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james-weldon-johnson-autobiography-of-an-ex-colored-man-1912.txt
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james-weldon-johnson-autobiography-of-an-ex-colored-man-1912.txt
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THE
AUTOBIOGRAPHY
OF AN
EX-COLORED MAN
James Weldon Johnson
1912
PREFACE TO THE ORIGINAL EDITION OF 1912
This vivid and startlingly new picture of conditions brought about by
the race question in the United States makes no special plea for
the Negro, but shows in a dispassionate, though sympathetic, manner
conditions as they actually exist between the whites and blacks
to-day. Special pleas have already been made for and against the Negro
in hundreds of books, but in these books either his virtues or his
vices have been exaggerated. This is because writers, in nearly every
instance, have treated the colored American as a whole; each has
taken some one group of the race to prove his case. Not before has a
composite and proportionate presentation of the entire race, embracing
all of its various groups and elements, showing their relations with
each other and to the whites, been made.
It is very likely that the Negroes of the United States have a fairly
correct idea of what the white people of the country think of
them, for that opinion has for a long time been and is still being
constantly stated; but they are themselves more or less a sphinx to
the whites. It is curiously interesting and even vitally important
to know what are the thoughts of ten millions of them concerning the
people among whom they live. In these pages it is as though a veil had
been drawn aside: the reader is given a view of the inner life of the
Negro in America, is initiated into the "freemasonry," as it were, of
the race.
These pages also reveal the unsuspected fact that prejudice against
the Negro is exerting a pressure which, in New York and other large
cities where the opportunity is open, is actually and constantly
forcing an unascertainable number of fair-complexioned colored people
over into the white race.
In this book the reader is given a glimpse behind the scenes of this
race-drama which is being here enacted,--he is taken upon an elevation
where he can catch a bird's-eye view of the conflict which is being
waged.
The Publishers
I
I know that in writing the following pages I am divulging the great
secret of my life, the secret which for some years I have guarded far
more carefully than any of my earthly possessions; and it is a curious
study to me to analyze the motives which prompt me to do it. I feel
that I am led by the same impulse which forces the un-found-out
criminal to take somebody into his confidence, although he knows that
the act is likely, even almost certain, to lead to his undoing. I know
that I am playing with fire, and I feel the thrill which accompanies
that most fascinating pastime; and, back of it all, I think I find
a sort of savage and diabolical desire to gather up all the little
tragedies of my life, and turn them into a practical joke on society.
And, too, I suffer a vague feeling of unsatisfaction, of regret, of
almost remorse, from which I am seeking relief, and of which I shall
speak in the last paragraph of this account.
I was born in a little town of Georgia a few years after the close of
the Civil War. I shall not mention the name of the town, because
there are people still living there who could be connected with this
narrative. I have only a faint recollection of the place of my birth.
At times I can close my eyes and call up in a dreamlike way things
that seem to have happened ages ago in some other world. I can see in
this half vision a little house--I am quite sure it was not a large
one--I can remember that flowers grew in the front yard, and that
around each bed of flowers was a hedge of vari-colored glass bottles
stuck in the ground neck down. I remember that once, while playing
around in the sand, I became curious to know whether or not the
bottles grew as the flowers did, and I proceeded to dig them up to
find out; the investigation brought me a terrific spanking, which
indelibly fixed the incident in my mind. I can remember, too, that
behind the house was a shed under which stood two or three wooden
wash-tubs. These tubs were the earliest aversion of my life, for
regularly on certain evenings I was plunged into one of them and
scrubbed until my skin ached. I can remember to this day the pain
caused by the strong, rank soap's getting into my eyes.
Back from the house a vegetable garden ran, perhaps seventy-five
or one hundred feet; but to my childish fancy it was an endless
territory. I can still recall the thrill of joy, excitement, and
wonder it gave me to go on an exploring expedition through it, to find
the blackberries, both ripe and green, that grew along the edge of the
fence.
I remember with what pleasure I used to arrive at, and stand before, a
little enclosure in which stood a patient cow chewing her cud, how I
would occasionally offer her through the bars a piece of my bread and
molasses, and how I would jerk back my hand in half fright if she made
any motion to accept my offer.
I have a dim recollection of several people who moved in and about
this little house, but I have a distinct mental image of only two:
one, my mother; and the other, a tall man with a small, dark mustache.
I remember that his shoes or boots were always shiny, and that he wore
a gold chain and a great gold watch with which he was always willing
to let me play. My admiration was almost equally divided between the
watch and chain and the shoes. He used to come to the house evenings,
perhaps two or three times a week; and it became my appointed duty
whenever he came to bring him a pair of slippers and to put the shiny
shoes in a particular corner; he often gave me in return for this
service a bright coin, which my mother taught me to promptly drop in
a little tin bank. I remember distinctly the last time this tall man
came to the little house in Georgia; that evening before I went to
bed he took me up in his arms and squeezed me very tightly; my mother
stood behind his chair wiping tears from her eyes. I remember how I
sat upon his knee and watched him laboriously drill a hole through a
ten-dollar gold piece, and then tie the coin around my neck with a
string. I have worn that gold piece around my neck the greater part of
my life, and still possess it, but more than once I have wished that
some other way had been found of attaching it to me besides putting a
hole through it.
On the day after the coin was put around my neck my mother and I
started on what seemed to me an endless journey. I knelt on the seat
and watched through the train window the corn and cotton fields pass
swiftly by until I fell asleep. When I fully awoke, we were being
driven through the streets of a large city--Savannah. I sat up and
blinked at the bright lights. At Savannah we boarded a steamer which
finally landed us in New York. From New York we went to a town in
Connecticut, which became the home of my boyhood.
