All God's Dangers (91 page)

M
Y
own dear boys don't understand why I done what I done. I have never had one of em walk up to me and hold me a hearty conversation in regards to this business. They don't talk with me against it, they don't talk with me in favor of it. But if they do say anything, they show me the weak spots in it. Aint a one of em ever put his arm around me and said, “Papa, I'm proud of you for joinin the union and doin what you done.” They don't see that deep in regards to their own selves. They're scared to do it. White folks shot over em, messed with em so bad, in the fall of '32, kept em bluffed down, and they seed what was done to me—it put a mark on em. Well, I don't want no chicken-hearted boys. I want some of em, for God's sake, to show and prove the spit of their daddy.

They done all they could for me after I was put in prison, they stuck with their mother—all of em did except Calvin—but they felt ashamed of what happened. They never caught my meanin—they never asked me. They was just scared to death and ashamed—that's the same thing.

Some of em that don't like the standard I proved in these union affairs tells me I talk too much. Now you take Calvin, Vernon, Garvan, that's three of my boys, my two oldest boys and my youngest boy, none of em have left home today, in a way of speakin; and they don't want nothin said about the past days of this organization. They wish, if they had their way about it, they'd blot all that out so never a word would come up about it no more as long as they live or I live. I caught em caucusin about it, figurin how can they stop their daddy from talkin about it. And they're my children.

Francis, that's my third boy, stays in Philadelphia, and Eugene, that's my fourth boy, stays in Ohio, what they call Middletown, and I've heard less said out of them about it—less said by Eugene than Francis. They lived through them times too. Garvan he's dry, don't say much—I know a person, especially if I raised him—and if he was to say somethin he'd run to consult with Vernon and Calvin. And if I was to please them three boys today—Calvin, Vernon, Garvan—I wouldn't say another word. But if you don't like what I have done, then you are against the man I am today. I aint goin to take no backwater about it. If you don't like me for the way I have lived, get on off in the woods and bushes and shut your
mouth and let me go for what I'm worth. And if I come out of my scrapes, all right; if I don't come out, don't let it worry
you
, this is
me.
Don't nobody try to tell me to keep quiet and undo my history. There aint no get-back in me as far as I can reach my arm. And if anything comes up and favors me to knock down and drag out this old “ism” that's been plunderin me and plunderin the colored race of people ever since I got big enough to know, and before that, before that—old mothers and fathers before I come into this world was treated the same, knuckled under. Well, I'm tired of it, I don't want to bear all that. Anything tries to master me I wish to remove it. And I'm willin to slap my shoulder to the wheel if it's ary a pound I can push. And for God's sake don't come up messin with me. If there's any better life for me to live, any more rights that I can enjoy, get out the way and let me enjoy em or let me go down. And if I go down, in the name of the Lord, I'm done with it. Them all that has a mind to stop the wheel rollin by droppin their heads and hidin their faces, that's them. I can't help it but it stirs me from the bottom. I'd fight this mornin for my rights. I'd do it—and for other folks' rights if they'll push along.

I don't call for nobody to run their heads up under a gun, but if you don't rise up in defense of your portion, what good are you? Every nigger in this country that's ever heard about this organization oughta wake up and speak out for it for their own sake. And realize: any business that's transacted for the benefit of you, you ought to risk somethin, you
got
to risk.

I aint got nothin to give my children when I leave this world. I've already gived em—I raised em, and teached em a way of life, and I never did have nothin but some personal property. I aint been able to save a penny. If you find any bank in this country that has a dollar in it I deposited, you more likely to find a apple on a pear tree. I'm willin to vow that I've never had a nickel in the bank in all the history of my life.

I left all I had in Vernon's hands when I was carried off to prison. That gived him a chance to get a foothold and come on up. And what I gived him to start off with—it was gived for the benefit of all of em—it was wore out or destroyed someway, but it had all produced heavy for em. They had full possession and it was enough in the way of personal property for none of em not to suffer. Left it
with em premature—that was the moment I gived em whatever I had to give em, left it all to em. I'll have no chance to give em no more.

