“My cousin left for Jefferson City.” Ashamed, he left out the part about tearing himself from the clutches of the tall police officer, who held him while the others took Frederick away.
“Seems like every time we talk somebody you know is headed that way. Never mind the papers, Ona’s already at it. I got a train to catch. Come walk with me to the station.” Ivoe grabbed her summer hat. “One of these days I suspect you’ll come in here talking about you’re on your way to Jefferson City.”
“Oh, Miss Ivoe, I hope not,” Bunchee said, grabbing the handle of her valise.
The city was stinking hot that September, the worst climate for a train ride. Ivoe followed Bunchee through a crowd of men haggling before the colored entrance to Union Station. She felt weary from a journey that had begun in her mind a week ago with articles from the Omaha Bee—“Black Man’s Fury of Rape Erupts, Its Molten Destroys the Flower of White Womanhood.” Absconded from his home on Omaha’s Bond Street one Saturday afternoon, Willie Baker had been placed in Quitman jail before a final move to the county court, ostensibly for safekeeping. Who knew how long his trial would last. From the tone of the stories in the Bee—which often alleged attacks on white women—conditions were being stoked for a riot.
Ivoe said good-bye to Bunchee, purchased a ticket, and glimpsed herself in a mirrored door. A bundle of black steel wool blossomed from beneath the summer hat whose strap cut into her chin. She and Ona had both put on a little weight—too much bread and beans. She’d gladly give up the poor woman’s diet for a lean piece of brisket roasted in the pit for hours like Papa used to do every Juneteenth . . . succotash with fresh summer corn . . . mashed potatoes and gravy . . . the flaky, buttery crust of Ona’s peach cobbler. Her mouth watered as she thought of the low subscription count. With Jam eating up every cent they had, it would be a while before they could have a meal like that.
The train station was hot and dusty, and she had forgotten her fan on the dressing table at home. Hungry and regretful for not having packed anything for the journey, she glanced at the clock. Time to run and buy something, but money spent now meant fewer words telegraphed to Ona later. She resolved to eat dinner at the boardinghouse. Removing from her bag a copy of the New York Times, she focused on an article from July 31:
NEGROES APPEAL TO WILSON,
CONVENTION IN PROVIDENCE ASSAILS RIOTING IN CHICAGO
PROVIDENCE, R.I.—Race rioting and burning of Negro homes in Chicago were bitterly assailed by the convention of the Northeastern Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs, in session at the Olney Street Baptist Church here. The following telegram, adopted as a resolution, was sent to President Wilson: “The Northeastern Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs in convention assembled plead you as president of the United States to use every means within your power to stop the rioting in Chicago and the propaganda used to incite such; that all people, regardless of race, creed or color be protected from mob violence. We await your reply.”
Her reading was interrupted by a pair of women who sat on the bench next to her, eating sandwiches and brushing the crumbs from their skirts. A man folded his copy of Jam and offered it to the ladies, drawing out an unnoticed smile from Ivoe until one woman gnashed her teeth. “Too snooty for my blood.” The man waved the paper at the other woman, who rolled her eyes. “It’s a dicty rag, all right. I don’t hardly need to read up on how to strive to be like white folks.”
“I’ve been following all the riots. And I know a few people who have found work in it,” the man said.
“You don’t need no paper to find no job. Shit, this America. When you knowed colored people not to work in America? That ain’t nothing. Pay may be no count. Job might not be what you want, but somebody always looking to put us to work.”
“I looked at it once. It’s not getting my hard-earned nickel again, I tell you that much. Talking down on her own folks—telling us how to act.”
“How to keep in the white man’s graces—”
“And, honey, I don’t care nothing about being chummy with no white folks. Only thing we need from them is for them to leave us alone. Now, she start writing something like that maybe I’ll pick it up again.”
