There was the fear and awe I felt when Grandpa took me to a sawmill to watch the giant whirring steel blades whine and scream as they bit into wet green logs.
There was the puckery taste that almost made me cry when I ate my first half-ripe persimmon.
There was the greedy joy in the tangy taste of wild hickory nuts.
There was the dry hot summer morning when I scratched my bare arms on briers while picking blackberries and came home with my fingers and lips stained black with sweet berry juice.
There was the relish of eating my first fried fish sandwich, nibbling at it slowly and hoping that I would never eat it up.
There was the all-night ache in my stomach after I had climbed a neighbor’s tree and eaten stolen, unripe peaches.
There was the morning when I thought I would fall dead from fear after I had stepped with my bare feet upon a bright little green garden snake.
And there were the long, slow, drowsy days and nights of drizzling rain…
At last we were at the railroad station with our bags, waiting for the train that would take us to Arkansas; and for the first time I noticed that there were two lines of people at the ticket window, a “white” line and a “black” line. During my visit at Granny’s a sense of the two races had been born in me with a sharp concreteness that would never die until I died. When I boarded the train I was aware that we Negroes were in one part of the train and that the whites were in another. Naïvely I wanted to go and see how the whites looked while sitting in their part of the train.
“Can I go and peep at the white folks?” I asked my mother.
“You keep quiet,” she said.
“But that wouldn’t be wrong, would it?”
“Will you keep still?”
“But why can’t I?”
“Quit talking foolishness!”
I had begun to notice that my mother became irritated when I questioned her about whites and blacks, and I could not quite understand it. I wanted to understand these two sets of people who lived side by side and never touched, it seemed, except in violence. Now, there was my grandmother…Was she white? Just how white was she? What did the whites think of her whiteness?
“Mama, is Granny white?” I asked as the train rolled through the darkness.
“If you’ve got eyes, you can see what color she is,” my mother said.
“I mean, do the white folks think she’s white?”
“Why don’t you ask the white folks that?” she countered.
“But you know,” I insisted.
“Why should I know?” she asked. “I’m not white.”
“Granny looks white,” I said, hoping to establish one fact, at least. “Then why is she living with us colored folks?”
“Don’t you want Granny to live with us?” she asked, blunting my question.
“Yes.”
“Then why are you asking?”
“I want to know.”
“Doesn’t Granny live with us?”
“Yes.”
“Isn’t that enough?”
“But does she want to live with us?”
“Why didn’t you ask Granny that?” my mother evaded me again in a taunting voice.
“Did Granny become colored when she married Grandpa?”
“Will you stop asking silly questions!”
“But did she?”
“Granny didn’t become colored,” my mother said angrily. “She was born the color she is now.”
Again I was being shut out of the secret, the thing, the reality I felt somewhere beneath all the words and silences.
“Why didn’t Granny marry a white man?” I asked.
“Because she didn’t want to,” my mother said peevishly.
“Why don’t you want to talk to me?” I asked.
She slapped me and I cried. Later, grudgingly, she told me that Granny came of Irish, Scotch, and French stock in which Negro blood had somewhere and somehow been infused. She explained it all in a matter-of-fact, offhand, neutral way; her emotions were not involved at all.
“What was Granny’s name before she married Grandpa?”
“Bolden.”
“Who gave her that name?”
“The white man who owned her.”
“She was a slave?”
“Yes.”
“And Bolden was the name of Granny’s father?”
“Granny doesn’t know who her father was.”
“So they just gave her any name?”
“They gave her a name; that’s all I know.”
“Couldn’t Granny find out who her father was?”
“For what, silly?”
“So she could know.”
“Know for what?”
“Just to know.”
“But for what?”
I could not say. I could not get anywhere.
“Mama, where did Father get his name?”
“From his father.”
“And where did the father of my father get his name?”
“Like Granny got hers. From a white man.”
“Do they know who he is?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why don’t they find out?”
“For what?” my mother demanded harshly.
And I could think of no rational or practical reason why my father should try to find out who his father’s father was.
“What has Papa got in him?” I asked.
“Some white and some red and some black,” she said.
“Indian, white, and Negro?”
“Yes.”
“Then what am I?”
“They’ll call you a colored man when you grow up,” she said. Then she turned to me and smiled mockingly and asked: “Do you mind, Mr. Wright?”
I was angry and I did not answer. I did not object to being called colored, but I knew that there was something my mother was holding back. She was not concealing facts, but feelings, attitudes, convictions which she did not want me to know; and she became angry when I prodded her. All right, I would find out someday. Just wait. All right, I was colored. It was fine. I did not know enough to be afraid or to anticipate in a concrete manner. True, I had heard that colored people were killed and beaten, but so far it all had seemed remote. There was, of course, a vague uneasiness about it all, but I would be able to handle that when I came to it. It would be simple. If anybody tried to kill me, then I would kill them first.
When we arrived in Elaine I saw that Aunt Maggie lived in a bungalow that had a fence around it. It looked like home and I was glad. I had no suspicion that I was to live here for but a short time and that the manner of my leaving would be my first baptism of racial emotion.
