All God's Dangers (57 page)

I come down then, I got touched then, when I got in trouble. No one to help me but my friends, I kept sight on them. Looked like the biggest part of the world was against me. I never did get scared for myself, I just didn't want to be there. I never worried over what they was goin to do to me. I could see that they personalized this convulsion on me—but that made me merry, in a way. I done what was right: white man takin everything Virgil Jones had, then goin to start on me—I weren't goin to let him do it without a fight. And had nothin ever shook me—when they shot me it didn't shake me, when they arrested me it didn't shake me. But it shook me to see my friends was but few. I studied over it—

The devil told me some years before I was arrested and throwed in jail—I knowed it weren't nothin but the devil—I had entered into my forties, and I was forty-seven years old when I was put in
jail, I seed a birthday in Beaufort jail. And so, I was on my job one day, whatever I was doin, and the devil told me, “You aint goin to get no religion, you done got too old.” Just revealed that to me. But I paid it no attention. I was prosperin, makin my way through the world at a good clip. Had everything in reason a poor colored man could have—and then some. Well, when I got in jail and all my troubles come down on me, bein away from my family and they havin a hard time without me, I strictly saw the way the thing was goin on. My preliminary trial which I was supposed to have—they fought that down, made a mess of it and quit it, didn't give me no preliminary trial. Well, that was a judgment against me. These people here that knew me was so bitterly against me until they wouldn't discuss my case, dropped it until my full trial come along. I was in trouble then. What did I have to look forward to? Lawyer Stein come and told me, “Shaw, I'm goin to stick with you but I may can't clear you—” All right. He knew the thing, the way it was goin. Said, “We can't overrule their laws here in every respect, but we goin to stick with you.” He was right there, consolatin me all he could.

The twenty-eighth day of April it was. That mornin I got up—there was some terrible fellows in jail there with me, they had a pick at me. They didn't never jump on me; if they had, no tellin what I'd done. Now the boys that was in there for bein of that organization, they didn't bother me, didn't trouble me. But some of them other hellions in there had a pick at me. I don't believe anybody put em up to it; they was just hellish fellows, meddlin with me for what I done. They knowed I was in that riot and they had no respect for it. Really, they had no respect for theirselves so they picked at
me.
I done something that they wouldn't a done—stood up for myself. O, they was against that, numbers of em. The least word about it and they'd fly, scared to death. That was a great disconsolation to me. Talk about what I was in there for—and all the time it was somethin for the benefit of them.

The mornin I was converted, I was walkin around there in the jailhouse fixin to shave. And I couldn't satisfy myself to save my life—walkin around, leapin everywhere, in a trance. I couldn't rest nowhere—they lookin at me. And all of a sudden, God stepped in my soul. Talk about hollerin and rejoicin, I just caught fire. My mind cleared up. I got so happy—I didn't realize where I was at. I lost sight on this world to a great extent. And the Master commenced a
talkin to me just like a natural man. I heard these words plain—I dote on it, dote on my friends, too—the Lord spoke to me that mornin, said, “Follow me and trust me for my holy righteous word.” I just gone wild then, feelin a change. “Follow me and trust me for my holy righteous word.” The devil don't talk that way. And said, “The devil in hell can't do you no harm.” Good God almighty, I just felt like I could have flown out the top of that jail. I commenced a shoutin bout the Lord, how good and kind and merciful He was. Freed my soul from sin. I was a raw piece of plunder that mornin in jail. God heard me and answered my prayers. Some of the worst fellows in there looked at me but they couldn't stand it, had to turn away, and their faces looked just as sad—I had took over the jailhouse, couldn't help it. You could—except what I was carryin on—you could almost heard a pin fall on that jailhouse floor. They come just as silent as stone.

All right. I couldn't read and write but Leroy Roberts was in there—it just condemned him, it just et him up the way I was actin—I had Leroy—he was writin to my people at that time for me, and when I ceased down and quit I had Leroy write a letter to my wife and I had him tell her that God had answered my lonely calls. I had seeked my soul's salvation and found it. And she come bustin in there when she got that letter just as quick as she could come. I told her my condition, not just talkin, but I had found Jesus. And Leroy Roberts told her, when she come, said, “Mrs. Shaw, if there's ever been a man converted, Nate's one of em.” She felt so good about that—she was cryin, she was so happy. She was a woman—she was a Christian girl when I married her and I was a sinner boy.