There's Vernon, only child I got in the world that's farmin. Calvin aint farmin, Francis aint farmin, Eugene aint farmin, Garvan aint farmin—Vernon farmin, makin a success at it, too. With all of his conditions—dropped now and lost part of his health; he got sugar. Somethin goin to kill us all and that sugar's a bad thing—I think he's beatin the other ones. There's all of my boys, start from Garvan, youngest boy I got. He owns a lot and I reckon he's about paid up and everything, and he's got a nice buildin out there. Eugene, he's got a lot in Ohio. He works some but his legs has done failed him. Before he come home the last time he'd got under a doctor on account of his legs, but still he managed to come. I hadn't seen the boy in eight years. Francis, he's got a nice brick house in Philadelphia. There's Calvin, he owns two lots in Tuskegee and a nice new brick home. But a lot won't compare with a small plantation; Vernon's the top of em all. He only owns sixty-one acres but he got about thirty-six head of cattle—I've counted em myself. That's a right smart cattle for a poor fellow got nobody to see after em but him, and then he's farmin too. The reason I say “poor” fellow, he aint got nothin above farmin to work at for his livin and got no way to work more land than he do now. Still and all he's a pretty heavy farmer; he never comes under thirty-odd and up around forty bales of cotton. And he don't think about puttin down less than five to seven hundred pounds of fertilize to the acre. I'm not braggin on him cause he's my child, but he runs about as nice a farm as you will find in this country.

And he done got to where he can handle the money part of the business himself. He gets a little help from his daughters but he don't say so. They stays in Brooklyn, New York—aint but two of em—and they helps him. He got three tractors and two Chevrolet trucks, one of em brand new, and a nice Chevrolet car. Just got em since this movement that's workin today opened things up for him. Vernon didn't have all he has now before these ways and rulins started to change. The boy, he's my child, but he's very careful. He's weedin his way through this world the best he can, and he's yet dealin with white people. Of course, he's dealin with moneyed men and he don't want to offend em.

And, as God would have it, he raised up two of his grandchildren.
And out of them three grandchildren that stays with him now, one girl and two boys, ary one of them boys is about as heavy as I am—one of em's heavier than I am, I expect. He get on the tractor he can do anything Vernon can do on it. Well, that's a help to him. And that other one, the least boy, jump on that tractor, break land like a bull. But that oldest boy, jump on that tractor, straddle several rows of cotton and gone, cultivatin or breakin.

If Vernon were to die out, the dog's dead and the hunt's up, that's all. That place will fall to his daughters' hands and just as soon as it come to them, there's nothin doin. No doubt if his equipment and machinery is any account, it'll be dealt off at some price—just as well to do it. No doubt they'll sell the home. They aint comin back here; they is devoted to the northern country. Well, if Vernon drops out of there, what'll become of the land? His wife might just go north, liable to, or go back to some of her people out here the other side of Apafalya. She's got three brothers: two of em stays in Florida, Davis and Charles, one of em's half white, and this here'n over here, the other side of Apafalya, he's colored in full.

M
Y
children today is dear in my thoughts and dear towards me. That Francis, his talk is this: he realizes I was his father; he realizes I labored for him and raised him up in the world—that's his talk—when he couldn't help hisself; and how I stood by my children as a father and by their mother as a husband. Francis—and Rachel, oldest girl in the family, she'll talk to me—I don't remember whippin that child but twice in her life; didn't whip her then, just whisked her light. Might say I nettled her.

I don't say that the rest of my children won't talk it, but they aint done it, they never has divulged it up to me that they realizes me as a father, by the way I treated em. Now there's Vernon up there, my child, I love him, with all due respect for him—

I can't say what they thinks but I knows how they acts. And they've all but Vernon lost touch with farmin and some of em has lost touch with me as their father, in a way of speakin. Now I don't expect em to support me, I'm not that kind of man and I don't need
that
, but I'm lookin for em to bear me in their thoughts and feelins. I wish my children peace and good will. I wish the way will be clearer for em than ever in history and to know that I had a part
in makin it clear—that's the grandest of all. I'd appreciate it, if at the time I'm dead and gone, they know that I did my part for peace and pleasure and unity. And I did it for them.

I've noticed many things through the past history of my life—uneducated man that I am—that point to a plan. Time passes and the generations die. But the condition of the people that's livin today aint like it was for the people that's gone. And it aint now like it's goin to be for the people that comes after us. I can't say exactly what the future way of life will be, but I has a idea. My color, the colored race of people on earth, goin to shed theirselves of these slavery ways. But it takes many a trip to the river to get clean.

