Jam on the Vine (9780802191571)

by Barnett, Lashonda

  “—After all, the words ‘liberty and justice for all’ have no meaning for us.” Sometimes thoughts escape without aid of intention to speak. Ivoe cut the Guardian off. “We pledge allegiance to a nation that does not return the favor. The root of this problem is the ballot-less Negro’s level of citizenship renders him ineligible for democracy. The government bills our nation as democratic but that is a claim we must refute. Far beyond rule by the people through election, a democratic government promised equal treatment for all. Where is the equality in underpaid labor, poor education and housing, substandard health facilities, lynching, police harassment and murder, wrongful convictions, and disproportionate incarceration? For the average Negro, how is living in American democracy much different from peasantry under monarch rule?” And she was not yet speaking on the prison system.

  What she’d witnessed at the Missouri State Penitentiary was far worse than any feudal system’s penal colony. “La belle France has shown us to what extent we do not live in a democracy and we must remind politicians of this lie at every turn. There will be no freedom, no justice unless every journalist is willing to press America to the mark of a true democracy, where even the Negro holds equal rights.”

  Charllota Spears, editor of the California Eagle, wanted to know what she and Ona did to mobilize black Kansas City women so that they might keep in step with their white sisters, able voters for the last six years. The door was opened by the Indianapolis Recorder to speak positively about Jam. Did Spears realize that blacks in the Vine district felt a greater sense of freedom and justice because of her paper?

  Neither the women’s rights movement, nor freedom or justice—interpreting law and punishing criminals—occupied her littlest mind, as Momma would say. Her thoughts circled prey she had eyed for attack since Austin’s 1906 boycott, the lie all black people in America were expected to live under, the end result of America’s war for independence against her mother country: democracy. Several years ago, answers to her deepest questions about society and citizenship awaited her discovery in the meager holdings of the colored library branch. Between dipping bonbons and writing the church newsletter she found Rousseau’s ideas on reforming eighteenth-century France applicable to America’s struggle for democracy. Nearly every hand scribbled down her reading recommendation, Rousseau’s novel Émile, which she described as “a lyrical indoctrination on education of the whole person for citizenship.”

  His notions of egalitarianism, balanced with Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, had eradicated such thoughts that dress code, proper speech, manners, would ever bring black people closer to their democratic fate.

  “How, then, do we achieve this democracy?” someone asked her.

  “First, we must exhibit an understanding of it in our own papers. Each and every one. Second, we must demand it. Of course, with our demands goes the understanding that the nation must learn how to listen to the portion of its society it has silenced for centuries, and continues to silence—with brute force.”

  Any foreigner who spent five minutes in a black community and five among whites would note grave injustice, violations of the basic principles of American democracy. But so what? Claims, despite their truth, would do nothing to lessen the burden of injustice. It was like Ona told her twenty years ago in the printing shed, the newspaper was the voice of the people. “It is up to every journalist here and everywhere to spell out equal rights—to trumpet political and economic autonomy. It may take years before we are heard. No matter. The question remains: How high can you raise the voice of your paper?”

  In the jumble of streets south of boulevard du Montparnasse, they stumbled across rue du Cherche-Midi and fell into a small café. Ona had given a cheerful but tired “no thank you” when the Ardlan sisters, who published Martinique’s La Dépêche Africaine, invited her to lunch, stating her wish to answer the call of that small bed in Montmartre with her name on it. To Ivoe’s surprise and discomfort, the editor of the Washington Afro-American joined them. He was a crotchety fellow, short and stocky with fine white hair parted and combed to the side and light brown eyes. At the start of the conference he had snarled at her, “Who are you?” Proudly she replied, “Founder and editor of Kansas City’s Jam on the Vine.” He waved his hand, speaking with an orotund voice. “No, no. When someone asks you who you are they mean to know what kind of journalist you are.” For his condescension Ivoe gave an impatient glare, utterly ignored by the man. “Ask yourself this: What is the work of a black journalist? What is at stake for Jam on the Vine? Answer this and you will know exactly what kind of journalist you are.”

  It was the wrong question to Ivoe’s mind. Who is the black press as a whole? There would always be disagreements on how to deliver the news, but could they agree on what to prioritize? “The better question is: What are we addressing collectively? What cause can we agree to fight for together?”

  She paused. “Mr. James Weldon Johnson was inspired and guided by his enslaved ancestors when he wrote ‘Lift Every Voice and Sing.’ But what exactly do we have to sing about now when the present includes so much incarceration—slavery by another name. Many editors lack information. How many of our elected officials look into arrest rates? Understand the practice of sentencing black people?” She had visited prisons, observed their conditions. Researched labor exploitation and the health and death of inmates. Policing, sentencing, incarceration—her paper raised hell in Missouri. But Jam was only one voice. If every black paper in the nation devoted a column or two to the false criminalization of blacks . . . if every editor wrote with constancy to his congressman, his senator, requesting information, demanding results, they would be exercising the press in the ways in which it was meant to be exercised, as a tool for democracy.

