The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois

by Honoree Fanonne Jeffers

  Feminism, Womanism, or Whatever

  “Abdul, you must not have read the essay,” I said. “When W. E. B. Du Bois writes, ‘The Negro race, like all races, is going to be saved by its exceptional men,’ he incudes women implicitly. It’s a rhetorical shortcut.”

  “No, it’s not. He means it’s the role of men to lead. Men, not women. You the one can’t read.”

  Pat touched Abdul’s shoulder. “What about the Negro women’s club movements? What about those sisters who helped found the NAACP? That’s leadership.”

  “No, that’s support,” Abdul said, as Steve made assenting noises.

  “But what about Jessie Fauset helping Du Bois with The Crisis?” I asked. “The Brownies Book was her idea. And she published all those writers during the Harlem Renaissance, like Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston. That wasn’t Du Bois’s work. He just took credit for it.”

  “But then Fauset wanted to run things,” Abdul said. “Instead of her standing behind a brother where she was meant to be. And that’s the problem, sisters wanting to be in front. Like I said, feminism is for white women.”

  “Are you kidding me? What about the handout on womanism and feminism Dr. Oludara gave us? And that essay on intersectionality?”

  Tiffany raised her hand, and our professor asked, what did she have to contribute?

  “I have a question. What does Jessie Fauset have to do with anything? She quit The Crisis, and we never heard from her again. The end—”

  I tried to interject: “No, Tiffany, she published two more novels—”

  “And when have white women ever looked out for us? I mean, I love my soror, Dr. Oludara, and everything, but I respectfully disagree that feminism is for us.”

  She smiled at our professor, who looked down at her dress and pulled off a piece of lint. The old man had told me that Dr. Oludara had pledged Beta back in her sophomore year at Routledge, but the next year, when she made the decision to stop pressing her hair, the chapter president had told her she needed to stop participating in sorority functions, because her nappy hair was an embarrassment.

  Tiffany began pulling back fingers. “During slavery, they wouldn’t keep their men from raping us. Then slavery was over and white men started lynching brothers. Then there’s Frances Willard saying it’s okay to kill Black men. She’s one of your feminists, Ailey, isn’t she? And then they didn’t even want Ida B. Wells-Barnett walking in the 1913 march.” She sat back in her chair, as if the case were closed.

  “But Mrs. Wells-Barnett joined that suffragette march anyway,” I said. “Even when they told her she couldn’t, she was, like, no, y’all can’t stop me. And other Black women marched, too. So feminism must have been important to them.”

  Tiffany rolled her eyes.

  Abdul raised his hand again. “I don’t get you, Ailey. Are you one of these lesbians—”

  “What does that have to do with anything—” I raised my voice to gain purchase, but he began shouting.

  “Naw, naw, let me say this! Women are supposed to be at home, not out on these streets! Y’all sisters need to understand your place—”

  “Dr. Oludara, can’t I talk?” I asked.

  Our professor smiled, a brown Mona Lisa. “I’m not going to get in the middle, Sister Garfield. You know I like a free-flowing discourse, no matter how lively it is. But Brother Wilson, ‘place’ is an offensive term when talking about the roles of Black women. Further, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with being a lesbian, either, and your implication otherwise is offensive as well. We are in the latter part of the twentieth century. Try again, please.”

  “Look, Doc, no offense. But I don’t understand why our women”—at this, several sisters erupted into yelling, but Abdul kept going, again, raising his voice to a shout—“Yes, our women! Y’all belong to us! And I don’t know why y’all females need this feminism or womanism or whatever. It’s unnecessary if you got a good brother paying bills and taking care of business.”

  Tiffany agreed with him, but other sisters threw “sexist” in his direction, until our professor raised her hand for quiet. “Sisters, please. Brother Wilson has the floor. As obnoxious and sexist as he is, please try to be respectful of his incredibly outmoded, offensive views.”

  There was laughter, but Abdul refused to acknowledge that he was the butt of the joke. “Like I was saying, y’all women wouldn’t need feminism if you weren’t lonely and mad. I ought to know. My daddy left us, and my mama stayed pissed.”

