by Barry Wolfe
“Izzy, MJQ has introduced a whole new cool and mellow sound to Jazz. The group started about a decade ago by Milt Jackson who plays the vibraphone.” Her enthusiasm is infectious and I find myself getting wound up before I have even heard a note. We’re sipping our drinks when the MC begins his introduction.
“LADIES AND GENTLEMAN (he’s screaming) THE BOHEMIAN CAVERNS IS PROUD TO PRESENT THE MODERN JAZZ QUARTET WITH MILT JACKSON ON THE VIBRAPHONE, JOHN LEWIS ON PIANO, PERCY HEATH ON BASS AND CONNIE KAY ON DRUMS.” For such a small place, the applause is thunderous. I imagine that everyone but me is deeply knowledgeable about the merits of MJQ.
MJQ begins its set with the eponymous “Bag’s Groove” written by Milt “Bags” Jackson. I’m hooked from the first colloquy between Jackson’s vibraphone and Lewis’s piano. This mellow new sound, aided by the alcohol I’m by now too rapidly imbibing, slides effortlessly into my brain. I’m well into my second whiskey sour when I think I notice the faux stalagmites undulating. Everyone in the Caverns seems to be undulating as well, all in the same direction, as if they’re gesticulating toward the quartet. And Desirie is moving her head in such a sensual, rhythmic sway that I’m once again filled with desire for her. Every once in awhile, she turns toward me and bathes me with a joyous smile. The quartet moves through a number of their previous hits such as “Django”, “Nights in Tunisia”, “Pyramid”, and “Round Midnight”. After the first set, I’m still slightly woozy from the alcohol. Desirie’s head seems to be swaying to the sound of silence. So I try to mimic what I see. “Izzy? Izzy, the music has stopped and your still boppin'.” I begin to drum a syncopated beat on the table to accompany my awful singing:
The music’s stoppin’
But I’m still boppin’.
The music’s stoppin’
But I’m still boppin’.
Desirie starts laughing. “Oh Izzy, you’re drunk.”
“No, I’m not,” I protest. “I’m just doing what you’re doing… boppin’.”
“But I’m not doing anything. It’s all in your pickled brain. I’ve never seen a drunk white boy before,” she muses. “Well am I any different from a drunken Negro?’
“The black men I know who have been drunk are either mean or boisterous. You’re just silly.” As I lapse into a paraphrased version of the Clover’s hit, “Ting-A-Ling”,
Desirie’s eyes spread wide with horror. “Izzy, stop!” I see and hear her say this but her entreaty does not register. I get up and do the snap and continue singing the chorus to “Ting-A-Ling”. Desirie starts tugging at my jacket trying to pull me back down into my seat. “Izzy, you’re embarrassing me.” The audience is laughing at me, but clapping loudly to spur me on. I comply with Desirie’s forceful tugging and clumsily fall back into my seat. “What was that about, Izzy?” By now, Desirie is angry. I look into her eyes with a doleful, imploring gaze, and utter with mock solemnity and in the Blackest accent I could muster: “But, honey, I’m just a po’ white boy.” Desirie is furious. “Now you’re just being an asshole.”
“Desirie, I’m serious. I know I’m a little tipsy but I’m trying to tell you that I have strong feelings for you.”
“Yeah, right. By making a fool of yourself? By embarrassing me? By imitating a Black singer? You’ve got to be jiving me.” With a downcast look, Desirie stares into her drink, and gently and slowly shakes her head. She looks like she has lost her best friend, and I feel like my hopes that she will reciprocate my intense feelings for her are obliterated by my inadvertent minstrel show.
We’re silent throughout the MJQ’s second set and leave quickly when it is over. As I head back to her dorm, Desirie breaks the silence. “Izzy, I don’t think this is going to work out. Maybe we should end this now before we both really get hurt.”
“Why are you saying this? I got a little drunk and acted silly. Is that such a crime?”
