#Critical Race Theory BLOOD & BROTHERHOOD Part One

A Novel Of Love In A Time Of Hate [abridged]

By Eugene Stovall

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Prologue

Everything is ready. Rosa Parks is dressed in a modest grey suit and a white blouse with lace around the neck. Her rimless glasses, making Rosa look somewhat older than her forty-one years, furnish the air of dignity the government, as well as the NAACP, wants to convey, As Rosa Parks strides purposefully out the door into the brisk December morning, but Sid Jenkins knows that much there remains to be done before the government and NAACP ruse becomes history.

Actually, Irene Morgan, the black Virginia woman who refused to relinquish her seat on the segregated Greyhound bus more than ten years earlier, already played this role. When the pregnant teen, returning home from a doctor’s visit in the next town, refused to relinquish her seat to a white man, the bus driver took her to the Gloucester County Sheriff’s Department, where a dirty, foul-smelling sheriff’s deputy dragged Morgan from the Greyhound bus and into jail. The defiant woman did not go without a struggle. She clawed at the deputy’s face and tore at his shirt. Then the red-necked white man pulled out his nightstick, but Morgan delivered a well-placed kick between his legs. Another deputy grabbed the pregnant woman from behind, and the two men wrestled Irene Morgan her through the jail doors and threw her into a holding cell. The deputies cursed and screamed at the black woman each step of the way. For her part, Morgan continued to resist all the way ___ screaming and kicking viciously. When Irene Morgan was brought before the judge, her attorney, Thurgood Marshall, entered a plea of guilty to resisting arrest. The battered and bruised woman was fined $100. In addition, the judge fined Morgan an additional $10 for violating Virginia’s segregation law which Thurgood Marshall appealed all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. In a 6-to-1 decision, the high court overturned Morgan’s conviction for refusing to yield her bus seat to a white man. Irene Morgan’s landmark case was responsible for the Supreme Court striking down state laws segregating interstate travel. But Morgan was not the NAACP’s idea of a black heroine. The National Association for the advancement of colored people over Negroes decided to re-enact this historic event with Rosa Parks in the starring role. This time there will be no resistance, no violence, no cursing cops _____ no angry black woman. Everything will be dignified and cordial. It was all arranged.

A white bus driver will ask Mrs. Parks, the secretary of Montgomery’s NAACP, to give up her seat to a white man. Mrs. Parks will refuse. The bus will come to a halt and two uniformed officers will escort Mrs. Parks to a waiting police car and taken to the Montgomery ?City jail, where she will be charged with violating the city’s ordinance segregating intrastate public transportation facilities. After being fingerprinted and photographed, Parks will be taken to a holding cell. Her husband, Ray Parks, will bail her out. It has all been arranged. It will be non-violent and civilized, the kind of sanitized event the white folks insist upon ___ not that Marshall and the NAACP disagree. This event that will usher in a new era of race relations. It will be done without rancor or bitterness and without any surprises. In the courtroom, Rosa Parks case will unfold in an orderly, well-planned manner. This is how white folks plan to use the NAACP to end racial segregation ____ at least that is the plan.

Sid Jenkins smiles. Chat will never understand this move, he tells, himself. Chat would do everything he could to expose the fraud. Sid and his brother didn’t understand each other. I’m happy he’s not around to ruin it for me, Sid thinks. If everything goes as planned, there is no telling how far Sid will go. This is the assignment of a lifetime. As a representative for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Sid’s job is to ensure that the Negroes in Birmingham cooperate. Ray Walker, the FBI special agent in charge of the operation guarantees that the Montgomery Police Department will cooperate completely. There can be no violence. The fate of the race, the nation ___and Sid’s career depends on it. No violence.

Everything should go well except the pictures of a lieutenant in the Montgomery Police Department booking Rosa Parks. Police lieutenant would not book someone arrested for a misdemeanor violation. The pictures taken of Parks’ booking use high resolution cameras, studio lighting and a professional photographer. The Montgomery Police Department looks like a ?Hollywood set ___ the kind Sid’s mother worked on. Is he the only one who thinks that, one day, this picture-taking will cause someone to suspect that this entire affair is a put-up job? Sid asks himself. ?Possibly he should mention something to his boss. No, better to leave sleeping dogs lie, he decides. ?Few Negroes will understand what’s going on. Those, that do, will be too busy cashing in to care. Besides the coloreds in the NAACP don’t want the white folks to know that some Negroes can think and figure things out. The Amos ‘n Andys will never figure out this scheme, Sid decides, not in a million years. So why should I rock the boat? What was it that Marcus Garvey had said: “The ordinary Negro is as illiterate and anti-intellectual as white folks can keep him,” or something like that. It was something his mother, Julia Jenkins had told him. She was always talking about Garvey and the African Blood Brotherhood and the Ku Klux Klan. Sid got sick and tired of hearing about it. But Chat, that little kiss ass, just ate it up. It was another reason why his mother preferred Chat to him. But Chat nor even his dad, Peter Jenkins, ?could have gotten this far. Neither of them had what it takes, Sid gloats.

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EPISODE ONE

Peter Jenkins sits in the straight-backed wooden booth of Candy’s Café. He faces the front so that he can see whoever comes through the door. It is a quarter to one in the morning. The theatre crowd has not yet started arriving, so Pete has his choice of booths. In an hour or so, Candy’s will be packed with partygoers who come slumming in Harlem. When the rush of white swells, platinum blonde floozies, slick pimps and ladies of the evening make it uptown, Candy’s Café will be jumping and there won’t be a seat in the place.

Pete is normally asleep in his cramped two-room Peach Street apartment at this time in the morning. He and the other hundreds of messenger boys delivering letters and parcels all over Lower Manhattan, maintain the flow of information critical to the functioning of the financial juggernaut known as Wall Street. Pete reports to Alfred Cronin, the white man in charge of the mailroom at the medium-sized commercial bank where Pete works, Each day at six a.m. sharp, Pete reports to Mr. Cronin, a friendly sort, but very strict about time and punctuality.

“One hour and no more for each delivery round,” Al Cronin instructs Pete on his first day at the bank receiving the job through his contacts with Marcus Garvey’s UNIA.?“You’re one of my best boys,” Mr. Cronin tells Pete almost every day. “I wish the others were as good as you.” Even though Al Cronin gives the other messengers, all white and of high school age, fewer deliveries and shorter routes, they seldom, if ever, complete their rounds in the allotted hour. Pete is twenty-three years old and fought in the Great War. Nonetheless, Pete knows that if he fails to meet his schedule, Al Cronin will fire him on the spot. The bank gave the Garveyites one slot. Pete replaced another black man who failed to keep his delivery schedule. The workday ends at 4:00 PM, but sometimes, Al Cronin has a late delivery, and needs Pete to work late, without pay. Al Cronin’s late deliveries are important and he depends on Pete who likes the fact that Cronin depends on him to make late deliveries. Pete is saving up to buy a bicycle. He saw a J.C. Higgins in a Sears catalogue for $25. But this job barely pays enough for food and rent, not to mention the cost of riding the subway to and from work. Pete dreams of working for the Post Office as a letter carrier. “I’ll deliver mail right in Harlem,” he vows, even though Pete knows that, in 1920, the United States Post Office does not hire Negroes, even veterans of the Great War, to deliver the mail, not even in Harlem.

