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

by Honoree Fanonne Jeffers

  Though I wasn’t sure how Dr. Whitcomb would respond, I outlined my kinship to Nick, that he was the father of Rabbit and Eliza Two, that the latter girl would become my fourth great-grandmother. Dr. Whitcomb only nodded at this information; I couldn’t tell whether I’d made a mistake or not, talking about my family connection. I ended by noting that the Old South Collections librarian had told me no one had examined the Pinchard family papers since 1934, the year Thomas Pinchard Jr. had donated them to the university. His daughter, Cordelia Pinchard Rice, was the last legitimate descendant of the family, although there were plenty African Americans in the Pinchard line.

  Rebecca raised her hand. “How do you know there are Black descendants of this family?”

  “That’s a really great question,” I said. “I know because Pearl Freeman Collins was the daughter of Thomas Pinchard Sr. This is common knowledge in Chicasetta. And Thomas Sr. was the grandchild of Samuel Pinchard.”

  “But what proof do you have of that? Did Pearl take a paternity test?”

  “No, Mrs. Collins didn’t, but—”

  “—then how do you know?”

  “We have the word of Mrs. Collins’s mother, Maybelline Victorina Freeman. We have the long, close relationship between Thomas Pinchard Sr. and his two biracial children, even after their mother’s death. There was a second child with Maybelline, Jason Freeman Hargrace. And we have the word of the white male sibling of Dr. Hargrace and Mrs. Collins, who publicly acknowledged them as well. That would be Thomas Pinchard Jr.”

  “But that’s not real proof.”

  “Rebecca, has your father ever taken a paternity test to prove you’re his child?”

  “I can’t believe you asked me that!”

  Quickly, I cut a glance toward our professor. His eyebrows were raised.

  “Excuse me, Rebecca, I definitely didn’t mean to insult you, and I sincerely apologize if I’ve offended you. But I’m simply making a point. None of the white descendants of the Pinchard family have had paternity tests, but no one ever has questioned their lineage in over a hundred and fifty years. Their paternity is an a priori assumption, and we can only conclude that was because the so-called legitimate descendants were white.”

  She turned her gaze from me, casting around in her gorgeous way.

  “Ailey, let’s bring this back to your records,” Dr. Whitcomb said. “How long did it take you to find this information?”

  “Not long. A month for this particular information, but definitely, I have more.”

  When I finished my presentation, I sat down at the seminar table. Dr. Whitcomb didn’t give me any compliments. Instead, he suggested that I look at some more sources on Georgia state history and see what I could find that intersected with Wood Place Plantation. Right now, my research was not complete.

  Then it was Rebecca’s turn to present. Before detailing what she’d found in the Paschal family of Georgia, she started with an anecdote about her Black nanny. Rebecca recounted her earliest memory: she’d awoken with Flossie’s nipple in her mouth.

  I sighed and lowered my head, looking at my legal pad.

  After class, Dr. Whitcomb told me he needed to talk to me. I was putting away my books, but when he spoke to me, his voice sharply stern, my heart pounded. I looked over at Rebecca and Emma, and they were smirking. He waited until everyone left and walked over to me. When he put his palm out, I looked at it, perplexed.

  “Come on, now,” Dr. Whitcomb said. “You gone leave me hanging?”

  He smiled, his dimples in merry action. I tentatively touched his palm, and he told me I could do better than that. Give him some dap like I meant it. When I hit his hand with force, I felt a charge.

  “Ailey, that presentation was out of sight!” He jumped on the tips of his shiny shoes. “Now, that’s what I’m talking ’bout!”

  “So I was okay?”

  “Okay? Sistren, you were brilliant! And now, are you going to continue here next fall? For the doctorate, I mean?”

  “Definitely, Dr. Whitcomb.”

  “Yes!” he said. “That is fabulous news! You have made my entire week.”

  “And I was hoping . . . maybe . . . do you think you might be my doctoral advisor? I know how busy you are and everything—”

  “Of course, Ailey! I don’t care how busy I am! I will make the time for you.”

