I stepped just inside and closed the door behind me as she backed up. The fireplace in the dark book-filled den behind her was ablaze and she looked so lovely—her tall, thin body the same, save for the perfectly round ball beneath her pinkish plaid gown.
“I hope this isn’t too much,” I said.
“I’m just so glad you’re safe.”
I stood there filled with pain and joy—doubt and hope. Never before had all of these conflicting emotions been so present at once. She softly rubbed her tummy with one hand then calmly raised her other for me to take. Just the simple touch of her warm fingers sent me trembling. And, as the tears flowed down my face, she pulled me closer, wrapping her arms around me, gently resting her cheek against my chest. We must have stood there for half an hour just holding each other. Life had begun again.
* * *
As the weeks and months went by, we didn’t talk about the past. We just did our best to move on, to plant new seeds in Paris. I landed a part-time teaching job in the engineering department at the University of Paris and we moved into a house close to Ginger’s at 12 Rue Gabrielle.
I’d been able to track down Bobby Ellington through his parents in Ohio. He was now working at the State Department. He’d arranged, very diligently I might add, to organize some new passports for us. We were now the Sweet family. Loretta was still Loretta but my first name was Prescott. She felt that Sweet was a last name befitting an artist and I agreed.
I also sent for Momma and Aunt Coretta. If the SIS had decided to have the Timekeeper continue pursuing me, I figured he’d have very little luck tracing my whereabouts. Still, I worried that his pursuit might eventually lead him to Professor Gold’s. Too risky. Besides, I had no intentions of returning to America, and the only way I could see Momma and Aunt Coretta was to have them in Paris with us.
Sadly, we didn’t get to enjoy Aunt Coretta for very long. In April of 1924, she passed away. But what little time she did get to spend in Paris pleased her very much. Momma was as sad as I’d ever seen her, but was so glad to have been with us when the end finally came. And she didn’t mope around, I guess because her sister had been struggling for so long. Instead, Momma poured herself into helping Loretta with the twins—little James and little Ginger—during the day while I was at work.
On the weekends, Loretta and I walked a lot, pushing the baby carriage for blocks and blocks, both of us fascinated by everything Paris had to offer. On the weekends, while Loretta and Momma were still asleep, I tended to wake up early with the twins. I’d often put them in the stroller and push them down to the corner market where I’d buy whatever food I intended to cook us all for breakfast. The delicious cuisine of Paris had prompted me to start collecting cookbooks, to try my hand in the kitchen.
The preparation for one particular breakfast on a cold Saturday in late February of 1925 came with some added dramatics. Needing to buy some sausage and a few more potatoes for that morning’s meal, I bundled the twins up and strolled them down the block. As we approached the storefront, I glanced at the fresh stack of newspapers and saw something on the front page that grabbed my attention. It was a picture of Marcus Garvey being hauled away in handcuffs. It was, of course, a French paper, and though I was quite close to doing so, I hadn’t yet completely mastered the language, so I picked up a copy and entered the empty store.
“Bonjour, Jean,” I said to my tall, thin young friend behind the counter as I set the paper in front of him.
“Bonjour, Prescott!” he replied, smiling and waving down at the twins. “Bonjour, mes petits bébés!”
James and Ginger, not yet two years old, just grinned. I’d wrapped them in their blankets like tiny mummies, so tightly that neither could do as they normally did and lift their little arms to wave back. As Jean continued making smiley faces with them, I pointed to the column next to Garvey’s photo.
“Jean . . . if you wouldn’t mind . . . can you read some of this for me? En Anglais, please. I’m sure I could read it myself, but I don’t want to misinterpret even a tiny piece of it.”
“Oui,” he said, picking up the paper and taking the last bite of his powdery white pastry. “I would be happy to do for you.” He licked his fingers, stood tall, and cleared his throat several times, as if preparing to speak in front of a large audience.
“Merci, Jean.”
“Stop-uh me . . . if you want-uh me to repeat-uh something,” he said in his stereotypical, thick, rich accent.
“I will.”