  Over a lunch of chicken fricassee, the Ardlan sisters had spoken of how La Dépêche Africaine had recently published stories refuting France as a paradise of tolerance. Jim Crow, it turned out, had a passport and a trunk of souvenirs. He had visited Martinique and Paris, where women still fought for the ballot. She was grateful to the Ardlan sisters for shattering the illusion that true justice lived an ocean away. For the visitor, life in France was kinder, but no matter where she was in the world, her race and her gender would work against her.

  .

  A clatter rang from the front of the room. In his haste to rise, a journalist from the Philadelphia Tribune had knocked over a glass of water. He took the Boston Guardian to task for impugning the constructive approaches of editors who addressed the ills of black communities before taking on the other race. As the meeting progressed two sides emerged, one accommodationist—those papers whose most critical eye was on blacks themselves—and the other militant—editorial slants that indicted white institutions, especially the government.

  Ivoe massaged her temples to alleviate a throbbing headache. All morning the table had overflowed with the voices of zealous race women and men. Now, a man seated across from her began in a quiet, angry voice. “The time has come to set the record straight . . . to redress prejudiced coverage and to stop soft-pedaling the news to our people. There’s blood on the land! Write about that!”

  Once again, the Defender’s comment hurled them into dissension. The Washington Afro-American returned the put-down: “We should not all pander to the lowest form—sensationalistic photographs. The fact is, lynching numbers have declined. There is now a visible middle class among the increasing numbers of educated blacks in worthwhile positions. Some of us have seats in Congress.”

  “Whose very asses are glued to them! I’d rather be an outspoken foe of lynching than pander to the white race, including the president!”

  “Reading your paper is like walking through a chamber of horrors. Mind women’s and children’s sensibilities. Give the people something they can use,” vituperated the Washington Afro-American.

  Ivoe listened to the debate with mixed emotions. The Defender’s point was valid—lynching was
still unchecked in every corner of the United States. By now the images were almost commonplace, the public desensitized. Other issues begged for their attention—those country folks migrating to cities as if transition alone might solve the problem of black life. In her editorial, she had in mind the southern relatives of her readers when she encouraged them to fight the good fight where they stood, cultivate a leader from their own ranks. Build infrastructure, rather than fool themselves into believing northern whites were itching to give them a leg up. The Ardlan sisters spoke to each other in French before turning their gaze to her, encouraging her to speak her mind.

  Finally, Ivoe stood, adjusting the collar of her dress. Whether in the Starkville Lyceum, a classroom in Austin, or a hotel in France, when she addressed a crowd she was still as nervous as a turkey in November. “They say justice is blind. In my opinion, she is color-struck, since it is a foregone conclusion in America that the Negro by virtue of his ethnicity is guilty. The black press must do everything it can to end judicial tyranny.” She drew on her own experiences, starting with Omaha, detailing the events of how coverage of Willie Baker’s lynching brought her the attention of city hall, whose letter had accused her of engendering bad feelings and an evil spirit in the hearts and minds of Kansas City’s blacks toward their white neighbors. Before embarking for Paris, she had received a second letter immediately following her publication of a list showing the number of people killed by lynch mobs the following year and the reasons for their death.

  Her voice rose as she spoke with the courage of conviction and urgency. “The press must nudge black congressmen to take greater interest in their state’s incarceration rates. Do they even know how many inmates are black? What are they doing about policing in their state? Unheard, unseen, the fight for justice is simply struggle. At the very least we can elevate the struggle . . . print the story . . . a step toward democracy. France has shown me that our government has a long row to hoe on its promise of a democratic republic. Consider the judicial system, the trouble with racist juries, and our prison system, the unjust manner in which African American men are jailed without due process. As some of you may know, over the last several years I have dedicated Jam on the Vine to highlighting this travesty of democracy. While my methods are different, I agree with the Boston Guardian and the Chicago Defender: we mustn’t back down.”

  “Be careful. They got their eyes on you now. They’ll keep watching until they have enough to haul you to court under the Espionage Act,” the Philadelphia Inquirer warned.

  “Happened in Alabama,” North Carolina’s Star of Zion said. “Confiscated their mail before they revoked postal privileges. Tried the paper for sedition. Charged the editor with treason.”

  The Arizona Black Bugle made an impassioned speech on expanding the editorial gaze to include other groups of color. His state treated the Mexican and Negro “about equal—to that of a fly on a white man’s swatter.”