“Look, Izzy, I’m not upset just because you made a spectacle of yourself. It’s the way you did it, imitating a black accent, dancing like your idea of a black man dancing. It wasn’t just silly; it was offensive. I know you didn’t mean to be insulting, but you’re trying too hard to be what you think I want you to be. You’re trying too hard to be Black and that’s not what I want.”
“Well, what do you want? Before you rejected me because I’m white.”
“I rejected you because I was frightened,” she fiercely rebuts. Then more softly, she adds, “I just want you to be yourself, Izzy, that’s all.” When we arrive at the dorm, she quickly collects her things together, hurriedly gives me a peck on my cheek and curtly says, “Goodbye Izzy.” And she’s gone.
I just sit in my car, bluer than I have ever been. I turn on WOOK in the middle of “Music for Lovers Only”. The announcer is about to play The Closer You Are by The Channels and he is listing the requesters: “This goes out for Bob and Carol, Gerald and Livonia; for the Bossman and Anita, Clarence and Sweetlips; for Claudina and Louis, Snooky & Dreamgirl; for Ramon & Jackie, and………..
Chapter
15.
A Change is Gonna Come
I sit in the car for the longest time feeling underwater, drowning in grief. My tears won’t stop. I can’t lose her. I have to get her back. I can’t bear to be without her. I look up at the shaded floor window of Crandall Hall and see the dark silhouette of three women apparently engaged in a gabfest. I imagine them to be Desirie and her two closest friends talking about me and my ridiculous antics at the Bohemian Caverns. I imagine that I can read the lips of the dark silhouette I took to be Desirie. She’s waving her hands in disgust and telling her friends, “What was I thinking trying to date a white boy, especially a white boy as crazy as Izzy White. Moments later, I see the three silhouettes bobbing up and down in apparent laughter. I’d swear on a stack of Bibles that Desirie is recounting every embarrassing thing I said and did throughout the course of our relationship. I sit here in my car with my head in my hands sobbing and feeling the chilled blanket of shame straight-jacketing my entire body.
That imaginary scene of Desiree and her laughing friends freezes me. I believe in my image completely and conclude that she wants no part of me. As much as I want to contact her, I’m too ashamed, too vulnerable to try. I see her every week in our sociology class, but I make no effort to speak to her. If I catch a glimpse of her coming or going from class, I turn my head away. Oddly, I think about Desiree only when I’m on campus. She completely slips my mind when I’m home or with my white friends, only to again haunt my thoughts when I return to campus.
It's a warm day in April when I am wandering on campus, lonely as a cloud, and lost in thought about Desirie. I feel a hand grab the scruff of my neck. I jerk myself free fearful that I’m being attacked. I whirl around to see who my “attacker” is and I am shocked to find that the hand that has grabbed me-- and the person to whom it belongs--is white. It’s Phil Workman who’s staring intensely at me with a predatory grin covering his face. “Hey, Izzy,” he says in an overly cheerful voice, “How’s it hanging?” I show him my hangdog expression and reply, “It’s hanging like a dead weight. How’re you hanging?”
He stares at me out of large black saucer eyes. “Izzy, I want you to do something for me that I think will redound to your great credit.” Redound? Never heard that word before, but it sure is lovely.
“What do you want, Phil?” His eyes get even bigger, approaching the size of frisbees.
“I want you to go with me to a NAG meeting. The next meeting is Sunday, April 2nd at the Newman House.”
“Well, I don’t know.”
“Come on, Izzy, you’ll meet some wonderful, committed people who want to bring some long overdue justice to this world. Look, I’ll even pick you up. Where do you live?”
“Langley Park.”
“Oh shit!”
“Phil, you don’t have to pick me up. I’ll drive down and meet you there.”
“THEN YOU’LL COME?”
