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

by Honoree Fanonne Jeffers

  The old man held out his hands and David helped him down from the bed.

  “Dr. Hargrace, you’re looking well! This is a wonderful surprise. God is so good.”

  “He sure is! Don’t count me out just yet.” He turned to me and opened his arms. “There’s my young scholar. What you know, sugarfoot? Coming to take me away from all this?”

  The doctor decided not to keep Uncle Root for another day, saying he’d made a miraculous recovery for ninety-nine. Maybe it was the garlic he was eating, but it went without saying that he should take it easy.

  * * *

  Back at home Uncle Root shuffled into his study and stayed until I went in after him. I hovered, putting a palm on his shoulder, hoping he took the touch as love and not as a caution. If he fell, I could catch him before he hit the ground.

  “What did I do with it?” A pile of books overturned and slid to the floor. He opened the drawers on his oak desk.

  “Do with what? Uncle Root be careful, please. You know what the doctor said.”

  “Ah! Here it is!” He held up a bottle. “David’s coming over this evening. You think he’ll like this?”

  “I’m sure, but you know he has to drive back to Atlanta.”

  “His mother lives not even a mile away. And if it gets too late, there’s the other guest room. Unless you want to sneak him into your room.”

  He wiggled his eyebrows.

  “Uncle Root, stop that! You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

  “I know I should. However, I am not.”

  That evening Uncle Root, Mama, David, and I sat at the dining room table, eating pie. The old man had begged Mama to go in the kitchen and make some strong coffee; at his age, the caffeine couldn’t hurt him anymore. When we moved into the living room, the old man produced the scotch, and Mama rose from her chair.

  “I don’t know about y’all, but I have to get up in the morning. Baybay, I’m sure Cloletha is wondering where you are.”

  “No, ma’am, she knows, and might I say, your coffee was downright heavenly. You should give me the recipe.”

  “It’s ground coffee beans and water and a coffee maker. It’s written on the back of the package.”

  “It was scrumptious all the same, Mrs. Garfield.”

  As she left, she giggled. “Lord have mercy, that boy.”

  “As I was saying, Du Bois had the right idea,” Uncle Root said. “Yes, he ruled out some good men and women, but his principles continue to be effective.”

  “Dr. Hargrace, every time we get together, you know I’m going to take Booker T. Washington’s side. He was for the Black community. All of it, not just one-tenth of one percent.”

  The old man lifted his index finger into the air; it shook slightly.

  “And every time we have this same argument, you know I’m on the side of the great scholar.”

  “I know, but listen”—David picked up his glass from the marble-topped coffee table—“listen, now, if we let go of poor folks in this community, who’s going to be left? A bunch of bourgie, light-skinned niggers—sorry, no offense—”

  “—none taken—”

  “—walking around with their behinds on their shoulders? Who was out there marching back in the civil rights movement? Working-class Black folks. Who was the majority getting lynched during Jim Crow days? Working-class Black folks. What about my mama and daddy? Neither one of them have been to college. What about Mrs. Garfield’s brother? What about Miss Rose? Those are the folks Booker T. Washington was trying to protect. And I doubt when Dr. Du Bois was making up his Talented Tenth that he was even talking about all of us with degrees. I graduated from Morehouse and Emory, but dark as I am, would I even have counted to him? And don’t get me started on how he left the States and ran to President Nkrumah in Ghana. What kind of devotion to the race is that?”

  The old man nodded slowly, taking it all in. “All right. May I rebut?”

  “You may.”

  “Though you resent his retreat to Ghana, Dr. Du Bois had a reason for that. He’d been accused of being a communist during the Red Scare. And even though he escaped imprisonment, what kind of peace could he have in this country after that? Further, there are plenty Negroes in Africa, and many of them are quite dark-skinned. But I’ll give you the desertion charge. I’ll give you that the great scholar wasn’t looking out for all in our communities. I’ll even give you that Booker T. Washington succeeded in doing just as much as Dr. Du Bois for the race, albeit in his own crude way, but David, you’ve got to admit that what Dr. Du Bois meant is everyone is not meant to be a leader of the race. Some folks bring us down, like that knucklehead Ailey brought to the picnic that time. What was his name?”

