A Song Flung Up to Heaven - Maya Angelou [39]
She said, “Yes, I know.”
Twenty-seven
It was 1968, and the site was Carnegie Hall. Ossie Davis was to be master of ceremonies, Pete Seeger would sing, James Baldwin would spear up the audience and Martin Luther King, Jr., would conclude the evening. The concert was planned to recognize the hundredth anniversary of the birth of W. E. B. DuBois. The historian had died in Ghana five years earlier at the age of ninety-five.
Jimmy had taken a box for family and friends, so Sam Floyd and Dolly and I joined the Baldwins and the baritone Brock Peters and his wife, Deedee.
The occasion was serious, but the people were lighthearted as they glittered in the lobby of Carnegie Hall.
When Ossie Davis appeared onstage in a sleek tuxedo that fitted him everywhere, the audience was eager for him. Ossie glowed with grace and pleased the patrons with his easy wit. Next, Pete Seeger, the well-known folk-singer, arched his long, lean body around his guitar and sang:
“Where have all the flowers gone?
Long time passing...”
The crowd showed their appreciation by asking for an encore.
James Baldwin flew onto the stage, talking before he even reached the microphone. The audience expected his machine-gun ack-ack way of speaking. There were shouts of approval at the end of each sentence. He flailed at this country that he loved, explaining that it could do better and had better do better or he could prophesy with a sign, water now but fire next time. He spoke to and for the people as if they were his family and they loved him. His rashness tickled them and his eloquence stroked them.
Everyone in the hall waited out a long moment before Ossie reappeared. As if by an agreed-upon signal, we all held our breath.
Ossie’s voice was filled with joy and respect. He said simply, “Ladies and gentlemen, Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King.”
And he was there, smiling, nodding, waving a hand, an average-size, average-looking, average black man upon whom hung the dreams of millions.
He waited a while as the throng quieted, and then his voice filled the hall, filled our ears, filled our hearts.
When he began, his passion slowly wound his audience into a nearly unbearable tautness. A dramatic orator, King lured us back to the nineteenth century and into the mind of a young man who had been born black only a few years after the abolition of the slave trade, yet whose exquisite intelligence and courage allowed him to become the first African-American to earn a doctorate from Harvard University in 1895.
Martin King could have been describing a contemporary, or a relative, he spoke so knowingly of W. E. B. DuBois. We listeners bonded resolutely, because King showed us how we were all related to one another and that we shared the same demons and the same divines. He cemented the bonding by telling us that DuBois had included all of us, no matter our color, status or age, into his dream of a fair and workable future.
The melody in Martin King’s speech changed subtly. Those familiar with the oratorical style of black preachers knew he had began his finale.
Mother Baldwin stretched out her legs, feeling for her shoes. Brock got up, as did Jimmy Baldwin and his brother David. I looked down on the main floor and was reminded of a black Baptist church on a Sunday morning when the preacher has told the parishioners the old story in a new way. Each time I looked, more people had risen, so that by the time Reverend King said his last word, everyone was standing.
The spontaneous response was tumultuous and the mood even more joyous than it had been in the early evening. Martin Luther King, Jr., never disappointed. The people had enjoyed the grace of Ossie Davis, the music of Pete Seeger, the excitement of James Baldwin. Then Martin King had held high his rainbow of good wishes for all the people, everywhere.
The Baldwin party was walking down the corridor from the box when Reverend King appeared.
Everyone complimented him. Mother Baldwin received a hug and praise for her son.
“I know you’re proud of this fellow, aren