Pete is fortunate to have a job at all. “It’s because Marcus Garvey is looking out for us,” he tells himself. “And I’m not going to let Mr. Garvey down.” That was why Pete took it as an obligation to be in bed by eight o’clock ___ that is, when his duties in Garvey’s African Legion at the Liberty Hall headquarters permits it. Pete really needs his sleep, it takes something very important for him to be sitting in Candy’s Café, nursing a cup of coffee, at one o’clock in the morning.

As the after-midnight crowd begins filing in, Pete notices three street hustlers making their grand entrance, talking loud and flashing their jewelry. They dress immaculately. Wearing pinstriped suits, cashmere topcoats and Stetson hats, the pimps look just like the department store dummies, who dress the same. One of the hustlers brandishes a walking stick with a carved ivory handle. As the trio make their way to a table at the back, making lewd remarks to Big Mabel on their way, Pete follows them with his eyes.

Man, I sure wish I had clothes like that, Pete thinks to himself, Pete purchased his only suit from one of Father Divine’s thrift shops on Lenox Avenue. So engrossed is Pete in the attire of the three pimps that he is unaware that someone has slid into his booth and settles next to him.

“Hi there, fella!”

?Pete looks up to recognize an Army buddy. “Grady!” ?Pete reaches over and gives the newcomer a great hug. “Grady, Grady Jones! It’s great to see you boy!”

“I see you got my note,” the conservatively dressed, light-skinned colored man says. Then turning to a woman standing next to the booth, he says, “Julia, I want you to meet Pete Jenkins. Pete, here, saved my life in the Great War. Pete, this is Julia Duncan.”

Pete tries to stand but is stopped by the cramped booth as well as by the woman herself. Staring back at him with seductive green eyes, Pete sees the most beautiful woman that he has ever seen in his life. Although to say that she is beautiful is an absolute understatement. The tall, green-eyed goddess is nineteen, possibly twenty, at most. Whatever her age, Julia is drop-dead gorgeous. Beautiful, yet poor. Julia wears a threadbare coat that has seen many winters and probably several owners. The coat opens to reveal Julia’s voluptuous front, narrow waist and tapering hips. Her golden-brown hair curls from under a tight-fitting hat that has been out of fashion for years, but is adequate for keeping out the New York chill. Around her long, smooth neck is wrapped a yellow scarf, beneath which Pete can see the frayed edges of a laced blouse. Julia has the face of an angel; her skin is almost ivory, with a golden glow. Despite her dowdy attire, Julia strikes the pose of a princess, reminding Pete of the heroine, Lorna Doone, in the novel he borrowed from the public library on 135th Street.

“Happy to meet you, Julia,” Pete stammers. He is aware of how ridiculous he looks, half standing like some awkward schoolboy, gawking at the prom queen. Julia flashes her mysterious green eyes in Pete’s direction before turning away with an air of complete indifference.

“I thought we were going to a rent party,” Julia says to Grady in a lilting West Indian accent. “You know that I’ve got to be back home soon!”

“Don’t worry, baby,” Grady says, patting Julia’s gloved hand. “Cora’s party is not far, on West 137th Street. I just came to fetch my old Army buddy, Pete, here.”

“Your note said that it was important,” Pete says, trying to keep from staring at Julia.

“It is important,” Grady laughs. His eyes twinkle and his lips curl into an infectious smile. Pete and Grady were very close. In France, the fact that the light-skinned slickster was always getting into trouble and Pete always had to come to Grady’s rescue. Like the time Grady got drunk and went out to that French farm, looking for his mademoiselle. She was Grady’s girl and always willing. Except this time, instead of a young French lady, Grady found two Southern crackers waiting to string him up.

“First we’re going to cut your dick off, boy,” a big, sandy-haired American soldier boasted. That night Pete and a couple of other soldiers in their outfit , Sam and Willie, saved Grady’s life _____ as well as his masculinity.

“How long has it been since we mustered out of the Army, Pete?” Grady asks. ?

“ Six months.”

“That’s a long time,” Grady says, “and I don’t intend to lose touch with the man that saved my life. I’m here to take you to Cora’s rent party.”

Even though Pete has to be at work at six AM and isn’t interested in jumping and strutting all night with people who don’t have jobs and are living from hand to mouth, Pete can’t pass up the opportunity to spend more time with Julia. The smooth-talking, good-looking Grady takes one look at Pete’s hound-dog, slack-jawed expression and knows he has him hooked. Julia is that kind of woman ___ the kind of woman that Pete wants to take home to meet his mama even if—as far as Grady knows—Pete doesn’t even ?have a mama. Guys like Pete don’t stand a chance with women like Julia. They can look, but they can’t touch. Guys like Pete will never know the fire that burns behind those smoldering green eyes and the desire beating within that exquisite body. Guys like Pete always have to pay guys like Grady to spend a short while with women like Julia. And Julia ?is the perfect bait to help Grady complete his mission for the Army. After all, Pete saved Grady’s life ____ and no good deed ever goes unpunished.

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EPISODE TWO

J. Edgar Hoover to George Cross Van Dusen, Military Intelligence Division Washington, D.C.

I desire that there be prepared at once a summary memorandum on the activities of Marcus Garvey, giving particular attention to utterances either by word, or mouth, or in writing, advocating the overthrow of the government of the United States by force or violence, or urging the unlawful destruction of property. The files of the Military Intelligence Division and State Department should be thoroughly gone into and the memorandum prepared in final form not later than Monday, March 21st at noon.

Very truly yours, J.E. Hoover

George Cross Van Dusen, Military Intelligence Division, to J. Edgar Hoover Washington, D.C.

??Little information is contained in the Military Intelligence Division files as to the actual organization of this association. It is essentially a propaganda agency through which Garvey carries on his agitation. Its official publication is the “Negro World.” I will not go into detail in regard to the Negro Factories Company, the Universal Negro Improvement Association or the “Negro World” as they are fully covered by Department of Justice files.

Geo. C. Van Dusen

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“Come in, private.” The steely eyed lieutenant motions for Grady to sit in the wooden chair across from the plain flat-top desk in the drab military green room. “I guess you’re happy to be leaving this man’s Army?”

Grady and the other Negroes of the Services Supply Battalion of the 93rd Division are being mustered out of the U.S. Army from Ellis Island in New York’s harbor under the vigilant eyes of the Statue of Liberty, a gift to the United States from the people of France. The people of France also gave colored war veterans their first experience of liberty and equality in the trenches of France during the Great War, of which Private Grady Jones took full advantage..

“Yessir,” Grady replies. He knows some soldiers are interviewed before being discharged. But most of them are sergeants who the army wants to re-enlist. There is no reason for the Army to keep Grady, which is fine because Grady has no reason to stay in the white man’s Army.

“I see here that you went to college,” the lieutenant continues. “What college did you attend?”

Grady has never seen the inside of a college. He passed by Tuskegee Institute when his parents brought him and his sisters to New York from Alabama. Both his parents did attend Booker T. Washington’s industrial school, where they each learned trades. His mother learned to sew and landed a job in New York’s garment district. His father studied metallurgy, but in New York, he became a doorman, an elevator operator and a dishwasher. But mostly his father was unemployed. Grady did not even graduate from high school. But he is smart, and likes to read when he wasn’t hustling on the streets. More than once he and his father got into arguments about Grady going to school and learning a skill.

“What for?” Grady asks. “Where has your ‘skill’ gotten you?”