“YES, I’LL COME,” I said, mocking his enthusiasm.<
br />
I leave my apartment around 11:30 on Sunday morning. I want to get on campus early because I’m not quite sure where the Newman House is located. I arrive around 12:30, and it takes me another 30 minutes to find the place. No one has informed me that it’s located several blocks off-campus. I walk into the house and am immediately confronted by a giant crucifix, which set off alarm bells. What the hell am I doing here? I find the meeting room in which about 25 people have congregated. Among the group are about a half a dozen white students, many of whom I’ve noticed around campus. They’re all listening with rapt attention to a bespectacled Negro gentleman talking about the various demonstrations that NAG has engaged in DC, Maryland and Virginia protesting against segregated restaurants and other business establishments. I scan the room hardly listening. I see another crucifix on the wall and am disturbed again by an inner alarm. I finally espy Phil who turns around to survey the room. Spotting me, he nods with an ear-to-ear grin. Then I see her….Desirie…. sitting two rows in front of me and off to my left. From that point on, I see nothing else nor can I take in any of the people. I only faintly hear the political strategizing, the self-praising of NAG’s efforts to organize the campus and their call for volunteers to participate in the pending Freedom Rides. Desiree must have come to the meeting from church because she is done up in her Sunday finery, white dress and a white wide-brim hat. I thought she had not noticed me, but she made a special effort to track me down after the meeting. “Izzy. Oh Izzy, I’m so glad you came. Isn’t it exciting?”
“What?”
“The Freedom Rides. This is our chance to get on the front lines of the struggle; to change the world.”
“I’m not sure what you mean, Desirie.”
“Didn’t you hear all the talk about what CORE is doing?”
“Well, I had trouble hearing the speaker,” I alibied. OK I lied. “Why don’t you fill me in? In fact, do you have time to get some coffee at the Student Union?”
She looks at me probingly for a moment and then says, “Sure.”
As we walk over to the Union, she tells me about CORE’s plan to challenge segregation in interstate travel on buses. Segregation, in fact, had been ruled illegal by the Supreme Court last December in a case called Boynton v. Virginia. Bruce Boynton was a Howard University law student who was arrested in 1958 for attempting to desegregate the Richmond Trailways terminal. The Court ruled that state laws requiring segregation in lunch counters, restrooms, and waiting rooms are unconstitutional. The purpose of the Freedom Rides is to make sure this monumental change in the law is being enforced. The fact is that despite the Court’s ruling, Negroes are still being arrested and harassed if they try to desegregate bus terminals or sit in the no-longer valid “whites only” section of a bus. James Farmer, CORE’s Director, and his associates came up with a plan for a “Freedom Ride” from Washington, DC to New Orleans. When we finally sit down at an available table, Desirie continues.
“Anyway, CORE is trying to recruit a dozen or so volunteers, bring them to Washington for three days of intensive training in nonviolent tactics, and then leave on May 4th. The Freedom Riders, as they will be called, will be split between Greyhound and Trailways buses. They’ll travel through Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi and be in New Orleans on May 17th, which just happens to be the 7th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education decision. Isn’t it exciting? And Izzy, I’ve volunteered.”
“You’ve what?” I get the heebie-jeebies just thinking about what a mob of Alabama rednecks might do to her. “Desirie, this Freedom Ride sounds extremely dangerous!”
“It is, but I’m prepared to put my life on the line for our freedom.”
I just look at her, speechless with fear and apprehension. However, I’m not prepared for what comes next. “And Izzy, I want you to volunteer too.”
“You what?” Are you out of your cotton-picking mind?” I guess picking cotton is not quite the metaphor I was striving for. “Seriously?” She says with a pained expression.
“I’m sorry. You know what I mean. I’ m just so afraid you’ll get your head bashed in by a bunch of crazy Crackers.” Now she laughs. “Izzy, your metaphors are something else. Look, I know it’s dangerous, but the Freedom Ride is a wonderful opportunity for us to be together, sharing in a struggle we both care about. I know you hate segregation and injustice. You wouldn’t be at Howard if you didn’t.”
We sit in silence for what seems a millennium, just looking at each other. Her imploring expression dissolves into the warm smile that always sends my physiology into perturbations. “Well, Izzy,” she finally asks, “Will you come with me? Will you volunteer?”
“I don’t know, Desirie. I have to think about it.”
“Yes, Izzy, do think about it. And think about acting on your convictions. Or are you all talk?”
“Listen, Desirie, the truth is that I have thought about it and I can’t go.”
