although my suitcase wasn't very heavy, I still had to carry it. But for the moment, I was free to see Harlem for myself.
I emerged from the subway at the corner of 125th Street and looked around. There were shops and businesses, stretching as far as I could see. With my bag in hand, I started to walk. Along both sides of the street, there were banks, restaurants, theaters, supermarkets, pawn shops, even a department store right in the middle of a Negro community. Eventually I reached Seventh
Avenue, which was lined with large apartment buildings, some as much as a block long and ten stories high, and big churches as well as little storefronts, flanked by funeral homes, nightclubs, doctors' offices, beauty parlors, bars, and liquor stores. The traffic light was green, and the people around me were crossing, so I crossed with them, looking around in amazement at the sights. Diagonally across the street was the Hotel Theresa where, I had heard, a lot of Negro entertainers liked to stay. Both streets seemed as broad as highways and clogged with traffic, taxis, delivery trucks, brand-new Cadillacs and Lincoln Continentals, even a few prewar Packards, Fords, Dodges, and old jalopies, all, it seemed, driven by Negroes who were honking their horns at once. The sidewalks were as wide as some streets at home with Negroes moving up and down them in both directions, more Negroes in one place than I had ever seen before.
"Whatcha looking for, son?" said a high-pitched voice I didn't recognize. I looked around and saw a short, light-skinned old man in a jacket and tie. He was wearing a little gray Persian lamb cap that resembled a fedora without a brim and tortoise-shell eyeglasses, which gave him a somewhat scholarly air.
"Nothing, really," I said. "I'm just looking."
"It's a sight to behold, ain't it?" said the old man, smiling. "All these African people in one place."
"Why do you call them African?" I said. It seemed obvious to me that the people on the street were American Negroes, as was I, and as he gave every appearance of being. He cocked his head to one side and squinted at me with one eye nearly closed.
"Boy, where you from?" he said, with an edge to his voice.
"I'm from Virginia."
"What you doin' up here?"
"I'm going to school."
"I thought so," said the old man, his voice now a mixture of self-satisfaction and contempt. "What school you going to?" he said, as though he knew the answer already.
"Draper." I was a little uneasy about telling him, but I decided to anyway.
"Where is
that?
" he shot back, apparently unfamiliar with the name but relishing the role of inquisitor.
"It's in Connecticut. It's a boarding school."
"You mean to tell me you going to a big-time school like that and you don't know you an African?" he said. "What they teachin' you up there anyway?" I was taken aback. Because he was an old man, I felt I should defer to his age, but I found his premise preposterous. There was no question that our ancestors, his and mine, were African slaves, but so much had happened in between to dilute our African ancestry, it seemed absurd to call either of us African. What purpose could it possibly serve, I thought, except to fuel the ravings of an eccentric? Indeed, as I looked at the old man, who was several shades lighter than I was, I could not help but think how ridiculous it was for
him
to call himself an African, since it was obvious that he had a good deal more white blood than black blood in his veins.
I looked around and I realized we were standing in front of a building that was unlike any other in the area. It was a small
brownstone apartment building, four stories high, located on the northeast side of Seventh Avenue, a few doors up from 125th Street. From the second floor down to the street, the building's exterior was covered with signs, the biggest of which identified it as the house of common sense and proper propaganda. Underneath, in much larger letters, was printed,
WORLD HISTORY
BOOK
Ashley Johnson
Denzil Meyrick
Elizabeth Lister
Krista Lakes
John Birmingham
Regina Jeffers
Andrew Towning
Scott La Counte
Jo Whittemore
Leighann Dobbs