But Grady liked to read which is what he and Pete had in common ____ and why Pete looked out for Grady. Both of them spent afternoons in Harlem’s Public Library on 135th Street. Grady also liked to hang out with the hustlers in the park where he learned to play chess. Grady is a fair chess player, but not in the league with some of the guys who lived and breathed chess. To Grady, chess is just a way to sharpen his wits for the game of life. When Grady is drafted, he tells the sergeant at the induction center that he had attended college, hoping to get a soft assignment. But like the other 200,000 black draftees in France, he is put into a service unit that goes to the battlefields to picks up the corpses of American soldiers ____ or the pieces of what is left of dead Americans soldiers ____ and buries them. So what? I lied about attending Tuskegee Institute.

“What if I told you that you’re a liar?” The lieutenant stares at Grady. “That you never attended Tuskegee Institute? What would you say to that, private?”

Grady flinches, but he isn’t afraid. If anything, Grady is amused. “I guess I would say that you caught me, sir,” he replies with a grin.

“And what if I were to say that while you were in France, you were seen molesting white women in violation of the general order that colored troops were not to keep company with or even speak to white women?” The grin disappears from Grady’s face and he remains silent. “Furthermore, we have evidence that on several occasions you forced white women to have sex with you.”

“That’s a lie,” Grady says. “Whoever told you that, lied. I never forced any woman to have sex. They wanted me. They offered it to me.”

“Is that so, private?” the lieutenant sneers. “Well, what if I was to tell you that we know what happened at Romagne on July 17, 1918?” Again, Grady remains silent. “You killed an American soldier after he caught you raping a white woman.”

Grady’s mind starts racing. He stares at the smug intelligence officer. “He’s fishing,” Grady thinks. There were two white soldiers, not one. And there were four of us. Pete brought Willie and Sam along that night. The three of them got the drop on those crackers just as they were about to start slicing on me. Sam and Pete sneaked up from behind and opened up with their forty-fives. Two rounds fired simultaneously caught the tall sandy-haired one square in his back, lifting him almost a foot off of the ground. Another two rounds also found their mark and the man’s body buckled, falling like a sack of potatoes, the full moon capturing the surprised look etched on his dead face. When the second soldier tried to escape, he ran right into Willie, whose forty-five slug buried itself into the fleeing man’s forehead, making a rather small hole in front but blowing most of the back of his head off. After that the four of them took the bodies back and buried them with the other Americans killed in action. Sam, Willie and Pete have all been mustered out of the Army. This guy’s just fishing, Grady says to himself. He doesn’t know anything.

“I didn’t kill anybody in France,” Grady tells the Army officer. “I just buried the ones you white folks killed.”

“Is that so?” the lieutenant says quietly. “Well, your lies don’t matter to me. I have enough evidence to court martial your black ass and then hang you. What do you think about that?”

Looking around the room, Grady doesn’t know what to think. He knows that it doesn’t matter what actually happened; he is caught. There is nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. In white America, Negroes are hung for the crime of being black and there is no law to protect them. ?“Well, I’m not too happy about the hanging part,” Grady quips with a bravado he doesn’t really feel.

“Guard,” the lieutenant shouts. Instantly the door flies open and an MP the size of Mount Rushmore fills the doorway. “Take this prisoner to a cell!”

The cell door has a sliding hole. Once a day, the hole opens and Grady can replace his slop jar. Once a day he is given a tray with water, a slice of bread and some tasteless gruel that contains lumps that might have been meat, but Grady couldn’t be certain. The only other item in his cell is a steel bed with a thin mattress and a tattered blanket. Overhead a steel-covered bulb glows continually, flooding the cell with light. At the top of the iron door is a peephole. Every once in a while the peep hole slides open and a single blue eye peers at Grady for several minutes before the hole closes again. During the first few days of his imprisonment, anticipation keeps Grady in a state of nervous anxiety. He jumps at every sound. He watches the iron door constantly. He listens to the muffled sounds behind the walls. He can’t sleep under the harsh glare of the light. His nerve leaves him and he begins to feel less like a man and more like a thing. Then, gradually, almost imperceptibly, he begins to hear a voice. It is quiet, yet insistent. Grady isn’t certain whether the voice is inside his head or outside his cell. It really didn’t matter. The voice sooths him; it comforts him; it helps him maintain his sanity. Then he tries to remember some of the books he had read, tries to find something to hang on to, tries to remember something meaningful. He can’t remember anything, but trying to remember helps pass the time.

Three weeks later, Grady is taken from his cell with the solid-iron door. Once again, he finds himself facing the same steely-eyed lieutenant. It is as if the past three weeks didn’t even happen; it is as if it was a dream ____ ?a really bad dream. But Grady knows it actually happened because he smells like something from a garbage dump, an itchy, scraggily beard covers his face and a colony of lice are using his body as their personal playground.

“So private,” the steely eyed lieutenant begins, “where were we? Oh yes, I think we were talking about that incident on July 17, 1918, at Romagne. Would you care to tell me about it now?”

Briefly considering his situation, Grady decides to tell the entire story down to the last detail without reservation. The lieutenant takes notes. When Grady finishes his narrative, the Army intelligence officer asks Grady to clarify certain points in his story. Then he begins grilling Grady over and over again, checking and rechecking the story. After several hours, the lieutenant seems satisfied. He calls for a guard. Once again, Grady finds himself in a cell. This time, in addition to a bed, there is a table and chair and a meal ___ sliced beef, mashed potatoes and gravy, Army peas and a green salad rounded off by a cup of coffee. An Army newspaper lies across the steel bed, now fitted with sheets, a second blanket and a pillow. After his meal, an MP clears away the steel mess plate. Sometime later, the light is turned off and Grady drifts off into a dreamless sleep.

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“Yessir, the problem is far worse than we imagined.” The lieutenant reports to Captain Elmer Hansen, chief of population section in Army intelligence. Captain Hansen is responsible for collecting intelligence on the thousands of colored troops being released from the Army. “Not only have we confirmed reports that Negro soldiers have killed white Americans in France during the war, but several of them have worked together to conceal their crimes.”

“How widespread do you think the problem is, lieutenant?” Captain Hansen asks. A graduate from the United States Military Academy at West Point, Hansen did not see action in the great European war but worked in counterespionage. Hansen has not only uncovered plots hatched by the Kaiser’s spies but also plots by the Bolsheviks, socialists and Negroes. During the Great War, Captain Hansen oversaw the captured and hanging ?of many of ?America’s enemies on the home front. Now Captain Hansen has a mission of the highest priority. His job is to determine the magnitude of the threat posed to the American way of life by colored soldiers leaving the army. The information Hansen receives from his subordinate is the intelligence that his superiors needs about the threat posed by colored soldiers returning from France. At the academy, Hansen studied population control, a major concern of the American military since the time of Andrew Jackson. Fully a third of Hansen’s fellow West Point graduates specialize in intelligence activities and population control. At the age of thirty, Captain Elmer Hansen is an expert on the control of America’s black population. Headquartered on the Army post on Ellis Island, Hansen is responsible for reporting to the post commander, whose boss is the chief of Army intelligence in Washington. Even Captain Joel Spingarn is subordinate to Captain Elmer Hansen in all intelligence matters concerning the Negro population.

“From what we have learned from discharge reports, a significant number of Negro soldiers would fight against whites,” the lieutenant tells Hansen. “Not only those who served in combat units, but also those assigned to labor battalions would fight, if given the opportunity.”

“Do we have any idea how many that would be, lieutenant?”

“Sir, of the 200,000 Negroes making up the 92nd Division, 40,000 were in combat regiments, the 367th, 368th, and 369th. Despite the best efforts of the general staff, these regiments sustained only a 60 percent casualty rate. The most conservative estimates predict 70 percent of those 16,000 would willingly kill white Americans.”