  “Really? Thank you so much, Dr. Whitcomb!”

  “I guess you approve of me now, huh? I’m pretty good at reading people, Ailey. I was almost positive that you didn’t like me.”

  “Oh, no, Dr. Whitcomb. I’ve loved this class since the very beginning.”

  He laughed, putting his fist to his mouth. “That is not true! But I appreciate the home training.”

  I smiled and looked down at the table.

  “Ailey, I can understand why you didn’t like me. This is one of the highest-ranked programs for early American history in the country, and there I was, giving an overview of basic information to grown folks in graduate school. But that’s what you must do with certain individuals, Ailey. Slave history is inconsequential to them. They can recite the Mayflower Compact by heart but haven’t even heard of partus sequitur ventrem. You know who I mean by ‘certain individuals,’ right?”

  “Yes, sir. I think so.”

  “And they aren’t used to working as hard as us, either. They don’t have to. But that’s the Black tax at work. No use in complaining. You know I used to have an afro this big, back in the day?”

  He cupped his hands around his completely bald head, and I grinned.

  “I came here in the eighties, Ailey, after teaching at Howard. They gave me a lot of money here, and I wanted it. I’m being honest. But that money came with a price. I thought about leaving, but then more Black undergraduates came in, so I thought, Before I go, I’ll get a multicultural center built for these kids. And after that, I said, Well, the history program has never graduated an African American on the master’s level. So I recruited Jamari Brooks, and he earned the master’s two years ago, but he decided he was going someplace else for his doctorate. And then when Belinda Oludara sent you my way, I thought, Maybe Ailey is the one. Maybe she’ll be the first African American to get the doctorate here in history.”

  He walked to the door, looked outside, and then pushed it closed. He lowered his voice to a whisper.

  “You need to know something, Ailey. Nobody in this department ever says they don’t want African Americans in the doctoral program. They say it’s a coincidence that there haven’t been any. Or they say they can’t find one that’s qualified. Okay, well, now you’re here, full of qualifications, and taking the hardest classes and making the highest grades. But they just happened not to give you the mentoring you’ll need to continue to the doctoral program. And that’s how that goes, Ailey. When we come to these all-white spaces, we have to be tough. We can’t show any weakness. I know that’s difficult, but that’s the way it is, and that’s why I’m so hard on you. And I will continue to be hard on you, Ailey, because I want to prepare you for what’s coming. It’s gone be the Thrilla in Manila when you enter the doctoral program. They will throw everything they have at you. If you fail, they’ll say, oh, that’s too bad. You just weren’t smart enough. If you succeed and earn the degree, despite all the obstacles they put up, they’ll take credit for your success and congratulate themselves for fostering a nonprejudiced environment. But, Ailey, you aren’t going to fail, because I am going to help you with every ounce of power that I have, all while pretending that I’m not helping you. For example, you and I never had this conversation. Do you understand me?”

  He raised his eyebrows.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I have faith in you, Ailey. We’re going to get you to that promised land, and then I’m gone find a tenure-track Black faculty member to replace me, and then I’m gone retire and take myself back to D.C. to a chocolate-covered neighborhood! Nah’mean?”

  We laughed, and sat there for a long time, talking. He t
old me, when I spoke again with Uncle Root, please let him know that his book on African American families in the City had been life-changing. Dr. Whitcomb must have read that book five times, back at Harvard. When I gave my apologies, saying I needed to get back to making notes on my research, he told me no apologies were necessary. Dr. Whitcomb understood my obsession. And please keep him updated on my progress in the archives. He especially wanted to hear about my Wood Place kin.

  * * *

  At four thirty, I returned the documents I’d been reading to Mrs. Ransom, flipping the pages of my legal pad to prove I hadn’t stolen anything, as a Frenchman five years previously had done. The international market for historical documents was surprisingly brisk.

  “I notice you’ve been looking at those Pinchard records. What are you writing about?” She patted a wayward curl into place with the rest of her bouffant.