  This had been a sore spot between us for a while. Even though I’d long stopped caring about Abdul, it still rubbed against my principles, the classist way Uncle Root low-rated him.

  “You know his name,” I said. “You might be old, but you ain’t senile. At least, not yet.”

  “Ouch. I’ll accept that insult because I love you so much. Oh yes, ‘Abdul.’ That was the knucklehead’s name.”

  “You are so rude and snobby.”

  “Sugarfoot, I most certainly am not. What is it you young folks say?” He tapped his temple, then gestured widely with that hand. “Ah yes! I just keep it real.”

  “You were wrong. And Abdul was your fraternity brother, too?”

  “Obviously, the standards for membership had been lowered since I’d joined the organization.”

  David broke in gently.

  “Um, anyway, y’all, let me ask this. What did you think about the Million Man March? You know I attended—”

  I gave a loud hoot: “Yeah, and that was some bullshit!”

  Uncle Root giggled. “You are very loud. But I will not say you were wrong.”

  “Wait a minute,” David said. “Don’t you think the Million Man March was a good thing?”

  I gave him the glass and told him, pour me some more scotch. When I took a drink, I expounded on my problems with that particular march. “Except for a bunch of crap rhetoric, what did them brothers, college educated or not, do at that march? And there was Farrakhan, trying to perpetuate like the second coming of Martin Luther King Jr.”

  “Ailey, we gave each other hope,” David said. “Hope that brothers were going to work it out in this country. Like that Senator Obama, up in Chicago. He wants to help our people. And I think he could actually win, Ailey.”

  “There will never be a Black president in our lifetime,” I said. “That is so ridiculous.”

  “I’d vote for him,” David said. “And I know plenty other folks who would, too. And wouldn’t that be something? A brother in the White House?”

  “Oh, I’ve dreamed of such a day!” Uncle Root said. “To see a man my own color running this country.”

  “And what about a woman your own color?” I asked. “Why has that never occurred to you? I’ll tell you why. Because you Black men need to get some feminist principles!”

  A stream of raucous laughter from both men.

  “What’s so goddamned funny?” I asked.

  “Negro men can’t be feminists,” the old man said. “That is a ridiculous notion.”

  “What about you, David?” I asked. “Would you call yourself a feminist?”

  “I think I am,” he said. “I mean, I’ve read my bell hooks, and she has some really great things to say.”

  “Is that so?” I asked. “Like what?”

  “I’ve got to go back and read,” he said. “I’ve had scotch. I can’t quote right now. Dang.”

  “You are such a hypocrite,” I said.

  “Stop harassing him,” the old man said.

  “Uncle Root, you took Aunt Olivia’s last name. If that’s not a feminist act, I don’t know what is.”

  “I liked the sound of it. And I liked the lady who had the name, too.” Uncle Root winked broadly. “But honestly, Ailey, before we married, Olivia told me she wasn’t about to take my nam
e.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “Olivia told me, it was one thing for her to carry her father’s last name, because he was partly responsible for her being alive. But she wasn’t about to carry some other man’s load. She was a very independent woman. I was a young man with an ego, and that wrinkled me some, but when I thought on it, I stopped being bothered. You see, I was born with my mother’s name, because I couldn’t take my father’s. Not as his legitimate child, because Georgia law didn’t recognize our blood tie. My very presence was illegal. So I asked myself, what did it really matter if I took another woman’s last name? Maybe if my mother had still been alive I wouldn’t have, but she’d passed on by then.”

  “I guess I never thought about it like that,” I said.

  “And in this town, Ailey, if I hadn’t changed my name, they wouldn’t give a damn how many degrees I had or what I did for a living. All they were going to be thinking about was my white daddy. Like that peckerwood Jinx Franklin when I came back here.”

