by Maya Angelou
It occurred to us that we should get permission from the people at the SCLC in order to raise money in their name. Godfrey said since I was the Christian, I ought to be the one to make the contact.
Within one hour our plans were laid. I would write a show, Godfrey would do a funny skit, and he and I would produce it. Hugh Hurd, if he agreed, would direct it. We would pay the performers and ourselves union scale, and all other monies would go to the SCLC. We had no idea where the show would be held, who would perform, how much we would charge or even whether the religious organization would welcome our intentions. There was a lot to do and we had to get started.
The SCLC offices were on 125th Street and Eighth Avenue in the center of Harlem. I had telephoned and made an appointment to speak to Bayard Rustin. When I walked up the dusty stairs to the second floor, I rehearsed the speech I had tried out on John Killens. “Mr. Rustin, I want to say first that not only do I and my colleague, Godfrey Cambridge, appreciate and laud the activities of Reverend Martin Luther King and the SCLC, we admire your own work in the field of race relations and human rights.” John had told me that Bayard Rustin had led protest marches in the United States during the forties, worked to better the condition of the untouchables in India, and was a member of the War Resisters’ League. “We want to show our appreciation and support by putting on a show here in New York. A show which will highlight the meaning of the struggle and, at the same time, raise money for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.” He couldn’t possibly refuse the offer.
At the head of the stairs, a receptionist, sitting behind a warped wooden desk, told me that Mr. Rustin had been called away on an emergency mission, but Stanley Levison would see me. I was stopped. Could I still use my speech? Levison sounded Jewish, but then John Levy and Billy Eckstein were black men with Jewish names.
The woman spoke on the telephone and then pointed to a door. “Mr. Levison will see you now.”
He was short, stockily built, well dressed and white. I had come to talk to a black man about how I and Godfrey, also black, could help ourselves and other black people. What was there to say to a white man?
Stan Levison waited. His square face blank, his eyes direct, unapologetic.
I began. “I am a singer. That is, I was a singer, now I’m a writer. I want to be a writer …” My poise was gone and I hated myself. How could I dream of confronting an entire country of bigots, when facing a lone white man threw me into confusion.
“Yes, and how can the SCLC help you?” He saw my indecision. In desperation, I leaped into my prepared speech. “I want to say first, that not only do I and my colleague, Godfrey Cambridge …”
“Oh the comedian, Cambridge. Yes, I’ve heard him.” Levison leaned back in his chair.
“… appreciate and support …” I cut out the part about Bayard Rustin and finished with “and raise money for the SCLC.”
Levison moved forward. “Where will the play be shown?”
“Uh.” Dammit, caught again. If only Bayard Rustin had been in the office, I could have counted on a few minutes during which he would thank me for realizing who he was, and appreciating what he had done.
“We don’t have a theater yet, but we will have one. You can bet your life we will get one.” Insecurity was making me angry.
“Let me call in someone. He’s a writer and might be able to help you.” He picked up the telephone. “Ask Jack Murray to step into the office, please.” He hung up the phone and asked, with only a little interest, “And what do you know about the SCLC?”
“I was at church yesterday. I heard Dr. King.”
“Oh yes. That was a great meeting. Unfortunately, we didn’t take in the money we expected.”
The door opened, and a little man wearing brown slacks and an open shirt and sports jacket walked in, in a hurry. “Jack Murray” had sounded black, but he was as white as Stanley Levison.
“Yeah, Stanley. What is it?”
Levison stood, and waving his arm in my direction, said, “This is Miss Angelou. Maya Angelou. She had an appointment with Bayard, but he was called away. She’s got an idea. Maya, this is Jack. He also works with the SCLC.”
I stood and offered my hand to Murray, and watched a little-boy’s smile cross his middle-aged face.
“Glad to know you, Miss Angelou. What’s your idea?”
I explained that we wanted to stage a play, a kind of revue, using whatever good talent available, and that we planned to develop the show on the theme of liberation.