“The war planners should have taken my advice and retained them. We could have sent them to Russia to fight the Bolsheviks and whittled them down quite a bit. But somehow the brass doesn’t believe colored soldiers are a threat. Now, we’ve got all the information we need to show the folly of ?releasing those niggers into the general population.”

“Yessir,” the lieutenant sighs, “they should have listened to you. We’ll have a war on our hands for certain now.”

“What about those in the labor battalions,” Hansen asks, “the cooks, road gangs and grave diggers? You’re certain they’ll fight?”

“It is estimated that even 40 percent of service personnel assigned to the most menial jobs would fight, sir.” The lieutenant put the summary of the report on Hansen’s desk. “I have identified several Negroes from a number of units as potential operatives, as you instructed. Each of them received psychological tests, but only one seems suitable for your purposes. His name is Private Grady Jones. His file is on top.”

“This is not good news. “Hansen decides picking up Grady’s file and casually scanning Grady’s entire life history. “I guess I had better have a chat with this Private Grady Jones.”

“Will that be all, sir?”

“Yes, lieutenant, that will be all.” Hansen stares at the reports and sighs. The intelligence office must now review this information and submit a summary to his superiors in Washington in time to get it to FBI Director, J. Edgar Hoover.

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Once again, ?Grady is taken from his cell. This time to another section of the post, where he is de-loused and ordered to shower and shave. His guards give him a clean Army uniform that, Grady notes, does not have a P/fc chevron on the sleeve. Afterwards the MP ushers Grady into the mess hall where a dining hall attendant places a tin mess plate ____ filled with the scrambled eggs, hash brown, French toast, bacon and sausage, along with a steaming cup of coffee ___ in front of him. The MP leaves. Just as Grady begins eating, an officer grabs the chair on the opposite side of the table. Grady must control his urge to jump up and salute.

“Private, my name is Captain Hansen, and for the time being, you belong to me.”

|“What about my discharge?” Grady asks.

“Well, boy, the Army intends to keep you around awhile,” the captain says, smiling. “That is, unless you prefer that we hang you for murder along with the others.”

“I guess, I will remain in the Army, sir.”

“I thought so, boy.”

Captain Elmer Hansen has Grady Jones trained in military intelligence. He learns to observe, record and report. He learns to communicate with his handler. He learns what it is the government wants to know. Once Grady completes his training in spy craft, Elmer Hansen sends to ?blend into Harlem’s Negro community. Grady’s parents no longer live in their West 67th Street apartment on San Juan Hill. Urban renewal forced them to move into a tenement building built by the Rockefellers and government-funded tenement for black residents across 110th Street in Harlem. The vacated land was given to Columbia University. ?Though most of Harlem’s residents have no gainful employment, tenement rents are exorbitant. But the military pays Grady Jones enough to pay his parents rent while he spies on the Negroes who worry military intelligence most ___ ?Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association.

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EPISODE THREE

Pete, Grady and the luscious Julia leave Candy’s Café just as white

merry-makers in search of underworld pleasures, booze, sex and drugs, begin arriving. Some of the merry-makers even order Candy’s famous barbeque chicken ___ but not many.?Walking to Cora’s apartment, they go down Seventh Avenue and cross Lenox and over to West 137th Street, passing?the former site of ?New York’s famous Pabst Restaurant, now a Kress Five and Dime store. ?Kress takes the Negroes’ dimes and nickels but will not hire Negro sales clerks. Occasionally, the store manager, who considers himself a liberal on racial matters, occasionally hires a black day laborer to sweep the street in front of the store and take out the trash. On the way to the party, with Julia clutching at his arm, Grady says very little to Pete. And once they arrive at Cora’s rent party, Grady disappears and Pete and Julia find themselves alone with each other.

Cora’s party is jumping not only in Cora’s apartment, but in every apartment on her entire floor. A wailing saxophone, a screeching trumpet, a rhythmic banjo and the hot licks of a drum resonate jazz music down the hall and throughout the building. The smell of links, fried chicken, chit’lins, greens and potato salad wafts over the assembly of partygoers, who everywhere are crammed into apartments, overflowing into the hall and continually moving up and down the stairs. People of all types and colors jostle each other, spilling cups of alcohol ?everywhere. Downtown ‘swells’ mingle with working-class stiffs from Queens and Long Island aristocrats giving rare evidence of America’s vaunted democratic pretensions ____ whites and Negroes mutually engaged in pleasure seeking. ?Uptown numbers runners and dope peddlers hustle midtown bohemians while the downtown political crowd tests their own liberal sentiments in the fanciful games that dusky-hued ladies of the evening are experts at playing. Nevertheless, the noise of the happy partygoers cannot overcome the deafening silence that exists between Pete and Julia. Then Grady reappears.

“Here, take this,” Grady says to Pete pressing a ten-dollar bill into his hand. “Buy Julia something to eat and get her something to drink.”

“Where you going?” Pete shouts as his friend once again retreats into the crowd.

“I’ll be back!”

Pete turns to Julia. He can see how unhappy she is with Grady’s disappearing act. “Can I get you something?” Pete averts his eyes as he speaks. She is just so beautiful that to look at her is embarrassing.

“Where did Grady go?” Julia asks, shoots Pete a disdainful look.

“Out, somewhere,” he shrugs.

“You got a cigarette?” It is more of a command than a request. ?Her imperious West Indian accent is loaded with contempt.

“Anything else?” he asks. The party is so crowded and the noise is so loud that, even though they are right next to each other, they must shout to be heard. Shouting makes Pete feel even more uncomfortable. The music is hot. Everyone else is laughing and having a good time. Pete feels miserable. “Do you want anything else?” he asks again, knowing that Julia heard him the first time.

“No,” she says, “I’ll wait for Grady.”

“Grady asked me to see that you got something to eat before he came back,” Pete says, gathering up the courage that he needs to look directly at this island goddess.

“Oh, yeah?” she says, raising her eyebrows ever so slightly.

“Yes!” Pete replies emphatically. “I’m responsible for you now. I’m here to make sure you have a good time.”

Pete has been with beautiful women before. White women even. But they never affected him the way Julia did. In France, Pete had been as successful as any of the fellows when it came to the ladies. The French women loved his shy, boyish manner. Even here in New York, the women, especially those in the Association, like him despite his shy manner. Pete’s handsome, granite-edged features appealed to many of the ladies. He is six feet tall with a well-developed physique, wide shoulders and muscular arms. His hair is coarse and dark, but has a certain texture that makes women want to run their fingers through it. His nose reminds one of a pug; it turns up just as the nostrils widen. Pete’s eyes seem sad, but at times they twinkle with merriment as if he is happy just to be alive. Pete’s skin is the color of chocolate, a shade that leaves no doubt that he is a member of that outcast and most despised Negro race. But it’s velvety smoothness has a sexual appeal that even Julia notices.

“We might as well try to make the best of the situation while Grady’s gone,” Pete shouts over the noise. “Let’s have some fun!”

“I am not here for you to show me a good time,” Julia snaps back. But after a while, probably thinking better of it, she says, “If you want, you may give me another cigarette and something to eat ____ and something to drink, too.”

“A drink?” Pete replies in mock disbelief, trying to break the ice. “You’re not old enough to drink.”