  David and I had heard the story many times, but we nestled into the cushions of the sofa.

  “It was 1934, and Olivia had the summer off from her doctoral program at Mecca. I’d already finished with my program. I hadn’t been home for a while, so we decided to drive down. It was a long journey in those days. When we finally arrived, I didn’t want to wake Olivia. I stopped the car and left her napping and walked into Pinchard General Store, owned by my brother Tommy.

  “I called myself ‘passing,’ though Tommy was in on the joke. I waited right in line with the whites, but when I emerged from the store, somebody recognized me. One of those Franklins.

  “‘Hey, you, boy! Jason Freeman!’ That’s what he said. And when he saw I hadn’t learned a damned bit of sense, and thought I was better than God and six more men, he spat in the dust and called me a ‘bastard.’ Correction. He called me a ‘half-nigger bastard.’”

  David always had loved this story. “Aw, shit! Oops. Sorry.”

  “No need for apologies, my brother. By the time I was through, I showed him there wasn’t any ‘half’ about it. But what made me go after him with the switchblade was that Jinx Franklin and his brothers had surrounded my car, and Olivia was awake.”

  I reached for my scotch glass again.

  “Oh my God. Uncle Root, you never told me that.”

  “I thought I had,” he said. “Yes, Ailey, those men were rocking the car back and forth. Poor Olivia was shrieking. Who knows what they were planning to do? I called out, ‘You sumbitches! Get away from my woman!’ I was scared to death that day, but I had to protect her. So now I hope I have sufficiently explained to you, David, why I am a follower of W. E. B. and not Booker T. If I had been a devotee of the second man, I wouldn’t have had the courage to pull out my switchblade. And I hope I have explained to you, Ailey, why this Negro man is not a feminist. I wholeheartedly believe in equal rights for the sexes. If I didn’t, I couldn’t live among all you women. But there is one exception to my politics: I do not expect a lady to fight a man, white or otherwise, while I stand by and watch.”

  The man was old, and it was late. Or early, depending upon perspective. He extended both hands and David helped him rise from the wing chair. They walked slowly toward the stairs.

  I propped open the front door and walked out to the glider, given to the old man when his sister had passed away and his niece had been so upset, she couldn’t abide having her mother’s things in sight.

  The screen door creaked. David poked his head around the door.

  “Hey, girl.”

  “Hey. Take a load off.”

  He slipped through the door and we sat together as the dark lightened. His arm around me, my head against his shoulder, until he said he needed to get back. He couldn’t take another day off from work.

  I knew he was going to kiss me. I’d sensed something alter between us as the birds forecast the day. And he did. It was even better than I recalled, not hasty or forbidden, but an exchange between two adults who weren’t breaking any rules or betraying anyone. But I was taken aback when he asked for my number in North Carolina, when he said he didn’t want to lose me again. It was a long-distance call, but he could afford it, if I could make the time. If I wanted to hear from him.

  I told him he could have the number, but I’d decided to stay in Chicasetta for a while for my research. Dr. Whitcomb had told me I didn’t have to be in town to work on my dissertation. I could email him the drafts of my chapters, and David told me he didn’t know what-all that meant, but as long as I was in Chicasetta, that sounded real, real nice to him. And we sat there on the glider. And we kissed some more.

  Every Strength

  The spring after Uncle Root turned one hundred, Red Mound Church was designated an historical landmark. While they hadn’t won the fight to keep the whole thing private, David and the old man had managed to work out certain provisions with the state. The farm would remain private. And the mound would be off-limits to visitors.

  There had been changes at Red Mound. There was a plaque out front that identified the founding year of the church. And there was a new ramp for wheelchairs. Our church elder had retired, but his youngest son had taken over. This new Beasley was the first pastor who’d graduated college and who possessed a master’s degree in theology. Frequently, his sermons focused on the beauty of nature: often on the mound in back of the church, where yellow sunflowers suddenly had joined the pink and blue wildflowers.

