The Nigger Factory

by Gil Scott-Heron

  ‘No lectures,’ Ben King snarled. ‘I don’ know whuss goin’ on wit’ you anyway. It's only since the deal got under way that you started openin’ yo goddamn mouth! An’ it's only the las’ couple days that all a the ideas we had have started fuckin’ up.’

  Abul Menka got to his feet. ‘I'm gonna forget that you said that the way you did,’ he said slowly, tossing his cigarette away and freeing his hands. ‘I'm gonna attribute that remark to pressure, because my balls are out there on the line jus’ like yours. I started speakin’ up because I knew I had jus’ as much to lose as anybody else an’ I wuzn’ gonna let some big mouth bluffin’ get my ass kicked outta school. I was determined that if I left, it would be because we planned things out an’ jus’ didn’ make it . . . you dig?’

  ‘Fuck you!’ King said turning his back. ‘You guys can doodle an’ dally an’ meet an’ pray like a buncha en-double-ay-cee-pee niggers if you want to, but I'm gettin’ my guns together fo’ t'night . . . I'll see yawl at three.’

  ‘Without the gun,’ Baker said to King's retreating back.

  King said nothing. The only sound from him was the echo of his footfalls as he thudded heavily down the stairs.

  Sheila Reed was writing a check for twenty dollars for an impatient coed who stood in front of the secretary's desk with a hat box in her hand. Sheila had been working since nine o'clock that morning with no break to speak of. Earl had asked a couple of times if she wanted Odds to take over while she prepared to leave, but she had assured him that the few belongings she was taking were packed and ready. Her parents had been informed by phone that she would be at her job in the SGA office when they arrived.

  ‘When will the last bus leave?’ the coed asked when Sheila gave her the check.

  ‘There's a special bus scheduled to leave at four forty-five,’ the secretary replied. ‘That gives you plenty of time.’

  ‘What time do you have?’

  ‘Two minutes past two.’

  ‘Good. Thank you.’

  The phone rang, but before Sheila had a chance to answer it the extension light at the base of the phone went off, signifying that Earl had answered it in the inner office.

  ‘Thomas,’ he announced, leaning back in the swivel chair with a cigarette clamped in his mouth.

  ‘Earl? This is Lawman. I'm in Garvey Plaza. We got ‘bout fifty dudes left over here. Mosta the people either leavin’ soon or on the border line between stayin’ an’ go in’.’

  ‘What ‘bout the women?’ Earl asked.

  ‘Pretty good. I haven’ heard a woman yet say that she definitely wasn’ goin’ home. Mosta them whose parents are comin’ said that they goin’ to that MJUMBE meetin’. You gonna speak?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because it's MJUMBE's meetin’.’

  ‘I think you coppin’ out,’ Lawman said.

  ‘What? Coppin’ out? How?’

  ‘If you're makin’ a split wit’ MJUMBE you gotta speak up. You can't tell the women to leave an’ then have their parents show up an’ have a buncha so-called studen’ leaders who're bein’ identified wit’ you tell them the opposite.’

  ‘The women know how I feel. They heard me yesterday,’ Earl retorted.

  ‘The parents didn’ hear nothin’.’

  ‘MJUMBE knew how I felt before they called the meetin’.’

  ‘You made them call it when you wen’ aroun’ las’ night,’ Lawman persisted.

  ‘I didn’ call . . .’

  ‘You the president, man!’ Lawman exclaimed. ‘I'm trippin’ out behind all these moral games you play wit’ yo'self that seem to relate to some unknown group a sacred principles. Too much goddamn thinkin’ is bein’ done when there ain’ none necessary. I tol’ you a long time ago about how niggers is the only people in America who get hung up on them bogus Democratic ideals like the right to assemble. Fuck a right to assemble! You want the women gone? Then bes’ you be there to tell their parents to take their crazy asses home! ‘Cause you know as well as I do that if anything happens to any one of them you gon’ be the man with the pipe up his ass when they start handin’ out the blame.’

  ‘Maybe I'll go,’ Earl said wearily.

