by Barry Wolfe
My first day at Howard begins in an inauspicious manner. I have to be on campus by 8 a.m. for orientation, and my alarm clock fails to go off. After the briefest of showers, I stumble in the dark in search of my closet. Never a stylish dresser, I at least want to be presentable. Without turning on the light, so as not to wake my brother with whom I share a bedroom, I grab what looks to be a relatively clean and dressy pair of black slacks and a white shirt. On my way out of our apartment I reach for what I hope is a sandwich that is to be my lunch. Avoiding the elevator, which always takes more time than a leisurely walk down the stairs, I virtually fly down the stairway the four floors to the lobby. True to its name the Suburban Hill apartments sits on a largish hill and so once outside I race down 30 more steps to get to street level.
I’m still smarting from the fact that we moved to the “burbs” right after my high school graduation. Since I can’t afford a car, I’m forced to hitchhike. There I am at seven a.m. standing at the corner of New Hampshire Avenue and Ruatan Street in Langley Park, Maryland. I can barely open my eyes. I have traded the darkness of my apartment for the blinding ash-white morning sunlight. Seven a.m. and already the Avenue is heavy with cars and noise. As my eyes begin to adapt to the light, I can now see the ribbon of suburban commuters slipping over the camel-humped hills of New Hampshire Avenue leading to the city. The horns’ blare and the tires’ squeal leave me dazed and irritable.
As I wave my thumb toward every passing car, I notice how so many of the drivers won’t even look my way. I begin to feel invisible. I lean forward into the road as if I’m ready to thrust my entire body in front of an on-coming car in order to stop it. A 1958 blue Ford Fairlane approaches. My thumb almost makes contact with the car as it passes by. The driver, in passing, holds up two fingers. “Two blocks? I BET you’re only going two blocks. Goddamn liar.” It’s 7:15 already, and I conclude I have to employ a new strategy. In a frantic dead run I head for the next street which has a traffic light. There the cars have to stop which gives me a chance to knock on the windows and by means of exaggerated pantomime communicate my desperation. Reaching the light I reassure myself, “Now they’ll have to stop. Now they’ll have to deal with me.” But the first driver I approach doesn’t even look my way, even after I rap my knuckles on the car window and holler, “Going straight mister?” The driver sits motionless. “That’s right, you heartless bastard! Pretend I’m not here!”
When the light turns red again, a brown and cream 1959 Plymouth Fury with those marvelous wing-shaped rear fenders pulls up to the light. Its sleek beauty leaves me speechless and unable to repeat my desperate pantomime. Instead, I merely point straight ahead. The driver nods and leans toward the door handle on the passenger’s seat side to open the door. Thank God! As I ease myself into the car, the light turns green. The car speeds away with a great squealing of tires and the low, loud burbling of mufflers. I look curiously at the driver wondering what manner of creature is “chirping” his tires at this hour. What I see is a man about 30 with bituminous eyes and longish black hair that is combed straight back and coerced into ducktails. The blackness of his hair and eyes accentuate his gaunt, Anglo-Saxon features. The driver is vigorously chewing a piece of gum; and because of the noise of the cracking gum, I can barely hear him ask, in a distinctive southern drawl,
“Where ya goin’ bud?”
“Are you going anywhere near Howard University?” I ask in a barely audible voice. He gives me a peculiar look as if to say, “Are you crazy or just pulling my leg?” Instead, he asks, “You go there?” making no effort to disguise the incredulity in his voice.
“As a matter of fact I do,” I answer as if it’s the most natural thing on the planet.
“I thought that’s a nigger school. What’s a white boy like you goin there for?”
“It’s a very good school!”
“It’s a nigger school!”
“It’s still a good school!”
“It’s a nigger school, how good cain it be?” I stare straight ahead, trying to master the murderous feeling that has overtaken me. We both sit in silence waiting for the traffic light to change.
We are moving again before I notice that the driver was smiling. I tense up in anticipation of some further racist observation. The smile turns into a chuckle.
