(1964) The Man (11 page)

Thus, a republic which continues to oppress its ten per cent Negro population, which continues to be riven by demonstrations and riots and sectional hatreds, finds itself overnight led by one of the minority it has constantly kept in servility. This is a nation that woke this morning and rubbed its eyes in disbelief when it found that a Negro was at its helm, a Negro was its constitutional pilot and leader. In an anguished and shameful period, when Negroes must still be led into schools protected by armed guards, when Negroes must search for segregated washrooms, when Negroes must sit in the rear of municipal buses, in a period such as this, a Negro has become the highest executive in the land, sitting in the seat of Washington, Lincoln, Wilson, becoming every American’s face and voice to the outside world.

The problem presented by a Negro in the Presidency is real, and it is grave. The problem is not President Dilman’s problem, but rather, the problem of almost every one of his 230 million fellow Americans. No longer, now, has the United States a half century of grace to grow up to its ideal of equality for every citizen. The United States is faced, today, with the necessity, the imperative necessity, of growing up to its ideal of equality all at once, of accepting a Negro as its leader all at once, of accepting colored men as equal to whites all at once. Failure to attain this maturity, by any state or any member of the democratic community, will be a blow to the country as a whole, will send us reeling backward to the edge of the abyss upon which we teetered toward destruction in the terrible months and days preceding the Civil War. If we go backward, if we fall now, all men here and all mankind everywhere will suffer a death of the soul, as they might suffer a death of the body from a nuclear holocaust.

This is not the morning to recapitulate the wrongs that colored men have suffered in this republic, and to plead their case for civil rights so long overdue. It is enough to remark that while the Constitution specifically bars anyone from this office who is not a natural-born citizen of the United States or not yet thirty-five years of age, it does not bar anyone because the pigmentation of his skin is other than white. A Negro has become President of the United States, and there is no reason on earth why he should not be President.

The Southern racists, and the Northern nonthinkers whose prejudices are rarely acted out, cannot deny that American Negroes, when given the opportunity, have been as capable as their white brothers in practicing wisdom, or attaining wealth, success, fame. One need only glance at the record. The black hue of their skin did not prevent Jan Matzeliger from inventing the billion-dollar shoe-last machine, did not prevent Frederick Douglass from becoming a brilliant lecturer and writer, did not prevent Booker T. Washington from becoming a great educator, did not prevent Matthew Henson from helping Peary discover the North Pole, did not prevent Paul Laurence Dunbar from composing his deathless lyrics, did not prevent Marian Anderson, Duke Ellington, Lionel Hampton, Jesse Owens, Joe Louis, Mahalia Jackson, W. C. Handy from providing entertainment for the entire world.

Nor can the millions awakening this morning prove that Negroes, in the rare instances in the past when they served us in politics and government, acted with less wisdom, courage, judiciousness than did their white brothers. Ebenezer Bassett was our Minister to Haiti. Jonathan Wright was associate justice of the South Carolina Supreme Court. Jefferson P. Long served in the United States House of Representatives. Blanche K. Bruce served in the United States Senate. In more recent times, Robert C. Weaver administered the United States Housing and Home Finance Agency. E. Frederic Morrow worked as administrative aide to President Eisenhower. Ralph J. Bunche served in the United Nations. Andrew Hatcher worked as associate press secretary to President Kennedy. Carl Rowan served as director of the United States Information Agency under President Lyndon Johnson. Douglass Dilman was President pro tempore of the United States Senate in T. C.’s administration.

Each and every one of these leaders was a Negro citizen of the United States. They had earned the right to guide us, help us, not because their colored forebears helped free us and defend us in the Revolutionary War, in the War of 1812, in the Union Army of Lincoln and Grant, in the First and Second World Wars, in Korea, but because they were part of our whole, part of each of us, with the same stakes and goals. Now one of them, really one of us under the laws devised by the Founding Fathers and since, has become our President. The paramount question is not if Douglass Dilman is equal to the burdensome responsibility, but if we are equal to our responsibility as Americans.

