The discovery of my ability to write made me want to write. As I traveled the country I became concerned to write about the conditions under which other blacks lived. I didn’t think there was much I could do otherwise. Soon I met other people similarly concerned. Whites. Sociologist Richard Hauser and his wife Hephzibah Menuhin. Donald Chesworth. Many others.
I remember the circumstances of my first meeting with Richard and Hephzibah. I’d been invited to speak at a conference at the Y.W.C.A. headquarters at Tottenham Court Road. Arriving early, I was standing in the foyer outside the auditorium when two people approached me and introduced themselves. Richard and Hephzibah Hauser. We chatted idly about this and that, but soon he steered the conversation around to the problems of blacks in Britain, expressing his sympathy for their unhappy plight. I had been hearing the same kind of tiresome claptrap from so many sources recently that I responded quite angrily and not at all as he’d expected. I told him he could stuff his sympathy, or words to that effect, adding that blacks would have to learn, no matter how bitter the lesson, that their salvation would depend only on themselves. More, much more of the same.
When I’d said my piece I excused myself and was leaving, but they stopped me. Laughing. Saying they were happy to hear me say those things because they agreed with every word. They’d been hoping for just that kind of reaction. I was not convinced, but agreed to meet them again. And again. The beginning of a long and pleasant association. Their idea of helping was to encourage people needing help to be rid of that help as quickly as possible. We worked on several projects together and I learned that, very often, people in difficulty merely needed a helping hand. Not a crutch. A helping hand assumes only part of the burden, the smaller part. A crutch is made to bear most of the weight. Their simple philosophy was “help the needy to become quickly independent of you.” Working with them I learned and I wrote about what I learned.
The things I wrote were finding an audience farther afield than I realized. One day I had a letter from an international organization with headquarters in Paris. The World Veterans’ Federation. The Secretary General wrote to me, expressing his interest in my work and ideas and indicating that his deputy would soon be visiting Britain and would be in touch with me. That meeting took place about a week later and resulted in my accepting a job with the Federation as their Human Rights Officer. It was interesting and challenging work.
The Federation was a collective of ex-servicemen’s organizations in countries of Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia and the Americas. At the time of my appointment there was a plan to initiate several educational and social grassroots projects for ex-servicemen in some Asian and African countries. These countries were, then, within either the British or French colonial empire, and the men had been recruited to fight outside their own national borders in the colonial power’s expeditionary forces.
Many had been killed. Of the survivors, some were partially or totally disabled. A few received pensions from the colonial government they’d served but these were quite inadequate for their basic needs. The national government, in most cases, was deeply involved in the pandemic struggle for independence and was loath to accept responsibility for the care and succor of nationals who had become incapacitated while serving a foreign government in a foreign country.
The grassroots projects were designed to create opportunities for the education, training and employment of ex-servicemen in ways intended to make them self-supporting. The design was related to the needs of the men within their own communities and included boat building for fishermen; poultry and pig farming for small farmers; workshops for the manufacture, fitting and training in the use of artificial limbs and other prosthetic devices which could be made from indigenous materials.
My job required me to visit the ex-servicemen’s organizations, discuss with them the conditions which affected them, listen to the way in which they ordered their priorities, discuss these in the light of possible funding, then make recommendations to the Federation. At all times I sought to work in close liaison with the national government, as it was sometimes possible to assist a scheme they had already planned or undertaken.
I accepted the job in Paris because of the salary and the wonderful possibilities for working in a situation of greater personal freedom to plan and to act. I was impressed with the Secretary General’s deputy. In talking to him I learned that the Federation’s staff was nearly all white. I told myself I’d remember the lessons learned in Britain. I took to the new job my skills, imagination and enthusiasm. I also took all the spiritual scars collected over nearly fifteen years of life in Britain and a deep skepticism about the white man.
“A job found you? How’s that?” he asked.
“I was offered a job in France.”
“In France?”
“Yes. In Paris.”
“Doing what?”
“Working with an international organization.”
“So you went to live there.”
“Naturally. Funny thing though. In spite of my difficulties in Britain I was saddened by the prospect of leaving. I had developed some very strong, intimate ties with the place and the people. After all, it was the scene of my happiest and un-happiest moments.”
“Yet I suppose anyone would have jumped at the chance of working in Paris.”
“There was that. And the salary offered, considerably more than I was earning then. And the prospect of extensive travel.”
“What kind of travel? Within France?”
“Internationally.”
“Where did you go?”
“East and West Africa. Parts of Asia. Scandinavia. Places like that.”
“Must have been terribly exciting.”
“Yes. It was. Very exciting.”