Well, they had my trial and put me in prison. The Lord blessed my soul and set me in a position to endure it.

T
HERE
was a white gentleman in prison in some part of California at the time I was waitin for my trial, wrote me a letter wishin me well—was all he could do, you know—feelin my sympathy and tellin me how
he
got into it: had a union out there and he belonged to it and tried to get other folks to join. Moneyed people of the state of California didn't like that and throwed him in prison—that was his troubles. Told me that the high people of that country fought his union. Well, I reckon near bout all of em fought it all they could; a thing of this kind is ever dangerous to em.

The letter was sent to my wife and she brought it to me. The man that wrote it called himself Tom Mooney,
^§
out of the state of California. I didn't inquisite after who he was definitely and ask no words about him because I was so agitated at the time. But I figured it like this: the workers of this organization knowed which ones was in prison and them that could read and write, they tried to show their feelins to the others.

I sure taken him to be a friend to me. He just wrote in a way to let me know straight that he was tied up in the same thoughts and acts as I was. I taken that to mean that my name was known for what I was into and what this work was about—newspapers carried my name to distant states. And the beauty part about it, for me—I stuck there and stickin there today. I stuck there so good and tight, and this white gentleman that wrote to me, he had confidence in me that I would. You take such work as this: from the beginnin up until this minute, I believe in it and I see good of it, I see more good of it than I really can explain. And I believe in stickin to a thing that's right until whenever my eyes is closed in death.

F
IVE
months I stayed in Beaufort jail. After the International Defense people left, they was supposed to give me a preliminary trial, but they fooled around and it never come up. Some of the northern people ridin in my defense demanded they give it to me. But this is southern country down here, this is the state of Alabama. They didn't have enough pull to get me that preliminary trial. Nobody to my knowins started that trial—but I was so badly aroused at that time I couldn't discover everything that was happenin to me unless somebody enlightened me. It appeared to me that several Beaufort people got up there and delayed the case, set it for another date and overruled Lawyer Stein and kept him overruled.

Old Kurt Beall—he was as bad as anybody, a little worse maybe—he told the boys and told that deputy sheriff Ward, when they crossed us up and throwed out the hearing, “I reckon them sonofabitches see now,” as good as said, “See, they can't run things down
here.” There was a heap more said behind my back, I'm satisfied of that, but I seed and heard a heap besides.

Well, the day that Lawyer Stein come for the main trial, two white ladies was with him and each of them ladies had a briefcase. They all set down there at a table in the front of the courtroom, a little to one side, and I could see Lawyer Stein just writin it all down.

I couldn't tell who was in the courtroom and who wasn't. I didn't even see if Mr. Watson come to my trial. But I do know this: they wouldn't allow Mr. Horace Tucker in there. He tried to come in the buildin but they made him go on out again, get away from there. He'd been known—he took Leroy Roberts, after Leroy was shot down, he picked Leroy up and carried him home. So they didn't allow him in the courthouse; they didn't want the public to know that some of their color took any stock in helpin the niggers out.

Well, my brother Peter come, he was up there, and TJ. My wife was there, some of my uncles and aunts, and my cousins too.

They brought me to trial—I can't speak about all of it. How come? Because I didn't know what they was doin myself. But they kept the thing upset there enough, durin of my trial, to have a fight in there, nearly. Lawyer Stein got hot at the officers that come up to testify, and the judge got hot at him, then he got hot at the judge. And the judge, old man, got agitated some more and rapped his hammer on the table, just beat it with that thing. Old Judge Bolin, from LeMoyne—he was a settled-aged man. I was forty-seven years old then; he weren't twice that but he almost was.