My mother and I lived together in a little cottage which seemed to
me to be fitted up almost luxuriously; there were horse-hair-covered
chairs in the parlor, and a little square piano; there was a stairway
with red carpet on it leading to a half second story; there were
pictures on the walls, and a few books in a glass-doored case. My
mother dressed me very neatly, and I developed that pride which
well-dressed boys generally have. She was careful about my associates,
and I myself was quite particular. As I look back now I can see that I
was a perfect little aristocrat. My mother rarely went to anyone's
house, but she did sewing, and there were a great many ladies coming
to our cottage. If I was around they would generally call me, and ask
me my name and age and tell my mother what a pretty boy I was. Some of
them would pat me on the head and kiss me.
My mother was kept very busy with her sewing; sometimes she would have
another woman helping her. I think she must have derived a fair income
from her work. I know, too, that at least once each month she received
a letter; I used to watch for the postman, get the letter, and run
to her with it; whether she was busy or not, she would take it and
instantly thrust it into her bosom. I never saw her read one of these
letters. I knew later that they contained money and what was to
her more than money. As busy as she generally was, she found time,
however, to teach me my letters and figures and how to spell a number
of easy words. Always on Sunday evenings she opened the little square
piano and picked out hymns. I can recall now that whenever she
played hymns from the book her _tempo_ was always decidedly _largo_.
Sometimes on other evenings, when she was not sewing, she would play
simple accompaniments to some old Southern songs which she sang. In
these songs she was freer, because she played them by ear. Those
evenings on which she opened the little piano were the happiest hours
of my childhood. Whenever she started toward the instrument, I used to
follow her with all the interest and irrepressible joy that a pampered
pet dog shows when a package is opened in which he knows there is a
sweet bit for him. I used to stand by her side and often interrupt and
annoy her by chiming in with strange harmonies which I found on either
the high keys of the treble or the low keys of the bass. I remember
that I had a particular fondness for the black keys. Always on such
evenings, when the music was over, my mother would sit with me in her
arms, often for a very long time. She would hold me close, softly
crooning some old melody without words, all the while gently stroking
her face against my head; many and many a night I thus fell asleep. I
can see her now, her great dark eyes looking into the fire, to where?
No one knew but her. The memory of that picture has more than once
kept me from straying too far from the place of purity and safety in
which her arms held me.
At a very early age I began to thump on the piano alone, and it was
not long before I was able to pick out a few tunes. When I was seven
years old, I could play by ear all of the hymns and songs that my
mother knew. I had also learned the names of the notes in both clefs,
but I preferred not to be hampered by notes. About this time several
ladies for whom my mother sewed heard me play and they persuaded her
that I should at once be put under a teacher; so arrangements were
made for me to study the piano with a lady who was a fairly good
musician; at the same time arrangements were made for me to study
my books with this lady's daughter. My music teacher had no small
difficulty at first in pinning me down to the notes. If she played my
lesson over for me, I invariably attempted to reproduce the required
sounds without the slightest recourse to the written characters. Her
daughter, my other teacher, also had her worries. She found that, in
reading, whenever I came to words that were difficult or unfamiliar,
I was prone to bring my imagination to the rescue and read from
the picture. She has laughingly told me, since then, that I would
sometimes substitute whole sentences and even paragraphs from what
meaning I thought the illustrations conveyed. She said she not only
was sometimes amused at the fresh treatment I would give an author's
subject, but, when I gave some new and sudden turn to the plot of the
story, often grew interested and even excited in listening to hear
what kind of a denouement I would bring about. But I am sure this was
not due to dullness, for I made rapid progress in both my music and my
books.
And so for a couple of years my life was divided between my music and
my school books. Music took up the greater part of my time. I had
no playmates, but amused myself with games--some of them my own
invention--which could be played alone. I knew a few boys whom I had
met at the church which I attended with my mother, but I had formed no
close friendships with any of them. Then, when I was nine years old,
my mother decided to enter me in the public school, so all at once I
found myself thrown among a crowd of boys of all sizes and kinds;
some of them seemed to me like savages. I shall never forget the
bewilderment, the pain, the heart-sickness, of that first day at
school. I seemed to be the only stranger in the place; every other boy
seemed to know every other boy. I was fortunate enough, however, to be
assigned to a teacher who knew me; my mother made her dresses. She was
one of the ladies who used to pat me on the head and kiss me. She had
the tact to address a few words directly to me; this gave me a certain
sort of standing in the class and put me somewhat at ease.
Within a few days I had made one staunch friend and was on fairly good
terms with most of the boys. I was shy of the girls, and remained so;
even now a word or look from a pretty woman sets me all a-tremble.
This friend I bound to me with hooks of steel in a very simple way. He
was a big awkward boy with a face full of freckles and a head full of
very red hair. He was perhaps fourteen years of age; that is, four or
five years older than any other boy in the class. This seniority was
due to the fact that he had spent twice the required amount of time in
several of the preceding classes. I had not been at school many hours
before I felt that "Red Head"--as I involuntarily called him--and I
were to be friends. I do not doubt that this feeling was strengthened
by the fact that I had been quick enough to see that a big, strong boy
was a friend to be desired at a public school; and, perhaps, in spite
of his dullness, "Red Head" had been able to discern that I could
be of service to him. At any rate there was a simultaneous mutual
attraction.
The teacher had strung the class promiscuously around the walls of the
room for a sort of trial heat for places of rank; when the line was
straightened out, I found that by skillful maneuvering I had placed
myself third and had piloted "Red Head" to the place next to me. The
teacher began by giving us to spell the words corresponding to our
order in the line. "Spell _first_." "Spell _second_." "Spell _third_."
I rattled off: "T-h-i-r-d, third," in a way which said: "Why don't you
give us something hard?" As the words went down the line, I could see
how lucky I had been to get a good place together with an easy word.
As young as I was, I felt impressed with the unfairness of the whole
proceeding when I saw the tailenders going down before _twelfth_ and
_twentieth_, and I felt sorry for those who had to spell such words in
order to hold a low position. "Spell _fourth_." "Red Head," with his
hands clutched tightly behind his back, began bravely: "F-o-r-t-h."
