Izzy White?

by Barry Wolfe

  Chapter

  17.

  Brandon’s story

  My paranoia now is in full bloom. When I walk on campus en route to my classes in Douglass Hall, I keep my eyes downward. I don’t want to see hostile black faces. Occasionally, I look up and peek for a second into the eyes of a student in search of Malcolmized hostility. Rarely do I see anything that even approximates anger or hostility. But I expect it nonetheless. Mostly I see indifference or eyes that say, “Why are you staring at me?” I want very much to talk to Brandon. I want to know his reactions to the debate, and maybe he can help me understand the boisterous enthusiasm for Malcolm X. As I’m walking toward Douglass Hall, I see Brandon coming out of the building. I dash toward him yelling, “Hey, Brandon. BRANDON!” The sight of a white boy running toward him smiling while screeching out his name is so unusual that Brandon doubles over in laughter. “Hey, Izzy. Where’s the riot?” I quickly stop and laugh at Brandon’s laughter and wonder what I must have looked like. “You got a minute? I want to ask you about the debate.”

  “Cool, Jack. What d’ya want to know?”

  “Who do you think won?”

  “No question about it, Malcolm won, rhetorically, and emotionally.”

  I’m appalled. “But what about the substance of their arguments. Malcolm’s in La La Land as I think Rustin made clear. His solutions make no sense.”

  “Say what? Malcolm was brilliant and clearly won the debate. Tell you the truth we were surprised. Everybody in NAG fully expected that Bayard’s arguments for integration would win over the audience. But you were there. You saw. You heard.”

  “Yes, I was there. I saw and heard, and now I fear. Yeah, Malcolm was charismatic, but his ideas terrify me.”

  “Look, he didn’t convert me or anybody else in NAG, but Malcolm taught me something at that debate. I mean his theological worldview is alien to my democratic socialist perspective as is his solution of racial separation. You have to understand, Izzy, that for the past couple of years I’ve been exposed to the hope, the optimism, and the real problems facing black people. I’ve experienced Southern black culture and the culture of Howard’s Black Bourgeoisie. I’ve endured the hell of a Mississippi prison farm and walked the gauntlet of many a picket line in the country of hate. And I’m still a secular socialist. But what Malcolm showed me the other night in Crampton Auditorium is the raw power that exists within our collective blackness.” I begin to feel a panicky chill slithering down my back. The sound of the phrase “collective blackness” feels like a prison door separating me off from a people I have come to admire, and whose quest for dignity and respect I have made my own. I see Brandon on the other side of the door, waving goodbye, and a cold premonition of painful catastrophe comes over me that will soon sadden and anger not just me, but the country as a whole. I try to sweep this image under the rug of my conscious preoccupations. “I understand what you are saying, Brandon,” (although I don’t), “But surely you can’t believe that Negroes in America can obtain justice and economic opportunity without white allies. Isn’t that what Bayard said?”

  ‘Democratization and socialization the Negro cannot do alone.’ Civil rights is not just about Negroes getting the rights, respect, and dignity due them, it’s also about making America a better country, a country that lives up to its stated ideals.” Brandon’s eyes go wide, and I can see he’s doing his best to restrain his anger. His cheeks fill with air, which he then pushes from one cheek to the other.

  “Listen Izzy, you need to understand something. I came to this country from Barbados. There and throughout the Caribbean my black face is in the majority. There we hold our black heads high. Then I come to New York and I begin to feel something different about the way black people are treated in America. Disdain and disrespect are even more prominent here in DC and in the surrounding areas of Virginia and Maryland. But it was only when I went on the Freedom Rides that I got a mouthful of all the putrefying poisons of white supremacy. I heard what happened to Desirie, Izzy, and I’m really sorry, man.” “Thanks, Brandon, what happened to her is horrible.” “I know it is. How’s she doing now?”

  “She’s mending physically. I’m not sure how she’s doing emotionally. She’s been keeping her distance from me because of my skin color. Ain’t that ironic?”

