by Dorothy West
Simeon accepted this half-truth without enthusiasm. No matter how long the Indians had lived in America, they hadn’t lived in Boston. No wonder those boys had asked him what country he came from. He couldn’t understand why his father had let the doctor leave a boy who looked like an Indian instead of a boy who looked like a Bostonian.
The next day, when Simeon unwillingly went out to play, the little boys rushed to greet him and vigorously pumped his hand. They, too, had had instructions in correct demeanor from their fathers, who had been preparing for their questions as soon as they saw that the Binney boy looked old enough to come out to play. Their fathers had explained to them that you did not speak of color to colored persons. It hurt their feelings. You must always act as if they had no color at all. God made everybody, and in His infinite wisdom He had made some people brown. It was as rude to ask a colored boy why he was brown as it was to ask a lame boy why he limped. The way for a well-bred Boston boy to behave was with generosity toward those with fewer blessings.
Through the long afternoon Simeon waited to return to the subject of race. He had decided not to say he was an Indian. He was going to stand pat on being a Bostonian. He was going to fight about it if he had to. But the subject was never reopened.
The boys had set out to be bountiful. From that day on, he was never left out of anything. To all outward appearances he was the most popular boy in the block. Yet no boy ever fought him, though they fought each other, no boy called him by a nickname, though they were Fatty and Skinny and Shorty as soon as they left their stoops, and no boy ever contradicted him, though they shouted each other down with “You did!” “I didn’t!”
He was never their equal. He was their charge, whom they were honor-bound to treat with charity. They never knew whether they liked him or not. They only knew it was something of a bother to be with him, for the feelings of a colored boy had to be coddled.
When Thea was old enough to go out alone to play, these boys and their sisters treated her as one of themselves, for her pink cheeks and chestnut hair were close enough in color to theirs not to distract them. Their easy acceptance established a loyalty in her that made her unable to understand Simeon’s distrust. With Thea, as with Simeon, the first ten years of her life left a profound impression. She was never quite at ease with her own group. Her very fair skin and chestnut hair singled her out, accorded her a special treatment that she was unused to, that pointed out to her how preferable was the status of whites, since even a near-white was made an idol.
When Simeon was twelve and Thea nine, the poorer streets surrounding theirs began to be populated by the black newcomers to the North. They soon learned of the rich colored family living right alongside rich white folks on a near-by street. They took to strolling down this street to see if they could espy their own kind and color riding fat and sassy behind a bang-up coachman. They would stand and gape at the windows, their voices loud and approving and proud. Some would even go so far as to start a conversation with Thea and Simeon.
Thea would toss her chestnut hair and skip away. She was a little bit scared. These people smelled, they wore queer clothes, they spoke a strange tongue, and their blood was black, while hers was blue.
But Simeon sensed that their blood was the same, and he was ashamed. Because he was ashamed, he could not run away like Thea. He had to face them for his own pride. He had to believe that he could stand in the company of these people and still feel confident of the wall of culture between them.
Mr. Binney was completely outraged by the ever-increasing concourse of dark faces within the sacred precincts of his street. He didn’t feel at all like a king with worshiping subjects. He felt like a criminal who had been found and tracked down. In his wildest nightmare he had never imagined that his house would be a mecca for lower-class Negroes. They were ruining the character of the street. They were making it a big road. The worst thing of all was that Simeon, who was being so carefully brought up, who scarcely knew the difference between white and colored, whose closest friends had always been white, was making friends with the little black urchins who boldly hung around the back door in the hope of enticing him away from his playmates on the front stoop.
The day Mr. Binney made up his mind to move was the unforgettable Sunday that he heard sounds of battle, rushed to the back window to find Simeon in his new suit engaged in strife. Simeon, who had never fought in his life, was rolling all over the alley with a ruffian who had never worn shoes until he came North. It was spring. Windows were open. Neighbors were witnessing this unholy spectacle of young Binney so demeaning himself as to fight with a boy beneath his station. It put them both in the same class.
Mr. Binney so far forgot himself as to bellow for his son. Simeon disentangled himself, shook his opponent’s hand, and bounded into the house. He felt wonderfully elated, and he was scared but happy that his father had witnessed the fight. His father had never seen him fight in his life.
“Come in, sir!” his father commanded, leading him into his den. He turned and faced Simeon. “I have never been so ashamed in my life. My son behaving like an alley rat. I’ve never known you to raise your hand to one of the boys in the block. You’ve had the reputation of being a perfect young gentleman. Then the whole street sees you and that dirty black imp sprawled all over the alley. Do you know what they said to themselves?” Mr. Binney took a deep breath. He was going to say the worst thing he had ever said to Simeon. But Simeon had to be roundly shocked into full realization of his unpardonable breach of conduct. “They said, ‘Isn’t that just like niggers?’ ”
The word had never been used in Simeon’s household. Its effect was not explosive. As a matter of fact, Mr. Binney had the uncomfortable feeling that Simeon accepted the ugly word as if he supposed it was part of his father’s vocabulary.