  During lunch four delegates discussed the formation of a professional group. In closing remarks, they galvanized the room with speeches about further commitment to social justice, encouraging every newspaper to raise its ambition; complacency, after all, was some holdover from slavery.

  “What gift was abolition if living is not safe,” Ivoe said. “I have run from the South, from dogs, from a white boy barely old enough to chew tobacco. Are we to be the race that runs from the country, from the city, or will we stand for justice? It seems the greatest crutch will not be our government—not for some time—but the press. As such, there are some things we should agree on.”

  They convened to ratify the constitution for the Association of Journalists Representing the African Diaspora. The group’s mission: to provide professional support, legal services, and emergency funds for all black newspapers, domestic and abroad. A committee was formed and a governing board was elected, including Ivoe Williams in the office of secretary.

  .

  Their farewell promenade in the City of Light followed boulevard de Clichy, where spring flowers paid their gratitude for the light rain by perfuming the air. The music of an accordion and one too many aniseed drinks encouraged a weary but happy Ona, who tugged at her skirt as though it fit too tight before breaking into her best Tin Pan Alley voice with a revised lyric—I’m just wild about Ivoe. At Cligancourt they ran up the steps. A black man raised his accordion a little then bowed in their direction. He put all he had into the tune, which made it sound churchy, jazzy, Frenchy too. All week Ivoe had seen black men leaning out of apartment windows, whistling at women, careening through crowds, and nobody ever accused them of wrongdoing. Before her now was something more spectacular. She grabbed Ona’s arm, pointing to the men just a few paces ahead.

  She’d seen black men prance up and down the Vine and around Little Tunis all her life, but the air in the swing of those gaits was somehow different. It was one thing to jut your chest forward a few proud inches, step with the favored foot in exaggerated measure among your own people. But to walk like this where the whole world could see you? The men were nearly out of sight when she thought of Timbo, the way he pitched forward in his shoes as though he might need to run at a moment’s notice. And Papa. She drew in a deep, shuddering breath.

  “What’s got your face so long?”

  “Papa used to walk different from the way he does now.”

  On the boulevard de Rochechouart, Ivoe raised her shoulders, straightened her back, shook each leg to loosen her knees a little—her childhood routine before imitating Papa’s gait. He looked so serious up top but down below, when you looked at his legs, you knew he was a man who could dance.

  .

  As though last night’s red moon cast a spell on Ona, she had sailed all day without dizziness. Ivoe glanced at her watch—four P.M. French time and nine A.M. on the Vine. “The streets are still quiet,” Ona said, inspiring a hook for Ivoe’s next editorial. Quietude was the problem. Jam and its readers must speak louder and insistently. Call on government officials the nation over to respond to what she saw as a mounting crisis—incarceration—especially in the cities. She would call for black noise against secondhand citizenship; they must turn their backs on polite manners, which had taken precedence over common sense. What other group of people was taxed but sent their children to failing schools, received poor health services, and still couldn’t vote in every state? Ivoe took out her notebook and began to draft:

  LE PATRIOTISME:

  ON THE DAWN OF TRUE DEMOCRACY

  PARIS, France—The question “What is Freedom?” has been perched in my mind squawking for answers all of my life. For the past two weeks with the aid of French hospitality—which suggests President Coolidge and his administration study the Déclaration des droits de l’homme et du citoyen as a guide for treating people of color well—I have come to understand that Freedom is not just a word; it is a way of life. And the way is democracy.

  In eagerness to get out of the storm-so-long and in an effort to make the government include the black American under the umbrella of justice, your editor chastised members of her own race. In ignorance I joined the ranks of many who would deny us the endeared name “American,” a distinction more our own than five-sixths of this nation. For in culture, in blood, in nativity, we are decidedly more exclusively “American” than our white brethren who would rob us of our nationality and reproach us as exotics.

  In the early years of this publication, I was under the impression that the black American needed conservation of his moral life; that self-elevation and social responsibility were the panaceas for the advancement of our resilient community. I am now convinced that neither self-help nor upright behavior alone can advance the race without federal or even state legislation.

  The reason our nation snapped asunder in 1861 was because it lacked the cohesion of justice. Men poured out their blood like water, scattered their wealth like chaff, summoned to the field the largest armies the nation had ev
er seen; yet they did not get their final victories that closed the rebellion till they clasped hands with the Negro and marched with him abreast to freedom and to victory. The strongest nation on earth cannot afford to deal unjustly toward its weakest members and victims. A man might just as well attempt to play with the thunderbolts of heaven and expect to escape unscathed, as for a nation to trample on justice and evade divine penalty.