Like a flash a score of hands went up, and the teacher began saying:
"No snapping of fingers, no snapping of fingers." This was the first
word missed, and it seemed to me that some of the scholars were about
to lose their senses; some were dancing up and down on one foot with a
hand above their heads, the fingers working furiously, and joy beaming
all over their faces; others stood still, their hands raised not so
high, their fingers working less rapidly, and their faces expressing
not quite so much happiness; there were still others who did not
move or raise their hands, but stood with great wrinkles on their
foreheads, looking very thoughtful.
The whole thing was new to me, and I did not raise my hand, but slyly
whispered the letter "u" to "Red Head" several times. "Second chance,"
said the teacher. The hands went down and the class became quiet. "Red
Head," his face now red, after looking beseechingly at the ceiling,
then pitiably at the floor, began very haltingly: "F-u--" Immediately
an impulse to raise hands went through the class, but the teacher
checked it, and poor "Red Head," though he knew that each letter he
added only took him farther out of the way, went doggedly on and
finished: "--r-t-h." The hand-raising was now repeated with more
hubbub and excitement than at first. Those who before had not moved a
finger were now waving their hands above their heads. "Red Head" felt
that he was lost. He looked very big and foolish, and some of the
scholars began to snicker. His helpless condition went straight to my
heart, and gripped my sympathies. I felt that if he failed, it would
in some way be my failure. I raised my hand, and, under cover of the
excitement and the teacher's attempts to regain order, I hurriedly
shot up into his ear twice, quite distinctly: "F-o-u-r-t-h,
f-o-u-r-t-h." The teacher tapped on her desk and said: "Third and last
chance." The hands came down, the silence became oppressive. "Red
Head" began: "F--" Since that day I have waited anxiously for many a
turn of the wheel of fortune, but never under greater tension than
when I watched for the order in which those letters would fall from
"Red's" lips--"o-u-r-t-h." A sigh of relief and disappointment went up
from the class. Afterwards, through all our school days, "Red Head"
shared my wit and quickness and I benefited by his strength and dogged
faithfulness.
There were some black and brown boys and girls in the school, and
several of them were in my class. One of the boys strongly attracted
my attention from the first day I saw him. His face was as black as
night, but shone as though it were polished; he had sparkling eyes,
and when he opened his mouth, he displayed glistening white teeth. It
struck me at once as appropriate to call him "Shiny Face," or "Shiny
Eyes," or "Shiny Teeth," and I spoke of him often by one of these
names to the other boys. These terms were finally merged into "Shiny,"
and to that name he answered good-naturedly during the balance of his
public school days.
"Shiny" was considered without question to be the best speller, the
best reader, the best penman--in a word, the best scholar, in the
class. He was very quick to catch anything, but, nevertheless, studied
hard; thus he possessed two powers very rarely combined in one boy. I
saw him year after year, on up into the high school, win the majority
of the prizes for punctuality, deportment, essay writing, and
declamation. Yet it did not take me long to discover that, in spite of
his standing as a scholar, he was in some way looked down upon.
The other black boys and girls were still more looked down upon. Some
of the boys often spoke of them as "niggers." Sometimes on the way
home from school a crowd would walk behind them repeating:
"_Nigger, nigger, never die,
Black face and shiny eye_."
On one such afternoon one of the black boys turned suddenly on his
tormentors and hurled a slate; it struck one of the white boys in the
mouth, cutting a slight gash in his lip. At sight of the blood the boy
who had thrown the slate ran, and his companions quickly followed.
We ran after them pelting them with stones until they separated in
several directions. I was very much wrought up over the affair, and
went home and told my mother how one of the "niggers" had struck a boy
with a slate. I shall never forget how she turned on me. "Don't you
ever use that word again," she said, "and don't you ever bother the
colored children at school. You ought to be ashamed of yourself." I
did hang my head in shame, not because she had convinced me that I had
done wrong, but because I was hurt by the first sharp word she had
ever given me.
My school days ran along very pleasantly. I stood well in my studies,
not always so well with regard to my behavior. I was never guilty
of any serious misconduct, but my love of fun sometimes got me into
trouble. I remember, however, that my sense of humor was so sly that
most of the trouble usually fell on the head of the other fellow. My
ability to play on the piano at school exercises was looked upon as
little short of marvelous in a boy of my age. I was not chummy with
many of my mates, but, on the whole, was about as popular as it is
good for a boy to be.
One day near the end of my second term at school the principal came
into our room and, after talking to the teacher, for some reason said:
"I wish all of the white scholars to stand for a moment." I rose with
the others. The teacher looked at me and, calling my name, said: "You
sit down for the present, and rise with the others." I did not quite
understand her, and questioned: "Ma'm?" She repeated, with a softer
tone in her voice: "You sit down now, and rise with the others." I sat
down dazed. I saw and heard nothing. When the others were asked to
rise, I did not know it. When school was dismissed, I went out in a
kind of stupor. A few of the white boys jeered me, saying: "Oh, you're
a nigger too." I heard some black children say: "We knew he was
colored." "Shiny" said to them: "Come along, don't tease him," and
thereby won my undying gratitude. I hurried on as fast as I could, and
had gone some distance before I perceived that "Red Head" was walking
by my side. After a while he said to me: "Le' me carry your books."
I gave him my strap without being able to answer. When we got to my
gate, he said as he handed me my books: "Say, you know my big red
agate? I can't shoot with it any more. I'm going to bring it to school
for you tomorrow." I took my books and ran into the house. As I passed
through the hallway, I saw that my mother was busy with one of her
customers; I rushed up into my own little room, shut the door, and
went quickly to where my looking-glass hung on the wall. For an
instant I was afraid to look, but when I did, I looked long and
earnestly. I had often heard people say to my mother: "What a pretty
boy you have!" I was accustomed to hear remarks about my beauty; but
now, for the first time, I became conscious of it and recognized it.
