Black No More George S. Schuyler

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.“Yuh know, Ah knows how tuh handle these white folks.If yuh ‘Say it with Bucks’ you c’n git anything yuh want.”“There is something in what Foster says, though,” Dr.Crookman said.“Just look at this bunch of clippings we got in this morning.Listen to these: ‘The Viper in Our Midst,’ from the Richmond Blade; ‘The Menace of Science’ from the Memphis Bugle; ‘A Challenge to Every White Man’ from the Dallas Sun ; ‘Police Battle Black Mob Seeking White Skins,’ from the Atlanta Topic; ‘Negro Doctor Admits Being Taught by Germans, ’ from the St.Louis North American.Here’s a line or two from an editorial in the Oklahoma City Hatchet: ‘There are times when the welfare of our race must take precedence over law.Opposed as we always have been to mob violence as the worst enemy of democratic government, we cannot help but feel that the intelligent white men and women of New York City who are interested in the purity and preservation of their race should not permit the challenge of Crookmanism to go unanswered, even though these black scoundrels may be within the law.There are too many criminals in this country already hiding behind the skirts of the law.’“And lastly, one from the Tallahassee Announcer says: ‘While it is the right of every citizen to do what he wants to do with his money, the white people of the United States cannot remain indifferent to this discovery and its horrible potentialities.Hundreds of Negroes with newly-acquired white skins have already entered white society and thousands will follow them.The black race from one end of the country to the other has in two short weeks gone completely crazy over the prospect of getting white.Day by day we see the color line which we have so laboriously established being rapidly destroyed.There would not be so much cause for alarm in this, were it not for the fact that this vitiligo is not hereditary.In other words, THE OFFSPRING OF THESE WHITENED NEGROES WILL BE NEGROES! This means that your daughter, having married a supposed white man, may find herself with a black baby! Will the proud white men of the Southland so far forget their traditions as to remain idle while this devilish work is going on?”“No use singin’ th’ blues,” counseled Johnson.“We ain’ gonna be both’ed heah, even if them crackahs down South do raise a little hell.Jus’ lissen to th’ sweet music of that mob out theah! Eve’y scream means fifty bucks.On’y reason we ain’t makin’ mo’ money is ’cause we ain’t got no mo’ room.”“That’s right,” Dr.Crookman agreed.“We’ve turned out one hundred a day for fourteen days.” He leaned back and lit a cigarette.“At fifty bucks a th’ow,” interrupted Johnson, “that means we’ve took in seventy thousand dollahs.Great Day in th’ mornin’! Didn’t know tha was so much jack in Harlem.”“Yes,” continued Crookman, “we’re taking in thirty-five thousand dollars a week.As soon as you and Foster get that other place fixed up we’ll be making twice that much.”From the hallway came the voice of the switchboard operator monotonously droning out her instructions: “No, Dr.Crookman cannot see anyone.Dr.Crookman has nothing to say.Dr.Crookman will issue a statement shortly.Fifty Dollars.No, Dr.Crookman isn’t a mulatto.I’m very sorry but I cannot answer that question.”The three friends sat in silence amid the hum of activity around them.Hank Johnson smiled down at the end of his cigar as he thought back over his rather colorful and hectic career.To think that today he was one of the leading Negroes of the world, one who was taking an active and important part in solving the most vexatious problem in American life, and yet only ten years before he had been working on a Carolina chain gang.Two years he had toiled on the roads under the hard eye and ready rifle of a cruel white guard; two years of being beaten, kicked and cursed, of poor food and vermin-infested habitations; two years for participating in a little crap game.Then he had drifted to Charleston, got a job in a pool room, had a stroke of luck with the dice, come to New York and landed right in the midst of the Numbers racket.Becoming a collector or “runner,” he had managed his affairs well enough to be able to start out soon as a “banker.” Money had poured in from Negroes eager to chance one cent in the hope of winning six dollars.Some won but most lost and he had prospered.He had purchased an apartment house, paid off the police, dabbled in the bail bond game, given a couple of thousand dollars to advance Negro Art and been elected Grand Permanent Shogun of the Ancient and Honorable Order of Crocodiles, Harlem’s largest and most prosperous secret society.Then young Crookman had come to him with his proposition.At first he had hesitated about helping him but later was persuaded to do so when the young man bitterly complained that the dicty Negroes would not help to pay for the studies abroad.What a stroke of luck, getting in on the ground floor like this! They’d all be richer than Rockefeller inside of a year.Twelve million Negroes at fifty dollars apiece! Great Day in the morning! Hank spat regally into the brass cuspidor across the office and reared back contentedly on the soft cushion of the divan.Chuck Foster was also seeing his career in retrospect.His life had not been as colorful as that of Hank Johnson.The son of a Birmingham barber, he had enjoyed such educational advantages as that community afforded the darker brethren; had become a schoolteacher, an insurance agent and a social worker in turn.Then, along with the tide of migration, he had drifted first to Cincinnati, then to Pittsburgh and finally to New York.There the real estate field, unusually lucrative because of the paucity of apartments for the increasing Negro population, had claimed him.Cautious, careful, thrifty and devoid of sentimentality, he had prospered, but not without some ugly rumors being broadcast about his sharp business methods.As he slowly worked his way up to the top of Harlem society, he had sought to live down this reputation for double-dealing and shifty practices, all too true of the bulk of his fellow realtors in the district, by giving large sums to the Young Men’s and Young Women’s Christian Associations, by offering scholarships to young Negroes, by staging elaborate parties to which the dicty Negroes of the community were invited.He had been glad of the opportunity to help subsidize young Crookman’s studies abroad when Hank Johnson pointed out the possibilities of the venture.Now, although the results so far exceeded his wildest dreams, his natural conservatism and timidity made him somewhat pessimistic about the future.He supposed a hundred dire results of their activities and only the day before he had increased the amount of his life insurance.His mind was filled with doubts.He didn’t like so much publicity.He wanted a sort of genteel popularity but no notoriety.Despite the coffee and cigarettes, Dr.Junius Crookman was sleepy.The responsibility, the necessity of overseeing the work of his physicians and nurses, the insistence of the newspapers and the medical profession that he reveal the secrets of his treatment and a thousand other vexatious details had kept him from getting proper rest.He had, indeed, spent most of his time in the sanitarium.This hectic activity was new to him [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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