Seeing Africa for the first time. Being with Africans. Seeing and feeling their pride in themselves, hearing of their struggles against the colonizers. Knowing that no matter how attenuated the relationship, I was a piece of the whole. Ghana. Ivory Coast, Somali, Guinea. The same earth with different markers, but I was of it. Just being there, walking on it, feeling it under me was good. Liberia, where the colonizers were themselves as black as the indigenous population, as cruel and repressive as colonizers always are, needing to establish and secure themselves, needing to exploit the land and its resources and eventually its people. Remembering that, and the other things. The ignorance, the disease, the misery. Insufficient knowledge about the land and its husbandry. Insufficient schools. Insufficient education. And a plenitude of excuses from those in control. An incident was suddenly revived, time and distance dulling the raw edges and rendering it nearly funny.
I was in Freetown, Sierra Leone, a few days before the celebrations of their independence from Britain and was invited to tea by the Governor General, Sir Maurice Dorman, an Englishman. Tea was served to the guests on the spacious lawns of his residence and we were entertained by the band of the local militia. Excerpts from the Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, a few pieces by Sousa, some Highland songs delightfully arranged and beautifully executed. Wonderful in cool open air of that African afternoon.
Later on I took an opportunity to compliment the bandmaster, an Englishman, on the band’s fine performance, and then spoke with some members of the band. To my amazement I discovered that, without exception, the bandsmen, all black, could neither read nor write. All volunteer members of the militia, they had been taught to read music that they might function as a band, well-disciplined, well-practiced, and rehearsed, a delightful feature of official functions, attractive in their very colorful uniforms and glistening equipment. They all lived in the local military compound, readily available for training of any sort. But they were not taught to read and write. Those who controlled them kept them selectively functional and illiterate.
I wrote as I traveled from city to city, through town and village, across rivers and gullies, in the hinterlands, setting it down as
I saw it and heard it and felt it, learning to capture the immediate impression in words. The barren hills, sunbaked into heavy stillness by day, urgent with life at night. Insect, bird and stalking creature all intent on their separate needs for survival. And the people, wearing their dignity with the nonchalance of comfortable old slippers in spite of the prevailing poverty and disease, ignorance and malnutrition.
I set it down while it was fresh in my mind’s eye. Each week I sent a batch of notes to my publisher, Prentice-Hall, where they were retyped and compiled, ready for editing. Shortly after the trip was completed I was able to revise and arrange these notes into a manuscript.
Quietly the train was again in motion, but slowly. Looking around I noticed that many of the newspapers were no longer in sight. Querulous murmurings. Snatches of conversation about being late for appointment. Speculation about whatever was causing the holdup far ahead. The minutes were slipping away. Already nine o’clock and still a long way from the city. My neighbor seemed in no way perturbed.
“What was it like in Paris? Living there after England? I’ve visited it a couple of times since the war, but I don’t know that I’d like to live there.”
“Why?”
“They seem to have become more and more anti-American. You talk about contempt. Boy, they’re contemptuous of everyone and everything that’s not French. Didn’t you experience that?”
“No. I enjoyed living there.”
That was the simple truth. On arrival in Paris I’d promised myself to play everything by ear. Life in England had taught me some raw lessons. So now I was determined to expose as little as possible of myself to further bruising. That’s what I’d promised myself.
The Federation had agreed to provide me with free accommodation for two weeks at a hotel within easy reach of the headquarters. During that time it was up to me to find an apartment suitable to myself. Each day I would check the newspaper advertisements on apartments for rent, particularly those within a reasonable radius from my office, asking the advice of my new colleagues as to suitability and price. I discovered that the level of rents related as much to the arrondissement or locality as to the size of the apartment and its furnishing.
One day I read an advertisement in the Paris edition of the American Herald Tribune, which interested me. It was for an apartment located in the fashionable Seventh Arrondissement. According to the published blurb, it was in a building within a walled courtyard containing a small garden; newly decorated and tastefully furnished; on the seventh floor with an uninterrupted view; excellent elevator service; courteous and efficient concierge. All that and about a quarter of a mile from my office. The rent was not mentioned. The telephone number was. I read it several times. The Seventh Arrondissement. In London that would be called a Residential area. With a capital “R.” When my financial condition had suddenly improved with the publication of my book, I’d decided to move nearer to London and had read similar advertisements. I’d telephone and receive a friendly invitation to “come and see it yourself.” Yet, when I arrived, the reaction to my black face had always been the same: “So sorry, but someone else has just been and taken it.”
Now here it was again. Making a mental wager with myself, I dialed the number. On the third ring a voice answered. A charming woman’s voice. In English, I said that I was inquiring about the apartment she’d advertised. In English, she immediately expressed her pleasure that I’d phoned, and proceeded to describe the apartment, making it sound even more attractive than had the blurb.
“And the rent, madam?” I asked.
She mentioned an amount well within the limits I had set myself. Lovely. I was about to say I was free to come and see it now, anytime, when memory warned me.
“I’d like you to know that I am black, madam,” I blurted out, anxious to get it over and done with.