God knows how this race has been treated. And there's a certain element that's workin to please God and overturn this southern way of life. How many people is it today that it needs and it requires to carry out this movement? How many is it knows just what it's goin to take? It's taken time, untold time, and more time it'll take before it's finished. Who's to do it? It's the best people of the United States to do it, in the defense of the uneducated, unknowledged ones that's livin here in this country. They goin to win! They goin to win! But it's goin to take a great effort; we ought to realize that. It won't come easy. Somebody got to move and remove and it may take—how do I know how many it's goin to take?—I just realize in my mind, it's goin to take thousands and millions of words, thousands and millions of steps, to complete this business.

I'd like to live; and if the Lord see fit to able me to stay here and see it, I'd love to know that the black race had fully shed the veil from their eyes and the shackles from their feet. And I hope to God that I won't be one of the slackers that would set down and refuse to labor to that end.

S
OMEBODY
I'll be layin in the clay. Mama's already gone, Papa's got to go someday. I aint scared of dyin; that worries me the least. I think it over sometimes: ‘O, well, I was born to die. They been dyin ever since I been in this world. I'd love to stay here just as long as God aims for me to stay, but that's all. I know I got to go one day, there aint no help for it.' I've never known it said, such words spoke, that a man can stay here as long as he wants to—die when he wants to, live long as he wants to. It aint in our hands.
If the people didn't come and go from this world, and it be left up to us about death, this world would be full of people as a ant bed with ants.

I'm yet livin, I don't suffer for nothin, the things that I want a heap of times or could use if I had em, they might be a damnation to me, I don't know. I used to own cars—aint had the name of a car since I come out of prison. I'd like to have me a truck now. I watch these farmin fellows such as my boy up the road, got two trucks; TJ down there got a truck; Garvan over there got one. I just count on them trucks to haul my white oak. But you see, they practically stays busy all the time. Garvan works at Calusa and then works all over this country here for people. They just won't let him set still, sendin for him. He's a carpenter, he's a welder—that boy can do anything you want done. Put in your pipin, connect it to your house—I reckon that's called a plumber. White folks uses him all the time.

And so, that sort of cuts me down—he won't spend the time for me. Will Tuttle down here's got two trucks—of course, some of the rest of em around here got em, but them's my people. Will Tuttle, he married my brother's daughter and that throwed him in the family connection. He hauls a little white oak for me sometime. But they're farmin now—Will, TJ, Vernon—and I hate to deprive em of their work. Sometimes they just can't quit.

If I had a good truck I could haul my white oak, haul wood if I had a fireplace. But if I had a truck today, first thing, I'd work someway to build me a shed for that truck and let it stand there. I'd be heartily glad if I could go to the market on my own truck; haul me some white oak—and maybe I could get me a boy to go along with me, tote white oak out the woods and stand it aside the road, just so it was in a clear place where it wouldn't interfere with the highway, pick up my white oak and drive it home.

And above that, let it go. I craves no riches—money can be detrimental to your soul. If I did pile up any in the bank I'd draw it out before I started dotin on it. High-lifin, graftin money, and changin cars every year—what does God say? He says it's as much impossible for a rich man—it's under the ledger of the Bible—to seek the kingdom of heaven as it is for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. I wants to go to a better home when I leave here—it's nothin I brought here and nothin I'll carry away. I'm just out here tappin in the world for my support and workin to carry
the grace of God away from here in my soul. I go for a Christian man—that was the biggest change come over me in prison. Every day of my life I has a interview with God. I know of Him. He put a seal in my breast—bein a thinker and a lover of God, I can't enumerate what a help it is to me. The day that God suffered me to walk out and stand up for my rights, I was a sinner man, sinner man, but I was doin at that present time what was pleasin to Him. He saw what I done; He heard what I told them officers and I believe He was pleased at it, I can almost say I know it. When they nabbed me and messed me up, throwed me down in Beaufort jail, I just felt at a loss. Then my eyes become open to the one that could help me and do me good. God stepped in and blessed my soul, saved it from eternal wrath—it made me feel that I could rise and fly. O, blessed God, it was just a new mornin altogether.