Today we start the first day of President Dilman’s term, his time of trial and our own, the one year and five months that stretch ahead, and we begin with trepidation induced by a survey of cold statistics. Out of 230 million American citizens, there are 23 million Negroes, and it is supposed that most will accept our new President. Based on recent voting figures, excluding Negroes and Southern whites, there are perhaps 40 million white citizens of liberal and progressive persuasions, and it is supposed that most of these will cooperate with the new President.

On the other hand, there are 47 million whites in the fourteen states of the Solid South, and it is feared that most of them will reject our new President. Again, based on recent voting figures, there are 30 million extreme rightists in the East, North, and West, and it is likely that most of them will refuse cooperation to our new President.

What is the guess? Sixty-three million of us may be behind Douglass Dilman, 77 million of us may be against him. How are we to account for the remaining 90 million of our citizenry, the follow-the-leaders when told whom to follow, the undecideds in countless polls, the great center mass with real faces and real feelings who can go this way or that? How will they respond to a Negro in the Presidency? Will they listen to racists or rightists, or will they consider the pleadings of moderates and true democrats? Or will they react according to feelings long hidden and repressed about Negroes? How have they felt about the racial ferment in this country these last twenty years? Has something of the aspirations of the new and militant Negro leadership sunk deep into their consciences? Has more, or less, of the propaganda of segregationists infused their minds?

For the middle majority of us all, knowledge of Negroes firsthand is probably limited—limited to the colored cleaning woman, who comes twice a week, limited to the colored baseball player who saves or loses a home game, limited to the garage mechanic, or dime-store clerk, or blues singer seen and heard on a Saturday night. To this white majority, the black man is as unknown as once was the heart of the Dark Continent of Africa. Personally unacquainted with their dark-skinned fellow citizens, knowing of their strife only through the printed page, long avoiding real commitment to this issue because they were busy concentrating on their jobs and raises, shopping and picking the youngsters up at school, these white citizens are suddenly confronted with the imperative demand to make a historic personal decision.

There they are, this strange morning, the vast uncounted, staring with curiosity or bewilderment, with the first throbbings of pride or resentment, at a middle-aged senator with kinky hair and dark skin and African face, who has supplanted a leader they chose, and who is now their voice and image in domestic and international affairs.

We wait now for their commitment. We pray they, in turn, will wait for their own judgments to stand the tests of self-exploration and sound intelligence. And when they come to that moment of decision very soon, whether to accept President Dilman as one of them, one of us, and cooperate with him for the common good, or whether to reject him as an inferior alien disguised as one of us, we pray they will, on the eve of their personal commitments, bear one final consideration in mind.

Judgment of a colored man in the White House cannot and should not be made on whether he will or will not be a wise President, better than Harding, worse than Kennedy or Lyndon Johnson or T. C., but whether or not his judges, all the products of independent America, have attained sufficient maturity, have grown high enough, have become citizens enough, to permit a fellow human being, experienced and expert in his calling, to reflect and serve them.

The immediate future is not in the hands of our first Negro President. It is in
our
hands, for better or for worse.

It seemed an eternity that Douglass Dilman sat at the dining-room table, holding the great metropolitan newspaper which had spelled out, frankly and sensibly, what conditions and judgment waited for him beyond the insular fort of his Negro dwelling and Negro neighborhood.

Presently he dropped the newspaper to the table beside the cold breakfast he had hardly touched. He knew that what he had read should have made him feel heartened, even hopeful. Yet the apprehension and fears of the morning shadowed any possible optimism. He thought: Yes, there are men of reason and good will out there; they exist. But then, he also knew, from years of traumatic observation, years of compromising and cowering to survive and get along, that men such as the one or ones who created that reasonable editorial were too few.

Dilman was not a highly imaginative man, not a soarer, a dreamer, a passionate mover or shaker; this he knew and had always known. He was an intelligent man. He was a formally educated man. He was an experienced man in his chosen field, politics, where knowledge of superficial catch phrases, some forensic talent, an ability to smile, a gift for concession, and a knowledge of facts were enough.