  I stood at the counter, trying not to dance: I’d skipped a pee break.

  “I’m not sure. Just doing research for Dr. Whitcomb’s class.”

  “Oh, Charles! He’s such a nice man. We’ve helped him with his books over the years. He always puts us on his acknowledgments page. Did he assign this family to you?”

  “No, ma’am. My mother’s people have lived on that land for generations.”

  “In Chicasetta?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  A sudden smile; the teeth unusually white for someone her age. She placed her hand on top of mine.

  “Oh my goodness! My daddy’s people are from Milledgeville!”

  We remained at the counter almost an hour, chatting, though the collections were supposed to be closed. I confided that I didn’t ever want to live in the City again. I regularly traveled to Georgia to see my family and wasn’t the countryside so pretty and peaceful? And since Mrs. Ransom had roots in Milledgeville, which Flannery O’Connor story was her favorite? Had she ever been to Andalusia? The house was fallen and musty, but the grounds were beautiful. The pond, the old barn, that old mule that refused to give up the ghost. The smell of wisteria.

  I had turned to leave when Mrs. Ransom remembered the daguerreotypes—one of them was the only image of slaves in the Pinchard papers.

  “Photographs?” The excitement hit my bladder with renewed force. I tried not to run, calling over my shoulder that I’d be right back. I needed to visit the ladies’ room. Please don’t close the library on me. When I returned, she’d set me back up at my table, along with a new set of gloves and two rectangles of folded paper, each about five by three inches. I sat down, pulled on the gloves, and carefully touched one of the papers. When I opened it, there was an image of five white people. I immediately rewrapped that image and turned to the other paper, which had writing on it—what I assumed were the names of the picture’s subjects: “Leena, Eliza Two, and Rabbit, April 1858.” It was dated fifteen months before the fire Samuel Pinchard had recorded in his journal, the one that he’d noted had killed Rabbit and Leena, two of these girls.

  I opened the paper and touched the edge of the daguerreotype inside. It was a picture of three girls who seemed more than solemn. All three wore frowns so deep, they seemed to be scowling. My breath caught—one of these girls was Eliza Two, my great-great-great-great-grandmother. They represented three different skin tones: on the left, the darkest and shortest girl, whose clothes were hidden by a long, white apron. Her face appeared chiseled from a rare metal, her hair a coiled mass puffed high. On the right, a tall, plump girl in a shabby dress, perhaps sewn from “linsey-woolsey,” the cheap cloth used to make slaves’ garments. She had a braid that fell over one shoulder and what appeared to be keloid scars on her cheeks. The fairest girl stood in the middle. She had hoops in her ears, and her hair was brushed into ringlets. She was dressed in an extravagant frock with many ribbons and buttons.

  “Is the one in the fancy dress the master’s daughter?” Mrs. Ransom asked.

  “No, ma’am,” I said. “I don’t think so.”

  I could see why Mrs. Ransom would think the girl in the middle was white. There was her skin color and then her undoubtedly expensive attire, which didn’t indicate enslaved status. But there was something else that pulled at me and made me answer in the negative: I was certain I’d seen this girl, and the one on the left, before.

  * * *

  I’d never skipped a class in my program, and I wasn’t going to start. But for two days, I couldn’t sleep, thinking about the daguerreotype that I’d seen in the collections.

  On Thursday, my class was over at four thirty, and my car was already packed. I drove by the gas station to fill up. Then I headed south. When I passed the sign for Gaffney, South Carolina, I heard Lydia’s voice, squealing at the Peach Butt on the horizon.

  At Uncle Root’s house, I let myself in with my key. It was late, almost midnight, but he was sitting on the couch, waiting for me. He smiled, bemused. Was something going on? My face was shining like a new penny, but I wouldn’t tell him what I’d found.

  “I can’t tell you. Not yet. I’ll let you know tomorrow.”

  “All right, Ailey, you’re allowed your privacy.”

  “No, no! I’m going to tell you, but you have to wait! It’s so exciting!”