“I’m old enough,” Julia says demurely. She looks around at all the partygoers with drinks in their hands. “Since the government has passed a law prohibiting alcohol to everyone, there’s no reason why I can’t drink. That’s why people come to parties like this, isn’t it?” She stares at him defiantly, seeming to see him for the first time. And to her surprise, Julia likes what she sees. Before she knows it, Julia begins to relax and her indifference gradually yields to curiosity and her distain turns into interest.

“Okay! Let’s get you something to drink ___?and some food,” Pete says, flashing a little boy’s smile that many women find irresistible. After Julia eats and has a couple of drinks, she mellows considerably. Grady has been gone for an hour. Julia and Pete do several “struts.” They dance down the hall and into one of the other apartments, laughing and frolicking with the other partygoers. When Julia almost falls, Pete reaches out and catches her. She is soft to the touch, but not too soft. Pete wants to hold her close. He, too, has had a couple of drinks. Julia doesn’t mind his arms around her at all. Or is it just the alcohol, Pete asks himself. Anyway, it doesn’t matter.

After a while they even try to talk, but any conversation other than a series of shouts followed by “What?” is nearly impossible. So, they do what they came to do. They dance, bump, eat and drink ____ noisily making merry, shouting and having fun like everyone else at Cora’s rent party.

Pete has all he can do to keep the wolves from grabbing Julia, away. Even in her shabby clothes, Julia is the most stunning woman there. White men leer and pimps scheme which was a good reason for Julia to stay as close to Pete as possible. By now it is three o’clock in the morning. Pete must get home to catch a short nap before going to work. But Julia shouts at Pete over the music, “Look there’s Fats Waller! He’s going to play, he’s going to play,” she screams with delight. Then she joins the others who press around the famous piano player. Then, just like everyone else, she becomes disappointed when they all realize that Cora has no piano.

“What time do you have to be home,” Pete asks Julia a little later. She is still in ecstasy over seeing Fats Waller and some of the other big-name musicians like Claude Hopkins and Corky Williams.

Julia looks at him with an impish smile. “I should have been home before I met you at Candy’s,” she says shyly. “I’m going to be in big trouble when I get home.”

“Well, I’ve got to be at work in the morning, so maybe we ought to leave now.”

Julia looks around; the party is still going, but she says, “Yes, of course, you’re right. My mother will be worried and my father will be furious.”

“Where do you live?”

“On Tinker Street.”

“Where’s that?”

“It’s over by East 117th Street. The 110th Street cross-town trolley will take us there.”

On the ride to her home, Pete hopes to establish a relationship with the beautiful West Indian, but freed from the gaiety and fun-loving atmosphere of Cora’s party, Julia relapses into a quiet, almost sullen demeanor. And when Pete tries to engage her in conversation, she freezes up. Putting as much distance as possible between them. Once again they become total strangers. The only thing Julia says is that Grady played a trick on her, leaving like that. And that Pete was probably in on it, too.

“I won’t forget it, you know!” she snaps at Pete firing her words at him without even looking his way.

Arriving at a commercial section in East Harlem, they stop in front of a small thrift shop. Without a word, Julia darts around the side. Pete hears her footsteps running up some stairs, a door opening and then slamming shut. Then comes the night-shattering noise of a man’s voice yelling and screaming words that are hardly intelligible and a woman’s cries, anger mixed with relief. Pete shakes his head. He takes out his pocket watch and decides that sleep is out of the question. He has barely enough time to change into his messenger uniform and get downtown to the bank.

?

EPISODE FOUR

“What happened to you?” Grady ask as he slides into the booth at Candy’s Café, wearing a lopsided grin plastered across his face.

It’s a blustery Sunday in March, one of those early spring days that New Yorkers love. Winter’s departure leaves the city alive with flowers, fragrances and birds. Pete decides to treat himself to a good ‘soul food’ dinner at Candy’s before going down to Liberty Hall where, this evening, a teen social is being held. Captain E.L. Gaines, Minister of Legions, assigned security for the dance to Pete’s squad of legionnaires.

Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association had just concluded its first convention and it was a success. More than 2000 delegates representing forty states, twenty-five countries and four continents fill Madison Square Garden to declare their intention to wage a relentless struggle against white supremacy. But once the convention had concluded, Army intelligence under Captain Joel Spingarn, directs the NAACP’s all-out attack on the UNIA organization and on Marcus Garvey personally. A number of colored organizations, with prominent white sponsors, join the NAACP’s campaign against the UNIA. Soon hired thugs begin to attacking UNIA members Garveyites attending events at Liberty Hall. Security is vital, even for a teenage dance. The police, rather than protecting Garvey’s followers from unprovoked attacks, stand by and allow them to happen, intervening only when thugs find themselves under attack by UNIA legionnaires. Garvey’s African Legion provides security for the Association, protecting members against attacks from outsiders and resolving disputes between UNIA members. After Pete Jenkins ?joined the UNIA, his military background came to the attention of Captain Gaines head of Garvey’s African Legion. Pete was given his own squad and the responsibility of providing security at UNIA events. Pete Jenkins quickly earns a reputation for heading one of Garvey’s most reliable security units.

Pete personally chooses each man in his squad. He looks for maturity, preferring ex-servicemen who have seen action in the Great War. Hundreds of former Negro veterans, with few job opportunities, join Garvey’s African Legion in hopes of obtaining employment. The Association’s promise to find every member of the African Legion a job, even though, in most cases, it is menial labor, gives Pete hundreds of Army veterans to choose from.

Pete drills his squad twice ?a week at Liberty Hall. He expects each man to be on time and properly dressed in the uniform provided by the Association. Pete conducts an inspection, close order drill, code- and hand-signal training and firearm practice. Since each of Pete’s men is responsible for providing their own weapons, ?there are problems with standards and ammunition. The Association keeps a small armory, but it’s location and even its existence is a closely guarded secret. Even Pete doesn’t know where it is. After their training, Pete gives his squad member of their assignments. Infractions, such as tardiness, are disciplined. Pete dismisses any legionnaire guilty of multiple infractions. Dismissal from the squad means loss of the Association job. But Pete is so successful as a leader, that he has dismissed only one man. Pete, himself, is never late and never falters in training nor on an assignment. Pete makes no excuses to his captain, nor does he accept excuses from his men. Pete’s unit is tops in the New York division ___ a division that is the tops in the country. The Chaplin-General, Bishop McGuire, cited Pete’s squad for its effectiveness in handling a disruption at one of the religious sessions by some of A. Philip Randolph’s socialist thugs. After the incident, Bishop McGuire specifically requests Pete’s squad to provide security for all of the Association’s ?Sunday services. So today, like most Sundays, Pete has little time for Grady and his foolishness.

“What do you mean, what happened to me?” Pete asks. “What happened to you?”

Grady just sits there with a grin on his face. Big Mabel ambles over and asks, “What can I get you, honey chile?”

“Bring me your chicken special,” Grady replies. “Does that come with peach cobbler?” “It sure does, honey.”

“Then that’s what I want.”

“Coming right up. Want something to drink?”

“I’ll take some of that special tea.” Grady winks at Big Mabel.

Though Prohibition has been in effect for almost two years, it is no problem getting a beer with Sunday dinner at Candy’s.

Grady continues to grin at Pete. “How did you like Julia?”

“I liked her fine, but . . .”

“But what?”

“She thinks that I was in on whatever you were up to. She’s says that she’s going to get even with you ___ and me. Why did you disappear like that?”

“Disappear? I was trying to leave the field open for you,” Grady says, feigning innocence.

