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  Perhaps it is an act of respect due the dead—akin to certain ointments applied to a corpse, or the proper prayers murmured beside an open coffin—to not want to know more than they cared to tell. I’ll tell you tomorrow… I’ll tell you tomorrow… Perhaps it is an act of love. Raven Chanticleer told the most crucial details of his story. The fact that he invented his origins is important, but it would be too easy to dwell on his flamboyant character and the sensational lies from which he sculpted his existence. Apart from all that, there was also the very simple, and very honorable, mission of his life’s work.

  I started the museum to bring our history to life, and to help people’s self-esteem, he said. I created these wax figures to keep alive their words and their deeds at a time when too many African Americans think we have no heroes…. The wax museum has been my dream since childhood.

  Still, I wonder about his wax effigies, immortalizing those heroes for eternity—or at least some fraction of eternity. No longer on display, perhaps they are preserved inside Raven Chanticleer’s painted house, or maybe they are on loan to an exhibition in Europe, or in a storage facility, or destroyed. Do they keep alive words and deeds? Did his secret recipe involving plaster, papiermâché, and beeswax endure? Or was the substance breaking down, unable to stop time? The Times obituary quoted Chanticleer’s prophetic warning of what would happen if the museum did not outlast him. He’d made the wax sculpture of himself just in case something should happen to me, if they didn’t carry out my wishes and my dreams of this wax museum I would come back and haunt the hell out of them.

  It seems fitting that only the life lived by Raven Chanticleer should speak for him: Matter of fact, I’m not creatively influenced by anybody but myself and my own dreams.

  8

  We March Because…

  EVERY YEAR I look forward to the African American Day parade. It happens the third Sunday in September, and it is the last of the ethnic festivals that dot the city’s calendar. The Irish (and honorary Irish) and the Italians (and honorary Italians) have made the feast days of St. Patrick and San Gennaro into secular ethnic carnivals, but for me the parade in Harlem every year is a hallowed event.

  When I first came to Harlem, it seemed the streets in summer were always full of parades. Hearing the sound of drums coming into my windows, I would tear out of the house on 120th Street to see who was making the music. It would be the Juneteenth parade, a procession carrying south on Lenox Avenue and terminating at Marcus Garvey Park; or a parade of African Muslims in flowing robes, celebrating the life of their saint. I saw an African Liberation Day parade that was not really a parade at all, but more of a picket line, with people marching in a small circuit on the sidewalk in front of the State Office Building, shouting slogans in support of Zimbabwe (Free the land! Mugabe is right!). Once, I came out of the house and discovered a long parade of young folks and older folks all dressed alike in uniforms resembling those of a scouting brigade. A color guard led them, but no signs revealed their group identity, and they shouted no slogans as they marched down Lenox in strict formation. I walked alongside them for a while, following the tense rhythm of their drummer’s beat. I asked a few other spectators whether they knew the occasion for this martial display, but no one had any better notions than I did.

  It is something of an accepted idea among some historians that Harlem began with a parade. The movement of blacks from other neighborhoods of New York or from the South did not take place as one unified march. Rather, these historians are speaking of the victory parade of the 369th regiment, the Harlem Hellfighters. The Hellfighters earned their name fighting in the trenches of World War I alongside the French (unable to serve with their white countrymen in a segregated armed forces) and were the first Americans to reach the German front. Perhaps the 1919 victory march of the 369th is a convenient place to begin the story, which relies on James Weldon Johnson’s eyewitness account. Johnson describes how, once the regiment ascended Fifth Avenue, reaching 110th Street at the northern end of Central Park, they turned west to meet Lenox Avenue at its fountainhead and from there flowed into Harlem. The tight configuration they had maintained during their display to all of white New York scattered upon reaching Harlem into a loose and jovial swarm. The band gave up its military marching songs and started playing jazz tunes. One of the songs played was “How You Gonna Keep ’Em Down on the Farm (After They’ve Seen Paree)?”