Stanley Levison laughed for the first time. “I was right to call in Jack. Do you know anything about Pins and Needles?” I didn’t, so he told me that Jack Murray had been involved with Pins and Needles in the thirties and it became a Broadway show, but based on the problems of the working class.
“Do you have a theater?” Again, I had to confess that we, my colleague and I, hadn’t got that far.
“How large is the cast? How long do you need for rehearsal?” His tone was friendly, but if I admitted that so far our plans had only gone as far as an emotional conversation on the banks of the Hudson, the two white men would think me childish.
I said, “We have a number of actors and on-call singers. My friend is out making contacts.” I blathered on about the need to keep the cast good, but small, so that there would be a substantial amount of money left over for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
When Jack Murray got a chance to speak, he repeated, “How long will you need for rehearsal?” I spoke the first thought that offered itself to me. “Two weeks.”
Stanley coughed. “That’s a very short rehearsal period, isn’t it?”
I looked at him and he seemed as solid as a bank building. Maybe he was right, Two weeks might not be enough time, but my ego was at stake.
“We’re going to use black entertainers. Professional people.” It was my intention to stop the irritating interrogation and put the two white men back in the white race where they belonged.
Stanley cleared his throat and chuckled, “Oh, Miss Angelou, you’re surely not trying to tell us that Negro entertainers don’t need the same time as white entertainers because they are just naturally endowed with talent?”
That was exactly what I had said, and exactly what I meant. But it sounded wrong coming out of the mouth of a white man. Arrogance prevented me from retraction and was about to lead me into a corner from which there was no escape.
“Black entertainers have had to be ten times better than anyone else, historically …”
Jack Murray’s voice floated softly into my tirade, “Miss Angelou, I assure you, you don’t have to convert the converted. Historically, the exploited, the enslaved, the minority, has had to strive harder and be more qualified just in order to be considered in the running. Stanley and I understand that. That’s why we are full-time volunteers at SCLC. Because we understand.”
I was grateful that his words were apt and his voice soothing; in the next eighteen months I was to find myself frequently in debt to Jack Murray for throwing life lines to me as I floundered in seas of confusion or frustration.
“Do you know the Village Gate?” Every performer in the United States had heard of the Greenwich Village night club where Lenny Bruce, Nina Simone and Odetta might be found playing on the same night.
Murray said, “Art D’Lugoff owns it and he’s an okay guy. He usually has a few unbooked days during the summer. After your plans are a little further along, maybe we could have a little meeting with Art. How soon do you expect to be ready?”
“All we needed was permission from your organization. We’ll be ready in a few days. When can I see Mr. Rustin?”
There was something wrong with asking white men for permission to work for my own cause.
Levison looked at me and without answering, picked up the telephone. “Has Mr. Rustin come in? Good. Let me speak to him.”
I waited while he continued. “Bayard, I’ve got a young woman in here who is going to put on a play to raise mon
ey for the organization … Right. She had an appointment. She’s coming in to see you now.”
I shook hands with both men and walked out of the office. Stanley Levison didn’t say “wants to put on a play” but “is going to put on a play.” An oblique permission, admittedly, but it was what I came for.
Bayard Rustin stood, shook my hand and welcomed me.
“Miss Angelou? Ah hum, sorry I wasn’t here when you arrived. Stanley says you have a play. Have a seat. Care for coffee? Have you got money for your production? Cash? A theater? What is the play’s message? While we at SCLC are grateful for all efforts, understandably what the play says or doesn’t say can be of more importance than the money it raises. You understand that?” Words stepped out of his mouth sharply, fast, clipped in the accent of a British Army sergeant. He was tall, lean, dark brown and good-looking.
I explained again, revealing a little more to Bayard than I had to Stanley or Jack. Neither Godfrey nor I had any experience at producing a show, but we knew people and if the SCLC gave us the go-ahead, that’s exactly what we would do. I added that Jack Murray had offered to intercede with Art D’Lugoff, and if that worked, we would use the Village Gate as a theater.
Bayard nodded and told me he’d have to see the script first and, if it was acceptable, the SCLC would approve and even lend us its mailing list.