The hard factual core of his mind reframed the eloquent content of the editorial. If all men in America read it and were moved by it, he could enter the White House without fear. But what was this New York metropolitan newspaper anyway, in truth? It was a morning paper, the most appreciated by intellectuals in the land. Its total daily circulation was 800,000. How many of these 800,000 would even read the small type of the editorial page? And how many in the broad nation of 230 million would even know of its existence? It was a pebble trying to fell a Goliath of prejudice—a pebble, not a boulder.

The telephone to his left rang out, startling him from his brooding. Too quickly, out of guilt for the self-indulgence of self-concern, he shot his hand to the receiver, pulled it toward him, fumbling, almost dropping it into the eggs.

“Hello?”

It was a long-distance operator from Trafford, New York. He waited.

“Hello—hello—” He recognized the nervous, high-pitched voice at once as that belonging to Julian, his son. “Dad?”

“Yes, Julian. How are you?”

“Me? Forget about me. My God, Dad, they woke me up in the middle of the night with the news. I couldn’t believe it. I’d have called you right away, but I was afraid to wake you up. I tried all morning—”

“Yes, they told me.”

“I guess congratulations are in order. May I be one of the first to congratulate you?”

“You certainly may. Thank you, son.”

Julian went on excitedly. “Everyone’s thrilled about it, Dad. It’s the talk of the school. Kids are even cutting classes, whole groups roaming the quad, singing, celebrating.”

As he went on to describe the activities at Trafford University, Dilman realized that this was the first time in a year that his son had spoken with enthusiasm of the school. Julian had not wanted to go to the Negro university. He had been forced to enroll by his father, and he had never ceased resisting it or complaining about his classmates. Now elation had replaced complaint.

“I don’t know that they have so much to feel festive about,” Dilman interrupted. “We lost a fine President.”

“Sure we did, Dad, but, my God, can’t you see? In one stroke we have more than we ever dreamed of. We’ve got you there. No more lousy uphill fighting. Now you can do it all with a twist of the wrist. They’ve got to give in to you. You’re the President!” He was almost shouting with manic glee. “The shortcut’s been made. We’ll get our rights without—”

“Julian,” he said sternly. He had to put a stop to this Julian in Wonderland. “Don’t go around quoting me, or repeating a word I say. This is strictly family, you understand.”

“Sure, sure—”

“Nothing has changed that much, at least not for the better. The road ahead is just as long and steep as a day ago.”

“Naw, never, Dad. For once, stop being so conservative. You’re too close to the picture. You can’t see how big it is. I tell you—”

“You’ve told me enough,” said Dilman curtly. “We’ll discuss this another time. I’ve got a lot to attend to today. And I’m sure you have, too.”

“Yes, but not today, Dad. My God, they’re treating me here like
I
was the President.”

Instantly the letter from Chancellor Chauncey McKaye, of Trafford University, came to Dilman’s mind.

“Has Chancellor McKaye come down to congratulate
you?
” Dilman asked with slight sarcasm.

“No, not yet, but—”

“I don’t think he will. I think he celebrates honor students. Look, son, we’d better have a talk—”

“I want to. When are you moving into the White House? I want to come down with the gang and see the inside and—”

“I don’t know yet. I’ll know more about everything in the next few days. I want you here as soon as it is feasible, but without your friends this first time. I have something to discuss with you.”

“Okay, sure.” Julian sounded deflated. “When can I come to Washington? I’m free next Tuesday.”

“Tuesday, then. You come to the West Wing of the White House. I’ll leave word to let you in. Now, behave yourself and attend your classes.”

“Stop worrying, Dad.” He hesitated, and then lowered his voice. “I was thinking about—I wonder how
she
feels this morning.”

“Never mind about that,” Dilman said sharply. “See you Tuesday, and thanks for your call. I appreciate it.”

After he hung up, Dilman thought about his son’s oblique reference to Mindy, the unmentionable by name, the untouchable, the expatriate from her family and race, and he wondered about her, too. Would he hear from his daughter now? He knew the barter involved. Would it be worth it to her to abdicate her whiteness for the throne of a Negro President’s daughter? He guessed the answer, even as he asked himself the question, and he was grateful when the telephone sounded loudly once more.