“Julia wasn’t interested in me; she was interested in you! Besides which, there’s plenty of women around. I just don’t have time for them, right now. I really don’t need you to give me your leavings.”

Pete’s angry. But his anger has nothing to do with Grady trying to fix him up. It has to do with Julia’s rejection. After work the day after Cora’s rent party, Pete went back to the thrift shop on Tinker Street. Inside, the owner, a light-skinned Jamaican, Julia’s father, was puttering around, rearranging his second-hand goods while pontificating to his wife about the state of the world in general and the state of the Jamaican community in particular. When Pete entered, Ed Duncan looks over and says, “Let me know if you need something you don’t see, young man.”

“I will,” Pete replied.

Then the shop owner shouts out, “Julia, Julia!” Looking over at his wife, Ed Duncan complains, “Where is that girl? Lying in bed all day, staying out all night. It’s your fault, she being so loose.”

“Just you be quiet now, Edward,” Sharon Duncan scolds. “Enough of your talk. Leave the girl be. She has to make her way. You don’t think she’ll find a man around here, do you?”

Julia’s mother wears a friendly smile. Pete can see where Julia gets her looks from. Though a good deal plumper, Sharon Duncan has the same golden skin with high cheekbones, narrow features and green eyes. Pete begins to stare. Before he realizes it, Sharon stands directly in front of him.

“I say, can I help you young man?” Julia’s mother said, breaking into Pete’s thoughts. Fumbling about in embarrassment, Pete picks up a set of porcelain tea cups that he did not need and could not afford. “How much?” he asks.

“Three dollars for the set,” Julia’s mother replies, eying Pete suspiciously. “Are you buying these as a gift?” she asks. |Pete mumbled something incoherent and produces three dollar bills that Sharon quickly accepts and puts into a tin canister.

While Julia’s mother wraps up his set of tea cups, Pete casually tries to look into the curtained-off area at the rear of the shop. But he sees nothing. Accepting his newly acquired porcelain cups, Pete departs the thrift shop, leaving Julia’s mother happy about the three-dollar sale as well as about the possibility that Julia might have a handsome young suitor. Sharon mentions nothing to her husband, who continues to putter about, fuming to himself about his daughter’s behavior.

But Pete can’t get Julia out of his mind. Several days later, he returns to Tinker Street. This time, however, he watches from across the street, hoping for ____ he doesn’t know what. Possibly to catch a glimpse of Julia. Again, Pete is disappointed.

Julia and her mother both spot Pete lurking outside. Later that evening Sharon asks her daughter, “Who is that boy mooning about the shop?”

“No one important,” Julia replies. “Just a friend of Grady’s.”

“Well, I hope you’re not giving him any ideas,” Julia’s father huffs. “I don’t trust that Grady Jones, fellow, and I don’t trust any friend of his, either.”

“Leave the girl be, Edward,” her mother intervenes. “She knows what she’s doing.”

After being doubly embarrassed and spending three dollars on cups that he didn’t need and could not afford, Pete is in no mood to discuss Julia Duncan with Grady Jones.

“There may be plenty of women around, but none like Julia,” Grady laughs, giving Pete a knowing wink. “I saw how you looked at her ____ like some love-struck school boy. Besides which, Julia and I are quits.”

“Quits?”

“Yeah man, that Julia is one fine mama, but she’s not for me.”

“Why not?” Pete asks, trying to affect disinterestedness while his stomach churns. Suddenly Pete loses his appetite. In his mind’s eye, Pete can see Julia’s face and feel the warmth of her body pressing against his. His mouth goes dry, forcing him to reach for a glass of water, draining it completely.

Grady smiles. “I’ve got another woman.”

“Another woman?”

“Yeah Nadine ___ Nadine Eastman. She lives midtown, near Delancey Street. She’s the jealous type. And you know me. I’m a straight shooter when it comes to my women. I never try to play more than one at a time. Besides which, Julia’s father keeps giving me the eye when we go out but he ain’t got a dime. Nadine’s got plenty of money and she don’t mind spending it on a poor nigger like me.”

“Nigger!” Pete cries out. “Is that what you call yourself? A nigger! Don’t you have any self-respect? We’re no longer the white man’s slaves or boys or niggers. If that’s what you think about yourself, you need to get some education, my brother.”

“Oh! Sorry, man,” Grady says. “I forgot that you and those other Garveyites are New Negroes.”

“That’s right,” Pete bristles. But then Pete asks himself, How does Grady know that I’m a Garveyite? He tries to remember ever discussing his membership in the Association with Grady_____ positive that he hadn’t. All Garvey’s people, especially the legionnaires, are warned not to discuss their activities with nonmembers. Their enemies already have too much information about the Association. The UNIA is discussed in the Negro press all across the country. Some of the publicity about the UNIA is unfavorable and slanderous. Negro weeklies like T. Thomas Fortune’s New York Age, one of the oldest Negro newspapers in America, and Cyril Briggs’ Crusader treat Garvey’s movement fairly. But others, like Robert Abbott’s Chicago Defender, DuBois’ Crisis and, above all, A. Philip Randolph’s Messenger, print personal attacks, half-truths and outright lies about the Association, its leadership and Marcus Garvey, himself. No___ Pete didn’t tell Grady anything about being a member of Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association.

Furthermore, Willie told Pete that Grady hadn’t been mustered out of the Army with the others. Grady was still in the Army. Even the note Grady sent asking Pete to meet him at Candy’s had been posted from the Ellis Island Army Base. The last time he saw him, Willie started to tell Pete something secret, something hush-hush. But then Willie decided to keep quiet. At the time, Pete thought nothing of it. With everyone making money on booze, gambling, drugs and sex, everyone had their secrets. Talking too much was the quickest way to end up in jail ____ or dead.?Now Pete wonders about Willie. He usually sees his Army buddies, Sam and Willie. at least a couple of times a week. They live only blocks away. But lately neither of them has been around. They both seemed to have just vanished.

“How much do you know about the Association’s New Negroes?” Pete asks Grady.

Grady tries to make a joke. “I can tell by the way that you walk that you’re still drilling. It’s like someone stuck a poker up your butt.” He starts wiping his nose and pulling at his chin, a habit Grady picked up in France when he was nervous.

He’s nervous about something, Pete tells himself

“Anyhow, I didn’t mean to offend your race consciousness. I know you’re a race man. You’ve always been a race man. That’s why you saved my black ass over in France that time and I’m never going to forget it. You’ve got a friend for life, ole buddy, whether you want one or not. And that’s why I’m here.”

“Why are you here?” Pete asks. Big Mabel sets a plate of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, green peas with peach cobbler on the side in front of Grady. The Army’s spy is grateful for the opportunity to change the subject.

“I’m gonna help get you and Julia together.”

“How you gonna do that?” Pete asks. The mere mention of her name makes Pete ?forget his suspicions ___ at least for the time being.

“Nadine is taking me to see a new musical called Shuffle Along. She’s got two extra tickets. I thought maybe you and Julia would like to ‘shuffle along’ with us.” Grady pauses to laugh at the pun that Pete doesn’t find amusing.

“I’m not interested in seeing white people in black-face ridiculing our people,” Pete mutters.

“You’ve got it wrong, my brother!” Grady replies between bites of fried chicken and gulps of beer. “This is going to be a Negro musical with an all-colored cast. You’ll like it, you’ll see. It’ll show that Negroes can produce something worthwhile. Nadine thinks it can make it to Broadway.”

“Negroes don’t play on Broadway!” Pete says.