A wide dusty road ran past the house and on each side of the road wild flowers grew. It was summer and the smell of clay dust was everywhere, day and night. I would get up early every morning to wade with my bare feet through the dust of the road, reveling in the strange mixture of the cold dew-wet crust on top of the road and the warm, sun-baked dust beneath.
After sunrise the bees would come out and I discovered that by slapping my two palms together smartly I could kill a bee. My mother warned me to stop, telling me that bees made honey, that it was not good to kill things that made food, that I would eventually be stung. But I felt confident of outwitting any bee. One morning I slapped an enormous bee between my hands just as it had lit upon a flower and it stung me in the tender center of my left palm. I ran home screaming.
“Good enough for you,” my mother commented dryly.
I never crushed any more bees.
Aunt Maggie’s husband, Uncle Hoskins, owned a saloon that catered to the hundreds of Negroes who worked in the surrounding sawmills. Remembering the saloon of my Memphis days, I begged Uncle Hoskins to take me to see it and he promised; but my mother said no; she was afraid that I would grow up to be a drunkard if I went inside of a saloon again while still a child. Well, if I could not see the saloon, at least I could eat. And at mealtime Aunt Maggie’s table was so l
oaded with food that I could scarcely believe it was real. It took me some time to get used to the idea of there being enough to eat; I felt that if I ate enough there would not be anything left for another time. When I first sat down at Aunt Maggie’s table, I could not eat until I had asked:
“Can I eat all I want?”
“Eat as much as you like,” Uncle Hoskins said.
I did not believe him. I ate until my stomach hurt, but even then I did not want to get up from the table.
“Your eyes are bigger than your stomach,” my mother said.
“Let him eat all he wants to and get used to food,” Uncle Hoskins said.
When supper was over I saw that there were many biscuits piled high upon the bread platter, an astonishing and unbelievable sight to me. Though the biscuits were right before my eyes, and though there was more flour in the kitchen, I was apprehensive lest there be no bread for breakfast in the morning. I was afraid that somehow the biscuits might disappear during the night, while I was sleeping. I did not want to wake up in the morning, as I had so often in the past, feeling hungry and knowing that there was no food in the house. So, surreptitiously, I took some of the biscuits from the platter and slipped them into my pocket, not to eat, but to keep as a bulwark against any possible attack of hunger. Even after I had got used to seeing the table loaded with food at each meal, I still stole bread and put it into my pockets. In washing my clothes my mother found the gummy wads and scolded me to break me of the habit; I stopped hiding the bread in my pockets and hid it about the house, in corners, behind dressers. I did not break the habit of stealing and hoarding bread until my faith that food would be forthcoming at each meal had been somewhat established.
Uncle Hoskins had a horse and buggy and sometimes he used to take me with him to Helena, where he traded. One day when I was riding with him he said:
“Richard, would you like to see this horse drink water out of the middle of the river?”
“Yes,” I said, laughing. “But this horse can’t do that.”
“Yes, he can,” Uncle Hoskins said. “Just wait and see.”
He lashed the horse and headed the buggy straight for the Mississippi River.
“Where’re you going?” I asked, alarm mounting in me.
“We’re going to the middle of the river so the horse can drink,” he said.
He drove over the levee and down the long slope of cobblestones to the river’s edge and the horse plunged wildly in. I looked at the mile stretch of water that lay ahead and leaped up in terror.
“Naw!” I screamed.
“This horse has to drink,” Uncle Hoskins said grimly.
“The river’s deep!” I shouted.
“The horse can’t drink here,” Uncle Hoskins said, lashing the back of the struggling animal.
The buggy went farther. The horse slowed a little and tossed his head above the current. I grabbed the sides of the buggy, ready to jump, even though I could not swim.
“Sit down or you’ll fall out!” Uncle Hoskins shouted.
“Let me out!” I screamed.
The water now came up to the hubs of the wheels of the buggy. I tried to leap into the river and he caught hold of my leg. We were now surrounded by water.
“Let me out!” I continued to scream.
The buggy rolled on and the water rose higher. The horse wagged his head, arched his neck, flung his tail about, walled his eyes, and snorted. I gripped the sides of the buggy with all the strength I had, ready to wrench free and leap if the buggy slipped deeper into the river. Uncle Hoskins and I tussled.
“Whoa!” he yelled at last to the horse.
The horse stopped and neighed. The swirling yellow water was so close that I could have touched the surface of the river. Uncle Hoskins looked at me and laughed.
“Did you really think that I was going to drive this buggy into the middle of the river?” he asked.
I was too scared to answer; my muscles were so taut that they ached.
“It’s all right,” he said soothingly.
He turned the buggy around and started back toward the levee. I was still clutching the sides of the buggy so tightly that I could not turn them loose.
“We’re safe now,” he said.
The buggy rolled onto dry land and, as my fear ebbed, I felt that I was dropping from a great height. It seemed that I could smell a sharp, fresh odor. My forehead was damp and my heart thumped heavily.