Ingrates! Inside the Jam office that summer the atmosphere had been intense. On the West Bottoms streets of narrow tenements, a solemn mood prevailed amid the hustle and bustle of black people who had heard or read about colored communities besieged by white violence week after week all summer long. In the paper’s inaugural edition, she had reported on the racial tension at a New London, Connecticut, navy base, where black seamen reported repeated attacks from white sailors. At a segregated beach in Chicago, rock throwing by a white man had caused the death of a colored teen, Eugene Williams. Chicago’s riot lasted five days and culminated in the deaths of over two dozen colored people; hundreds more were injured. In the nation’s capital that July, more than a thousand policemen and military officers had been deployed to restore order after a race riot was ignited by reports of rapes of white women. Last week when a riot erupted in Tennessee, Ona had pleaded with her not to “go chasing down the white folks planning to free the country of Negroes by hook or by crook, noose or shotgun.” But the similarities between the cases of the Knoxville man and Willie Baker were too close. The mulatto man accused of murdering a white Tennessee woman had been awaiting his trial when rioters broke into the jailhouse, eventually shooting out residents of Knoxville’s black community.
More journalists than she cared to count had misunderstood the inclination toward migration. Industrial jobs had received the credit when migrants had fled southern violence to northern cities for protection by a civilized police force. How many Negroes had met their death that summer without remark from the president or legislative action? On the heels of the Great War, where colored men had exercised the finest patriotism even while combating Jim Crow in their own camp, the betrayal was devastating, the colored American’s seeds of distrust sown. As editor, she had tried to seize upon this moment to shift the focus on the colored community itself—to point out ways they might lessen dependency on white businesses, create infrastructure, and uplift the race in noble acts and deeds, especially in behalf of each other.
She practically grew roots at her desk from working through the wee hours of the morning below a framed picture of Wayne Minor, Kansas City native and the last soldier killed in the Great War. Private Minor had served in Company A in the all-black 366th Infantry Regiment and died just hours before the treaty was signed. The Star Ledger had made no mention of his service. In the midst of war, the United States struggled to realize its own democratic claims for all its citizens. To look at Minor’s picture reminded her to stay in the trenches, to fight the good fight even if the foe was Ona.
Recent disputes with Ona and waning subscriptions had left her self-confidence badly shaken. Interest in the paper dropped off after the third issue. The seventh issue had just gone to press, but whenever Bunchee made house calls to collect money, people canceled further editions or refused to answer the door. Ona counseled her to add more from her own life experiences as a means of giving tone and relish to her writing. She should draw more from her problems—the same as her readers’—in her editorials, which felt a little cold. “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” She reminded Ona that the work of racial uplift was not a matter of temperature. One afternoon in Belvedere Hollow hinted at some of the race’s trouble. She had distributed free newspapers up one dingy street and down a worse one, noting tomfoolery on every corner from the Italians, Irish, and Negroes, but it was the latter group the coppers harassed. White officers dragged colored men into paddy wagons for no other reason than the men were loud and unkempt. “Did the cop stop to ask if the person in his grip was lukewarm or freezing? Heck no.” She had tried to get Ona to see that a tone of chastisement was necessary to improve relations between their community and the KCPD. “Some of us have the rig
hts down pat. We understand those, but what about our responsibilities? Some of us don’t know the c-i in city stands for civilized.” Ona tuned up her face, as if Ivoe’s logic had a sour taste. “That’s dangerous, Ivoe, ’cause we’re not the only ones reading Jam. You better believe whites are reading our paper closer than they do their own. It’s a fine balance is all.” Ivoe thought she was achieving that balance—newsworthy items and editorials that spoke to curtailing behaviors that courted white malice. What the readers needed, Ona contended, was to understand the city was not their friend. They needed to understand the traps of so-called civilization that didn’t exist in the rural parts. Wary of a “how to beat the man” tone, Ivoe said the organ must teach accountability. Ona agreed: “But both parties have to be accountable. Whites in power—from the mayor on down to the trolley driver—have to be accountable for their treatment of citizens.” Where in the paper was she going to address that?