  For the special dedication service, Elder Beasley the Younger asked Uncle Root to present the history of the church. It was only right: not only was he the oldest member, Uncle Root was the owner of the land on which the church resided. But Uncle Root asked me to do it. He was tired now, he told me.

  Since I’d moved to Chicasetta, Uncle Root had been in and out of the hospital. He no longer hopped down from his bed. He could walk only a yard or two without leaning on someone’s arm. My mother had a hospital bed installed in his dining room, after the table and chairs had been removed. He asked her to place them in storage. Under no circumstances was my mother to loan any of his furniture to Uncle Norman’s wife. She might insist that she only wanted to borrow them, but once she got her hands on something, she’d never let it go.

  That furniture was willed to me after he died, as well as the house itself. Every time Uncle Root talked about the items of my inheritance, I ordered him to change the subject. He’d make his silly face and tell me, since I’d commanded that he’d never die, God would certainly alter the cycle. He wasn’t angry, though. He kept his patience with me and talked about God frequently. He didn’t miss a Sunday service at church.

  I didn’t want to take Uncle Root’s place at the dedication, but he’d scolded me. Other than him, who else knew more about the history leading up to the founding of the church? I’d read the papers of the Pinchard family. I knew the name of the first ancestor to arrive at Wood Place.

  She was called Ahgayuh, also known as Aggie. Also known as Mama Gee. She married Midas and gave birth to Tess.

  And Midas was sold, never to be heard from again.

  And Tess married Nick and gave birth to the twins, Rabbit and Eliza Two.

  And Nick ran away, but he lived and never forgot his family.

  And Rabbit left Wood Place to seek freedom, left her twin behind, and changed her name to Judith Naomi Hutchinson.

  And Eliza Two came to be known as Meema Freeman. And she married a man named Red Benjamin, and he took her last name. And Meema bore a daughter named Sheba.

  And Red passed away, and his death made Meema a widowed woman. As gray strands began to wink in her hair, she found the Lord, who had been lost to her. She began to warn her daughter about religion, in hopes that the blood of Jesus would settle Sheba down.

  After freedom came, the land where Meema and her family lived had no longer been called a “plantation.” It had become a “farm,” but there wasn’t much of a difference in the lives of the Black families; after the Civ
il War, they were sharecroppers, which was very close to being slaves. The Black families of Wood Place barely broke even at the end of the yearly cotton harvest.

  They lived in poverty. They wore ragged clothes. They didn’t eat that well, either. Thirteen years after the so-called war to end slavery, whenever somebody Black in Chicasetta encountered white men in the town proper or out on country roads (even in the daylight), that somebody Black was shaking and obsequious. They looked at the ground and hunched their shoulders. They were frightened of being lynched, now that Black bodies no longer were worth valuable currency on the slave market. When white men demanded to know their allegiance to other white, powerful landowners in the county, when they pointed their shotguns at a dark chest, asking, “Nigger, who you for?” no one—man, woman, or child—was bold enough to say, “I’m not for nobody but myself. I’m free now.” The Black somebody kept their eyes trained on the red dirt and whispered the names of their landlord. They hoped those syllables would provide a passport.

  The church that Meema attended was constructed by Black men, those who had remained on Wood Place after the Civil War. Men who had not relied on their own fortune in their hands, who had not run through the forest away from the south, during the war. These men had stayed on Wood Place, and not because of any fairy-tale promise of good treatment, but because of their wives and children. These were the men who approached Pop George to ask their landlord (and former master) to sell them a parcel of land for the church.

  Meema would tell her great-grandson Root that Pop George was the oldest living person on Wood Place. He was beloved to her. In the days before the war, he had been the caretaker of enslaved children, and she had been one of them. He had sat in his rocking chair with a pillow at his back and told stories. Two older children had run errands for him and brought food for the younger ones for meals. When she became an adult, Meema had been a caretaker as well, a “mammy,” the tender of the children of Victor Pinchard. She and her husband and her child and Pop George had shared a two-room cabin that was spitting distance to the big, columned house where the rich, white folks lived.