I noticed the ivory whiteness of my skin, the beauty of my mouth, the
size and liquid darkness of my eyes, and how the long, black lashes
that fringed and shaded them produced an effect that was strangely
fascinating even to me. I noticed the softness and glossiness of my
dark hair that fell in waves over my temples, making my forehead
appear whiter than it really was. How long I stood there gazing at
my image I do not know. When I came out and reached the head of the
stairs, I heard the lady who had been with my mother going out. I ran
downstairs and rushed to where my mother was sitting, with a piece
of work in her hands. I buried my head in her lap and blurted out:
"Mother, mother, tell me, am I a nigger?" I could not see her face,
but I knew the piece of work dropped to the floor and I felt her hands
on my head. I looked up into her face and repeated: "Tell me, mother,
am I a nigger?" There were tears in her eyes and I could see that she
was suffering for me. And then it was that I looked at her critically
for the first time. I had thought of her in a childish way only as the
most beautiful woman in the world; now I looked at her searching for
defects. I could see that her skin was almost brown, that her hair
was not so soft as mine, and that she did differ in some way from the
other ladies who came to the house; yet, even so, I could see that she
was very beautiful, more beautiful than any of them. She must have
felt that I was examining her, for she hid her face in my hair and
said with difficulty: "No, my darling, you are not a nigger." She went
on: "You are as good as anybody; if anyone calls you a nigger, don't
notice them." But the more she talked, the less was I reassured, and I
stopped her by asking: "Well, mother, am I white? Are you white?" She
answered tremblingly: "No, I am not white, but you--your father is one
of the greatest men in the country--the best blood of the South is in
you--" This suddenly opened up in my heart a fresh chasm of misgiving
and fear, and I almost fiercely demanded: "Who is my father? Where is
he?" She stroked my hair and said: "I'll tell you about him some day."
I sobbed: "I want to know now." She answered: "No, not now."
Perhaps it had to be done, but I have never forgiven the woman who
did it so cruelly. It may be that she never knew that she gave me a
sword-thrust that day in school which was years in healing.
II
Since I have grown older I have often gone back and tried to analyze
the change that came into my life after that fateful day in school.
There did come a radical change, and, young as I was, I felt fully
conscious of it, though I did not fully comprehend it. Like my first
spanking, it is one of the few incidents in my life that I can
remember clearly. In the life of everyone there is a limited number of
unhappy experiences which are not written upon the memory, but stamped
there with a die; and in long years after, they can be called up
in detail, and every emotion that was stirred by them can be lived
through anew; these are the tragedies of life. We may grow to include
some of them among the trivial incidents of childhood--a broken toy,
a promise made to us which was not kept, a harsh, heart-piercing
word--but these, too, as well as the bitter experiences and
disappointments of mature years, are the tragedies of life.
And so I have often lived through that hour, that day, that week, in
which was wrought the miracle of my transition from one world into
another; for I did indeed pass into another world. From that time I
looked out through other eyes, my thoughts were colored, my words
dictated, my actions limited by one dominating, all-pervading idea
which constantly increased in force and weight until I finally
realized in it a great, tangible fact.
And this is the dwarfing, warping, distorting influence which operates
upon each and every colored man in the United States. He is forced to
take his outlook on all things, not from the viewpoint of a citizen,
or a man, or even a human being, but from the viewpoint of a _colored_
man. It is wonderful to me that the race has progressed so broadly as
it has, since most of its thought and all of its activity must run
through the narrow neck of this one funnel.
And it is this, too, which makes the colored people of this country,
in reality, a mystery to the whites. It is a difficult thing for
a white man to learn what a colored man really thinks; because,
generally, with the latter an additional and different light must
be brought to bear on what he thinks; and his thoughts are often
influenced by considerations so delicate and subtle that it would be
impossible for him to confess or explain them to one of the opposite
race. This gives to every colored man, in proportion to his
intellectuality, a sort of dual personality; there is one phase of him
which is disclosed only in the freemasonry of his own race. I have
often watched with interest and sometimes with amazement even ignorant
colored men under cover of broad grins and minstrel antics maintain
this dualism in the presence of white men.
I believe it to be a fact that the colored people of this country know
and understand the white people better than the white people know and
understand them.
I now think that this change which came into my life was at first more
subjective than objective. I do not think my friends at school changed
so much toward me as I did toward them. I grew reserved, I might say
suspicious. I grew constantly more and more afraid of laying myself
open to some injury to my feelings or my pride. I frequently saw or
fancied some slight where, I am sure, none was intended. On the other
hand, my friends and teachers were, if anything different, more
considerate of me; but I can remember that it was against this very
attitude in particular that my sensitiveness revolted. "Red" was the
only one who did not so wound me; up to this day I recall with a
swelling heart his clumsy efforts to make me understand that nothing
could change his love for me.
I am sure that at this time the majority of my white schoolmates
did not understand or appreciate any differences between me and
themselves; but there were a few who had evidently received
instructions at home on the matter, and more than once they displayed
their knowledge in word and action. As the years passed, I noticed
that the most innocent and ignorant among the others grew in wisdom.
I myself would not have so clearly understood this difference had it
not been for the presence of the other colored children at school; I
had learned what their status was, and now I learned that theirs was
mine. I had had no particular like or dislike for these black and
brown boys and girls; in fact, with the exception of "Shiny," they had
occupied very little of my thought; but I do know that when the blow
fell, I had a very strong aversion to being classed with them. So I
became something of a solitary. "Red" and I remained inseparable, and
there was between "Shiny" and me a sort of sympathetic bond, but my
intercourse with the others was never entirely free from a feeling of
constraint. I must add, however, that this feeling was confined almost
entirely to my intercourse with boys and girls of about my own age; I
did not experience it with my seniors. And when I grew to manhood, I
found myself freer with elderly white people than with those near my
own age.