Ona’s advice, meant to encourage, had made her doubt herself all the same, but it was nothing like the two women talking now.
“Who she think she is?”
“Who knows anything about her anyway? She got a husband?”
“No.”
“Children?”
“No.”
“Growed-up woman living in an apartment full of other growed-up women ain’t natural. Ain’t supposed to be but one queen bee in a hive.”
The woman wiped her brow with a monogrammed handkerchief—a present, no doubt, from her employer, as nothing about her suggested she cared on iota about initials.
“Got a brother. He stay in the streets. Need to preach to him.”
“She can’t tell me nothing nohow.”
Ivoe recognized the brand of negritude on display. To her, theirs was the worst kind of race pride: it ended when complaining ceased yet did nothing to propel the race forward. They gave the white man and his evils over to Jesus and prayed for things they themselves might remedy, while Jim Crow stood with his foot on their necks. Well, go ahead, Mr. Crow, crush on. See if I care. The boarding call for the Rock Island line to Nebraska issued as Ivoe snatched up her bags.
In the dying light of summer, the train whirred past cattle in repose along the russet plains. Nature permeated glass and steel, filling the railroad car with the scent of dung on hot soil. Ivoe crinkled her nose as she angled the small mirror of her compact, as if vantage might erase her wearied countenance. Hours later, the scene in Kansas City’s Union Station still rankled. Ona had prepared her for the slow reception Jam might receive but that it had come under scurrilous attack by her own hurt doubly. Any publishing anxiety was now exacerbated by their lack of understanding.
A clap of thunder awakened her. As the train lurched to a stop, pages of the Omaha Herald slid from her lap to the floor. She bent to retrieve them, recalling the dream interrupted by the storm. A black hound was digging a patch near Momma’s fig tree. No matter what she did to distract the dog from the spot, he returned. Then she noticed the hound had something in its mouth. She spoke to it in a soft tone, trying to relax its underjaw. She succceeded, but she recoiled in horror at what appeared to be a human hand—big, black, and calloused like Papa’s. The hound howled as screams resounded from all over Little Tunis, getting louder and more numerous until the sound grew deafening.
Dark clouds exploded and thunder crashed in prolonged, awful peals.
Ivoe drew up the collar of her raincoat against the downpour. On advice from an NAACP member, she took a taxi to 3110 Harney Street, Liberty Café and Boardinghouse. No sooner than she dined on a sandwich and tomato soup, the young woman who had checked her in delivered an envelope: “Ms. Williams, this arrived for you today.”
Kansas City, September 23, 1919
Dear One,
I hate to see you go. On the other hand, when else do I have just cause to pen you a letter? Rest assured, without you around there will be little joy. Here’s what you will miss: Bunchee’s antics, mislaid papers, ringing telephones, my eyes peeled to the door for your return. Do come home to me in one piece.
All my love,
Ona
From two hundred miles away Ona had put the ground back under her feet. Returning the letter to its envelope, she missed her, terribly.
Casey’s Row was no different from other black settlements built around labor. In Little Tunis the sharecroppers’ and later the convicts’ day was spent on cotton. In Kansas City the packing plants kept men like Timbo working to live. In Omaha it was the railroad. A community of Pullman porters and women employed as laundresses and domestics lived in the community north of the city. Everybody worked and had something to show for it: a Buick H-45, a new roof, rose bushes flanking the front door, a freshly painted fence.
By noon, Casey’s Row buzzed about the tall, well-dressed newswoman from Kansas City. Little girls ran up to her, said hello, giggled, and ran off. Older men nodded in her direction. A bit of celebrity helped to ease her shyness. For three days she conducted interviews in the boardinghouse’s café with neighbors roused from their dinner by commotion the evening of Willie Baker’s arrest. The waitress delivered the day’s dessert special; Ivoe blew ripples into her teacup and listened to stories about Casey’s Row—unchecked white hostility meted out against the community over the years and people’s impression of Mr. Baker and his love affair. Leading the rabble the night they took Baker into custody was an elderly white man, father to the woman Baker lived with. A janitor leaned across the table so that the toddler sitting next to him would not hear. “Ms. Williams, I heard everything the old peckerwood said to his daughter ’cause I live next door to Willie and come out on the porch as soon as the car pulled up. He told his daughter to ‘turn that black scoundrel loose! Before I turn you over in a grave of hog slop.’”
