by Barry Wolfe
After a few moments during which I am convinced that I will completely embarrass myself by vomiting in the pews, I look up to see another distinguished looking gentleman striding toward the podium. He is Dr. Mordecai Wyatt Johnson, the current President of Howard University. Dr. Johnson was the first African-American President of Howard and his tenure began way back in 1926. In fact, he is beginning his last year as President. I cannot believe my eyes. I’m looking at a white man. His skin color is the equivalent pale of my own. He’s a hair less than six feet and has a scholar’s eyes and a preacher’s bearing. In a smooth Tennessee drawl, he begins:
“Members of the faculty, fellow students, we have assembled here today for the opening of another school year in what may be properly termed a minority University—a University maintained primarily as a matter of historical fact, for the disadvantaged tenth of our population whom we call Negroes…. Because the members of the founding group were wise, they did not say, ‘We are founding a Negro University.’ They said, ‘We are founding a university that shall admit all persons, regardless of race, creed or color.’
And so it has been our fortunate history since the beginning of this institution, never to be wholly a Negro institution either in student body or faculty. On Howard University’s Faculty, for example, are Negroes and whites, men and women, Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Freethinkers and Atheists; Americans, Europeans, Latin Americans, Asians and Africans. We even have a few Republicans.”
This line brings the house down. If his bellowing voice doesn’t wake you up, the sustained laughter will. While his speech is laced with such wit, he continues a bit too long for most of us. Upon seeing a number of the freshman falling asleep on him, he suddenly changes the decibel level of his talk from barely above a whisper to a bellowing crescendo, “The Lord told me to speak, but He did not tell me when to stop!”
After we register for classes, Courtney suggests we get a bite to eat at the Kampus Korner. Situated at the corner of Georgia Avenue and Euclid Street, directly across the street from the campus; the “Korner”, as it was known to most, is a jumping, jiving social hub. As we enter the crowd eatery, the blended aroma of fried chicken, barbeque ribs, and burgers gladdens me. I’m salivating like a Pavlovian dog. The jukebox is blaring with the latest hit of Washington DC’s premiere Rhythm & Blues group, the Clovers. “Love Potion No. 9” is one of a growing genre of comedic ballads made popular by such groups as the Coasters, the Cadillacs, and the Clovers. I could use a little love potion no. 9 the way my love life is going; but that’s a story for later.
Courtney begins introducing me to some of his friends. All are very pleasant and very tall. David Trane, Vincent Rice, and James Robinson are all over 6’2”, and all are pre-med liberal arts majors. Even Courtney’s “main squeeze”, Claudine Taylor, is about 5’10” and stunningly attractive. They’re all intrigued to meet a white boy who is going to Howard. In the middle of our conversation, Ray Charles’s “What I’d Say” boomed out of the jukebox, and Courtney and his friends begin dancing. They all are beckoning me to join them. I stand motionless, paralyzed by the “nameless dread”. Claudina comes up to me and grabs my hand. She starts dancing in front of me and urges me to join her. The music finally trumps my fear, and I join the group in the “pony”, the “slop”, and the “snap”. In high school, I had won several dance contests with my moves, but I’m flat-out amazed by Vincent and Claudine’s more polished version of these dances. But they too are impressed. “Look at that white boy dance,” Claudine exclaims. “I’ve never seen a white boy move like you.” As Claudine moves back into my orbit, we begin to move together as if our bodies are having a conversation. Each of our dance moves communicates to the other what should come next. While dancing with this lovely black woman, a feeling of pure joy overtakes me. Not only am I taking a step toward conquering my Negrophobia, but I finally have a dance partner who instinctively understands my moves and who makes me look better with her own. That has never happened with any of my white partners.
When the music stops, Vincent opines, “You must be part nigger.” I’m shocked by his use of the N-word, but nobody else seems to be. In fact, everyone is laughing at Vincent’s anthropological speculation. “You might be on to something there Vince,” says David. “Hey Izzy, where did you learn to dance like that?” Courtney asked.
“By watching the Milt Grant Show,”
“You say what?” Courtney asks in an incredulous tone.
“Yeah, the Milt Grant Show on Channel 5. It’s on 6 days a week and get this, they reserve one day a week for black teenagers to be on the show. I would study how black teenagers dance. It was so much smoother and more rhythmic than the white kids. I just love watching black kids dance, and I want to dance something like that.”
“I watch it,” James pipes in defiantly.
“You DO?” the rest of the group asks in unison.
Yeah, particularly when they let us on. They call it Black Tuesday.”
“Ain’t that some shit, Vincent complains. “One day a week? And I bet we’re not allowed on any day there are white kids dancing.”
“Hell no,” James acidly exclaims. “The station owners are terrified that we might despoil the girls and “nigrafy” the boys.”
“Nigrafy?” Vincent inquires, cackling. “You made that word up.”
“What if I did? It’s a good description of what’s happening to Izzy here. The Milt Grant Show has turned him in to part jungle bunny.”
We all have a good laugh at that. At the same time I feel like my worst fear is coming true. I’m becoming nigrafied!