  ‘Maybe hell!’ Lawman said with his temper subsiding a bit. ‘You better back yo'self up. It's all the help thass comin’.’

  ‘The way I see it I back myself up if I give ‘um busfare.’

  There was a pause, an empty hole in the air that neither man bothered to try and fill with words. Lawman knew that he was pushing his friend. Earl was definitely not the type of politician or man to throw his weight around. He had won the election and was carrying out the job in the best way he knew how. When he told people something he was giving them his opinion and what they did after that he generally didn't influence. Lawman had never heard him say, ‘I told you that wouldn't work,’ when something failed, or ‘I told you that would work,’ when a venture was successful. It occurred to Lawman that the reason the post-operative statements were never needed was because Earl was generally such a forceful speaker and so adept at bringing people over to his train of thought that his policies toward campus political issues were never challenged. But now it was time for Earl to be more forceful. He could no longer advise as though he were objective about the entire project. He had to make people see what he was talking about whether it appealed to them or not.

  The problem facing Sutton University's student body was one of face-saving and adventure. There were many people whose departure had been made very quietly. Some of those who stayed were staying because no one wanted to be considered a coward unwilling to face whatever force Ogden Calhoun sent against them. The adventure that the situation was presenting was obvious. Most of the students at Sutton were the post-civil-rights-marches generation of Black students. They hadn't been old enough to take part in the marches on Washington and the march against Selma. They had never been actively involved in the Black revolution on any level. They were still inside the educational womb and their discussions were all hot air and rhetoric based on television revolutionaries and imported upheavals from Franz Fanon or Mao.

  Six o'clock looked like excitement from their viewpoint. Chances were that very few of them had ever had a billy club come crashing down on their heads or mace sprayed on them or tear gas choking them and setting their lungs on fire. Lawman knew that it would be no picnic, but he had agreed with Earl when the SGA president had told the men to make up their own minds while the women were asked to leave. The thing he thought he had to impress on Earl was the fact that no one who had never been involved in a confrontation would want to be on campus to pay for resisting arrest or refusing to vacate private property. He decided that he would try and find some clippings that he had cut out of various Black magazines depicting the true possibilities in the picture for those who had some romantic notion about a revolutionary picnic on Sutton's campus when the law arrived. He smiled when it occurred to him that the sight of those pictures might turn Earl's head around.

  ‘When you comin’ over here?’ Earl asked. ‘Hey! Lawman! You still on?’

  ‘Yeah, man,’ Lawman said, cutting his daydream short.

  ‘When you comin’ over here?’ Earl repeated.

  ‘About quarter to three,’ Lawman said. ‘Where's Odds?’

  ‘Out front buggin’ hell outta Sheila last I saw,’ Earl laughed.

  ‘Well, I'll see you.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Earl said, ‘I'll see you.’

  Earl dropped the receiver back into the holster. He lit a cigarette and finding it to be the last one in the package he crushed the container and tossed it into the trash. As he stood up to stretch his legs the sound of honking car horns drew his attention to the back window. There were three cars trying to get out of the driveway next to Garvey Plaza. No one could decide who was going to go first. Earl pulled the shade down.

  Deep inside he knew that the things Lawman had said were true. Not going to the three o'clock MJUMBE meeting would
be a cop out of sorts. If he had any responsibility at all to the people in the community and particularly to the women, perhaps it was an obligation to describe Selma, Alabama to them or some of the things that had happened to him as a Freedom Rider.

  His hand automatically went to the crown of his head when he thought about the Freedom Rides. He had been only a boy of nine traveling with his college-aged brother. Their first stop had been a small cafe just outside of Charleston, South Carolina. As far as they knew no one, not even the members of the press, had known where they were to stop. But there had been a huge reception waiting for them in the cafe -- policeman, rednecks, and Kluxers. Their best move would have been to move on to the next stop, but once they got out of the bus their retreat back into the vehicle was blocked by a stick-swinging, rock-throwing mob. Earl had been kicked to the ground and when his brother had tried to shield his body by crouching over the younger Thomas, a broom handle had crashed into his skull and the last thing Earl remembered was the salty taste of his brother's blood as the red ooze from the gaping wound covered his face.

