The Emancipation of Robert Sadler (23 page)

It wasn't easy to return to Janey's that afternoon. She was asleep and I woke her up.

“Jay,” I said in a firm voice, “I'm not selling any more whiskey for you, I'm not bringing any more men in for you, and I'm not gambling, drinking, or carousing any more. I'm finished. Don't you ask me to do a dirty thing again.”

She sat up in bed, looked at me calmly and said, “OK, Robert.” Just like that.

“I went to church today and I'm going to be leading a new life from now on,” I told her. “The Lord has given me another chance.”

Janey yawned and blinked her eyes. “OK, Robert,” she said, and she fell back asleep.

I moved out of the house that afternoon. I didn't even take a change of clothing. I had only about eighty cents in my pocket and no place to go, but I didn't care. I was happy.

I walked down the street thanking Jesus out loud. I laughed and cried at the same time, and people looked at me as though I were crazy.

That evening I went back to the little storefront church. The same young man who had prayed for me was there. We prayed together and talked for a long time—in fact, almost all night.

“You know, I don't even know your name,” I said. He looked at me and laughed. “My name is Robert, too. Robert Jones.”

Then he looked at me with an odd expression on his face. “Robert . . . Robert Sadler. I
knew
your name was familiar. And your face surely looks familiar. I
do
know ye!”

“Hunh?”

“I was livin in Seneca yonder across the road from the school where you was a student. My mama took me to the same church you went to every week.”

“Lord, have mercy.”

“I remember you played left tackle on the football team!”

“Do you remember that?”

“The coach, Rufus McGovern, is livin real quiet now. In fact, he's repented of his ways.”

“Repented. Wal, if that ain't a miracle.”

I got a job as a caretaker in an apartment building on Harding Street a couple of days later. There was a restaurant near the little storefront church and I became friendly with the proprietor, a balding old man with silver fuzz at his ears. He had a heavy middle-aged girlfriend named Cora who sat at the counter drinking Coca-Cola in the afternoons. She was a sweet lady and loved people. The day she first spotted me she had her eye on me for her niece who lived in Cincinnati.

“I want you to write to my niece,” she'd tell me. At first I thought she was joking. “Where your niece is?” I asked.

“She's in Cincie and she's a fine girl. She is your type of girl.”

I finally wrote to her and she answered me. We began corresponding regularly. Her name was Jacqueline Brown Graham.

One day I bought a train ticket to Cincinnati to meet Jacqueline. I walked up the steps to the nicely kept house she lived in with her parents, my heart in my throat. I couldn't figure out why I was nervous. I had been out with plenty of women.

Jacqueline answered the door. She was very pretty—tall and elegant-looking in a grey crepe dress with ruffles on the sleeves and the neck; she had long black hair brushed up on the top of her head in a roll. There was a gentle smile on her face.

I fell in love with Jacqueline and we were married on June 28, 1939. It was a small wedding attended by Robert Jones, Janey, Jackie's Aunt Cora, and the Baptist preacher who married us.

Jackie was a good churchgoer. She was clean, good, and lived an honest life without smoking, drinking, or swearing, but she didn't know the Lord. I prayed for her every day, asking the Lord to touch her and come into her heart. It took nine years.

We moved into the upstairs apartment of a beautiful home at 99 King Street in Detroit. It was the home of a doctor and his wife. Jacqueline worked for the doctor during the day doing general housekeeping, and I worked at a hotel off Woodward near a Catholic church, shining shoes. Then Jackie and I started a little business together doing cooking and catering for the Detroit Association of Women's Clubs. Jacqueline was an excellent cook and she taught me how to make fancy pastries and delicacies.

But no work lasted forever, and I came upon a streak of jobs from caretaking to gardening, and in 1941 I went to school to learn machine operating. After I graduated, I got a job at Ford Motors. We had few financial worries in those days. I made a good living and Jackie and I were happy.

I often took the streetcar downtown to Grand Circus Park to preach about the love of God. Many gave their hearts to Him. I also held a Bible class in our home for young people every Saturday night.

My speech had gotten much better and I wasn't afraid to talk about the Lord. Jackie wouldn't give her heart to the Lord, and she rarely accompanied me to church. She lived a more exemplary life than many people who called themselves Christians, and she didn't think she needed “more religion” or a personal relationship with the Lord.