“Not yet,” Grady chuckles. “But possibly this musical could be the first. Nadine says that it’s gonna open on Broadway at the Garden Theatre. She should know; she hangs out with the theatre crowd. But next week it’s going to be shown right here in Harlem at Hurtig and Seamon’s New Theatre. What do you say?”

“How am I going to get Julia to go with me?”

“Don’t worry about that.” Grady gloats. “It’s all been arranged,” ?Then Grady looks up and gives Pete a peculiar stare, “But there is one thing.”

“What’s that?” Pete knew there had to be a catch. It all sounded too good.

“You’ve got to pick Julia up at her apartment.”

Pete groans.

“___ and bring her a corsage.”

Despite his fear of visiting Tinker Street again, Pete was thrilled over the chance to see ?the lovely Julia Duncan, once again.

“___ and wear a nice suit. I don’t want you looking like the poor ass nig’ ____. I mean like the broke Negro that you are.”

At six o’clock, on the night of the production, Pete goes around to the side of the Duncan’s thrift shop, taking the same route Julia took the night, or rather the morning, he brought her home. ?Narrow wooden stairs lead up to the second floor where both Julia’s father and mother meet him at the door.

“Come in, young man,” Julia’s mother beams. “I’m Sharon Duncan, Julia’s mother. This is Edward Duncan, Julia’s father.”

“Happy to meet you, Mrs. Duncan,” Pete replies and then reaching out he shakes Julia’s father’s hand. “Sir.”

The Duncan’s escort Pete through an abbreviated hallway and into a surprisingly well-furnished parlor. Glancing about, Pete sees a style of living and an appreciation for neatness that one seldom finds in Harlem, except maybe among the middle-class Negros living on Striver’s Row or Morningside Heights. The Duncans’ flat has an easy, comfortable feel to it. Pete strides across a delicately designed Persian rug setting off the well-varnished hardwood floor. In the living room, an overstuffed armchair, ottoman and a comfortable sofa surround an ornately carved coffee table. Two straight- backed chairs boast matching laced doilies on arms and backs. Through glass partitions, Pete can see a gleaming dining room table complete with a laced tablecloth, a silver candelabra and place settings for four.

“Mrs. Duncan,” Pete announces shyly, “this is for you.” Pete hands her a small bouquet of daisies and carnations surrounding a single red rose.

“How thoughtful of you Peter!” Julia’s mother exclaims. “I’ll put them in some water right away. And I’ll hurry Julia along.” Then beaming, the Jamaican lady hurries through the dining area into the rear of the apartment.

“Have a seat, young man.” Julia’s father motions Pete to one of the straight-backed chairs and sinks himself into the armchair, propping his feet upon the ottoman. Then, without bothering with preliminaries, Ed asks, “How do you know my daughter?”

The question is hostile, and Ed’s manner is even more so. The flowers don’t impress Julia’ father. Pete searches his mind for a suitable answer. He knows telling Ed Duncan ?that he met Julia at Candy’s Cafe and took her to an all-night rent party wouldn’t be the appropriate response. The West Indian community has a low opinion of American Negroes’ nightlife.

“Didn’t Julia tell you?” Pete replies trying to come up with something. “I thought you might remember me. I bought the set of tea cups in your shop several weeks ago.”

“Yes, I do remember you,” Ed concedes. Julia’s father remembers anyone who spends three dollars in his shop. “But . . .”

Pete spots a framed picture of a distinguished white man occupying a dominant position on the parlor wall. The aristocratic figure poses in an immaculately tailored dress uniform covered in gold braid. Across his chest gleam numerous medals.

“Isn’t that the King of England?” Pete asks indicating the picture.

A smile flashes across Ed’s face.

“Yes, indeed,” the Jamaican replies. “That’s his royal highness, George the Fifth. I had that picture sent to me from England after his coronation.”

“Did Julia tell you that I saw action in France? But I never got to England,” Pete continues quickly. Pete had guessed correctly that the picture of the King of England is Ed’s prized possession. But before anything more is said, much to Pete’s relief, Julia’s mother reappears with Pete’s flowers arranged in a vase. And behind her stands Julia.

Julia glides effortlessly into the parlor. Pete jumps to his feet. “So we meet again,” she says, searching his face for a hint of what he and her father were discussing. Her white evening gown flows over her body like waves washing over the Jamaican coast.

“This is for you,” Pete says, thrusting out a corsage, a white gardenia.

“How perfect!” Julia exclaims. “Mother, see how well it goes with my dress? Help me put it on.”

Julia’s mother is as excited as her daughter. As Sharon pins the corsage to Julia’s gown, Pete can only stare. Even the goddess Isis cannot be more stunning, he thinks. But then he asks himself a more practical question, What kind of mood is she in? Her entry is encouraging. Maybe she’s over Grady. What Pete doesn’t realize is that it might be far better for him if Julia continued her emotionally attachment to his friend. But, in reality, Julia is not emotionally attached to Grady; she’s not emotionally attached to anyone or anything ____ ?except herself. The only thing that interests Julia is getting off of Tinker Street. And if Pete can help her do that, he will get her attention, at least for the time being. Grady promised Julia the moon, and Julia means to have it. Her mother understands, but her father doesn’t ____ and neither does Pete, not that understanding Julia will do Pete any good. Pete just doesn’t have what it takes to get Julia’s attention.

“Don’t you think we should be going?” Julia asks. “We don’t want to be late, and it’s a long trolley ride to Hurtig and Seamon’s New Theatre.”

?

The pomp and the ceremonial trappings of Garvey’s organization impress Pete, as it does most of Garvey’s followers. Yet on this wondrous evening, none of Garvey’s pageantry and accomplishments, none of his rousing speeches and exuberant followers, nothing before or afterwards comes close to the awe-inspiring magic that Pete and Julia experience, along with the cream of Harlem society, when Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake debut their musical production, Shuffle Along, at Harlem’s Hurtig and Seamon’s New Theatre. How ?auspicious that one of the greatest Negro productions of all time would open in the theatre soon to be known as the world famous, Apollo Theatre.

Music, glamour, a meaningful story ____ Shuffle Along had everything to fill the hearts of Harlem’s theatregoers with joy and pride. Shuffle Along gives New York’s New Negroes ___ who are continually caricatured in New York theatre as sambos and pickinninies and belittled as pickpockets and chicken thieves ___?a thrilling experience and a proud racial identity. Shuffle Along is magical and transformative. It mesmerizes its audience with images of beauty and grace, inspires them with its message of optimism and thrills them with the power of love. In that brief period during which Sissle and Blake’s production holds its audience spellbound, a culture evolves and the Harlem Renaissance is born. No other cultural event has inspired so many Negroes to achieve such incredible feats of artistic and musical genius. No one in the audience remained unaffected by the experience. Certainly not Pete, nor even the sedate, calculating Julia. The musical strains, voices and dances so captivates Julia’s imagination that she must struggle against the impulses that make her the selfish, self-centered person she has always been. And, though it will take a long time before she will admit it, even to herself, this is the night Julia falls deeply in love with Pete.

To say that Shuffle Along is an instant hit is an understatement. Not only does Sissle and Blake’s production make it to Broadway, it becomes Harlem’s all-time landmark theatrical production. Conceived, composed and directed entirely by Negroes with an all-black cast and music performed by all black musicians, Shuffle Along demonstrates that the emerging Negro community is was a cultural powerhouse capable of not only adding to but, in some ways, dominating the cultural expressions adopted and valued by all Americans. From the standpoint of the Negro race, it is a triumph. To the mavens of white culture, Shuffle Along is a surprise. To white supremacists, Sissle and Blake’s cultural bombshell opens an entirely new and unexpected ‘front’ in the war of racial domination.