“Why not?” Her eyes are now wide with frustration.
“Well, first of all I’m on scholarship and I can’t afford to take two weeks off from classes and homework. You know what happened to me last year when I lost my scholarship. I can’t afford to lose it again.” Now she’s angry. “Oh Izzy, you’re smart enough to make the work up. “
“Well, I guess so,” I respond sheepishly.
“Then you’ll volunteer?” I look at her eager face lighting up with hope, and know that I cannot disappoint her. I tell myself that it’s all for a good cause.
“OK, Desirie, I’ll volunteer, but they probably won’t take me,” I say, trying to prepare her for the strong possibility that I won’t be going with her.
“Oh, Izzy, that’s wonderful. I’m so proud of you.” She just grins at me for a long moment, and I see that tears are welling up in her eyes. “Well, Izzy, I’ve got to run.” She leans in and kisses me on the cheek and hurries off. Without looking back, she waves the back of her hand and cheerfully says “See you at the training sessions.” I watch her bounce away until she’s no longer in sight. And when she’s gone, my body sags from the weight of what I have just promised her. I am scared out of my mind. Once again the internal debate begins. This is not my fight. I mean who ever helped the Jews? Maybe the idea of Freedom Rides is too radical an approach to change. Maybe I’ll lose my scholarship again. But I know the real reason for my doubts. I don’t believe I will make it back alive, and I do not relish the idea of dying so soon. I can hear the southern white bigots screaming, “Let’s get the nigger-lover. He’ll wish he’d never brought his Commie ass into Dixie.”
The consequences of my decision hit me full in the face when I have to sit down and write a required essay explaining how and why I have become committed to nonviolence and civil disobedience. I’m not sure I’m fully committed to either. An even more formidable obstacle is obtaining my parents’ permission to volunteer. CORE required parental approval for all volunteers under the age of 21. Somehow I cobble together an essay that even Gandhi would have been proud of. Then I convince my mother to let me go and leave her the unenviable task of informing and convincing my father. With essay, permission slip and suitcase in hand, I show up at the Fellowship House down on L Street between 9th and 10th late Sunday afternoon, April 30th to begin three days of intensive training in nonviolence. I meet the other dozen or so volunteers at dinner who range in age from 19 to 61. There’s an elderly white couple from Michigan that catches my interest. I really look forward to getting to know them and learn how they come to volunteer for the Freedom Ride. I sit next to Desirie at dinner and think to myself that this is an odd venue for us to have dinner together. I enjoy it nonetheless.
In the morning, James Farmer, the National Director of CORE, starts the training session by telling us in his booming baritone of the importance of CORE, of the Freedom Ride, and of the imperative to remain nonviolent regardless of the provocation. He outlines the itinerary of the Ride and the possible positive and negative outcomes. After he speaks, CORE’s gener
al counsel orients us about constitutional law, federal and state laws pertaining to discrimination in interstate transportation and informs us of what we should do if we get arrested. Other speakers make us aware of the racial mores in the South and the lengths to which the local citizenry will go to force compliance with these social rules. One speaker tells us what’s really going to happen to us and that we could be badly beaten or even killed. Later during that first day, we read the classic texts of nonviolence, including Thoreau’s groundbreaking essay on civil disobedience written in 1849, and Gandhi’s rules of civil disobedience.
The first day goes well. I’m becoming more attracted to the philosophy of nonviolence despite my initial grave doubts. My doubts are less about the validity of the philosophy then my ability to be nonviolent under provocation. At dinner that evening, I’m filled with joy and love for all of humanity as I sit next to Desirie for a second straight night. I can’t imagine ever being happier for I have simultaneously found a love and a cause. After dinner, Desirie and I sit around with a number of the volunteers talking about the upcoming Freedom Ride. The discussion soon turns into a philosophical debate about power, violence, and nonviolence. It takes me awhile to open my mouth, but when I do I spill my guts about my admiration for Gandhi’s Rules of Civil Disobedience, and my fears that I won’t remain nonviolent if a bunch of angry ignoramuses start knocking me upside my head.