I was now about eleven years old, but these emotions and impressions
which I have just described could not have been stronger or more
distinct at an older age. There were two immediate results of my
forced loneliness: I began to find company in books, and greater
pleasure in music. I made the former discovery through a big,
gilt-bound, illustrated copy of the Bible, which used to lie in
splendid neglect on the center table in our little parlor. On top of
the Bible lay a photograph album. I had often looked at the pictures
in the album, and one day, after taking the larger book down and
opening it on the floor, I was overjoyed to find that it contained
what seemed to be an inexhaustible supply of pictures. I looked at
these pictures many times; in fact, so often that I knew the story
of each one without having to read the subject, and then, somehow, I
picked up the thread of history on which are strung the trials and
tribulations of the Hebrew children; this I followed with feverish
interest and excitement. For a long time King David, with Samson a
close second, stood at the head of my list of heroes; he was not
displaced until I came to know Robert the Bruce. I read a good portion
of the Old Testament, all that part treating of wars and rumors of
wars, and then started in on the New. I became interested in the life
of Christ, but became impatient and disappointed when I found that,
notwithstanding the great power he possessed, he did not make use of
it when, in my judgment, he most needed to do so. And so my first
general impression of the Bible was what my later impression has been
of a number of modern books, that the authors put their best work in
the first part, and grew either exhausted or careless toward the end.
After reading the Bible, or those parts which held my attention,
I began to explore the glass-doored bookcase which I have already
mentioned. I found there _Pilgrim's Progress_, Peter Parley's _History
of the United States_, Grimm's _Household Stories, Tales of a
Grandfather_, a bound volume of an old English publication (I think it
was called _The Mirror_), a little volume called _Familiar Science_,
and somebody's _Natural Theology_, which last, of course, I could not
read, but which, nevertheless, I tackled, with the result of gaining a
permanent dislike for all kinds of theology. There were several other
books of no particular name or merit, such as agents sell to people
who know nothing of buying books. How my mother came by this little
library which, considering all things, was so well suited to me I
never sought to know. But she was far from being an ignorant woman and
had herself, very likely, read the majority of these books, though
I do not remember ever seeing her with a book in her hand, with the
exception of the Episcopal Prayer book. At any rate she encouraged in
me the habit of reading, and when I had about exhausted those books in
the little library which interested me, she began to buy books for me.
She also regularly gave me money to buy a weekly paper which was then
very popular for boys.
At this time I went in for music with an earnestness worthy of maturer
years; a change of teachers was largely responsible for this. I began
now to take lessons of the organist of the church which I attended
with my mother; he was a good teacher and quite a thorough musician.
He was so skillful in his instruction and filled me with such
enthusiasm that my progress--these are his words--was marvelous. I
remember that when I was barely twelve years old I appeared on a
program with a number of adults at an entertainment given for some
charitable purpose, and carried off the honors. I did more, I brought
upon myself through the local newspapers the handicapping title of
"infant prodigy."
I can believe that I did astonish my audience, for I never played
the piano like a child; that is, in the "one-two-three" style with
accelerated motion. Neither did I depend upon mere brilliancy of
technique, a trick by which children often surprise their listeners;
but I always tried to interpret a piece of music; I always played with
feeling. Very early I acquired that knack of using the pedals, which
makes the piano a sympathetic, singing instrument, quite a different
thing from the source of hard or blurred sounds it so generally is. I
think this was due not entirely to natural artistic temperament,
but largely to the fact that I did not begin to learn the piano by
counting out exercises, but by trying to reproduce the quaint songs
which my mother used to sing, with all their pathetic turns and
cadences.
Even at a tender age, in playing I helped to express what I felt
by some of the mannerisms which I afterwards observed in great
performers; I had not copied them. I have often heard people speak of
the mannerisms of musicians as affectations adopted for mere effect;
in some cases they may be so; but a true artist can no more play upon
the piano or violin without putting his whole body in accord with the
emotions he is striving to express than a swallow can fly without
being graceful. Often when playing I could not keep the tears which
formed in my eyes from rolling down my cheeks. Sometimes at the end
or even in the midst of a composition, as big a boy as I was, I would
jump from the piano, and throw myself sobbing into my mother's arms.
She, by her caresses and often her tears, only encouraged these fits
of sentimental hysteria. Of course, to counteract this tendency to
temperamental excesses I should have been out playing ball or in
swimming with other boys of my age; but my mother didn't know that.
There was only once when she was really firm with me, making me do
what she considered was best; I did not want to return to school after
the unpleasant episode which I have related, and she was inflexible.
I began my third term, and the days ran along as I have already
indicated. I had been promoted twice, and had managed each time to
pull "Red" along with me. I think the teachers came to consider me
the only hope of his ever getting through school, and I believe they
secretly conspired with me to bring about the desired end. At any
rate, I know it became easier in each succeeding examination for me
not only to assist "Red," but absolutely to do his work. It is
strange how in some things honest people can be dishonest without the
slightest compunction. I knew boys at school who were too honorable
to tell a fib even when one would have been just the right thing, but
could not resist the temptation to assist or receive assistance in an
examination. I have long considered it the highest proof of honesty in
a man to hand his street-car fare to the conductor who had overlooked
it.
One afternoon after school, during my third term, I rushed home in a
great hurry to get my dinner and go to my music teacher's. I was never
reluctant about going there, but on this particular afternoon I
was impetuous. The reason of this was I had been asked to play the
accompaniment for a young lady who was to play a violin solo at a
concert given by the young people of the church, and on this
afternoon we were to have our first rehearsal. At that time playing
accompaniments was the only thing in music I did not enjoy; later this
feeling grew into positive dislike. I have never been a really good
accompanist because my ideas of interpretation were always too
strongly individual. I constantly forced my _accelerandos_ and
_rubatos_ upon the soloist, often throwing the duet entirely out of
gear.
