The incredible news was now sweeping through City Hall. The Mayor’s number-three man came out and took a look and disappeared. The Mayor’s number-two man came out and took a look and disappeared. The Mayor’s press secretary came out and took a look . . . it was rumored that The Media were heading over . . . and the press secretary disappeared, and the kids dervished through it all, spinning their inspired typhoon up to the very architraves, and Bill Jackson orchestrated the madness in his whirling dashiki . . .
And in no time at all here was the Man himself, Mayor Joseph Alioto, advancing into their midst, attended by the number-four man, the number-three man, the number-two man, and the press secretary, and with his bald head gleaming as gloriously as Angelo Rossi’s or James Rolph’s, heading toward Jomo Yarumba with his broad smile beaming as if he had known the famous youth leader all his life, as if nothing in the world had been weighing more on his mind this morning than getting downstairs promptly to meet the inspiring Youth of the Future . . . And as the Mayor shook hands with Jomo Yarumba—there! it was done in a flash!—the Youth of the Future were now home safe . . .
Thereafter Bill Jackson could get down to the serious business, which was to use his official recognition to raise money for the sewing machines for his organization’s dashiki factory . . . black-designed, black-made, black-worn dashikis to be manufactured by the youth themselves . . . There were no two ways about it. Bill Jackson and his group were looking good. That particular scene gave a lot of people heart. It wasn’t long before an enterprising brother named Ronnie started his own group, The New Thang.
“The New Thang?” said Mayor Alioto, after they had put in their own unique and confounding appearance at City Hall.
“That’s right, The New Thang.”
The Mayor looked wigged out, as if the lights had gone out in his skull.
“Thang,” said Ronnie. “That’s Thing in African.”
“Oh,” said the Mayor. There wasn’t even the faintest shade of meaning in his voice.
Tom Wolfe, Radical Chic and Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers
(Series: # )
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