All God's Dangers (51 page)

And these white folks woke up and stretched themselves and commenced a runnin around meddlin with niggers about this organization. And it's a close thing today. One old man—and he was
as big a skunk as ever sneaked in the woods—old man Mac Sloane, come up to me one day—he didn't come to my home, he met me on the outside—old man Mac Sloane come to me hot as a stove iron, “Nate, do you belong to that mess they carryin on in this country?”

I just cut him off short. I didn't belong to it at that time, but I was eager to join and I was aimin to join, just hadn't got the right opportunity.

“No, I don't belong to nothin.”

Mac Sloane, white man, said, “You stay out of it. That damn thing will get you killed. You stay out of it. These niggers runnin around here carryin on some kind of meetin—you better stay out of it.”

I said to myself, ‘You a fool if you think you can keep me from joinin.' I went right on and joined it, just as quick as the next meetin come. Runnin around and givin me orders—he suspected I might be the kind of man to belong to such a organization; put the finger on me before I ever joined. And he done just the thing to push me into it—gived me orders not to join.

The teachers of this organization begin to drive through this country—they couldn't let what they was doin be known. One of em was a colored fella; I disremember his name but he did tell us his name. He wanted us to organize and he was with us a whole lot of time, holdin meetins with us—that was part of his job. We colored farmers would meet and the first thing we had to do was join the organization. And it was said, we didn't want no bad men in it at all, no weak-hearted fellows that would be liable to give the thing away. It was secret with them all that joined it; they knowed to keep their mouths shut and meet the meetins. And this teacher said—don't know where his home was; he had a different way of talkin than we did—“I call em stool pigeons if they broadcast the news about what's happenin.” And said, if a nigger, like myself, went and let out any secrets to the white folks about the organization, the word was, “Do away with him.”

Had the meetins at our houses or anywhere we could have em where we could keep a look and a watch-out that nobody was comin in on us. Small meetins, sometimes there'd be a dozen, sometimes there'd be more, sometimes there'd be less—niggers was scared, niggers was scared, that's tellin the truth. White folks in this country didn't allow niggers to have no organization, no secret meetins. They kept up with you and watched you, didn't allow you
to associate in a crowd, unless it was your family or your church. It just worked in a way that the nigger wasn't allowed to have nothin but church services and, O, they liked to see you goin to church, too. Sometimes white people would come into the Negro church and set there and listen at the meetin. Of course, it weren't nothin but a church service goin on. But if a nigger walked into a white church, he'd just be driven out, if they didn't kill him. But if a Negro was a servant for white people, then they'd carry him to church with em, accept him to come in and take a seat on the back seat and listen at the white people. But if you was a independent Negro you better stay away from there. But if you was a white man's dear flunky, doin what he said do, or even on the woman's side, if they was maids for the white people, well thought of, they'd take em out to their home churches, dupe em up in a way. They knowed they weren't goin to cause no trouble—and if they did, they'd just been knocked out of the box and called in close question. But they never did act disorderly; just set there and listened at the white folks' meetin quiet as a lamb. And when the white folks would come in the colored churches, good God, the niggers would get busy givin em first class seats—if there was any in that buildin the white folks got em. They was white people; they classed theirselves over the colored and the colored people never did do nothin but dance to what the white people said and thought. White people was their bosses and their controllers and the colored people went along with it. White men, white women—I been there—go in colored churches and be seated. Nigger aint got nothin to do but run around there and give em the nicest seats.

F
IRST
thing the organization wanted for the colored people was the privilege to have a organization. That's one of the best things they ever could fight for and get on foot. From my boy days comin along, ever since I been in God's world, I've never had no rights, no voice in nothin that the white man didn't want me to have—even been cut out of education, book learnin, been deprived of that. How could I favor such rulins as have been the past?

The teacher would send out literatures and these literatures would get around in colored folks' boxes and they got so bold they went to puttin em in white folks' boxes. I couldn't definitely say what them literatures said—I aint a readin man—but they said
enough that the big white men didn't like it at all. Malcolm Todd, who married my wife's oldest sister, he heard a white man say, “The Lord is bringin down the world, the Lord is bringin down the world.”