  ‘I gotta go to that meetin’,’ Earl decided. ‘I'm damned if I know what I'll say. Maybe I'll just recount my own experiences for them, but I gotta do somethin’.’

  ‘Earl?’ Someone was calling him and knocking on the closed door to the inner office.

  ‘C'mon in!’ Earl said.

  It was Odds. ‘I wuz on my way over to get a sandwich,’ Earl's sidekick informed him. ‘I wuz wond'rin’ if you wanted somethin’.’

  ‘I'll go,’ Earl said reaching for his jacket. ‘I need a pack a smokes.’

  ‘Damn!’ Odds said, ‘you smoke like they ain’ makin’ no mo’ a them things.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Earl flashed. ‘An’ it's gonna get worse befo’ it gets better.’

  Ogden Calhoun was having a meeting all his own. He had literally dictated the names of the young men that he did not want readmitted to Sutton University. His recommendation to the Board of Trustees had merely stated that certain members of the community would not be readmitted because of activities that endangered the lives and property of the Sutton family. The $8,000 damage (not including labor for replacing damaged equipment) and the takeover of the Thursday afternoon meeting were cited in detail as examples of the activities of these students.

  The list of names placed on the desk of Charles Hague, Admissions Director, came as no surprise to either Hague or concerned faculty members who drifted into the Admissions office to find out the particulars of Calhoun's decision.

  The list read alphabetically:

  Ralph Washington Baker

  Everett McAllister Cotton

  Roy Edward Dean

  Frederick L. Jones

  Benjamin Raymond King

  Kenneth C. Smith

  Earl Joseph Thomas

  Jonathan Wise

  Those who didn't know were informed that Roy Dean was called ‘Lawman’ on Sutton's campus, and that Everett Cotton was really the backfield ace ‘Speedy’ Cotton. Few people had ever heard Earl's private nickname for Ken Smith -- ‘Odds’ -- nor had they heard the term ‘Captain Cool’ from anyone other than Arnold McNeil and a few students. But there was a fretful, worried frown on the face of every faculty member and administrator who saw the list. They had good reason to believe that these eight men would not leave Sutton without a fight.

  33

  Explosion!

  The only member of MJUMBE who was wearing a dashiki for the three o'clock meeting with Sutton parents was Abul Menka. The tall, bushy-headed New Yorker wore a corduroy dashiki with red, green, and black patches symbolizing the three colors of the Black liberation flag. He was sitting alone in the far-left corner of the stage, smoking a cigarette, eyes hidden behind gold-framed sunglasses.

  Three members, Ralph Baker, Speedy Cotton, and Fred Jones, were standing huddled in the opposite corner. They wore sports shirts open at the throat and jackets.

  Ben King was standing at the base of the stairs that led up to the stage. He wore a pair of blue jeans, a sweat shirt, and a very casual pea jacket with one pocket missing and the collar ripped.

  The auditorium was little over a quarter full at three o'clock. Recognizing the twelve-hundred-seat capacity Baker was reluctant to start before so scant a turnout, hoping that there were more people on the way.

  In the assembly were women and parents, male students who had remained on campus, and members of the faculty and interested administrators. Earl, from his vantage point between Odds and Lawman, who were leaning against the door in the far rear of the room, estimated a total of maybe one hundred coeds. The interesting thing about their clothing was that few of them were dressed for a normal day's activities. Most of them were wearing traveling clothes.

  The gathering stopped its low hum of conversation when Ralph Baker approached the microphone.

  ‘Excuse me,’ he began a trifle nervously. ‘I am sorry to have added additional stops on people's schedules, but I feel that too many times things are taken for granted by ‘student leaders’ that would amaze many parents. But this info'mation is never relayed. For this reason the things that have happened here at Sutton this week would seem to be vague an’ mysterious. This meetin’ is to perhaps clarify a few things fo’ parents as to what our strike has been about. Maybe things will then be clearer as to why we are takin’ the stands that we have.