Tom Heflin
^‖
was the head man in there amongst the prosecution. He made a big talk against me, tried to prove I'd committed a crime—assault and raisin the devil when they come down there to take what we had. But I never did think it under God's kingdom—I knowed we colored people wasn't allowed no secret organization, but the idea of takin what a man has, and him not owin nothin, and causin his wife and children to suffer, then takin him away—that thing looked bogus to me. Keep that nigger in jail and at the end, make that woman and them children stay there on that place and
farm, and some big man takin everything they produce—I've seen that done under several cases—just tie em to the land, nigger's wife and children, give em a home there but take everything else. White man made hisself a law for that and his word was stronger even than the law because
he
made the law. The sheriff come on a white man's place messin with the colored folks he got workin on it, that man would call the sheriff's hand in a minute. “That's
my
nigger—” I've heard it said myself; sheriff had to go by the landlord's orders, landlord had power over the sheriff and he'd talk his big talk in defense of that nigger. How come it? Because that's
his
nigger, he weren't goin to see him mistreated because that nigger was just like his property. “Let him alone, I'll be responsible for him. I'll come up there at such-and-such a time and straighten it out.” He'd go up there and pay that nigger out of trouble, leave that nigger at home at work. O, there was many a glad Negro because he was under the white man thataway. And in some cases the nigger had to stay then on that white man's place and do what he said do; and if he didn't, the white man would turn him back to the law. Nigger got caught in the spokes of the wheel any way it rolled. So I stood up against this southern way of life. Can you call that a crime? Can
I
call it a crime?

Mr. Stein, Lawyer Stein, he got up to plead my case. First thing, he questioned the backgrounds of the deal.

“Do you know anything against Nate Shaw that would keep you from givin him a fair trial?”

“No, we don't know nothin against him. We goin to give him a fair trial.”

“Well, has he ever been arrested before?”

I hadn't done nothin for em to arrest me—didn't do nothin then, neither; that's the way I sum it up. Holdin up for myself, that's all.

“No, he aint never been arrested.”

Lawyer Stein asked em every question he could ask; he wanted justice for me.

“O, we goin to give him justice.” That's what they said. “He never has done nothin till this time.”

Well, you know, if a man got a good record—right there they heard enough out of Lawyer Stein to know I'd never been in trouble noway with the law, I ought a been gived some consideration. But they gived me nothin.

All right. They kept up the devil there and every once in a while somebody'd holler and they'd jump up and haul that person out of there.

This here man that shot me, they called for him, Mr. Platt. And some of em said, “O, he's out there in the street somewhere.” Judge Bolin told the sheriff, “Go get him.”

Those two white ladies from the north that was sent to be with Mr. Stein, they was sittin there with him, writin and figurin out what was goin on. I was sittin close to em, kind of on the side part of the front, and I could see every man comin up to make a talk. So, brought Platt in there—they didn't know nothin to hurt me, had no malice in em against me—they pleaded that when Lawyer Stein asked em. But when that Platt come in, they asked him this question—I don't know who asked him, the old judge or old Heflin, one of them heavy laws asked him, “Mr. Platt—” When he come in the courthouse door he wouldn't come on down there to the judge's stand; just stopped up there bout halfway to the judge's stand from the door. They asked him that question before he stopped walkin. “Mr. Platt, did you shoot Nate Shaw?”

Here's what he said. “I tried my damnedest—” shot me three times in the back—“I tried my damnedest.” Whirled around, right on back out the door he went.

Just asked him
did
he shoot me; didn't ask him how come he shot me or where he shot me. And they didn't ask me bout no shootin; they wanted other facts from me. They wanted to know how many was there at Virgil Jones' house that day. I told em what I wanted em to know and what Mr. Stein told me to tell em if they asked me. To tell the truth, there was a crowd there to start, but when they discovered the law goin off and gettin another crowd of laws, they pulled out from there and run like rabbits. And when the officers come up they seed nobody but me. And I didn't move out of my tracks. But they didn't ask me for that at my trial—they wanted me to tell em how many was there. I told em, “About five or six, somethin like that.” They wanted to hear bout more than that, so they asked me again. If I'd a told em a crowd was there, they'd a went to askin bout all of em's names. That woulda throwed em to huntin everybody up that I called. I never had had no case in court before but Lawyer Stein warned me what to tell em, said, “If they ask you how many was there that day, don't tell em there
was a crowd there; just tell em four or five, five or six, somethin like that.”