  “Ah! A mystery.”

  I wanted to be certain. That was the requirement of my profession, to lay my own eyes upon the proof, before I told anyone. Like my Aunt Pauline might say, I didn’t want to shout until I got happy.

  In the morning, I drove to Routledge. I parked in the lot by the library. Mrs. Giles-Lipscomb still remembered me. Hug her neck, she ordered, and she wasn’t a bit surprised that I was going to be an historian. She’d been waiting for me to follow in Uncle Root’s footsteps, but when I asked to see the old documents from the college archives, she was reluctant. Those papers were very fragile, she told me, until I reminded her I was the former research assistant of Dr. Oludara.

  “You can call her. I don’t mind.”

  “No, Ailey, I’m going to trust you.”

  But when Mrs. Giles-Lipscomb brought the box out, she reminded me, please be careful. This box contained an original portrait, not a reproduction. She laid down a cloth on the table, then several layers of acid-free paper, and finally—reverently—the daguerreotype on top. She kept whispering, careful, careful, but when I reached into my purse for white cotton gloves, she smiled.

  “All right. I see you know what you’re doing. I’ll leave you to it.”

  I looked inside the box, and there were two other items in the box: a cameo brooch framed in tiny pearls, and a linen handkerchief embroidered along the edges with blue thread. Before placing a finger on both sides of the daguerreotype, I fitted a glove over each hand. If Matthew Thatcher had wrapped this image in fabric or paper, that covering was long gone. There was damage to the edges, little chips and tears, but the center was clear. It was an image that I’d seen many times, in my four years in college, on the first floor of the library. This small daguerreotype that had been reproduced into a much larger image. It was the portrait of our college founders, Adeline Ruth Hutchinson Routledge and her sister, Judith Naomi Hutchinson.

  The two young women were probably in their twenties. They clung together, surrendering no space, and wore matching dark dresses—maybe black or gray—with voluminous skirts. There was lace around their necks as well, collars that draped over their bosoms. The smaller woman was strikingly beautiful, very dark, with prominent cheekbones and full lips turned upward. There had been an attempt to restrain the coils that sprang around her face: she wore a crocheted or knitted snood, but her hair sneaked out. A brooch was fastened at her collar, but I couldn’t be certain it was the same one from the box. The much fairer-skinned woman beside her was pale with a thin grimace, and hoops in her ears.

  Except for the clothing and the ages, these women were identical to two of the girls in the first daguerreotype Mrs. Ransom had shown me from the Pinchard archives: it had to be Rabbit and Leena, who had supposedly died in the fire in 1859, according t
o Samuel Pinchard’s journal. Yet here they were in another daguerreotype. I knew from my college’s history that this image was dated around 1866. Rabbit and Leena must have somehow survived the Wood Place fire, made it to freedom in Boston, and changed their names to Judith and Adeline Hutchinson. We’d been taught in college that Judith had passed away early, but Adeline had gone south after the war and founded a school to educate Negro girls. I was sitting in the very library that she had built.

  But the third girl, the girl with keloids on her cheeks who’d been in the Wood Place daguerreotype, wasn’t in this picture I was holding. For some reason, that girl had been left down south: Eliza Two, my direct ancestor. I wanted to be grateful that she’d remained behind. If she hadn’t stayed in Chicasetta—if she’d had no descendants—I wouldn’t even be alive. But this meant Eliza Two had endured six more years in slavery, until it was abolished, and all the other crimes against southern Black folks that would come afterward. How much more had Eliza Two suffered on that plantation, after she’d already lost a father and a sister?

  I covered my face and began to cry.

  I don’t know how long I sat there, but the librarian must have taken me up on my offer and called my former professor. Before I heard the other chair scraping the floor, I smelled the incense. Dr. Oludara didn’t even ask me what I’d found. She only touched my shoulder, telling me, it was all right. It was okay. Sometimes it hit her like that, too, thinking about our people and those sad days. She patted my shoulder as I sobbed.