  I raised my hand. “So because I’m supposedly lonely, I’m angry?”

  “Are you going to deny you’re lonely?”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  He exchanged a knowing glance with Steve. “You answered my question, right there.”

  “I wasn’t finished! You’re saying if I had a man, I could be happy in a patriarchal, sexist context, but it’s clear you don’t want to acknowledge my marginalized, intersectional identity as a woman of the African diaspora!” I was very proud of my usage of all the new vocabulary words I’d discovered in Dr. Oludara’s handouts.

  Abdul pointed his finger, Public Enemy–style. “See now, I didn’t say all that. What I said is, you wouldn’t be angry if you had somebody to make some good love to you—”

  At that, Dr. Oludara raised an objecting finger, but I cut in.

  “If I’m so mad and lonely, what’s your excuse? It’s ten sisters to every brother on this campus, which means you’ve got plenty somebodies to choose from. And yet you still got that funky attitude.”

  Other women clapped, urging me to tell it like it was. Pat covered his mouth, but I could tell he was laughing.

  “I got a right to be mad,” Abdul said. “I grew up in the ’hood. Your daddy’s a doctor. Plus, a fine jawn like you with some meat on your bones, you could get a man, easy, if you calmed yourself down and stopped talking back to men.”

  Abdul leaned back and gave a smile.

  “Talking back?” I shouted. “I am not a child! I’m grown! And this has nothing to do with you growing up in the ’hood! This has to do with you wanting a woman standing in front of a stove, barefoot and butt-naked, frying your chicken and dodging the grease.”

  “Naw, that’s not it at all. You try getting stopped by the police every five minutes.”

  “Where, Abdul? On your walk down to the corner to get some fried chicken?”

  “You can’t get no chicken in Thatcher. There’s only the Rib Shack.” Abdul held out his hand, palm up, and Steve hit it loudly.

  “You know what I mean, you goddamned male chauvinist pig!”

  “Sister Garfield, please, let’s not get abusive.” Our professor’s voice was serene.

  * * *

  There weren’t many colors that Roz and I could wear to the Beta Alpha Beta spring rush. Other sororities on campus had their own colors. Along with being forbidden to wear Beta colors—orange and cream—we were barred from wearing the colors of any other sorority to the rush: no red, white, pink, green, blue, or yellow. I chose a belted gray dress, Roz a brown suit. We both wore black shoes.

  Roz and I arrived forty-five minutes early in the faculty dining room. The rush was scheduled to begin at 7:30, but by 6:58 the Betas had already gathered. Each of the nineteen Betas wore orange outfits, like a human explosion of sherbet. Roz held me back, letting three others go before we went through the receiving line, shaking hands firmly. Then the line broke up, meaning it was time to mingle individually. My roommate left my side, and I stood there, veiled in awkwardness. I inched away when Tiffany approached but bumped into a Beta behind me; they’d tricked me with a maneuver from The Art of War.

  “Hey there, Ailey.”

  “Hello, Miss Cruikshank.”

  She gave a grudging smile. As an aspirant, I couldn’t call a Beta member by her first name, something only a serious Beta potential would know.

  “Ailey, if you were a fruit, what would you be?”

  “I don’t like fruit, Miss Cruikshank.” Thi
s was the safest answer. Choose an orange—a Beta color—and you were in trouble, because you would be presumptuous. But you had to be careful when picking another fruit that could be associated with a different sorority. Apples were red and white. Or watermelons could be red. But they also could be pink, and there was the green rind. Nana was a member of the pink-and-green sorority; in one of her monthly letters, she’d asked if I wanted her to arrange things with her organization, but I hadn’t responded.

  Tiffany’s features were small and even. Her hair was blow-dried and pulled into a low ponytail that grazed her shoulders. Folks on campus talked about how fine Tiffany was, but I couldn’t see it. She didn’t have a hint of color in her white complexion, and as thin and bony as she was, she resembled a hungry vampire.

  “Ailey, do you know who Violet De Saussure is?”

  “Yes, of course. Violet Elizabeth De Saussure was the daughter of Adeline Ruth Hutchinson Routledge, one of two founders of this esteemed institution of higher learning.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Um . . .”

