point.”
“Any way you look at it, we’re in the middle,” concluded the elderly man. “It’s hard for me to understand how letting me have a decent job, so I can raise my children in a better home and give them a better education is going to help the enemies of my country. …”
Walking along Dryades, through the ghetto, I realized that every informed man with whom I had spoken, in the intimate freedom of the colored bond, had acknowledged a double problem for the Negro. First, the discrimination against him. Second, and almost more grievous, his discrimination against himself; his contempt for the blackness that he associates with his suffering; his willingness to sabotage his fellow Negroes because they are part of the blackness he has found so painful.
“Want something, mister?” a white merchant said as I passed. I glanced at him sitting in the doorway of his junky store. “Come on in,” he wheedled, sounding for the world as though he were pimping for the shoes he had on display.
I had not gone ten feet when I heard him solicit someone else in the same tone. “Want something, mister?”
“Yeah, but you ain’t my type,” the man behind me answered without humor.
On Chartres Street in the French Quarter, I walked toward Brennan’s, one of New Orleans’ famed restaurants. Forgetting myself for a moment, I stopped to study the menu that was elegantly exposed in a show window. I read, realizing that a few days earlier I could have gone in and ordered anything on the menu. But now, though I was the same person with the same appetite, the same appreciation and even the same wallet, no power on earth could get me inside this place for a meal. I recalled hearing some Negro say, “You can live here all your life, but you’ll never get inside one of the great restaurants except as a kitchen boy.” The Negro often dreams of things separated from him only by a door, knowing that he is forever cut off from experiencing them.
I read the menu carefully, forgetting that Negroes do not do such things. It is too poignant, like the little boy peering in the candy store window. It might affect the tourist.
I looked up to see the frowns of disapproval that can speak so plainly and so loudly without words. The Negro learns this silent language fluently. He knows by the white man’s look of disapproval and petulance that he is being told to get on his way, that he is “stepping out of line.”
It was a day of giving the gracious smile and receiving the gracious rebuff as I asked again and again about jobs.
Finally, I gave up and went to the shine stand. From there I set out to return at dusk to Dryades. But I had walked too far. My legs gave out. At Jackson Square, a public park, I found a long, curving bench and sat down to rest for a moment. The park appeared deserted. A movement through the bushes attracted my attention. I looked to see a middle-aged white man across the park slowly fold the newspaper he was reading, get to his feet and amble toward me. The fragrance of his pipe tobacco preceded him, reassuring me. Racists are not the pipe-smoking type, I thought to myself.
With perfect courtesy he said, “You’d better find yourselfsomeplace else to rest.”
I took it as a favor. He was warning me so I could get out before someone insulted me. “Thank you,” I said. “I didn’t know we weren’t allowed in here.”
Later, I told the story at the Y, and discovered that Negroes have the right to sit in Jackson Square. This individual simply did not want me there.
But at the time I did not know it. I left, sick with exhaustion, wondering where a Negro could sit to rest. It was walk constantly until you could catch a bus, but keep on the move unless you have business somewhere. If you stop to sit on the curb, a police car will pass and probably ask you what you’re doing. I have heard none of the Negroes speak of police harassment, but they have warned me that any time the police see a Negro idling,
“Any way you look at it, we’re in the middle,” concluded the elderly man. “It’s hard for me to understand how letting me have a decent job, so I can raise my children in a better home and give them a better education is going to help the enemies of my country. …”
Walking along Dryades, through the ghetto, I realized that every informed man with whom I had spoken, in the intimate freedom of the colored bond, had acknowledged a double problem for the Negro. First, the discrimination against him. Second, and almost more grievous, his discrimination against himself; his contempt for the blackness that he associates with his suffering; his willingness to sabotage his fellow Negroes because they are part of the blackness he has found so painful.
“Want something, mister?” a white merchant said as I passed. I glanced at him sitting in the doorway of his junky store. “Come on in,” he wheedled, sounding for the world as though he were pimping for the shoes he had on display.
I had not gone ten feet when I heard him solicit someone else in the same tone. “Want something, mister?”
“Yeah, but you ain’t my type,” the man behind me answered without humor.
On Chartres Street in the French Quarter, I walked toward Brennan’s, one of New Orleans’ famed restaurants. Forgetting myself for a moment, I stopped to study the menu that was elegantly exposed in a show window. I read, realizing that a few days earlier I could have gone in and ordered anything on the menu. But now, though I was the same person with the same appetite, the same appreciation and even the same wallet, no power on earth could get me inside this place for a meal. I recalled hearing some Negro say, “You can live here all your life, but you’ll never get inside one of the great restaurants except as a kitchen boy.” The Negro often dreams of things separated from him only by a door, knowing that he is forever cut off from experiencing them.
I read the menu carefully, forgetting that Negroes do not do such things. It is too poignant, like the little boy peering in the candy store window. It might affect the tourist.
I looked up to see the frowns of disapproval that can speak so plainly and so loudly without words. The Negro learns this silent language fluently. He knows by the white man’s look of disapproval and petulance that he is being told to get on his way, that he is “stepping out of line.”
It was a day of giving the gracious smile and receiving the gracious rebuff as I asked again and again about jobs.
Finally, I gave up and went to the shine stand. From there I set out to return at dusk to Dryades. But I had walked too far. My legs gave out. At Jackson Square, a public park, I found a long, curving bench and sat down to rest for a moment. The park appeared deserted. A movement through the bushes attracted my attention. I looked to see a middle-aged white man across the park slowly fold the newspaper he was reading, get to his feet and amble toward me. The fragrance of his pipe tobacco preceded him, reassuring me. Racists are not the pipe-smoking type, I thought to myself.
With perfect courtesy he said, “You’d better find yourselfsomeplace else to rest.”
I took it as a favor. He was warning me so I could get out before someone insulted me. “Thank you,” I said. “I didn’t know we weren’t allowed in here.”
Later, I told the story at the Y, and discovered that Negroes have the right to sit in Jackson Square. This individual simply did not want me there.
But at the time I did not know it. I left, sick with exhaustion, wondering where a Negro could sit to rest. It was walk constantly until you could catch a bus, but keep on the move unless you have business somewhere. If you stop to sit on the curb, a police car will pass and probably ask you what you’re doing. I have heard none of the Negroes speak of police harassment, but they have warned me that any time the police see a Negro idling,
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