She occasionally attended a Methodist church near the house. “They're quiet and reverent,” she'd tell me. “Not like your church. Everyone hollering and making so much noise praising the Lord and all, it's plain
distracting
.”

“Honey, the Bible don't tell us we have to be quiet when we worship the Lord.”

“Well, I don't like all that noise no way.”

She was a good wife in every respect, and we rarely argued. I didn't want to ruin the love we had for each another by arguing and fussing with her.

Though I didn't argue with Jackie, that doesn't mean that I didn't argue with God. “God, you
got
to save my wife! Lord, save her! Oh, God, save Jackie!” I begged, pleaded, moaned, groaned. I made promises and sacrificed, I fasted and did everything I could think of to impress God with the seriousness of my request. The years rolled by, and Jackie remained as cold as ever to the Gospel.

I wanted Jackie to know Jesus the way I did. If only she would love Him and trust her life to Him. I think I wanted this more than anything in the world. Sometimes I got discouraged, and I would get to feeling sorry for myself. We shared everything else in life, and yet this one vital, beautiful thing we didn't share.

Finally, it occurred to me to stop my begging and complaining to the Lord and to start being grateful for my wife exactly the way she was. I thanked God and humbled myself. I knew God had hand-picked Jackie for me, and I repented for complaining and fussing in my heart.

The Bible study in our home began with six people. It grew into a group of about forty, until finally we couldn't get any more into the house. Jackie was never in favor of it. She often stayed in the bedroom or downstairs during our meetings. The young people just loved her anyhow and went out of their way to show her kindnesses.

One afternoon at my machine at Ford, I bowed my head and said, “Lord, I'm not fasting anymore for Jackie's salvation; I'm not begging anymore; I'm not pleading anymore. Lord, you do with her whatever you want to do.”

Jackie surrendered her life to God the next week.

After Bible study at our house on Saturday night, we had gone to bed and while she was sleeping, Jackie had a dream. In her dream she saw a beautiful church. She could hear wonderful music coming from inside, which was so lovely and inviting that she ran up to it to go inside. Standing at the door, however, was a splendid-appearing man who put his hand up as she tried to enter. He asked, “Why are you coming in here?” Jackie said, “Why, I'm a member here.” Then the man, who Jackie said was glorious to behold, asked if her name was written in the “book.” Jackie said, “Oh yes, I'm sure of it. After all, I am a member of the church!” The man took out a great book with pages that seemed to be endless, and he looked for her name. Closing the book at last, he said, “I'm so sorry, but you may not enter. Only those whose names are written in this book belong here.”

She was so frightened when she awoke she didn't know what to do first. She told me about the dream and asked me to interpret it for her. Then she burst into tears. She already guessed what the dream meant. “Last week,” she wept, “I would have laughed at that dream. For some reason today it's not funny. O Lord, I've been so proud.”

She dressed and left the house before even eating breakfast. I caught a streetcar and arrived in church just before the service began. Taking a seat, I looked up at the altar, and there was Jackie on her knees praying.

The Lord allowed me to help several other black people from the South come north to get better jobs. I wrote to Margie regularly asking her to come to Detroit, but she flatly refused to leave Dad, who was old and sick.

Jackie and I were thrilled to be able to help our people who were still trapped in the poverty and bigotry of the South. We were able to send clothing, food, money, and help to those who wanted to come north. The employment manager at General Motors told me that he'd hire as many Blacks from the South as I sent in. I was able to help over thirty men from South Carolina get good jobs in Detroit. It brought back familiar memories as they arrived in Detroit. Illiterate and knowing little more than farming, they were like scared, lost children. Our upstairs apartment was always in use by these friends.

In August of 1945 the war was over and there were headlines in the paper saying that 22,500 blacks had lost war jobs. We trusted the Lord this far to take care of us, and we would continue to trust Him. As in the Depression, the streets were lined with more and more unemployed men and women.

Many colored boys fought in the war and died for their country, but many of those who returned were refused jobs because of the color of their skin.

“My black body was good enough for that U.S. uniform,” one soldier named Bill told me bitterly, “but I better not put it on a stool in a white lunch counter in Alabama! I just gave three years of my life so the white man could keep the war going.”

I had begun to feel a real burden in my heart to serve the Lord in a deeper way. I was restless, uneasy. I sometimes stayed up all night praying and writing in my journal. My job did not satisfy me any longer.