The telephone rang before I could express my excited thanks. After speaking briefly into the receiver, he stood and offered his hand to me.
“Miss Angelou, an important call from Atlanta. Please excuse me. Get the script in to me as soon as possible. Thank you and good luck.”
He was sitting back down even as we shook hands, his attention directed to the telephone.
I was out on the street. Burning to talk to Godfrey. We had permission, maybe we had a theater, we had the desire and the talent. Now all we needed was a cast, musicians and a script. I stopped on the corner of 125th Street. Hell, how did one write a script?
Godfrey brought Hugh to a diner on Broadway where we had scheduled our meeting. Hugh substantiated Godfrey’s confidence; he acted efficient. His skin was the color of an unbroken coconut, and he looked just about as hard to crack.
His attitude was in contradiction to his youth, but Godfrey later explained to me that Hugh’s parents, West Indians, also owned liquor stores, and Hugh had grown up coping with stock, greedy salesmen, shifty employees and drunken customers.
“Naturally,” he “supported Martin Luther King. Any black man who didn’t deserved to be thrown in an open ditch and covered with shit.” Of course he would direct the show, but he needed absolute autonomy. Certainly he would work for scale and if things went well, he might contribute his salary to the SCLC, and where the hell was the script?
After a week, our plans were gelling. Godfrey had lined up actors. I telephoned singers and dancers, Hugh arranged with musicians, but we still had no script. I had sat late into the night trying to pick plots out of the air. We needed a story which had the complexity of Hamlet and the pertinence of A Raisin in the Sun. Facile ideas came swiftly and had to be discarded without regret. My characters had the predictability of a B cowboy movie and the naïveté of a Sunday School play.
Godfrey, Hugh and I met Jack Murray down at the Village Gate. Art D’Lugoff, reminding me of a tamed California bear, said we could use the theater on Sundays, Monday and Tuesday nights. We had to pay the lighting technician unless we furnished our own, but D’Lugoff would contribute the room free. By the way, what was the play about and could he see the script?
Guy had found a part-time job in a bakery nearby, and dawns found him showering and dressing, and me sitting at a typewriter, constructing plot after unacceptable plot and characters so unreal they bored even me.
One morning, Guy stood looking over my shoulder at the blank page in the typewriter.
“Mom, you know, you might be trying too hard.”
I turned quickly and blurted, “This is important. It’s for Martin L. King, for the SCLC, for black people everywhere. I can’t possibly try too hard.”
He stepped back, hurt by my brusqueness. “Well, I’m just reminding you of something you said all the time. ‘If it don’t fit, don’t force it.’ Bye, I’m going to work.”
I hadn’t spanked him since he was seven years old. Now that he was a tall fifteen-year-old the temptation to slap the water out of him was almost irresistible.
John Killens was expectedly sympathetic and, unfortunately, unhelpful. “You’ve got a theater and no cash, a cause and no play. Yep. Your work is cut out for you. Good luck. Keep trying.”
Time and need had me in their clutches. Entertainers who had been contacted were calling Hugh or Godfrey every day; they in turn, telephoned me, asking when we could start auditions. I wasn’t working, so at fifteen Guy was the only breadwinner. His money provided food, and John and Grace lent me money for rent so that I didn’t have to touch my small savings account. I needed the American Guild of Variety Artists scale I would receive once the play was on.
Desperation had triumphed the day Godfrey stopped by my house. He had dropped off a fare in the next block and decided to ring my bell and see if I was in.
When I opened the door and saw his face, I started crying. He stepped into the foyer and took me in his arms.
“I’ve had women scream when they saw me, and some broads laugh when I come up on them all of a sudden, but I never had anybody break down and start crying.” He was patting my shoulder. “You’re a first, baby. I appreciate what you’re doing. You’re a first. Cry on. Cry your heart out. I’m enjoying this.”
I had to laugh.
“No, keep on crying. I’ll write you down in my diary. I’ve heard of women who cry when a man leaves, but you cry when …”
Laughter defeated my tears. I led him into the living room and went to the kitchen for coffee. I washed my face and composed myself. The tears had been as much a surprise to me as they were to Godfrey.