  ‘We men of MJUMBE are all seniors. We are representatives of what is mosta the time the mos’ stagnant, cautious section of the studen’ body. We see ev'ry possible distraction as a possible delay from graduatin’ on time.

  ‘Unfortunately there comes a time when the boat mus’ be rocked. In this case President Calhoun is indicatin’ that we were intent on sinkin’ the boat. No one wants ta drown. Especially,’ Baker added with a smile, ‘if you've been on it fo’ three years an’ only have one mo’ to go.

  ‘We have handed out a copy of our requests and our reasons for askin’ that these changes be made. I read once in a magazine an interview wit’ a former political leader at Howard University who said, ‘It's not enough to hol’ a gun at an administrator's head. You have to pull the trigger.’ At Sutton we didn’ even do that. We called for a studen’ strike to impress our sincerity, our unity. We wanned to show how committed each an’ every studen’ was to these issues.

  ‘President Calhoun tipped the boat over. Not only did he turn away our demands with only token interest, he sent for the police force that is known in this county to be the most brutal and racist. I know, ‘cause I'm a native of this county. The police came out an’ threatened us wit’ their sticks an’ their curses. They acted jus’ like everyone knew they would act. They acted white.

  ‘There are several ways of lookin’ at our request for studen's to remain here at Sutton. It can be looked at as a personal plea from the members of MJUMBE since all five of us will prob'bly be expelled. But that's not our primary concern. Our concern is that only three of our deman's will be instituted. We will only have, as I said, a token response, and our submission to pressure will intimidate those who follow. There will always be studen’ leaders on their han's an’ knees insteada their feet.

  ‘Fo’ that reason . . .’

  Anyone present in the room could have testified to the weight that Baker's words were having. Even though he was reading most of the time from a typed sheet and sounded somewhat stilted, the young man was being effective. But just as he began to draw his suggestions to a close and call for the support that most people felt he most surely would have received, an explosion shook the building.

  The explosion came from somewhere behind the building, shaking the auditorium with quick, jerking vibrations. Baker raced to a side window even as the first scream was being drowned by the chaos that was unleashed by the frightened crowd. He reached the door just in time to see a school bus engulfed in a shield of flame; tongues of orange and blue fire lunging skyward from the hull of the vehicle.

  The crowd pushed through the exits and toward the st
reets. The first three men to leave the building had turned the corner in the direction of the blast. They could feel the warmth from the charring and smoking metal, see the melting tires allow the skeleton of the vehicle to collapse around the white-hot wheels.

  ‘A plastic bomb,’ Odds said surveying the ashes.

  ‘A son-uva-bitch,’ Earl Thomas declared.

  34

  MJUMBE Discovery

  It was after five thirty. The men of MJUMBE had watched all but a very few members of the Sutton community depart by car or taxi or bus, through the narrow passages between buildings, around the oval of dead and dying flowers, and through the cast-iron arch with its proclamation, SUTTON UNIVERSITY.

  The last two hours had seen their last plan destroyed, seared by flames and as easily pushed aside as a puff of the black whorls of smoke that had been carried away by the brisk winds hurtling across campus from the east.

  The revelation by Victor Johnson that a unit of National Guardsmen was camped just south of Sutton was another setback. Somehow pieces of information about a unit of soldiers never hit solidly home until the last station wagon, with suitcases of clothes bulging out of the storage space, had disappeared from view.

  There had been no discussion about the bomb or the Guard. No one had said a word except to confirm the fact that when the five o'clock bus left it would be time to arm themselves. When the last of two late buses belched a stream of black smoke and accelerated southward the five men each got up slowly and started to take his position. Baker was trying to make a last-minute call to the SGA office when he realized that the telephones had been cut off for the day. He cursed and ripped the phone out of the wall. He figured he owed Calhoun a favor.

  ‘The barricades up in back?’ Baker asked Cotton.

  ‘Both door an’ windows,’ Cotton said.

  ‘Jonesy an’ I decided we'll lay here,’ Abul said, gesturing toward the positions facing the oval near the front door.

  ‘Need somebody up top,’ Baker said. ‘Ben, you got that scope?’