  “Maybe to you, Izzy, but that’s what we darker skin folk have had to deal with for centuries. If you’ve got time, I’d like to tell you another story. “ “I’ve got time,” I said cautiously, wondering what Brandon will lay on me now.

  “Poor Desirie was battered in Aniston and that was horrible with the Klan fire-bombing the bus and all, but it got much worse in Montgomery and Birmingham. Did you know that Jim Farmer was about to call off the Freedom rides because of the brutal treatment the Riders received in Birmingham at the hands of the Klan? Farmer was terrified by the prospect of having the possible, if not probable, deaths of many young people on his conscience. The brutality was blessed by the Birmingham police. They had disappeared from the bus station for about 15 minutes to allow the Klan to crack open some Freedom Rider heads. The police are mostly Klan members anyhow. A lotta blood was spilled at the Birmingham Bus station, yes there was. Well, we got a call from Diane Nash who is a committed sister in the Nashville SNCC contingent. She was persuasive in her argument that we can’t just stop the Freedom Rides. If we do, that’s a solid message to the racists that might makes right; and that all they have to do is to mobilize overwhelming violence and the freedom fighters will fold like a Bedouin tent. She said that we can’t let that happen, so she organized another group of freedom riders from Nashville and she wanted to know if NAG would send some volunteers. Our group left a week after Diane called, and we were the first ones to test the trains. We flew to New Orleans and then we got on the Illinois Central en route to Jackson, Mississippi. Just like at the bus stations, a mob was waiting for us at the train station. Now I’d seen hostile crowds before in Virginia and Maryland but nothing like this. These honkies were yelling, spitting, throwing cans and lit cigarettes at us. Man they were even fighting each other to get at us. One little old white man tried to get up from his wheelchair so that he could take a swing at me. I couldn’t believe how contorted his face was with hatred and rage. He was shaking so bad that when he finally hit me, it was no blow at all. However, some younger honkies got in some serious licks. When we arrived in Jackson, we promptly entered the white waiting room. And we were just as promptly arrested. We kept mouthing off at the cops. No matter what they did to us we remained nonviolent. You see, Izzy, we were nonviolent, but we were not gonna be pacifist.” Brandon laughs at a private memory, and then continues. “Here was SNCC’s strategy. We wouldn’t accept bail if we went to jail. The Jail, No Bail slogan would result in our filling the jails of Mississippi. I heard that over 400 freedom activists ended up in jail by the time the Freedom Rides were stopped, including “Yours Truly”. I first landed in the Hinds County Jail. And do you know what those Mississippi Honky motherfuckers did? Uh, sorry about that Izzy.”

  “No, no, that’s quite alright. I agree; they were honky motherfuckers. Go on.”