“Godfrey, I can’t write the play. I don’t even know where to start.”
“Well, hell, you start with Act I, Scene I, same way Shakespeare started.”
My throat hurt and tears began to well up behind my eyes.
“I can’t write the damn thing. I’ve agreed to do something I can’t do.”
“Well, don’t do it, then. Nobody’s going to die if you don’t write the damn play. Fact is, it might be better if you didn’t write a word. There’s a lot of people who would be grateful not to have to sit through one more bad play. Personally, I wish a lot of playwrights would have said just what you said. ‘I can’t write the damn thing.’ ” He laughed at himself.
“But what can we do? The SCLC is waiting. Art D’Lugoff is waiting. Hugh and the entertainers are ready. And I’m the bottleneck.”
He drank the coffee and thought for a minute. “We’ll let the entertainers do their acts. Most of them have been out of work so long, they’ll jump quicker than a country girl at a hoedown. You don’t have to write a play. If you’ve got a skit or two, you can give it to them. We’ll do a cabaret kind of thing. That’s all.”
When I realized that Godfrey’s idea was workable, the burden of tension left my body and for the first time in weeks I relaxed and my brain started to function.
“We could ask them for songs and dances and turns particularly black.”
“The old Apollo routines. Something like Redd Foxx and Slappy White. You know: ‘I’m Fox’ and the other one says, ‘I’m White,’ then Foxx answers, ‘You’re either a fool or you’re color blind.’ ”
The ideas were springing. There was no reason to worry. We would have a show. We would raise money. The reputation I didn’t even have was not going to be ruined.
Godfrey looked at his watch. “Gotta go. Some fool without a dime in his pocket is waiting to get me to take him to the Bronx.” He got up. “This stop was okay. I helped a damsel in distress. Maybe my next fare will pay me in Canadian dimes.”
We stood at the door and I l
ooked at the rusted and dented taxi, illegally parked in front of my house.
“You could have got a ticket.”
He said, “That would have been the only thing given to me today. You’re okay now. We’ve got a show. A cabaret.” He had the taxi door open.
I shouted, “We’ll call it ‘Cabaret for Freedom.’ O.K.?”
“Yeah, that sounds serious. Entertaining and serious. Just what we ought to be. See you.”
Straight out of the movies. We were the talented unknowns, who with only our good hearts, and those of our friends, would create a show which professional producers would envy. Our success would change the hearts of the narrow-minded and make us famous. We would liberate the race from bondage or maybe we would just go on and save the entire world.
At dress rehearsal, Guy and Chuck sat with me in the shadows of the Village Gate. Singers and dancers moved across the stage, making themselves familiar with the boards, and the microphone. Godfrey stood under the lights near the stage, and Hugh Hurd sat in the rear, clothed in the importance of being the director.
Jay “Flash” Riley started his comedy routine. His face and body jumped and skittered and his eyes opened and shut in rhythm; his lines were funny and unexpected, so the boys beside me howled in appreciation. Later a female singer, Leontyne Watts, sang a sultry, moaning song for a man loved and lost, and I identified with her song.
Although I had not really loved and lost, I was lonely and even missed the pedestrian love affair I left in Los Angeles. Godfrey and I were being molded into a friendship which had no room for romance. John Killens was concretely married; John Clarke had another interest and was, in any case, too hard for my liking. Sylvester Leeks had hugged me often, but never asked for my phone number. If I had the chance, I could moan some salty songs. I had been living with empty arms and rocks in my bed. I was only saved from utter abstinence by accidentally running into a musician who remembered me from my touring days. He lived on the Upper West Side and, once a week, I would visit his studio apartment. Because of the late hours of his job, he slept until after two. He told me he preferred me to catch him as he was waking. It kept him from having to make up the sofa twice and take two showers in the same day. I always left satisfied, so I was glad to oblige. We were not only not in love and just slightly in like, our weekly ferocious rendezvous stopped just short of doing each other bodily harm.