Perhaps the reader has already guessed why I was so willing and
anxious to play the accompaniment to this violin solo; if not--the
violinist was a girl of seventeen or eighteen whom I had first heard
play a short time before on a Sunday afternoon at a special service
of some kind, and who had moved me to a degree which now I can hardly
think of as possible. At present I do not think it was due to her
wonderful playing, though I judge she must have been a very fair
performer, but there was just the proper setting to produce the effect
upon a boy such as I was; the half-dim church, the air of devotion on
the part of the listeners, the heaving tremor of the organ under
the clear wail of the violin, and she, her eyes almost closing, the
escaping strands of her dark hair wildly framing her pale face, and
her slender body swaying to the tones she called forth, all combined
to fire my imagination and my heart with a passion, though boyish, yet
strong and, somehow, lasting. I have tried to describe the scene; if I
have succeeded, it is only half success, for words can only partially
express what I wish to convey. Always in recalling that Sunday
afternoon I am sub-conscious of a faint but distinct fragrance which,
like some old memory-awakening perfume, rises and suffuses my whole
imagination, inducing a state of reverie so airy as just to evade the
powers of expression.
She was my first love, and I loved her as only a boy loves. I dreamed
of her, I built air castles for her, she was the incarnation of each
beautiful heroine I knew; when I played the piano, it was to her, not
even music furnished an adequate outlet for my passion; I bought a new
note-book and, to sing her praises, made my first and last attempts
at poetry. I remember one day at school, after we had given in our
notebooks to have some exercises corrected, the teacher called me to
her desk and said: "I couldn't correct your exercises because I found
nothing in your book but a rhapsody on somebody's brown eyes." I had
passed in the wrong note-book. I don't think I have felt greater
embarrassment in my whole life than I did at that moment. I was
ashamed not only that my teacher should see this nakedness of my
heart, but that she should find out that I had any knowledge of such
affairs. It did not then occur to me to be ashamed of the kind of
poetry I had written.
Of course, the reader must know that all of this adoration was in
secret; next to my great love for this young lady was the dread that
in some way she would find it out. I did not know what some men never
find out, that the woman who cannot discern when she is loved has
never lived. It makes me laugh to think how successful I was in
concealing it all; within a short time after our duet all of
the friends of my dear one were referring to me as her "little
sweetheart," or her "little beau," and she laughingly encouraged it.
This did not entirely satisfy me; I wanted to be taken seriously. I
had definitely made up my mind that I should never love another woman,
and that if she deceived me I should do something desperate--the great
difficulty was to think of something sufficiently desperate--and the
heartless jade, how she led me on!
So I hurried home that afternoon, humming snatches of the violin part
of the duet, my heart beating with pleasurable excitement over the
fact that I was going to be near her, to have her attention placed
directly upon me; that I was going to be of service to her, and in a
way in which I could show myself to advantage--this last consideration
has much to do with cheerful service----. The anticipation produced in
me a sensation somewhat between bliss and fear. I rushed through the
gate, took the three steps to the house at one bound, threw open the
door, and was about to hang my cap on its accustomed peg of the hall
rack when I noticed that that particular peg was occupied by a black
derby hat. I stopped suddenly and gazed at this hat as though I had
never seen an object of its description. I was still looking at it in
open-eyed wonder when my mother, coming out of the parlor into the
hallway, called me and said there was someone inside who wanted to see
me. Feeling that I was being made a party to some kind of mystery,
I went in with her, and there I saw a man standing leaning with one
elbow on the mantel, his back partly turned toward the door. As I
entered, he turned and I saw a tall, handsome, well-dressed gentleman
of perhaps thirty-five; he advanced a step toward me with a smile on
his face. I stopped and looked at him with the same feelings with
which I had looked at the derby hat, except that they were greatly
magnified. I looked at him from head to foot, but he was an absolute
blank to me until my eyes rested on his slender, elegant polished
shoes; then it seemed that indistinct and partly obliterated films
of memory began, at first slowly, then rapidly, to unroll, forming a
vague panorama of my childhood days in Georgia.
My mother broke the spell by calling me by name and saying: "This is
your father."
"Father, father," that was the word which had been to me a source of
doubt and perplexity ever since the interview with my mother on the
subject. How often I had wondered about my father, who he was, what
he was like, whether alive or dead, and, above all, why she would not
tell me about him. More than once I had been on the point of recalling
to her the promise she had made me, but I instinctively felt that she
was happier for not telling me and that I was happier for not being
told; yet I had not the slightest idea what the real truth was.
And here he stood before me, just the kind of looking father I had
wishfully pictured him to be; but I made no advance toward him; I
stood there feeling embarrassed and foolish, not knowing what to say
or do. I am not sure but that he felt pretty much the same. My mother
stood at my side with one hand on my shoulder, almost pushing
me forward, but I did not move. I can well remember the look of
disappointment, even pain, on her face; and I can now understand that
she could expect nothing else but that at the name "father" I should
throw myself into his arms. But I could not rise to this dramatic,
or, better, melodramatic, climax. Somehow I could not arouse any
considerable feeling of need for a father. He broke the awkward
tableau by saying: "Well, boy, aren't you glad to see me?" He
evidently meant the words kindly enough, but I don't know what he
could have said that would have had a worse effect; however, my good
breeding came to my rescue, and I answered: "Yes, sir," and went to
him and offered him my hand. He took my hand into one of his, and,
with the other, stroked my head, saying that I had grown into a fine
youngster. He asked me how old I was; which, of course, he must have
done merely to say something more, or perhaps he did so as a test of
my intelligence. I replied: "Twelve, sir." He then made the trite
observation about the flight of time, and we lapsed into another
awkward pause.
My mother was all in smiles; I believe that was one of the happiest
moments of her life. Either to put me more at ease or to show me off,
she asked me to play something for my father. There is only one
thing in the world that can make music, at all times and under all
circumstances, up to its general standard; that is a hand-organ, or
one of its variations. I went to the piano and played something in
a listless, half-hearted way. I simply was not in the mood. I was
wondering, while playing, when my mother would dismiss me and let me
go; but my father was so enthusiastic in his praise that he touched my
vanity--which was great--and more than that; he displayed that sincere
appreciation which always arouses an artist to his best effort, and,
too, in an unexplainable manner, makes him feel like shedding tears.