“A white boy at a nigger school, don’t that beat all! Hey boy, you the only white boy at that nigger school?”
“Don’t call me boy!”
“Well, are ya the only white that goes there?”
“No,” I rebut defensively, “There’re plenty of white students there!”
“No shit! How many?”
“Well, that’s hard to say. I…”
“What d’ya mean hard to say? Caint you tell black from white?”
“Actually, I don’t know how many white students go to Howard.”
“How come?”
“Well, this is my first day and I…”
“First day? Then you don’t know shit from Shinola, do ya boy?” the driver bellows triumphantly. “You don’t even know if you can stand to be with all those dumb, smelly niggers for more’n five minutes, do ya? How do ya expect to get an education going to school with niggers?”
Now I’m losing my composure. “You’re crazy you know that! Negroes are no dumber and no dirtier than a lot of white people I know.”
“Knee-grows? He guffaws. “You call niggers knee-grows, and you call me crazy?”
We ride in silence as we cross the District line at the intersection of New Hampshire and Eastern Avenues. The treeless, hump-backed hills are gone. The land begins to flatten out, and the Avenue narrows. As we ride on a few needles of sunlight filter through the clouds, flash against the windshield and disappear. I’m deep in reverie when I catch a distasteful whiff of alcohol on the driver’s breath and I look over only to see the driver staring at me curiously. I return the curious stare. The driver’s features seem to suddenly change shape from curiosity to panic as if he’s stricken by a sudden perception of a painful truth. In a hushed voice, he asks, “Hey boy, you’re not a nigger are ya? You’re not a high yaller trying to pass on me?”
“No mister, I’m white.”
“Only way it’d make any sense your going to Howard if you a nigger or a nigger-lover, and right now, I don’t know which’d be worse to be drivin’ around in my car.”
“Hey look, you want me to get out here? Because if you do, I’d be happy to oblige.”
“Now hold your horses, boy. Hold your horses. If you say you’re white, I’ll take your word for it.”
“Thanks a lot!”
“Don’t mention it.”
The driver now has a nasty smirk plastered on his face. “How come you go to Howard any way, boy?”
“I said, don’t call me boy!”
“Well, what’s your name then?”
“Izzy.”
“Oh shit, I got me a nigger-lovin’ Jew boy in my car. Then you must be a Commie. Jewish Commies love niggers too, don’t they? I hope you’re not a Commie, Izzy?”
“No, I’m not a Communist. You know, it’s actually people like you that led me to choose Howard.”
“What d’ya mean, people like me? You don’t know me!”
“All my life I’ve been hearing about how Negroes are inferior, dumb, dirty, lazy, shiftless, and so on. But the people I hear it from won’t have anything to do with Negroes, except maybe to hire them to do their dirty work. All this hatred seems based on ignorance in my humble opinion,” I say without a trace of humility. “I believe that if only whites and Negroes were exposed to each other, got to know each other as friends, all this hatred would disappear. I’ve gotten to know a lot of Negroes, and none of them seem lazy or dumb to me. Anyway, I want more exposure, and going to Howard seemed like a good way to do that.” A wave of shame comes over me for revealing myself to this numbskull.
“It’ll never work, boy. Race-mixing cain’t come to no good. Niggers are different than whites. That’s the way it
is, and that’s the way it’ll always be. You’re still wet behind the ears, but you’ll see.”
“How come you hate Negroes so much?
”
“There ya go with that “knee-grows” stuff again. I don’t hate ‘em, I just wouldn’t want my sister to marry one. Would you?”
“I don’t have a sister.”
“But, if you did, would you want her to marry one?”
“That’d be her business.”
“Jesus, boy, all I want to know is how you’d feel about it.”
“I don’t know how I’d feel about it.”
“You wouldn’t like it one bit, you don’t have to tell me.”
“Look mister, you don’t know me well enough to say how I’d feel about it.