  I’d become tipsy with cleverness, and now I’d missed something. I racked my brain for additional Freshman Orientation information that Dean Walters had made us memorize. I recited in a rush.

  “Okay, okay, Routledge College was founded in 1873 as an institution to educate African American women, though it went coeducational in 1922. Our college is aligned with the American Missionary Association, an organization founded in 1846 for the abolition of slavery and the spread of Christianity.”

  “Nothing else?”

  “Oh, wow . . . um . . . I don’t think so.”

  Tiffany’s face shined with sudden righteousness. Her thin nostrils flared, and she cupped her hands around her mouth.

  “Calling all sorors! Calling all sorors! This young lady does not know who Violet Elizabeth De Saussure née Routledge is! Can you believe that?”

  The Betas turned in unison and descended. The unseen sister behind me placed her mouth next to my other ear and proceeded in a menacing shout: “Do you mean to say that you don’t know that Violet Elizabeth De Saussure née Routledge, along with fifteen other superlative African American women, known as the ‘Lilies of the Nile,’ founded the Alpha chapter of Beta Alpha Beta Sorority Incorporated on the campus of Routledge College on February nineteenth, 1912?”

  Tiffany stepped aside, and Darlene Morris took her place, leaning into my face. Darlene was in my Organic Chemistry class, one of only three females, and, after me, she received the best scores on assignments. In terms of Routledge’s historical color-struck standards, Darlene made the cut: like Tiffany, she looked white, but she was very heavy and well over six feet, and she had chronic acne, which made the pale skin of her face red and bumpy. She’d had to write to the Beta nationals to force the Routledge chapter to take her; the Nationals had decided there was no justification for turning down someone with a perfect grade point average. We’d heard that during underground pledging, the Betas had burned her bottom with live cigarettes, urging her to drop, but she hadn’t. Now she had standing as the hardest Beta on campus: her line name was “The Grim Reaper.”

  “You’re so pathetic,” Darlene whispered. “I feel sorry for you, you know that? Really, really sorry.”

  I moved back from her pointing finger, but the unseen Beta dug her nails into my arm, as Darlene asked, could I recite the names of the sixteen Lilies of Beta Alpha Beta Sorority Incorporated in alphabetical order?

  I could not.

  And did I know the founding and guiding principles of Beta Alpha Beta Sorority Incorporated?

  I did not.

  Who were some of the most renowned members of Beta Alpha Beta Sorority Incorporated?

  I didn’t know.

  Then Tiffany and Darlene changed places again.

  “Ailey, aren’t you Lydia Garfield’s little sister?” Tiffany asked. “Lydia pledged here, didn’t she? I believe it was the fall ’86 ‘Eight Is Enough’ line. We’re updating our chapter directory, and no one can find her. Can you help us find her?”

  She began to giggle, and Darlene and the other Betas joined her. I hadn’t told anyone about my sister, not even my roommates. They didn’t know I’d only come to Routledge because Lydia had gone here. That I only wanted to pledge Beta for Lydia, who’d joined the sorority in her sophomore year. I wanted the right to wear the orange-and-white jacket that she’d left behind in our house. It had her line name on back: “#7: Too Black, Too Strong.” I’d kept her downfall to myself, but someone must have found out, and while my mother asked our parish priest to say special prayers for my sister, the Betas were mocking her. Laughing at my family troubles, planning my downfall, and all because Abdul had sat at my table in the refectory and argued with me in class.

  The weight of my home training threatened to crush me. I imagined Dean Walters calling Mama to say that I had wrapped my hands around the ponytail of one of Routledge’s most distinguished students, in order to imprison her, to keep her from running away, while I punched the shit out of her with my other hand, because Tiffany had implied, if not actually uttered, an insult against my drug-addicted sister—though now, Tiffany and Darlene were whispering in my ear, calling me a whore. Telling me they didn’t take dirty girls like me into Beta. They had to keep their chapter clean.