“I want to get out,” I said.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
“I want to get out!”
“We’re back on land now, boy.”
“Naw! Stop! I want to get out!”
He did not stop the buggy; he did not even turn his head to look at me; he did not understand. I wrenched my leg free with a lunge and leaped headlong out of the buggy, landing in the dust of the road, unhurt. He stopped the buggy.
“Are you really that scared?” he asked softly.
I did not answer; I could not speak. My fear was gone now and he loomed before me like a stranger, like a man I had never seen before, a man with whom I could never share a moment of intimate living.
“Come on, Richard, and get back into the buggy,” he said. “I’ll take you home now.”
I shook my head and began to cry.
“Listen, son, don’t you trust me?” he asked. “I was born on that old river. I know that river. There’s stone and brick way down under that water. You could wade out for half a mile and it would not come over your head.”
His words meant nothing and I would not re-enter the buggy.
“I’d better take you home,” he said soberly.
I started down the dusty road. He got out of the buggy and walked beside me. He did not do his shopping that day and when he tried to explain to me what he had been trying to do in frightening me I would not listen or speak to him. I never trusted him after that. Whenever I saw his face the memory of my terror upon the river would come back, vivid and strong, and it stood as a barrier between us.
Each day Uncle Hoskins went to his saloon in the evening and did not return home until the early hours of the morning. Like my father, he slept in the daytime, but noise never seemed to bother Uncle Hoskins. My brother and I shouted and banged as much as we liked. Often I would creep into his room while he slept and stare at the big shining revolver that lay near his head, within quick reach of his hand. I asked Aunt Maggie why he kept the gun so close to him and she told me that men had threatened to kill him, white men…
One morning I awakened to learn that Uncle Hoskins had not come home from the saloon. Aunt Maggie fretted and worried. She wanted to visit the saloon and find out what had happened, but Uncle Hoskins had forbidden her to come to the place. The day wore on and dinnertime came.
“I’m going to find out if anything’s happened,” Aunt Maggie said.
“Maybe you oughtn’t,” my mother said. “Maybe it’s dangerous.”
The food was kept hot on the stove and Aunt Maggie stood on the front porch staring into the deepening dusk. Again she declared that she was going to the saloon, but my mother dissuaded her once more. It grew dark and still he had not come. Aunt Maggie was silent and restless.
“I hope to God the white people didn’t bother him,” she said.
Later she went into the bedroom and when she came out she whimpered:
“He didn’t take his gun. I wonder what could have happened?”
We ate in silence. An hour later there was the sound of heavy footsteps on the front porch and a loud knock came. Aunt Maggie ran to the door and flung it open. A tall black boy stood sweating, panting, and shaking his head. He pulled off his cap.
“Mr. Hoskins…he done been shot. Done been shot by a white man,” the boy gasped. “Mrs. Hoskins, he dead.”
Aunt Maggie screamed and rushed off the porch and down the dusty road into the night.
“Maggie!” my mother screamed.
“Don’t you-all go to that saloon,” the boy called.
/> “Maggie!” my mother called, running after Aunt Maggie.
“They’ll kill you if you go there!” the boy yelled. “White folks say they’ll kill all his kinfolks!”
My mother pulled Aunt Maggie back to the house. Fear drowned out grief and that night we packed clothes and dishes and loaded them into a farmer’s wagon. Before dawn we were rolling away, fleeing for our lives. I learned afterwards that Uncle Hoskins had been killed by whites who had long coveted his flourishing liquor business. He had been threatened with death and warned many times to leave, but he had wanted to hold on a while longer to amass more money. We got rooms in West Helena, and Aunt Maggie and my mother kept huddled in the house all day and night, afraid to be seen on the streets. Finally Aunt Maggie defied her fear and made frequent trips back to Elaine, but she went in secret and at night and would tell no one save my mother when she was going.
There was no funeral. There was no music. There was no period of mourning. There were no flowers. There were only silence, quiet weeping, whispers, and fear. I did not know when or where Uncle Hoskins was buried. Aunt Maggie was not even allowed to see his body nor was she able to claim any of his assets. Uncle Hoskins had simply been plucked from our midst and we, figuratively, had fallen on our faces to avoid looking into that white-hot face of terror that we knew loomed somewhere above us. This was as close as white terror had ever come to me and my mind reeled. Why had we not fought back, I asked my mother, and the fear that was in her made her slap me into silence.
Shocked, frightened, alone without their husbands or friends, my mother and Aunt Maggie lost faith in themselves and, after much debate and hesitation, they decided to return home to Granny and rest, think, map out new plans for living. I had grown used to moving suddenly and the prospects of another trip did not excite me. I had learned to leave old places without regret and to accept new ones for what they looked like. Though I was nearly nine years of age, I had not had a single, unbroken year of school, and I was not conscious of it. I could read and count and that was about as much as most of the people I met could do, grownups or children. Again our household was torn apart; belongings were sold, given away, or simply left behind, and we were off for another long train ride.