Invisible man - Ralph Ellison [147]
"I understand," he said.
"We will not countenance any aggressive violence. Understand? Nor attacks upon officials or others who do not attack us. We are against all forms of violence, do you understand?"
"Yes, Brother," I said.
"Very well, having made this clear I leave you now," he said. "See what you can accomplish. You'll have plenty support from other districts and all the guidance you need. Meanwhile, remember that we are all under discipline."
He left and we divided the labor. I suggested that each work in the area he knew best. Since there was no liaison between the Brotherhood and the community leaders I assigned myself the task of creating one. It was decided that our street meetings begin immediately and that Brother Tod Clifton was to return and go over the details with me.
While the discussion continued I studied their faces. They seemed absorbed with the cause and in complete agreement, blacks and whites. But when I tried to place them as to type I got nowhere. The big woman who looked like a southern "sudsbuster" was in charge of women's work, and spoke in abstract, ideological terms. The shy-looking man with the liver splotches on his neck spoke with a bold directness and eagerness for action. And this Brother Tod Clifton, the youth leader, looked somehow like a hipster, a zoot suiter, a sharpie -- except his head of Persian lamb's wool had never known a straightener. I could place none of them. They seemed familiar but were just as different as Brother Jack and the other whites were from all the white men I had known. They were all transformed, like familiar people seen in a dream. Well, I thought, I'm different too, and they'll see it when the talk is finished and the action begins. I'll just have to be careful not to antagonize anyone. As it is, someone might resent my being placed in charge.
But when Brother Tod Clifton came into my office to discuss the street meeting I saw no signs of resentment, but a complete absorption in the strategy of the meeting. With great care he went about instructing me how to deal with hecklers, on what to do if we were attacked, and upon how to recognize our own members from the rest of the crowd. For all his seeming zoot-suiter characteristics his speech was precise and I had no doubt that he knew his business.
"How do you think we'll do?" I said when he had finished.
"It'll go big, man," he said. "It'll be bigger than anything since Garvey."
"I wish I could be so sure," I said. "I never saw Garvey."
"I didn't either," he said, "but I understand that in Harlem he was very big."
"Well, we're not Garvey, and he didn't last."
"No, but he must have had something," he said with sudden passion. "He must have had something to move all those people! Our people are hell to move. He must have had plenty!"
I looked at him. His eyes were turned inward; then he smiled. "Don't worry," he said. "We have a scientific plan and you set them off. Things are so bad they'll listen, and when they listen they'll go along."
"I hope so," I said.
"They will. You haven't been around the movement as I have, for three years now, and I can feel the change. They're ready to move."
"I hope your feelings are right," I said.
"They're right, all right," he said. "All we have to do is gather them in."
THE evening was almost of a winter coldness, the corner well lighted and the all-Negro crowd large and tightly packed. Up on the ladder now I was surrounded by a group of Clifton's youth division, and I could see, beyond their backs with upturned collars, the faces of the doubtful, the curious and the convinced in the crowd. It was early and I threw my voice hard down against the traffic sounds, feeling the damp coldness of the air upon my cheeks and hands as my voice warmed with my emotion. I had just begun to feel the pulsing set up between myself and the people, hearing them answering in staccato applause and agreement when Tod Clifton caught my eye, pointing. And over the heads of the crowd and