I showed my gratitude by playing for him a Chopin waltz with all the
feeling that was in me. When I had finished, my mother's eyes were
glistening with tears; my father stepped across the room, seized me in
his arms, and squeezed me to his breast. I am certain that for that
moment he was proud to be my father. He sat and held me standing
between his knees while he talked to my mother. I, in the mean
time, examined him with more curiosity, perhaps, than politeness. I
interrupted the conversation by asking: "Mother, is he going to stay
with us now?" I found it impossible to frame the word "father"; it
was too new to me; so I asked the question through my mother. Without
waiting for her to speak, my father answered: "I've got to go back to
New York this afternoon, but I'm coming to see you again." I turned
abruptly and went over to my mother, and almost in a whisper reminded
her that I had an appointment which I should not miss; to my pleasant
surprise she said that she would give me something to eat at once so
that I might go. She went out of the room and I began to gather from
off the piano the music I needed. When I had finished, my father, who
had been watching me, asked: "Are you going?" I replied: "Yes, sir,
I've got to go to practice for a concert." He spoke some words of
advice to me about being a good boy and taking care of my mother when
I grew up, and added that he was going to send me something nice from
New York. My mother called, and I said good-bye to him and went out. I
saw him only once after that.
I quickly swallowed down what my mother had put on the table for me,
seized my cap and music, and hurried off to my teacher's house. On the
way I could think of nothing but this new father, where he came from,
where he had been, why he was here, and why he would not stay. In my
mind I ran over the whole list of fathers I had become acquainted with
in my reading, but I could not classify him. The thought did not cross
my mind that he was different from me, and even if it had, the mystery
would not thereby have been explained; for, notwithstanding my changed
relations with most of my schoolmates, I had only a faint knowledge of
prejudice and no idea at all how it ramified and affected our entire
social organism. I felt, however, that there was something about the
whole affair which had to be hid.
When I arrived, I found that she of the brown eyes had been rehearsing
with my teacher and was on the point of leaving. My teacher, with some
expressions of surprise, asked why I was late, and I stammered out the
first deliberate lie of which I have any recollection. I told him that
when I reached home from school, I found my mother quite sick, and
that I had stayed with her awhile before coming. Then unnecessarily
and gratuitously--to give my words force of conviction, I suppose--I
added: "I don't think she'll be with us very long." In speaking these
words I must have been comical; for I noticed that my teacher, instead
of showing signs of anxiety or sorrow, half hid a smile. But how
little did I know that in that lie I was speaking a prophecy!
She of the brown eyes unpacked her violin, and we went through the
duet several times. I was soon lost to all other thoughts in
the delights of music and love. I saw delights of love without
reservation; for at no time of life is love so pure, so delicious, so
poetic, so romantic, as it is in boyhood. A great deal has been said
about the heart of a girl when she' stands "where the brook and river
meet," but what she feels is negative; more interesting is the heart
of a boy when just at the budding dawn of manhood he stands looking
wide-eyed into the long vistas opening before him; when he first
becomes conscious of the awakening and quickening of strange desires
and unknown powers; when what he sees and feels is still shadowy and
mystical enough to be intangible, and, so, more beautiful; when his
imagination is unsullied, and his faith new and whole--then it is that
love wears a halo. The man who has not loved before he was fourteen
has missed a foretaste of Elysium.
When I reached home, it was quite dark and I found my mother without
a light, sitting rocking in a chair, as she so often used to do in my
childhood days, looking into the fire and singing softly to herself. I
nestled close to her, and, with her arms round me, she haltingly told
me who my father was--a great man, a fine gentleman--he loved me and
loved her very much; he was going to make a great man of me: All she
said was so limited by reserve and so colored by her feelings that it
was but half truth; and so I did not yet fully understand.
III
Perhaps I ought not pass on in this narrative without mentioning that
the duet was a great success, so great that we were obliged to respond
with two encores. It seemed to me that life could hold no greater joy
than it contained when I took her hand and we stepped down to the
front of the stage bowing to our enthusiastic audience. When we
reached the little dressing-room, where the other performers were
applauding as wildly as the audience, she impulsively threw both her
arms round me and kissed me, while I struggled to get away.
One day a couple of weeks after my father had been to see us, a wagon
drove up to our cottage loaded with a big box. I was about to tell the
men on the wagon that they had made a mistake, when my mother, acting
darkly wise, told them to bring their load in; she had them unpack the
box, and quickly there was evolved from the boards, paper, and other
packing material a beautiful, brand-new, upright piano. Then she
informed me that it was a present to me from my father. I at once sat
down and ran my fingers over the keys; the full, mellow tone of the
instrument was ravishing. I thought, almost remorsefully, of how I
had left my father; but, even so, there momentarily crossed my mind
a feeling of disappointment that the piano was not a grand. The new
instrument greatly increased the pleasure of my hours of study and
practice at home.
Shortly after this I was made a member of the boys' choir, it being
found that I possessed a clear, strong soprano voice. I enjoyed the
singing very much. About a year later I began the study of the pipe
organ and the theory of music; and before I finished the grammar
school, I had written out several simple preludes for organ which won
the admiration of my teacher, and which he did me the honor to play at
services.
The older I grew, the more thought I gave to the question of my
mother's and my position, and what was our exact relation to the world
in general. My idea of the whole matter was rather hazy. My study of
United States history had been confined to those periods which were
designated in my book as "Discovery," "Colonial," "Revolutionary," and
"Constitutional." I now began to study about the Civil War, but the
story was told in such a condensed and skipping style that I gained
from it very little real information. It is a marvel how children ever
learn any history out of books of that sort. And, too, I began now to
read the newspapers; I often saw articles which aroused my curiosity,
but did not enlighten me. But one day I drew from the circulating
library a book that cleared the whole mystery, a book that I read
with the same feverish intensity with which I had read the old Bible
stories, a book that gave me my first perspective of the life I was
entering; that book was _Uncle Tom's Cabin_.
This work of Harriet Beecher Stowe has been the object of much
unfavorable criticism. It has been assailed, not only as fiction of
the most imaginative sort, but as being a direct misrepresentation.