“I know,” said Simeon quietly. “I suppose they said ‘colored’ instead of ‘nigger,’ but that doesn’t matter. I’ve always known they’ve never seen me as like themselves. They fight with each other, Father. Not in the alley, and not on Sunday. But I have to fight when I can. It mayn’t make sense to you, Father, but Scipio Johnson” — Mr. Binney visibly winced — “is the first boy who ever fought me man to man.”
It didn’t make sense to Mr. Binney. “It is time you learned a hard-and-fast rule, Simeon. A colored man can never afford to forget himself, no matter what the provocation. He must always be superior to a white man if he wants to be that white man’s equal. We are better fixed financially than any family on this street. You and Thea attend private schools. The other children go to public school. Your manners are superior. Your mother has more help. We set a finer table. If our manner of living was exactly like theirs, we would not be considered good enough to live on this street.”
Simeon thought that he and his father had met on common ground. He, too, had something to say that was better said now. “I don’t like white people, Father. I think I hate them.”
His father was shocked and disturbed. “Never say such an unreasonable thing again. You get that from those wretched black boys. Do you know why they hate white people? Because they’re lazy and shiftless and poor. They hate them because they envy them. You are Simeon Binney. You will never have to envy anyone. You are being raised like a white man’s son. Pay me the courtesy, sir, of thinking like one.”
The Binneys moved to Cambridge. They were the first family on their street to move away because of the rapid encroachment of Negroes. They began the general exodus. Mr. Binney could say with pride, right up to the day of his death, that he had never lived on a street where other colored people resided.
Simeon went to Harvard. He ranked among the top ten in all his classes, because colored men must be among the first in any field if they are not to be forever lost among the mediocre millions.
He took the classical courses. Mr. Binney was disappointed that Simeon didn’t want to specialize in law or medicine or dentistry. All of the sons of his friends were aspiring to the professions. They were t
he gentlemen that meant to be titled. Their fathers were gentlemen without higher education. They had learned their manners and mode of living in service to the rich. They were ambitious for their sons and instilled in them the Boston tradition that knowledge has no equal. That there would be a surfeit of professional men in a city where the majority of Negroes were too poor and ignorant to seek professional services did not deter them. In his heart each hopeful student supposed that he would be the one to establish a practice among whites. This was Boston, where a man was appraised for his worth, and paid in New England currency accordingly. What they did not know was that the whites, whom they dreamed of doctoring and advising, were confidently expecting them to attend their own, thereby effecting a painless segregation.
Mr. Binney was somewhat mollified when Simeon explained that he intended to work for a doctorate. At least Simeon would have a title even if he would never be able to hang out a shingle on which to display it. Still, he was worried about the boy. He hoped he did not think he could be a rich man’s idle son. He had the elegance for it, but now there was not going to be the money. He, Mr. Binney, could not hold on to his business another year. The ten-thousand-dollar rent alone was far in excess of last year’s profits. He was already drawing heavily on his capital. There was just enough left to see Thea through finishing school and Simeon through college.
Simeon would have to work for his living. Perhaps he would elect to teach. Perhaps it was not too fantastic to imagine, he might even teach at Harvard. They thought the world and all of him there. The faculty had the highest praise for him. His class respected him. He was even putting away a fair sum tutoring undergraduates. If Simeon would just make up his mind to teach, a position at Harvard should be his for the asking.
Simeon elected to edit a Negro newspaper. It was a sudden decision arrived at a few weeks before he received his doctorate. Thea was just home from school. She and Simeon were out for an evening’s stroll in the vicinity of the Yard. She was holding his arm, and her face, full of lively affection, was upturned to his. A group of young men, in freshman caps, approached them. They were not very steady. They did not know Simeon, nor he them. They stopped in front of him and Thea and would not let them pass.
“Watch your step, nigger. Let go that white girl,” one of them said.
“Move out of our way,” said Simeon quietly.
“Who’s going to make us?”
Simeon said quickly to Thea, “Run home and don’t look back.” Then he hunched his shoulders and gave a little prancing step. “Put up your dukes,” he said.
It was not a fair fight. There were three of them, and they attacked from all sides. But it didn’t matter to Simeon. It was what he’d been wanting since he was five. A fight with white men. That there were three of them, that his fists could smash three faces, that his wild, tortured curses could befoul three pairs of ears, that he could smell the hated blood that flowed in three hot streams, made it the moment in his life that satisfied the long waiting.
He was found unconscious a few minutes later by a passing patrolman. His watch, his wallet were on him. He was carted off to jail as a drunk and thrown into a cell to sleep it off.
When he roused he didn’t mind being where he was. His head was throbbing, there were bruises on his face, and blood in his mouth. But it wasn’t important. This would wake these sleeping colored Bostonians. They would see they were not a privileged group, that no Negro was immune from a white man’s anger when he did not watch his step. These self-styled better Negroes were standing still, sticking their heads in the sand, pretending that liberalism was still alive in Boston. They were using the transplanted Southerner for their scapegoat. It was he, they insisted, who was causing the changed attitude, if one existed, not the changing times. The colored problem began with their coming. It was no wonder. They were coming in such droves. These upper-class Negroes, Simeon argued to himself, didn’t have the sense to see that a minority group was never a problem until its numerical strength threatened the dominant race at the polls. What power had the Old Colored Families, sparsely scattered by preference in the many suburbs of Boston? They had none, and they did not know it was desirable. To them the Irish were pushing, and they were proud that they were not. They would have been outraged and astounded if they had been told that they knew their place, and kept it.