  A picture showing Lenox Avenue near the corner of 134th Street on Armistice Day, some months before the 369th made it home, provides an idea of what the crowd might have looked like at the victory march. The crowd is packed onto the sidewalks from the buildings to the edge of the curb, from the foreground toward the vanishing point on the horizon. Flags hang from every storefront and from a few upper-story windows. But in the picture of the Armistice celebrations, taken before the return of the Harlem Hellfighters, the crowd is oddly tranquil. It is as if victory in the Great War—fought for democracy and peace across Europe—was an abstraction. Whatever patriotic sentiment was not fully expressed in the crowd at news of the Armistice was finally released when the Harlem troops themselves returned from the front. Peace was declared, but another battle had begun. W. E. B. DuBois summarized (and perhaps helped to incite) the mood in a sober editorial from The Crisis:

  We return.

  We return from fighting.

  We return fighting.

  Make way for democracy.

  I like to think the crowd that assembles for the African American Day parade each year matches that from 1919. It happens on Seventh Avenue, from 110th Street to 145th Street. The reviewing stand for distinguished onlookers is planted at the intersection of 125th and Seventh by the statue of Adam Clayton Powell Jr.

  In the days leading up the parade, my neighbor Ms. Bessie always asks if I will be there and tells me that she will be situated near our street. She always watches from the same spot, and she tells me that I should come and find her.

  The parade always starts behind schedule, and I’ve learned not to go out for the advertised start time of 2 p.m. By the time I arrive, the procession is already underway, so it is without any preliminaries that the urgent message of, say, the delegation from the Masjid Malcolm Shabazz greets me: JAIL AIN’T NO GOOD, declare their signs, and We must establish businesses and industry to support quality education. FREEDOM JUSTICE EQUALITY blare other signs, while the marchers in the group chant the words of Marcus Garvey: Up you mighty race, you can accomplish what you will! The faces of Elijah Muhammad, W. E. B. DuBois, Frederick Douglass, Marcus Garvey, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, and Malcolm X are borne on posters held high above the heads of the marchers, while dignitaries of the group creep along in the comfort of an off-road SUV. As they pass, a man imbued with the spirit of business and industry reaches across the police barriers to the crowd, selling flags with the African nationalist colors for two dollars. He says, Salaam alaikum as he offers his wares.

  The businessmen and businesswomen of the Group of 100 Black Men and Group of 100 Black Women, their actual numbers amounting to many less than advertised, follow with signs of exhortation: Protect it! Love it! Preserve it! Your home community, Harlem!

  Behind them come the Ki Egungun Loa Egbe Egungun of New York. Their marshal carries a staff with a skull upon it; he shakes this scepter at the onlookers. Another man walks on stilts, wearing a blank mask, eerie because it does not offer the logic of any facial features. They are accompanied by African drummers and attended by women in white. The leader brandishes a ceremonial whisk made from the tail of some animal. According to a sign carried nearby, this is the King of Oyutunji Village, His Royal Highness Oba Osejjeu Adefumi.

  When the king and his retinue pass by, the first of the many marching bands imported from Baltimore quickly take their place. These include the Westsiders, the Christian Warrior Marching Unit, the New Edition Marching Band, the Baltimore Go-Getters, In Full Motion, the Edmonson Village Steppers, the Soul Tigers, and the Approaching Storm. These bands are
, undoubtedly, the most important elements of the parade. They play regular marching tunes and souped-up versions of the current popular songs raucously transposed to brass instruments and snare drums. Their sounds fill the avenue, vibrating off the buildings on either side. The whistles of the drill sergeants punctuate the music and are matched by cheers from the crowd. The marching bands wear complicated costumes of bright colors, sequins, and gold or silver lamé. They range in age from the tiniest kindergartners to majorettes old enough to be grandmothers, proudly wearing the same revealing costumes of their younger cohorts, along with their silver hair. Effeminate teenage boys who confidently twirl batons and teasingly vamp for the audience are both praised and belittled from the sidelines. Attentive mothers follow the drill teams with towels to dry the sweaty faces of their children. They give water bottles to the thirsty and administer portable fans as performers succumb to heat stroke.

  The rest of the march sometimes feels like filler between bands. There are the five members of the National Council of Negro Women, the modest three-person contingent of the Ethiopia World Federation, and the radiant and peaceful brigade from the Hindu-inflected Brahma Kumaris. Equally small are the delegations of black conservatives, black accountants, black social workers, black electricians, black nurses, and black engineers.