Several successful attempts have lately been made to displace the book
from Northern school libraries. Its critics would brush it aside with
the remark that there never was a Negro as good as Uncle Tom, nor a
slave-holder as bad as Legree. For my part, I was never an admirer of
Uncle Tom, nor of his type of goodness; but I believe that there were
lots of old Negroes as foolishly good as he; the proof of which is
that they knowingly stayed and worked the plantations that furnished
sinews for the army which was fighting to keep them enslaved. But in
these later years several cases have come to my personal knowledge in
which old Negroes have died and left what was a considerable fortune
to the descendants of their former masters. I do not think it takes
any great stretch of the imagination to believe there was a fairly
large class of slave-holders typified in Legree. And we must also
remember that the author depicted a number of worthless if not vicious
Negroes, and a slave-holder who was as much of a Christian and a
gentleman as it was possible for one in his position to be; that she
pictured the happy, singing, shuffling "darky" as well as the mother
wailing for her child sold "down river."
I do not think it is claiming too much to say that _Uncle Tom's Cabin_
was a fair and truthful panorama of slavery; however that may be, it
opened my eyes as to who and what I was and what my country considered
me; in fact, it gave me my bearing. But there was no shock; I took
the whole revelation in a kind of stoical way. One of the greatest
benefits I derived from reading the book was that I could afterwards
talk frankly with my mother on all the questions which had been
vaguely troubling my mind. As a result, she was entirely freed from
reserve, and often herself brought up the subject, talking of things
directly touching her life and mine and of things which had come down
to her through the "old folks." What she told me interested and even
fascinated me, and, what may seem strange, kindled in me a strong
desire to see the South. She spoke to me quite frankly about herself,
my father, and myself: she, the sewing girl of my father's mother;
he, an impetuous young man home from college; I, the child of this
unsanctioned love. She told me even the principal reason for our
coming north. My father was about to be married to a young lady of
another great Southern family; She did not neglect to add that another
reason for our being in Connecticut was that he intended to give me
an education and make a man of me. In none of her talks did she ever
utter one word of complaint against my father. She always endeavored
to impress upon me how good he had been and still was, and that he was
all to us that custom and the law would allow. She loved him; more,
she worshiped him, and she died firmly believing that he loved her
more than any other woman in the world. Perhaps she was right. Who
knows?
All of these newly awakened ideas and thoughts took the form of a
definite aspiration on the day I graduated from the grammar school.
And what a day that was! The girls in white dresses, with fresh
ribbons in their hair; the boys in new suits and creaky shoes; the
great crowd of parents and friends; the flowers, the prizes and
congratulations, made the day seem to me one of the greatest
importance. I was on the program, and played a piano solo which was
received by the audience with that amount of applause which I had come
to look upon as being only the just due of my talent.
But the real enthusiasm was aroused by "Shiny." He was the principal
speaker of the day, and well did he measure up to the honor. He made a
striking picture, that thin little black boy standing on the platform,
dressed in clothes that did not fit him any too well, his eyes burning
with excitement, his shrill, musical voice vibrating in tones of
appealing defiance, and his black face alight with such great
intelligence and earnestness as to be positively handsome. What were
his thoughts when he stepped forward and looked into that crowd of
faces, all white with the exception of a score or so that were lost to
view? I do not know, but I fancy he felt his loneliness. I think there
must have rushed over him a feeling akin to that of a gladiator tossed
into the arena and bade to fight for his life. I think that solitary
little black figure standing there felt that for the particular time
and place he bore the weight and responsibility of his race; that for
him to fail meant general defeat; but he won, and nobly. His oration
was Wendell Phillips's "Toussaint L'Ouverture," a speech which may now
be classed as rhetorical--even, perhaps, bombastic; but as the words
fell from "Shiny's" lips their effect was magical. How so young an
orator could stir so great enthusiasm was to be wondered at. When, in
the famous peroration, his voice, trembling with suppressed emotion,
rose higher and higher and then rested on the name "Toussaint
L'Ouverture," it was like touching an electric button which loosed the
pent-up feelings of his listeners. They actually rose to him.
I have since known of colored men who have been chosen as class
orators in our leading universities, of others who have played on the
varsity football and baseball teams, of colored speakers who have
addressed great white audiences. In each of these instances I believe
the men were stirred by the same emotions which actuated "Shiny" on
the day of his graduation; and, too, in each case where the efforts
have reached any high standard of excellence they have been followed
by the same phenomenon of enthusiasm. I think the explanation of the
latter lies in what is a basic, though often dormant, principle of the
Anglo-Saxon heart, love of fair play. "Shiny," it is true, was what is
so common in his race, a natural orator; but I doubt that any white
boy of equal talent could have wrought the same effect. The sight of
that boy gallantly waging with puny, black arms so unequal a battle
touched the deep springs in the hearts of his audience, and they were
swept by a wave of sympathy and admiration.
But the effect upon me of "Shiny's" speech was double; I not only
shared the enthusiasm of his audience, but he imparted to me some of
his own enthusiasm. I felt leap within me pride that I was colored;
and I began to form wild dreams of bringing glory and honor to the
Negro race. For days I could talk of nothing else with my mother
except my ambitions to be a great man, a great colored man, to reflect
credit on the race and gain fame for myself. It was not until years
after that I formulated a definite and feasible plan for realizing my
dreams.
I entered the high school with my class, and still continued my study
of the piano, the pipe organ, and the theory of music. I had to
drop out of the boys' choir on account of a changing voice; this
I regretted very much. As I grew older, my love for reading grew
stronger. I read with studious interest everything I could find
relating to colored men who had gained prominence. My heroes had
been King David, then Robert the Bruce; now Frederick Douglass was
enshrined in the place of honor. When I learned that Alexandre Dumas
was a colored man, I re-read _Monte Cristo_ and _The Three Guardsmen_
with magnified pleasure. I lived between my music and books, on the
whole a rather unwholesome life for a boy to lead. I dwelt in a world