“Jungle bunny, my ass,” proclaims an unfriendly voice coming towards us. “He’s a pretender, a wannabe. Hey White, what’re you doing here anyway? Why did you come to Howard?”
The voice belongs to Jason Sharpe. He is muscular, mouthy, and generally combative. I had first met him when he was a point guard for Cardozo High School. He would talk trash to me the entire game. Our rivalry spanned two basketball seasons. It began when we both played junior varsity and continued when we moved up to our respective varsity squads.
“Well if it isn’t Mr. Jason Sharpe. Listen Sharpe, we’re not on the court now so you don’t have to keep talking trash to me.” I mean this as a joke. He takes it as a challenge. His smooth, soft chocolate brown features belie his combative expression.
“I’m not talking trash. I’m just tellin’ it like it is. You haven’t answered my question. What’re you doing here?”
“I chose Howard because it’s a good school and I can afford it.”
“Sure you’re not just slummin’ with the jiggaboos, White?” Sharpe retorts with a malicious smile on his face.
Courtney can no longer contain his impatience. “Sharpe, what’s your problem?”
“I ain’t got no problem. It’s Mr. White boy here who has a problem. He don’t realize he’s in the wrong part of town.”
“It’s a free country,” I lamely offer.
“You’re right, White. I forgot…. for white people it is a free country.”
“Now here comes his patented speech about the revolution,” Vincent announces. Sharpe just looks at Vincent and decides to shift his focus from animosity to ridicule.
“And what do you call this shit?” Sharpe does a mocking imitation of my dancing, exaggerating my best moves into a hilarious parody. None of us can avoid cackling at his grotesque impersonation. But I’m shaking inside with rage and humiliation.
“Let me show you how it’s done, son,” as he launches into a silky smooth and-- I have to admit-- superior version of the pony, the slop, and the snap.
“Well, I’m gonna pony on out of here because I gots me an ASSignation. I’ll dig you sad cats later.” He cracks himself up with that line. And out he goes dancing and laughing.
“Don’t pay him no mind, Izzy,” Courtney says after Sharpe is out the door. “He always has a bug up his ass about something.”
“No problem, Courtney. His words don’t bothe
r me, but his dancing puts me to shame.”
“I love the way you dance,” Claudine says, coming to my rescue. Mercifully, no one comments on my blushing.
“Well, I have to get home,” I say finally. But it was great meeting you all.”
“Be cool, White,” says Vincent. “I hope we can dance again soon,” says Claudine cheerfully.
As I’m walking toward the door, Courtney yells out, “Hey Izzy, I’m glad you chose Howard.”
“Thanks!” And for the first time today I think so am I.
I’m feeling high as a helium balloon as I walk up Georgia Avenue to find a good position from which to grab a ride home. These are warm people that I have just met, except for Sharpe. But I already knew his game. I feel surprisingly at home after just one day at Howard. Maybe this won’t be nearly as hard as I imagined.
When I reach the traffic light, I immediately approach a green Chevy Impala waiting there. Much to my amazement, the driver beckons me in. He is a largish Negro man with broad features. He is mocha-hued and possesses a definite twinkle in his eye.
“Where are you going?’ he asks.
“I need to go all the way to Langley Park. Are you heading up New Hampshire Avenue by any chance?”
“As it happens, I am. I live near the District line at Eastern Avenue if that will help.”
“Great,” I reply, excited that I have obtained a ride on my first try. “From there, it’ll be easy for me to get a ride the rest of the way. Or I can take a bus if I have to.”
The driver cheerfully offers, “I’m happy to oblige.” He gives me a huge grin. When he smiles, he reminds me of the pictures that I’ve seen of Fats Waller with the same expressive eyes.
After looking at me for a moment, he asks, “What are you doing in this part of town?”
“I go to Howard University,” I respond with a surprising amount of pride.
“Really,” he says in genuine amazement.
“Yes, this is my first day.”
He gives me a curious stare. “What made you choose Howard?”
Oh God, Am I going to have the same conversation in reverse?
I explain that I have two main reasons for choosing Howard. One is that the price is right. The second reason is that I know I have taken on some racist ideas and feelings, and I thought that if I really got to know some Negroes, I could eliminate these feelings. I believe that education can cure racism, especially mine.
The driver looks at me like I’m clearly certifiable. “Never in my entire life have I heard such a speech from a white man,” he says with great astonishment. “You must be a very unusual individual to choose Howard and for those reasons.” He ponders for a moment and then adds, “Wait a minute! I got it! You’re Jewish, aren’t you?”
“How did you know,” I ask as cheerfully surprised as I could. What I am really thinking was “Oh God, here it comes now, the ‘Jews are bleeding heart liberals’ speech.”