  A long section of the parade features unions, as well as the black sanitation workers, black mass-transit workers, black parole workers, black corrections officers, black court officers, and black police and their protégés of the Police Athletic League, who follow close behind. The firefighters on their engine ladders earn rousing applause, and the school safety officers arrive in vans blaring menacing sirens. The men of 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care receive significantly more affection than the black state police troopers on their motorcycles and in sports cars. Many parade-goers seem to be familiar with the troopers, not because of family connections but from having encountered them on the highway when issued speeding tickets. Someone shouts at them from the crowd, We don’t trust y’all! This challenge is met by an officer who leaves her place in the parade rank to shout information about starting salaries, causing someone else to note, That’s a good unit to be in.

  A great stir is always caused by whatever up-and-coming pretty-boy rap sensation commands the epic speaker system of the Hot 97 float, which is always in competition with a similar display from a rival radio station. High above the crowd, like princes carried by bearers, they posture while lip-synching lyrics from their latest hit. The royal attendants of the entourage, street-team promoters enjoying their temporary celebrity, toss T-shirts, flyers, posters, and CDs to the screaming fans below. Teenage girls rush from the sidewalk to run alongside the float as it passes through the crowd. Some join the spectacle, dancing with jubilation and abandoning their friends at the sidelines.

  More sober is the Five Percent Nation of Gods and Earths, who carry signs with their emblem of the crescent and the star. The number seven is prominently displayed. They march with a determined step, and their slogans are brief distillations of their complex theology: The black man is God. The black woman is Earth, and What do we want? PEACE, and Let the babies shine! Because no encounter with the Five Percenters is complete without some perplexing numerology, I note down—for future investigation—the message of one sign: Psalm 86 vs. 6.

  I am no less dumbfounded by the long contingent of Freemasons and other fraternal orders. Their numbers have dwindled since the days when VanDerZee photographed their promenades along the same avenue, but their elegance has not diminished. With slight differences according to their affiliation and rank, the men wear dark suits, white gloves, and a white cloth hanging from the waist that looks like a kind of apron. Some wear fezzes, and their aprons are covered with embroidered patches showing pyramids and pharaohs’ heads. Signs identify them as members of the Prince Hall Grand Lodge, the Medina Temple, the Oasis of New York, the Desert of New York, as well as Elks clubs and the female Masonic counterpart, the Order of the Eastern Star. A man identified as the most worshipful grand master rides in a convertible sports car, wearing a Maltese cross and a hat with cascading plumes.

  The Masons seem to occupy a special place in the parade—not only do their costume and ceremony link them to well-known images from Harlem’s past, but everyone seems to know someone who is marching. The Masons always pause, ceremoniously greeting members of the crowd. I try to watch for secret handshakes.

  The women of the Eastern Star wear comparatively simple outfits—white dresses, white hosiery, and white shoes that make them look like nurses. Some wear rhinestone tiaras. Usually they sing, and the crowd joins in with familiar songs like This little light of mine / I’m gonna let it shine. I sing too. Once there was a song I did not know at first, but I quickly learned its lyrics and have not been able to forget them: We are soldiers, in the army / We got to pick up the blood-stained banner / We got to fight, or we got to die. While much of their display is decipherable only by the initiated, a phrase on their banner points to the origin of their name: We have seen His star in the east and come to worship Him.

  Once, the Masons had a challenger from the crowd. He yelled abuse above the drums that accompanied their stride. You better not betray us! You better not betray us! He shouted agitatedly, making demands whose urgency was obvious only to himself. His quarrel seemed to revolve around the Masonic iconography. Turn the star right side up! TURN THE STAR! RIGHT SIDE UP! At the same time he began to yell at the crowd: Our last name is not our last name! He resumed his accusations against the marching Masons. Tell the truth! That means all of you! He repeated his exhortation about the position of the star, but his rancor and persistence did not seem to fluster them. Suddenly he turned his attention to me, making notes nearby. WRITE! IT! DOWN! he yelled, with just as much venom as before.