I often went to the train depot to talk about a loving God to the men who inhabited the benches. The cavernous depot, bustling with activity, was filled with people with no place to go. They sat staring at the passersby or sleeping in corners. They were worn out, hungry, and without homes. I sat with them and tried to tell them about a Savior who cared for them, who wanted them to know Him.

In those days after the war ended, there was little money around. One bleak morning I went to work to find that I didn't have a job anymore. I had been laid off, too. Times got pretty rough for us then, and many days saw us without bread on the table. Jackie and I went across the river to Canada to buy meat. A chicken cost us $4.50. Eggs were 25¢ apiece. We were forced to eat the way I had eaten in my days as a slave—corn bread, grits, salt pork, chitlins.

Somehow I just couldn't get despondent. I was quite sure now that God was calling me to serve Him as a minister.

If there was any sadness in my heart, it was because of the way the churches were milking the people for money. Some churches were taking as many as five offerings during the service. And the pastors weren't taking care of their people. Widows who had given money to the church all their lives were going hungry and had nobody looking out for them. I shed many tears over the state of the church as I saw it. It hurt me deeply to see the people so badly neglected.

There was an unused piano downstairs and now without a job I'd go down and try to teach myself to play. I wasn't exactly popular in the neighborhood, but I had an urge to play music for the Lord.

In 1947 the Lord began to speak to me about leaving Detroit. I didn't know how I was going to tell Jackie. She had long ago decorated our place with nice furniture, and she was proud of the fine things we owned and the fine home we had.

I was worried about my lack of education, and I wasn't sure if I was capable of serving the Lord as a minister. One afternoon when I was painting a neighbor's garage, a sudden terrible pain threw me to the ground. The pain was so awful I couldn't move. I was taken to the hospital and the doctors said it was a sprained back and they put me in traction. Then one afternoon when I was alone in the room, I felt the Lord's presence and He began to talk to me. He said, “Why don't you want to do what I have asked you to do?”

He continued, “I will give you the words to speak and the works to work. I will direct your way.”

I decided there in that hospital bed to place all my lacks in Jesus' hands. The reverence I had for education, credentials, and personal talents was His, too. If the Lord could use this poor, half-deaf man with a speech problem who wasn't too smart, that was His business, not mine.

Jackie came to see me that evening and I told her, “I'm healed. I'm going home tomorrow morning.” She thought I was crazy. But the next morning when the doctors came around, they examined me and said, “We can't figure it out, but there's nothing wrong with you.” I was taken out of traction. The inflammation and pain were completely gone, and the doctors told me I was well and could go home.

A few days later we went to Lima, Ohio, to a revival meeting. Some sisters were talking after the meeting, and I overheard them mention a place called Bucyrus, Ohio. The name of that town kept going over and over in my mind. I could hardly sleep that night.

Back in Detroit, I told Jackie not to wait up for me and I went to the ticket office in the bus depot and bought a ticket to Bucyrus, Ohio.

I got off the bus at the square in the small town of Bucyrus. It was a cold afternoon, and the wind was blowing down the quiet, clean main street of the town. I saw no black faces. As I walked around, I noticed many shops selling something called
bratwurst.
I went into a sandwich shop on Sandusky Street and ordered bratwurst and coffee. I discovered it was a delicious German sausage. The people in the restaurant stared at me strangely. I wondered if they had ever seen a black man before. By nightfall I was back on the bus heading for Detroit.

There was certainly nothing momentous about the trip. In fact, there was not a thing special about it. Maybe I had expected God to open the earth or appear in the treetops, or maybe I had expected a welcoming committee of holy angels. By the end of the day I think I would have settled for a friendly hello from any old stranger. There were no signs from God, however, and no indications of any kind that the Lord even knew I was there. Still, I felt this was the town He wanted us to move to.

“Jackie, sit down, honey.” The house was quiet, and outside in the darkness of the night there was a light snowfall spreading across the city. Jackie wrapped her bathrobe around her and sat down at the kitchen table. I poured hot coffee and smiled at her. She had a look on her face that said, “OK, what's the bad news?”

“We're leavin Detroit,” I said. “I believe we'll be movin to Bucyrus, Ohio.”

Jackie was still for a moment. “Robert Sadler, whey your mind is?”