  Brandon faintly smiles and continues. “They wanted to avoid the negative international publicity that broke upon the heads of the Alabama segregationists, but they couldn’t afford to let the Freedom Riders openly defy their Jim Crow laws and escape without some serious damage done to them. But after Alabama, the ‘good white citizens’ could not be seen doing the damage. Instead the police tried to collude with a dozen of the toughest Black prisoners, that’s right, Jack, the Black prisoners, the lifers and long-termers with violent records, and attempted to bribe them. Here’s the deal they offered these long-termers: An easier time in prison, reduced sentences, and maybe a little cash if they beat up the Freedom Riders. Brandon then began to imitate the Honky MFs. “Heah’s yore chance to whip some Yankee haids, no questions asked.” And boy, were those crackers surprised when these righteous brothers said no. The courage that these brother
s showed in saying no, even though they knew exactly how totally at the mercy of the penal system they were, made me cry. When the number of prisoners got unwieldy, the Freedom Riders and their supporters were segregated from the general population of black prisoners. At night, we all sang freedom songs, which united us and enraged the crackers in charge. We could even hear the female freedom Riders singing over in the women’s unit. Then the brothers above us began singing their work and prison songs. Even the white Freedom Riders were singing. The head honchos were unnerved by this defiance and so the threats began. First they threatened to deny us the mess cart if we didn’t stop singing. This meant no gum, sodas, and snacks. No big deal, except for the cigarettes. Many of the Freedom Riders were chain-smokers. For them this was a real crisis. However, the brothers upstairs solved the crisis. They let down a bag on a string. We put in our orders and the money and down came the cigs. The smoking and singing went on. I had a week of this before we were told that we would be movin’ to Parchman Penitentiary. Okay, that scared me. Parchman was reputed to be the most brutal prison in the South. And I knew that meant we were going to one of the worst hellholes in the country and that we would be tortured. It was after midnight when they came for us. We were herded into trucks. The doors were locked and we were driven away in complete darkness. When we arrived at dawn, there was just enough light to see barbed wire stretching far into the distance and armed guards with shotguns. Beyond the guards and inside the fence, we could see a complex of boxy wooden and concrete buildings. And beyond them, nothing but dark, flat Mississippi delta. We were taken to the basement of a long low brick building. We were made to strip and stand nude while waiting to be processed. The off-duty guards were shouting crude comments and cackling. They seemed to have a fixation about genitals, a preoccupation with size. They burned us with cattle prods. You could actually see smoke and smell skin burning. The man in charge of the processing was a massive, red-faced cigar-smoking cracker in cowboy boots who strutted about shouting orders and threats. His name was Deputy Nosyt. They told us that in order to protect us from the other prisoners, we were going to be locked up in maximum security. We followed the fat-ass Deputy Nosyt, who we began to call ‘Deputy Noshit, down the dingy corridors to a group of cells. We had to shower and shave off any facial hair. We were given as clothing a flimsy tee shirt and a pair of boxer shorts. No shoes or socks. We were then placed two in a cell, which was a six by nine feet concrete and windowless box with two steel racks for bunks, a sink, and a commode. The only time we left the cell was for a weekly shower.” Brandon pauses for a moment as the memories continue to flood his brain, and it looked to me as if he were trying to achieve editorial control over them. Or it could have just been the pain I am feeling from my over-active empathy for the horror experienced by Brandon and the other Freedom Riders. He must have picked up the anguish in my face because he continues in a lighter vein.

  “Now just because we were in lockdown 24/7 that did not mean this was a situation of unrelenting horror. No way, Jack. Our group possessed such a range of ideologies, religious belief, political commitment and backgrounds, age and experience that we had the most amazing discussions and debates. But the common denominator that we all shared was moral fortitude.” Then Brandon’s expression changes presumably due to a more painful memory coming in. “During our second day there, we began singing our freedom songs. In marches Noshit: ‘Y’ all gon’ ha’ to stop that singing. We ain’t having none of that shit heah.’ The next time he shows up, ’Ah’m warning you. You gonna lose yore mattresses.’ Even with the thin mattresses you felt the sharp edges of steel when you tried to sleep. We didn’t stop. In came Noshit for the mattresses with a bunch of guards. My cellmate and I would not give ours up. They snatched mine out from under me dumping me on the floor. My cellmate wrapped himself around his mattress. A guard pulled him into the corridor, but couldn’t pry the mattress loose. The guard and my cellmate wrestled with the mattress for a few minutes. The guard finally yells “Awright, go git ‘em, Dusty.” A short, muscular prisoner jumped on Frank and started pounding him. After only a minute of this, he got the mattress. What a humiliating scene it was, Izzy, Dusty was black. At first I was upset with Dusty even though I knew the brother didn’t have a choice. He seemed to enjoy his work too much. Frank defended him. ‘what you talking about,?’ I said to him. ‘He like to take yo head off.’