“I’m sorry, monsieur,” she replied, “but there can be no reduction for that. Le prix est fixe.”
Had she been near I might have kissed her. For the first time in my life in Europe I’d heard words which told me that my color was not the main concern. I felt released, lifted. Tall. It was agreeable to have this assurance that I could live where I wanted to live. I hurried over to see the apartment. Satisfied, I rented it. I remained there the whole seven years of my stay in France.
It’s interesting to reflect that she did not inquire into my background. At sight of me she did not suggest that my presence would reduce the tone or quality or value of the apartment, the building or the arrondissement.
“No problems?” he asked.
“No problems.”
I had no doubt that the French are just as prejudiced, as discriminatory and as contemptuous as are the British, the Americans, or anyone else. As a black man I cannot afford the luxury of self-delusion. However, at no time in my seven years of living in France did their contempt crudely intervene between me and where I wanted to live, or the work I wanted to do or the people I wished to associate with. I was allowed to be myself. Feeling that wonderful warmth just by remembering.
“How long did you stay on that job?”
“Four years. In between missions I wrote another book.”
“What was that about?”
“It was about my work as a welfare official in London. My experience as a teacher had shown me the value of making notes. For myself. As a way of checking my own progress and development. So, once again, from the day I began the unfamiliar job for which I had no formal training, the job of Welfare Advisor, I began taking notes. I used some of my spare time in Paris to assemble and edit those notes into a manuscript.”
“How did it go? Another best seller?”
“It had a very good reception. It was published in England, Germany and Holland and later here in the United States. When I think of the thousands of books written and submitted to publishers, I am very flattered by the attention mine received.”
“Deservedly so. Evidently you’re an exceptional man.”
“Am I?”
Christ! He was coming on. Exceptional, he called me. Funny thing is that inside myself I don’t feel exceptional. There are lots like me, strong in themselves, feeling they can do things. But perhaps they’re not as lucky as me. They’re denied the freedom, the opportunity and the right to give expression to what they feel.
My thoughts flashed to that school I’d recently visited in Syracuse. Upstate New York. An inner-city school. Several thousand students. Nearly all black. I addressed their assembly and later spoke to some groups. I’ll never forget it. Such frustration and hopelessness. Beautiful young people who should have been full of excitement and wonder and enthusiasm for life and living and doing. Unexcited about the future. Already victims of hopelessness. They, too, could be exceptional people, given half a chance.
“You made your own way, didn’t you?”
“Perhaps. But the way was open. A roadblock here and there, but it was generally open. For many blacks there are no openings. They’re frustrated and desperate. Like human bombs triggered and ticking away the moments to explosion.”
“Aren’t you using your writer’s license to overdramatize the situation? Nowadays many of our youngsters are in a state of rootlessness, without direction, without anchorage. That does not make them bombs. Bums, more likely.” Laughing at his own pun.
“When you say ‘our youngsters’ I take it you mean white youngsters. That’s fine for them. They can play-act and posture to their heart’s content. It’s easy to reject wealth, educational opportunities, comfort, security, any of those things, if you have them or if you know they’re readily available to you. You can always change your mind and return to them if your convictions desert you or if you grow tired of holding the posture. But if you never had them, nor can ever hope to have them, rejection is merely a pose. Blacks cannot even afford the pose.”
Remembering my conversations with some of the members
of the Syracuse faculty. Mostly white. The English teacher who showed me a piece one of the black students had turned in as part of a poetry project. It was this:
I wish I was a blackbird’s egg
High in a walnut tree.
A-sitting in my little nest
As rotten as could be.
I wish that you would come along
And stand beneath that tree
So I could fall and bust myself
And cover you with me.
The teacher did not consider it funny. She, too, felt the build-up of frustration and hopelessness among the black students. She felt threatened by it. Yet she was sure she was doing her best. Her altruistic best. Daily going through the motions of teaching. She had no illusions about her role in that school. She was white. She lived in a part of town far removed from the homes of her students. In a different environment. In a different world. Isolated from them. Screened from them by zoning laws or other devices of exclusion. So how could she relate the academic abstractions to their lives? Or could she dare use her experience and way of living to illustrate her point of view? From within her own consciousness of security, how could she address herself to their insecurity and have her sincerity believed? In short, how could she teach them? What could they learn from her?
The few black teachers I met were no more effective, no more respected by the students. I saw them, heard them and talked with them. Enough of them to know that they’re so trapped within the situation, they’re generally no better than their white peers. But why should they be? They want to slip their chains, their encagement, and teaching is an escape hatch. Regular salary. Security of tenure. Respectability. All signs point upward, to the cleaner air. Away from the ghetto and its pervasive taint. Every man for himself. Having a thought and airing it before he could interrupt.
Reluctant Neighbors Page 11