“I can’t remember when I was so thrilled by a show,” Nadine gushes. Julia and Pete join Nadine and Grady at the Kentucky Club, a Greenwich Village nightspot hosting the show’s afterparty. The club is a favorite watering hole of Mabel Dodge’s artistic circle, to which Nadine and her uncle, Max, the editor of the avant-garde Liberator newspaper, belong. Dodge along with her coterie of literary and artistic elites, launched America’s early 20th century cultural renaissance. Her group including the wealthy Louisville, Kentucky planter and financier of the NAACP, William English Walling, playwright Eugene O’Neill, journalist Walter Lippmann, and writer Sinclair Lewis came to Hurtig and Seamon’s New Theatre to sneer at Shuffle Along. Carl Van Vechten, the Dodge group’s resident Negro expert, remarked, “I hardly expect anything more than a minstrel show with the black faces being played by the real black faces.” But that evening, Shuffle Along gave the Dodge group, the self-styled arbiters of American culture, such a shock that these elitists spent their time at the after party expressing their envy ___ and plotting their revenge. Nadine, to these white liberals’ consternation continued showering praises on the Negro production.

“I can still hear the music. Wasn’t it just dreamy, Grady?”

Grady Jones isn’t paying Nadine much attention. He is absorbed with his plans for Pete and Julia. Now that he has Pete where he wants him, Grady intends to milk him for information on the UNIA, through Julia, that Captain Hansen and Army intelligence sent him to collect. Now that Julia’s got his nose wide open, the Army’s spy tells himself, time for the pay off.

Julia sits at the table like an ice princess, her face frozen into a look of permanent boredom, like a society matron who wants to return to her Long Island estate. The men pay homage to her with their eyes, with their winks and nods and with their chuckles and whispers to each other. They glower at Pete as if his presence was an affront to their manhood. They resent his keeping Julia outside of their reach. Calculating his payoff, Grady watches Julia, thinking how fortunate he is to control a woman that every man in Harlem covets.

The Shuffle Along cast prances about the Kentucky Club, jam-packed with celebrities, seeing and being seen. Blake and Sissle are being feted with toasts and speeches. So are Flournoy Miller and Aubry Lyles, the musical’s writers. More cast members arrive fashionably late. A roar goes up when Florence Mills, now an instant star, makes her entrance. Chorus girls, including the fifteen-year-old Josephine Baker, rush about, exciting the crowd even more. But all this excitement, notwithstanding, eyes from all around the Kentucky Club stay are glued on the ravishing West Indian beauty sitting at Max Eastman’s table.

Julia flutters her green eyes about, never settling on any one person, giving each of her many admirers the illusion that she waits just for him, and him alone. It is her white gown, Grady decides. With no other adornment, other than ger corsage, the dress gives the illusion of purity, like a vestal virgin dedicated to Jupiter. Would-be suitors, black and white, maneuver about her table, each tries to get a better look at the apparition ____ too beautiful to be real. But Julia is real all right, and she plays the crowd like Cleopatra played Julius Caesar and Mark Antony.

“Didn’t you think the music was dreamy, Grady?” Nadine asks once again. “I just loved Love Will Find a Way. I can still hear it being sung.” And, enticed by alcohol, Nadine begins to hum to herself. She is only slightly off key, but it is enough to annoy everyone else at the table.

Julia turns to Pete and, mimicking her hostess, asks, “Didn’t you think the music was just dreamy?”

Pete is surprised. It is one of the few things Julia has said to him the entire evening. He feels more like Julia’s chaperone than her date. But when she turns those green eyes to fully gaze at him, her honey-colored skin accentuating the red blush of her full lips, Pete feels like an elevator has just dropped and his heart has landed in the pit of his stomach. Yet, as much as Julia tries to hide it from herself and from Pete, Shuffle Along affected her as much as anyone else ____ maybe more so. When Florence Mills, as Jessie, sang Everything Reminds Me of You, Julia trembled ever so slightly. Pete felt the impulse. Julia is embarrassed and then angry at her own rebellious feelings.

But Pete is under no illusion. Even if Julia is moved, Pete knows her feelings are certainly not for him. She’s probably thinking of Grady, he thinks, reproaching himself for feelings he cannot control but will never be reciprocated. And after a while Pete?begins to feel resentful and foolish at having been deprived of his manhood ____ for feeling like a nigger in a room filled with rich white people. Why did I go along with this farce in the first place? he asks himself, wishing he were back at Liberty Hall where good, solid black folks were building a new society for the New Negro.

But Pete quickly realizes his anger is misplaced. The woman is drop-dead gorgeous; he can’t help the way he feels. Pete has fallen in love and should be man enough to admit it. He turns to gaze fully into Julia’s lovely green eyes ___ eyes that mock him and his feelings. In his most debonair and sophisticated voice, Pete replies, “I don’t know whether the music was dreamy or not, but I am certain that, from now on, whenever I hear it, I will always dream of you.”

That does it ____Pete’s remark takes Julia totally by surprise. His look, his mocking smile, his penetrating stare, take Julia’s breath away. Silently she thrills to his voice, the certainty of his response, the look in his eyes, the power of his presence. Something inside her gives way, and Julia feels an involuntary quiver of excitement. Again, Julia sees Pete as the man who can make her dreams come true. Rubbish! she shouts silently to herself. The moment passes, as rare moments of candor and honesty often do. That will not happen again, Julia tells herself, directing her attention elsewhere.

Members of the band begin arriving. Pete recognizes some of them as Hellfighters, former members of Jimmy Europe’s 369th Infantry Jazz Band. The Hellfighters not only played music in France, but fought with the famous Fighting 69th. After the war, a disgruntled Hellfighter shot Jimmy Europe, supposedly over a wage dispute. Pete hears that Jimmy Europe was assassinated by the Army. Once again, Pete recalls the strange disappearances of his two war buddies, Sam and Willie. Lots of the Negro servicemen, returning from Europe, begin disappearing and dying under mysterious circumstances. Some of the musicians come over to Pete’s table. Before they can say anything, one of the white guests, who had been staring at Julia all evening, barges up, drink in hand and, still staring at Julia, blurts out, “Nadine, I simply must meet this ravishing Negress.”

“Oh, Carl,” Nadine chirps. “It’s so nice to see you. Julia this is Carl Van Vechten. And Carl, this is Julia Duncan and her escort . . .” But Nadine does not finish the introductions before Carl waves her off saying, “Don’t bother, don’t bother.” Then reaching out his arm across Pete, the self-assured white man grabs Julia’s arm and pulls her out of her seat, saying, “Come dear, there are people here just dying to meet you.” Before Pete or anyone else can say a word, Carl Van Vechten whisks Julia off into the crowd.

Pete feels like he’s been shot in the gut and his life is oozing away. But it’s not his life that is oozing away, it’s his pride, his dignity, his manhood. Pete is raging. He had prepared himself for Julia’s eventual return to Grady Jones. Or possibly some light-skinned Negro with a fat bankroll would steal her away. But Pete was unprepared to have this pasty-faced white man come up and grab Julia as if it was his right. What was worse Julia offered no resistance, whatsoever. Pete is furious. And his anger will remain with him for a very long time.

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To Be Continued ...

Copyright Eugene A Stovall III all rights reserved No parts of this book may be reproduced without expressed permission of the author