Well, it was many conditions that called for such a organization as
that.
Niggers had to get back and get back quick when the white man spoke. Had to be humble and submissive under em. My color needed a protection so long, so long. You couldn't get a nigger to poke his head out in them days for nothin—scared, and—I looked at it from another angle and that was the worst thing that could ever hit my attention. We had too many colored people that if they knowed anything was goin on amongst their own color, any sort of plot at all, they'd turn it in to the white people. No use to try gettin together to do somethin bout the conditions we was livin under because somebody would run and stick his head under the white man's shirttail, and that was that. I call em Uncle Toms. They'll prowl into the niggers' business to get the dope and carry it to the white folks. Uncle Tom's a devil of a man; he's a enemy to his race.

Niggers was scared to run their business together, buy their fertilize together, sell their cotton together, because the white man—the average colored man was workin on the white man's place, and if he weren't on the white man's place he had to cooperate with the white man to get furnished and so on. And the white man held the final rule over the Negro—“Bring the cotton to me.” I heard it; it was told to others and it was told to me.

Conditions has been outrageous every way that you can think against the colored race of people. Didn't allow em to do this, didn't allow em to do that, didn't allow em to do the other. Knowin and comin into the knowledge of what was goin on and how it was goin on in the United States as far as I knowed, which was the state of Alabama as far as I knowed, Tukabahchee County—I knew that it was a weak time amongst the colored people. They couldn't demand nothin; they was subject to lose what they had if they demanded any more.

Good God, there wasn't but few privileges that we was allowed. If you was flesh and blood and human and you tended to want to help and support your friends in the community, and make somethin of yourself—white folks didn't allow you that privilege. But we had the privilege of workin for the white man—he who had the chance had better do it; get yourself together and get over yonder
in Mr. So-and-so's field or anywhere else he told you and do what he tell you to do. And when pay time come he'd pay you what he wanted to, and in many cases it'd be less than what he'd pay a white man. And some work, like pickin cotton in the fields, white folks didn't fill a basket—most of em. That was niggers' work. And if a poor white man got out there and picked cotton, he was pickin cotton like a nigger. Colored man just been a dog for this country for years and years. White man didn't ask you how you felt about what he wanted to do; he'd just go ahead and do it and you had to fall under his rulins. And bein in his home country, he been allowed to do as he please by the capital of the United States.

I heard talk when I was a boy of how the colored people come to America. Now the talk that I heard might not be exactly how it was but I have no reason to argue with the words. It all comes down to this: the colored people was transferred here from Africa just like you transfer a drove of stock. White man gathered em up in the distant countries; they didn't have no knowledge of where they was goin, they had to move by orders, had no idea of where they was goin. Passed em across the water in some form or fashion and they was put over in this country and sold just like you'd go out here and sell a hog, a horse, a cow, just so. They was black people—all of em was dark at that time—but they wasn't recognized as people. They had no say-so, they had no choice noway. Well, after they got over here—I has a hard time keepin myself together when I thinks about it—they was put under the possession of marsters and mistresses, just like your beast comes under the possession of you when you buy it. Had no voice, no privilege, only had to go by orders every way.

And whoever come to be bought by such-and-such a one, why, they was his. And when he wanted he'd sell em and swap em. And I was told that in the time the colored was under bondage—niggers as they called em, right quick—they was divided out like this: one white man that bought a drove would give his children so many colored folks apiece, just like he'd give em a hog, make his children a present of em just like that.

And the nigger was handicapped to death. He had to go by orders, he had to come by orders; when he knocked off he knocked off by orders. And the only way the nigger come out from under
that marster, he was sold to some other man. That big fellow out yonder with so many colored people, he noticed this man's crowd, he knowed what he had, and all of em knowed what they had—it was a business proposition. So some of em would take a fancy to some of that man's slaves over yonder; look around, walk around, and take a fancy to em. More than likely, if I wanted, I'd buy that woman or that man from that marster over yonder. And if that marster had a nice lookin, healthy colored man, I'd give him a pile of money for that big Negro, carry him home and put him with my crowd and produce a mess of young-uns like hisself. They didn't like so much the little scrawny colored people, weren't able to work much. If the marster caught a little, bitty, scrawny nigger foolin round amongst his women, there'd be no holdin up on the whippin he'd get. They wanted these big healthy fellows, big healthy women; they wanted to create a race of people to suit em.