  I did write it down, but with certain groups I stop my notation. I put down the pen and press into the crowd. I always go to the parade alone so that I can move quickly. I begin on the sidewalk and then cross over to stand in the median, finding myself an unexpected guest among families who have come prepared for the day with folding stadium seats, coolers full of food and drink, and battery-operated personal fans. Unencumbered, I am free to push close to the barricades when my favorite marchers, the Panamanian drum and bugle corps, arrive. They wear crisply pleated guayabera shirts, woven straw hats, and khaki shorts or pants. Every year their costume is the same, and so is the disciplined precision of their steps, the rousing herald of their horns, and their crashing drums. Like the teenagers chasing after rappers on floats, I run along with the Panamanian musicians, matching my march to theirs, keeping them in sight in order to arrest their passage until I am tired out by walking. Then I find a space to sit and let the parade pass me by once more.

  The group of Native Americans who march in the parade condense a complicated history. Most of the people who march as “Indians” would be identified as African American by the untrained eye, or by any eye. For the parade, they are dressed in fringed leather, headbands, moccasins, and other ritual costumes. A person with a very trained eye might note that these Indians do not necessarily seem equipped to perform any particular ritual at all; they adopt a “Hollywood Indian” look. But there are no authenticity police on the sidelines, just cheers and simulated war cries. I once heard someone comment that the Indians should have the biggest float of all.

  The Mothers Against Guns carry signs in memory of children killed by gun violence. They are followed by Morticians Who Care, whose contribution consists of a creeping hearse, with a coffin rolled behind. HOW MANY MORE WILL IT TAKE? their signs inquire. Members of the NAACP form a subdued flock, centered on dignitaries riding slowly in a Jaguar. Their signs emphasize the hallowed history of their organization (since 1927) and promote their latest campaign (Bury the ‘N’ word).

  Attempting a more radical position are the New Black Panthers, who are joined by some of the old Black Panthers and hold up signs with the faces of heroes lik
e Assata Shakur, Fred Hampton, and Huey P. Newton. They are supported by members of the Jericho Movement, who brandish posters with the names and faces of political prisoners. A member of the New Black Panthers shouts, This is protected by the red, the black, and the green, and exhorts the crowd to join in with chants of Black Power! A few white people in green hats walk along with them as legal observers; police cars trail close behind. This is because almost every year the New Black Panthers have a scuffle with the law. It unfolds at some point between 130th and 135th as if according to a script. The chants of Black Power! soon transform into choruses of Fuck the Police!

  Decidedly more tranquil are the sisters of the black sororities, Alpha Kappa Alpha, Delta Sigma Theta, Phi Beta Sigma, and Zeta Phi Beta. A float trumpeting itself as a salute to black college women carries homecoming queens and pageant winners in tiaras and satin gowns who greet the crowd with the classic elbow-powered regal wave and blown kisses.

  It is possible that when I am rushing to see my favorite parts of the parade, I miss the passage of certain floats and dignitaries. You will say, what about Pigfoot Mary and Porkchop Davis and Carl Van Vechten? But look, there they are marching, and there is the man who brings a van from North Carolina loaded with sausage links, boiled peanuts, pickled eggs, and peaches and sorghum syrup and collard greens, which he sells from the street. There are the girls playing double-dutch, there is that man who kept a tiger in his apartment, and yes, oh, there is Bill Clinton, we see him so infrequently at his office on 125th Street! There is this week’s winner of Amateur Night at the Apollo, there are the Korean American owners of Harlem’s most popular chain of soul-food buffet restaurants, there are those socialites going to the fabulous Harlem Renaissance parties, which I am quite tired of hearing about. They are all gathered at the parade. There is that man who asked me how long one had to live in Harlem before being allowed to write a book about it—implying, of course, that I had not lived in Harlem long enough to write a book about it. But what happened to the African hair-braiding ladies, what about the new boutiques, where is your gospel brunch with chicken and waffles, why didn’t I mention the Collyer Brothers y porque no digo nada sobre El Barrio? I will say, Oh, they are all there, you must have missed them marching by. And I will say, It is getting dark, I should be going home soon. See you next year at the parade.