  ‘Hey, he coulda messed me up something terrible, man. But I could feel him pulling up. Besides, I know it hurt him worse than it hurt me. Every time he hit me, Dusty started crying, man. That’s why I gave him the fucking mattress.’ After lunch, the preachers in our group started praying and singing hymns. But Noshit wasn’t having any of that either. The preachers insisted that they were going to praise their God. Noshit replied, ‘Wal, tell you whut. Y’all can sing yore hearts out to Jesus, but yore asses belong to me.’ He slammed the door behind him. The preachers started up again with renewed fervor. Then guards showed up with the fire hose. They hosed us all down. Someone hollered, ‘Hallellujah! He washing away our sins. Next time, bring some soap.’” I’m so engrossed in Brandon’s story that I lost sight of the fact that we have been standing in front of Douglass Hall the whole time. His story conjured up in me such fearful and horrific images that I’m exhausted. “Brandon, can we sit a minute?”

  “Sure, Izzy. Shall we find our table at the Student Union?”

  “That would help.” As we make our way to Miner Hall, I ask Brandon how he could possibly endure such barbaric treatment. “Wait, it gets worse! Noshit introduced Frank and me to a form of torture that I had never heard of. They called them wrist breakers. It was essentially a small vise. The pain was excruciating. If you tried to ignore the pain, they’d twist it in such a way that you would feel your bones about to break. The pain would make you flip over, Jack. And if they continued to twist, the agony was so great you’d find yourself rolling over on the floor.” I don’t know how much more I can listen to this horror, but Brandon keeps on.

  “When it was my turn, I had convinced myself that I would not let them flip me. After I had flipped a couple of times, Noshit asks if I had had enough. I just stared at him. He flipped me again. ‘Enough yet?’ I lay on that floor and started singing a movement song: ‘I’m going to tell God how you treat me, one of these days.’ The entire row joined in.”

  We take a break and grab some coffee. When we return to our table, Brandon continues. “If the wrist breaker affair was a kind of victory, the next event was a ridiculous defeat. One of the white members of our group, who was a committed Gandhian, began a hunger strike. Frank and I were in passionate agreement—no hunger strike. We needed our energy to deal with all the whup-ass that the jailors were laying on us. Generally the other NAG folk were opposed to the hunger strike. The ministers, pacifists, and Gandhians were for it. Through group pressure those of us against the strike finally caved. Frank and I were the last holdouts. The thought that finally sunk us was that we would be the only ones in the group eating. That thought was morally repellent to both of us. The next morning, we told the trustees to take the food back. Our jailors were puzzled. They’d never encountered a move like this. Noshit told them to leave the food, but no one touched it.

  Then supper came and the food, which had always been disgusting, suddenly was much more appealing. Fried chicken, peas, greens and corn bread still steaming and butter. The food was placed in the slot in the door where we could see and smell it. We had to endure the smells because the penalty for knocking over the trays was solitary confinement in the hole. We wouldn’t eat it though. The pigs responded by bringing us even better food--Roast beef, mashed potatoes, pecan pie. After a couple of days, we all had severe stomach pains. Now we started fighting with each other over the wisdom of the hunger strike. The arguments got louder and more contentious. This went on for several days. Then on the fourth day, Frank leaped out, pointing and shouting. ‘Look, look, that one’s empty. I don’t know who, but someone just ate. I don’t car
e who it was , but Frank Wade’s gonna be second.’ Me and James Farmer held out for another day. But before I started eating, I had something to say to the group. ‘Friends, most of you don’t know me. My name is Brandon Blackwell. I’m in with Frank Wade. We are the two youngest freedom fighters in here. Now I’m young and pretty, but I will be fighting for our people’s freedom until the day I die, so there’s no doubt that I’ll land in jail again. I bet many of you will too. So remember my name. Because if we’re ever in jail again and any of you even mentions the words hunger and strike, I’m gonna denounce you properly. I’ll be at the front of the line to denounce you. You can tell everybody that. That if they are ever in ail with Brandon Blackwell, never ever mention anything about any hunger strike.’” We both start laughing. “Yeah, now I can laugh about it; but at the time, it was no laughing matter,” Brandon says, shaking his head vigorously. “Of course, now that the strike was over, the food reverted to its formerly disgusting smell and taste.