“It-uh . . . says-uh . . . uh . . . ‘UNIA leader Marcus Garvey’s initial one month mail fraud trial began in New York City-uh . . . almost two years ago-uh . . . on May eighteen of 1923 with Judge Julian Mack presiding. The trial ended on June twenty-one of that year, with Garvey being sentenced-uh . . . to five years in prison for mail fraud. Mr. Garvey’s appeal for bail was initially rejected and he spent three months incarcerated in the Tombs Prison in New York before finally being released on bail . . . pending the appeal of his-uh . . . case to a higher court.’ ”
Jean stopped reading and looked up at me. “Continue,” I said. “Please.”
“Oui. It says-uh, ‘Now . . . after spending-uh . . . close to a year and a half out of jail continuing to build his organization, his appeal to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Second Circuit has finally been denied. Garvey . . . uh . . . who had been visiting Michigan in an attempt to increase his following and raise funds was arrested at New York’s 125th Street train station-uh . . . as he returned to the city on February five, 1925. He was-uh . . . taken directly into custody and arraigned the following day. He was transferred from the Tombs Prison in New York to the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary on February seven and began-uh . . . serving his term.’ ”
“Is that all?” I asked, looking down at James and Ginger.
“Oui,” he said, handing me back the paper.
“Thank you, Jean.”
“Merci. You do the shopping now?”
“Yes.”
I began pushing the carriage, my mind now in a different place. I’d been in Paris for two years and had done my best to shield myself from all that had occurred back in America. The only news I’d read had been a snippet about how Du Bois was successfully continuing the growth of the NAACP. It had left me feeling good, enough to continue moving on without stopping to analyze the past.
But now, hearing this about Garvey brought back all of the details. I couldn’t help but ask myself a question: Had the work I’d done been worth all that it had cost me? I waited for an answer to come to me as I pushed my babies toward a bin full of potatoes. I thought about their futures. Then I thought about their own children’s futures. If and when any of them decided to return to America, what kind of life would be awaiting them? It was then that I knew the answer to my question. It had indeed been worth it because any one man’s life had to be worth risking for the good of an entire people. I needed to believe that.
And now that Garvey’s separatist movement had been delivered a blow, Du Bois could make some serious gains. The NAACP’s dream was alive and well. I’d helped it survive. Integration had a fighting chance.
“Daddy!” said baby James, looking up at me with a big smile. I shook the carriage back and forth a bit to soothe them both.
“That’s right,” I whispered. “Daddy’s right here. Daddy loves you. Daddy loves you. Daddy loves you.”
A READING GROUP GUIDE
THE STRIVERS’ ROW SPY
Jason Overstreet
ABOUT THIS GUIDE
The suggested questions are included
to enhance your group’s reading of
Jason Overstreet’s The Strivers’ Row Spy.
Discussion Questions
1. If the Bureau had not taken the action that they took in 1919, how might the current state of black America be different?
2. If Du Bois and Garvey had had a different relationship, how might their outcomes have been different?
3. If Loretta had been politically curious a
nd aware, how could she have changed the course of the story?
4. Was the risk worth the reward for Sidney?
5. Is there hypocrisy in considering Sidney a sell-out while white agents are not thought of as traitors to their race?
6. Why is being a black agent in the story about race but being a white agent is not?
7. Considering what happened in the story, would James have forgiven Sidney if he’d learned the truth?
8. Why was it necessary, at least in Hoover’s mind, to hire black agents?
9. What historical facts fed the Bureau’s paranoia regarding communism?
10. Give two possible reasons that Hoover would think Garvey and Du Bois were like-minded on communism.
11. Which of the following do you think are factual, fictionalized, or both? • The Harlem setting
• Young J. Edgar Hoover’s role in the fledgling Bureau
• The Bureau agents in the story
• Du Bois’s and Garvey’s roles in U.S. and world history
• The Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill
• James Eason’s trip to New Orleans
• President Warren G. Harding’s stance on racial issues
12. Name some historical black Americans who emigrated to Paris.
13. Why might Garvey have been enthralled by pomp and ceremony?
14. Discuss Du Bois’s philosophy of the Talented Tenth.
The Strivers' Row Spy Page 36