All of these things Simeon expected to say in a rousing speech to the press when it was discovered that a Harvard graduate had been beaten by brother Harvardites for no other crime than walking with his sister in the neighborhood of his own house.
Toward midnight he was summoned to the sergeant’s desk. His father was there, looking distressed. There was somebody from the dean’s office, looking uncomfortable. There were three bloodied freshmen, looking sober and sheepish. The policeman who had made the arrest, looking red-faced. And the sergeant and two reporters, looking bored.
A solution had been arrived at by everyone concerned except Simeon. The unfortunate happening was to be considered a freshman prank, prompted by an overindulgence in strong drink. The freshmen were to apologize, which they did easily and earnestly, thrusting out their well-kept hands, which Simeon ignored until he heard his father’s embarrassed plea, “Simeon, remember you are as much a gentleman as these young men,” and felt that he would look foolish and childish if he continued to stand on what his father and the others did not recognize as his dignity. The Irish policeman apologized next. He did it gruffly, because he was upset by all the formality and fine English. It made him feel inferior to everybody present, and that was ridiculous since two of them were niggers.
In a few brief minutes it was over. There was general handshaking, with Simeon’s hand feeling cold as a clam to whoever touched it. The young men and the dean’s representative bowed themselves out, not with obsequiousness, but with the graciousness befitting those who have transgressed against the rule of noblesse oblige.
Simeon turned to his father. “I thought you would bring your lawyer,” he said.
Mr. Binney looked scandalized. “Fineberg’s crudity would have been out of place in a delicate situation like this. He would have made a race issue out of it, and taken it to court.”
“It was a race issue,” said Simeon stolidly. “They said, ‘Nigger, let go that white woman.’ ”
His father looked racked. Everybody had been carefully avoiding any reference to those unhappy words. “They were drunk, Simeon. They forgot themselves. As soon as they sobered, they were Harvard gentlemen.”
“And when they get drunk again, they’ll insult some other couple whose juxtaposition doesn’t suit them.”
“Simeon, be reasonable. You and your sister have walked together through the streets of Cambridge half your lives. Have you ever been insulted before? It isn’t likely that you’ll be insulted again. They made a very natural mistake. Thea is fair enough to appear white. You must face facts, Simeon. Since that riffraff has come up from the South, their men have run after white women. You see them all over the South End, the worst elements of colored men walking with low-type white women.”
“Thea and I are hardly comparable,” said Simeon stiffly. He disliked having to say that. It weakened the point of the argument. But his pride could not let that observation pass.
“Of course, you’re not,” said his father soothingly. “Those young men were the first to say so when they sobered.” He patted Simeon’s shoulder. “Let’s go home now. Your face needs attention. You need rest. You will get your degree in a few weeks. It will be a wonderful occasion for me. Don’t spoil it by making a mountain out of a molehill. I want you to look and feel your best.”
“I’ll be ready in a moment,” said Simeon wearily. “I want a word with the reporters. Will you wait for me outside?”
His father’s patience broke. “They’re not going to print anything, Simeon. They promised. They know how the better class of colored people feel about any story that is derogatory to the race. You’re young and headstrong. I won’t le
t you do anything tonight that you’ll regret tomorrow. Rest assured that your name will appear in every paper in Boston when you receive your Ph.D. That will be a proud day. Don’t do anything to take away from its glory. Give me your promise.”
Simeon promised. He supposed he owed his father that much for his education. They walked toward home. Simeon was silent. He knew what he meant to do. He would publish a newspaper for colored people and make them face the facts of their second-class citizenship. He had enough savings to make a down payment on a printing press. His father would not deny him the use of the unoccupied South End house when he convinced him that he would either edit a paper for Negroes or harangue on Boston Common before audiences largely composed of whites.
For two years now Simeon had struggled to keep the paper in circulation. The people who read it were not the people who could pay for subscriptions. There were only occasional ads for church socials and rooms for rent. His bills were mounting. His single helper was underpaid. He himself never had a decent meal unless he ran over to Cleo’s. Cambridge was too far away, and there was the carfare, and poor Thea was a rotten cook, with little enough to cook anyway.
If he could not keep the six-page sheet alive, at least he had established the need for a Negro newspaper. It passed around from hand to hand in the South End. On the day of its appearance there were little clusters of shabby people with nickels in their hands, waiting for the shabby newsboy to appear.
Thea did the social column. It was the only thing that kept the better Bostonians even mildly interested. It satisfied their curiosity as to who might have had a party to which they had not been invited, or what person of social prominence from New York, Philadelphia, or Washington was visiting what socially prominent Bostonian at his beautiful home in the suburbs.