You know, you’re straight out of a textbook, talking about keeping niggers in their place and crap like that! You probably never had any contact with Negroes. You probably don’t know a thing a bout ‘em.”
“Boy, you don’t know what you’re talkin’ about!”
“You ever listen to yourself? I mean, you’re so blatant. You don’t even say, Some of my best friends are black.”
“Well, I’m friendly with some good niggers I know.”
“Good Negroes! Boy, the stereotypes keep coming don’t they?”
The driver’s expression shifts now to contempt. “I know how you think. You are a nigger-lover, and I’m supposed to love you for it, right? I’m supposed to say, ain’t this boy something, he don’t have no prejoodice against nobody. Nobody except me that is. In your eyes, I’m just manure, ain’t that right?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“No, but you’re thinking it, ain’t ya?”
In fact, I am thinking that, but I don’t want to offend him anymore than I already have. I mean if he’s a Southern bigot, he must be carrying heat, right?
“You talk about love so much. Tell me, boy, have you ever laid a nigger-woman?”
Despite his crude expression, I began to think of Desirie, Deserie, with the smooth brown skin and those lustrous ebony eyes, who I met in my high school chemistry class. I thought of how I ached to be with her and how the “nameless dread” had held me back from ever asking her for a date.
“Well, have ya?”
“No,” I sheepishly replied.
“How come?”
“I haven’t had the opportunity.”
“Bull-shit. With all those fine-looking nigger-women runnin’ around at that school, who you tryin’ to kid?”
“I haven’t seen them yet. I told you, this is my first day of college.”
“Well, boy, you have a lot to look forward to. Don’t keep your nose in all those books. Not with all that black pussy around. It’s all pink on the inside.”
His crudities suspend me between lust and disgust, and I’m rendered speechless. We cross Georgia Avenue at New Hampshire and eventually make our way onto Sherman Avenue. On top of a high hill, I saw where once stood Garfield Hospital, the hospital in which I was born. Garfield has since merged with two other hospitals to form the Washington Hospital Center.
Mercifully, I see the light at Euclid Street. “You can let me off at the light,” I say with undisguised dejection in my voice. “Thanks for the ride,” I half-heartedly offer. The driver says, “Don’t mention it. Remember one thing, boy. Don’t let those smart-ass niggers at that school mess up your mind. Remember, you’re white!”
As I walk up Euclid Street, I can’t get the driver out of my mind, his hatred and his arrogant presumption of white supremacy. “Why are people like that?” I ask myself over and over. As I play and replay this dispiriting conversation in my head, I keep searching for something clever or profound that I should have said. But nothing comes to mind. I’m ashamed that I even wondered whether any of his caricatures of Negroes is true. Just by wondering, my mood shifts from anger to alarm. Once again I’ve got the heebie jeebies when I realize that momentarily I will be surrounded by a large number of very dark human beings. Before that ride, I had been excited about the prospect of starting this new adventure. Now I’m a quivering, quaking, collection of nerves.
I’m so much in my thoughts that I fail to notice that I have walked right by Howard Place, the street that takes me up the hill to the entrance to the University campus. When I finally reach the entrance, I’m struck by the mammoth iron gate that opens to the Upper Quadrangle of the University, known colloquially as “The Yard”. As I pass through the gate, I see two long lines of students slowly merging into one line to enter the Rankin Chapel in which the Opening Convocation is to be held. One line begins in the middle of the Yard, just adjacent to Frederick Douglass Memorial Hall and continues past the Religion building and Founders Library, which is just a few yards east of the Chapel. The other line comes from the opposite direction beginning down in the Lower Quadrangle (The Valley) where many of the science buildings stood. Students come up the steps and angle leftward to the Chapel.