Instead, the driver explains, “Look, I know Jews are tight with money. I also know that many Jews are quite sympathetic to the plight of the Negro, and I am very grateful for that. I know your people feel a common bond with us, you know, because of slavery and all. Jews are a different breed and that’s a good thing. Not Anglo Saxons, though. They are some of the meanest people on earth. I don’t know why that is, but they sure hate them some Negroes, ooo wee.” The driver says laughing. But the more he rails against Anglo Saxons, the more upset he seems to get. He pulls a handkerchief from his pocket and begins mopping his brow. I don’t know whether to feel complimented or insulted. I cannot recognize myself in these stereotypes, positive and negative. I don’t have any money to be tight with. That’s why I’m going to Howard. And I am sympathetic to the Negro’s plight, as he put it, not because I feel a common bond because our ancestors shared slavery, but rather because of simple justice and respect.
“By the way, my name is Miles Taylor. What’s yours?”
“Izzy, Izzy White. “
Miles’ face breaks out into a big grin, but he remains silent. That smile says to me,
“Do I know a Jew when I see one, or what?”
“My people all hail from Maryland’s Eastern Shore. They lived near Tuckahoe where Frederick Douglas was born. You’ve heard of him, haven’t you?”
“Well, I was in Frederick Douglas Hall today, is that the same person?”
“Oh yes. He was a great man, a great orator. You should read his autobiography some day. Anyway, many of my ancestors were slaves, and I heard so many stories growing up about the cruelty of their Anglo Saxon slave owners. It’s as if I’ve inherited my dislike for the race. Every time I think about the fact that we are almost a hundred years away from the end of slavery and Anglo Saxons still treat me like shit, I get so angry I don’t know what to do with myself. I don’t think anybody who isn’t black can dig how much rage there is in the Black man.” Anglo Saxons better watch out. The Black man will not remain docile forever.” Miles begins mopping his brow again. I’m taken aback by the intensity of his feelings. We both remain silent for a while. I just stare out the window noticing for the first time how circuitous a road New Hampshire Avenue is from Georgia Avenue to the District Line.
“So you don’t dislike all white people?” I finally ask him.
“Naw, lots of white folks are nice, particularly you Jews. The source of the Negro’s problem and his greatest enemy is the Anglo Saxon. And it’s not like a lot of Anglo Saxons aren’t poor and haven’t experienced humiliation, discrimination, and hard times. But instead of those hard times making them sympathetic, it makes them all the meaner. In fact, some of the most vicious racists are poor redneck farmers and Georgia ‘Crackers.’”
“What’s a Cracker?”
“Well, a Cracker is a poor, black-hating white man.”
“But where does the term come from?”
“Well, there are two theories about that, Izzy. One theory holds that the slaves themselves invented the term to describe a whip-cracking slaveholder. The other theory says it arose when slaves were analogously comparing white soda crackers to ginger cookies.”
“But are all Crackers mean? Are all rednecks racist?”
“Just about son, just about.”
I immediately thought of the driver who gave me a ride in this morning.
We’re approaching Eastern Avenue when Miles says, “Well, I turn left here. It has been a pleasure meeting you and talking with you, young Izzy, and I hope our paths will cross again real soon.”
“Thanks, Miles. Me too!”
I quickly get a ride from a middle-aged man in a middle-aged car. Fortunately, he is not in the mood for conversation. Alone with my thoughts, I begin to review my first day at Howard, the first fruits of my unusual choice of colleges. I’m struck by how every person I met talked in stereotypes about other people. Whites, Blacks, Jews, Anglo-Saxons are all summed up in simple global phrases. I know that I share some of these stereotypes, but at the same time feel that they violate my own experience of the wide variety of personalities that I have already encountered in my young life. Isn’t this part of the problem? Wouldn’t education remedy these inaccurate portrayals of each other? I am deep into the perplexity of these thoughts when the driver announced that we had reached my destination. “Isn’t that Suburban Hill there on the left?” He asks. I thank him and get out of the car.
I race across New Hampshire Avenue and receive for my effort the loud blare of the horn of an oncoming car whose angry driver is upset that he has to slow down to keep from hitting me. I bound up the many steps to get to the back entrance of the building and once again avoiding the intolerably slow elevators, I run up the steps to the third floor. I enter my apartment and see my father sitting at the dining room table having a cup of coffee. “Well, how did it go today with the “Shwartzehs”? He asks. I just glare at him. Without answering, I go to my room and close the door.
Chapter
6.
That’s Your Mistake
I
t takes a full nine weeks for me to get used to the heavy schedule I am required to take. I’m taking 19 credit hours that includes Chemistry Lecture and then additional time devoted to laboratory work; Humanities, English, Natural Science, and Analytical Geometry. Since these were Honors level courses, the amount of homework that accumulates in a week’s time blows me away. In high school, I never put in the amount of time necessary to complete my homework assignments. And thus I found a new reason for the heebie jeebies, the fear of academic failure.
The Chemistry Building is only 23 years old, but it seems much older. The halls are dark and the laboratories dreary. Rusting Bunsen Burners lie among the other dilapidated equipment on tables that appear to be products of the Civil War. A rotten eggs smell pervades the entire laboratory, and I wonder whether gas masks are regularly handed out during chemistry experiments. This is not my idea of a cutting edge chemistry laboratory.