  When my tears began, I closed my eyes and beckoned a song: “This Christmas,” by Donny Hathaway, Lydia’s favorite holiday tune. I imagined the cheerful horn section at odds with the near sadness in Donny’s voice. Mama played it every Christmas, just like she still made Lydia’s favorite dessert from scratch, banana pudding with a custard base.

  By some signal, the Beta mayhem ended. They walked away from me to the front of the dining room and formed a hand-holding chain. Moments later, an older alumna Beta walked to the lectern. She apologized for being late; there had been traffic on her drive from Atlanta. She informed us that guests should take their seats; the Beta Alpha Beta rush was about to begin. After another hour of games like “Name That Beta,” and “Are You Ready for Beta?” the rush was over. I trotted ahead of Roz across campus. In the room, I ignored her obviously corny jokes.

  * * *

  I wonder how differently things would have unfolded if I’d had enough time to cool my temper before the intramural game the next night. Maybe I still could have joined Beta in the fall. In time, the cigarette burns on my bottom would have faded, with the help of cocoa butter and vitamin E oil.

  But as Uncle Root liked to say, the women in our family were hot-tempered going back generations. Folks needed to get out of the way of his women when their blood was riding. He would laugh when he said this. To the old man, our anger wasn’t a bad thing, and I let mine take control. I didn’t care what happened after.

  * * *

  In the gym, Abdul was easy to spot. He sat at the far end of a top bleacher by himself. I climbed the steps toward him, pausing to keep from bumping into too many people. As I listened to the squeaking of sneakers, I didn’t feel graceless about my inability to make conversation. Abdul and I sat together quietly, though sometimes he would clap for his team.

  When Tiffany arrived with Darlene, they sat on the opposite side of the gym. Both were shooting me narrow looks, and it gave me a perverse charge. I’d upset the Sherbet Queens.

  “Ailey, you want to take a walk to my dorm?” Abdul asked. “My roommate’s gone to Atlanta for the weekend.”

  “Sure,” I said. “Why not?”

  When we crossed the yard, Tiffany shouted his name; she’d followed us. Even after what she’d done, I was embarrassed for her as she ran toward us. When she grabbed his sleeve, I turned my head and looked at the blackberry bushes instead. They were bare this late in the season, but I couldn’t stand to see Tiffany’s face.

  “Come on, Abdul, let’s go back to the gym,” she pleaded. “Come on, let’s get some nachos. My treat.”

  “Thanks, baby, but I’m not hungry. I’ll call you tonight.” He snapped his fingers.
“No, wait. I got a test. Tomorrow, maybe. Or the day after. We’ll see.”

  When he and I walked away, she lost her renowned composure, the reasoning behind the line name she’d been given while pledging Beta: “Portrait of a Lady.”

  “That fucking hoe better not write Beta in the fall! You hear me! That hoe better not come near any of my sorors, either!”

  Not since Antoinette Jones had I been called out of my name, and I touched my head, remembering my bald trauma. When Abdul put an arm around me, Tiffany began screaming epithets about my crackhead sister.

  In his room, I reached into my purse and pulled out a condom. I handed it to him, took off my clothes and underwear, and lay down on his bed. As he moved inside me, I began to cry. He asked, what was wrong? Nothing, I told him. Keep going.

  V

  The North, therefore . . . has much more than an academic interest in the Southern negro problem. Unless the race conflict there is so adjusted as to leave the negroes a contented, industrious people, they are going to migrate here and there. And into the large cities will pour in increasing numbers the competent and the incompetent, the industrious and the lazy, the law abiding and the criminal. . . . The crucial question, then, is: What does the black immigrant find to do?

  —W. E. B. Du Bois, “The Black North: A Social Study”

  This Bitter Earth

  When Maybelle Lee Driskell began first grade, there was only one school for Negroes, the one at Red Mound Church. On Sunday, this was where she and her family worshipped, but from Monday through Friday fifty-nine Negro children sat in the two rooms of the church. The first room was in the church sanctuary, where the children sat in the pews and balanced their books on their laps. The other room was the fellowship hall, which had three picnic tables. That was the room for the middle and high school students, a group that thinned as the children of sharecroppers dropped out to join their families in working the land.