I have never seen so many black people in my life, and this stokes up my level of heebie jeebies. I thought that I might be a little nervous at this initial immersion into Howard life, but I am unprepared for the way I actually feel once I see who my classmates will be. At that moment I feel so much the outsider, so much the minority, and I wonder if I have made a terrible mistake. As I look over the crowd of students, I notice that both lines are infrequently peppered with white persons. I feel a sense of relief that I’m not the only white student at Howard. This is a silly thought because I already knew several white students who went to Howard, including my own cousin Jason who is starting his third year in the School of Pharmacy.
“Why are you here?” I heard a voice say. At first, I think it’s my own voice, giving vent to my fears. But then I hear, “Hey, white boy, why are you here?” I look behind me to see a tall, thin, light-skinned brown man glaring at me. My fear switches to defensive anger. “Why shouldn’t I be here,” I say huffily. “Cause you’re white and this is a school for Negroes.”
“Where’s it written that only Negroes can go here?”
“Well, you won’t let us in your universities, why should we let you in ours?”
“First of all, I haven’t stopped anybody from going anywhere. And in the second place, haven’t you ever heard ‘two wrongs don’t a right’?”
Suddenly, the tall, thin brown man begins to shake with laughter. “Hey, I’m just playing with you,” he says. “You don’t remember me, do ya?”
“Well, you look kind of familiar…”
“Think basketball; Interhigh playoffs? Flunky Coolidge vs super-talented McKinley-Tech? ”
“Oh my God! You’re the guy who kept beating on me every time I drove to the basket.”
“Blocked your shots you mean!”
“You may have gotten a piece of the ball, but you also took a piece of my head with you.”
“Hardly touched you at all white boy,” he says with a smile.”
“Yeah, well, I got half my points from the foul line because of the beating you gave me.” I’m now laughing and feeling much more at ease.
“In case you don’t remember my name, I’m Courtney Cartwright.”
“Cartwright! Of course!”
“You guys sure gave us a scare. I think we took you white boys a little too lightly. We thought we had an easy road to the championship game.”
“Hey, we weren’t all white. Remember Henry Hill?”
“Oh yeah, he had been our third string center. You know he transferred to Coolidge so he could get some playing time. He was rotting on the pine at Tech.”
“Yeah, well, he was making a mess of your center for three quarters.”
“And then he faded like a deflating balloon. You see we knew something you didn’t. Henry had a little problem with ‘Stam Me Na’,” he says with the biggest of grins while moving his head from side to side with each syllable.
“ You know, I still have nightmares about my shot in overtime that kept rolling around the rim and
finally rolled out.”
“Yeah, I actually felt bad for you….for about two seconds.” Cartwright cracks up with laughter.
It took us another 15 minutes to reach the entrance of the chapel. During this time, I learn that Courtney Cartwright was not only an excellent athlete but a stellar student as well who easily could have gotten into an Ivy League school. But he came from an upper middle class family in which a long list of his forbears had attended Howard. Of course he was going to go to Howard, whether he wanted to or not.
From the outside, the triangular, redbrick archway makes the Chapel seem deceptively small. Once we enter, however, the 90 by 50 foot structure feels cavernous. Yet the truth is somewhere in between. Three columns of 20 rows slope downward toward a raised stage. Thirty-three stained glass windows contribute to the illusion of the Chapel’s immense size and gravity. Courtney and I find seats in the next to the last row. After a few minutes, the humming chatter of several hundred excited freshman dissipates as a dark-skinned man in clerical robes strolls toward the podium. He is Dr. Evans Crawford who is only the third Dean of the Rankin Chapel since its inception in 1895. He asks us to bow our heads as he leads the group in the opening prayer.
I feel very uneasy and very Jewish in this starkly Christian atmosphere. I sense a very familiar disturbance in my stomach that informs me once again that I’m “a stranger in a strange land.” I, who fear being different more than just about anything, have voluntarily placed myself in this overwhelmingly alien situation. I only seem to be bowing my head. In fact, I’m doubled over by pains in my stomach. Here I am a white Jewish agnostic, who has little use for organized religion and who rarely shows his face inside a synagogue, much less a church, is sitting in a sea of black Christians.