now open that one.” And I did and in it I ound
an engraved document containing a short message in letters o gold.
“Read it,” my grandather said. “Out loud!”
“To Whom It May Concern,” I intoned. “Keep This Nigger-Boy
Running.”
I awoke with the old man’s laughter ringing in my ears.
(It was a dream I was to remember and dream again or many years
After. But at that time I had no insight into its meaning. First I had to
attend college.)
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