Ivoe chewed her pie like it was meat and let her tea get cold as the story unfolded.
Men from two automobiles shouted demands at Baker, threatening his life if he didn’t account for his whereabouts the night before. The woman’s claim that he had been home with her failed to quell the situation, as her father accused Baker of raping his other daughter, a sixteen-year-old.
“I think I was the first one to call the police,” a washerwoman said. “Don’t know how many times I warned Willie about that gal. Told him when he brought her here . . . I told him, ‘You gone stark mad bringing a white woman up in Casey’s Row. They gonna lynch you for it.’ He said they had quieted all that down and not to worry. But when them white mens pulled up, I wasn’t so sure so I called the police. Told them to come and get Willie. I figured he’d be safer in the county jail than at home. They come get him too. Soon as I said he lived with a white woman they come quick. I think he’s alive ’cause of me.”
The following day, Ivoe sought out the Western Union telegraph office. Usually Ona handled dictations by phone, but the cost could not be added to the boardinghouse phone bill. Ivoe handed the two-hundred-word message to Ona to the operator. “Can’t you read? Sign says no service for coloreds. Niggras neither.” Rummaging her pocketbook for the membership card for the Colored Journalists Association of America, Ivoe recalled one of Ona’s sayings: “Colored life isn’t necessarily tragic, but it sure in the hell poses a challenge at the most inconvenient times.” The operator was unmoved by her evidence. He gave attention to a white customer whose telegram was sent in all eagerness and politeness.
Ivoe looked out the window at a shirtless white man in filthy britches and waited for the office to empty. “Sir, I don’t mean to be exigent but you are in business to make money.” She pointed to the window. “The man across the street does not look like he has a telegraph to send but I can assure you he does. In a few minutes, he will come in here and offer you five dollars to send a telegram exactly like this one.” To give her words force of conviction, she opened her hand with the money, twice the general cost for a message that length.
“Like I said, we
just don’t do business with coloreds. Will he require a confirmation?”
Her transaction with the hobo unfolded like this: she gave him an envelope with money, her message to Ona, and the destination code. After the hobo returned with her confirmation, she followed him to Bond Street, where a man sold tiny bottles of hooch from a shoeshine stand.
That evening, armed with a fresh strawberry pie, Ivoe took the steps to the third house in Harney Street. Truth being complicated on the subject of racial mixing, she had saved the most important interview for last. “A Kansas City newswoman in search of the delicate truth” is how she introduced herself to Miss Jones, hoping dessert and a sympathetic smile would win her an old-fashioned sit-down, the kind that bared not only the facts of a situation but also the feelings. Two hours later she emerged with the history of Willie Baker and Savannah Jones, who loved him as sure as Ona loved her.
An eerie quiet hung over Casey’s Row that morning. Ivoe took a hasty breakfast, unable to shake a nervous feeling. She went toward the story anyway, as journalists do. At half past eight she gathered her notebook and hailed a taxi outside the Liberty Boardinghouse for the trial that began at ten. She wanted to arrive early to note who showed up and on which side of justice. A crowd was growing outside the courthouse. She left the taxi, looked around for other black people and saw none. “Turn him over!” A young man broke from the throng, advancing toward her, and ran to meet the police car that pulled along the curb. The courthouse doors flew open. Several bailiffs waved their clubs to halt the commotion, moving to the street. Willie Baker could not have seen the writhing branches of the magn2olia, the fluttering wings of meadowlarks that took off for more peaceful climes, or how pretty the sky looked that perfect September day; police officers shielded the defendant out of the paddy wagon as the angry crowd lunged for him.
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