If there was any way in the world that I could buy the one I wanted, well, I wouldn't have to ask the nigger nothin, I'd talk—this marster over here would talk to that marster over yonder about you. And if he could buy you he'd buy you, if the man would sell. Just like you was a cow or a mule, he'd buy you out the drove. You had no choice. I realize what that meant. I might belong to you and you might have a woman over here too that was my wife. Or I stayed with her if it was your request for me to stay with that woman; but if it wasn't, I couldn't—for breedin purposes. And you got the privilege of sellin me away from my wife, if the boss man over yonder wanted me or if you just needed the money; it was in your power to sell me. I had no choice, weren't allowed no choice. I'd have to get gone from that woman, made no difference if I loved her or not. You know it's nature for men to love women, and for women to love men; they loved each other in them days, too. And they just abused nature by sellin me. “You got to do what I say, you aint no more than the mule you plow, in my sight. You belong to me, you aint nothin but my property.” It just points right to that, you look at it. I'm just your property. I got a wife here, I love her. You see fit to move me, that marster man over yonder wants to buy me—that runs deep with me, I can't forget it. It was like that too, or maybe worser. A heap of things you hear and you aint experienced it, you can't feel it like you experienced it.

I belong to you. You got me livin here. Got plenty of others livin here too, them's your servants. That boss man over yonder,
marster of his crowd over yonder somewhere, he look over the situation and see me; maybe he like my looks, he like my ways, regardless to what I think, you can do with me as you please. He come to you and make you an offer to buy me. Well, you realize that I'm your mainline servant, you'll price me high to him and he gets me, he got to pay a price just like he was payin for a mule or a horse or a hog—I has no choice, I has no voice or nothin, I'm just handicapped to death and I got to go where old marster puts me. Marster sees fit to sell me, he goin to sell me and pocket up a pile of money off me.

They told me that good able-bodied Negroes and Negroes with good health sold for a pretty penny. I might be a carpenter, I might be a blacksmith, or I might just work in the field. You'd sell me accordin to what I was worth to you. That man over yonder buys me, I'd cost him somethin.

And the owners of these colored people would fall out with one another about em. That was their livin: they had it all figured out how much a certain colored man or colored woman cost em to buy and raise and how much they would make off of that nigger as long as they owned him. It run that way for years, they tell me, it run that way for years. A time of brutish acts, brutish acts.

The old boss man, the old marster, disregarded the nigger, disrecognized him in everything, but he slipped under the covers at the colored women, and here's how that was done: poor colored women, slaves in them days, didn't know nothin but to do what they was told to do, bow for the marster. Old marster, he'd wait his chance and when his wife would leave home for pleasure or enjoyment or anything—he might cause her to be away from home—and they had housemaids and they was always the best lookin colored women, the most obedient colored women—they run for that today. Old marster, old missus, maybe both of em would pick out one of the nigger women that looked like she'd suit em. They'd put her in the house as a maid to cook, iron, wash, take care of the house, keep it decent and clean—just pick out the nicest one and give her a job in the house to keep that house cleaned up and cook food for their table; in other words, a housewoman. Old missus would go anywhere she wanted to go and leave that colored woman there. Old marster would slip around, he wanted to get to that colored woman. And he'd wait till it was quiet and all, until his wife left home—she gone, he'd sneak around there, make that colored
woman lay down on the bed for him, pop it to her much as he wanted to. She had to lay down for him, poor woman; didn't, no tellin what would happen. She belonged to him but he wanted to keep his doins outside of his wife, wouldn't fool with that woman long as his wife was there; he knowed that would cause trouble.