The Heart of a Woman - Maya Angelou [25]
Strangers embraced tightly; some men and women wept openly, choking on sobs; others laughed at the waves of spirit and the delicious tide of emotion.
Godfrey and I walked from Harlem to the Hudson River in near-silence. From time to time, he would throw his arm around my shoulder, or I would take his hand and squeeze it. We were confirming. We sat on a bench overlooking the sluggish water.
“So what's next? What are we going to do about it?” Godfrey beat me to the question and I had no answer. “We got to do something. Reverend King needs money. You know damn well we're not going down to Hang 'em High and let some cracker sheriff sap up on our heads. And we're not going to no Southern jail; so what are we going to do?”
He was asking the wind, the dark river and himself. I answered, “We could get some actors and singers and dancers together.” Years before, Hollywood musicals had shown how young talented unknowns put on gloriously successful shows with no money, and although I was over thirty years old, I still believed in the youthful fantasy.
Godfrey said, “We can put on a show, maybe run it through the summer.” When he grinned at our future success, he showed that he was as youthful and fanciful as I.
Godfrey had a friend, Hugh Hurd, an actor who knew everybody and had fabulous organizational skills. He would talk to Hugh. There were a lot of singers from Porgy and Bess who hadn't worked since the opera folded, and I agreed to talk to them.
It occurred to us that we should get permission from the people at the SCLC in order to raise money in their name. Godfrey said since I was the Christian, I ought to be the one to make the contact.
Within one hour our plans were laid. I would write a show, Godfrey would do a funny skit, and he and I would produce it. Hugh Hurd, if he agreed, would direct it. We would pay the performers and ourselves union scale, and all other monies would go to the SCLC. We had no idea where the show would be held, who would perform, how much we would charge or even whether the religious organization would welcome our intentions. There was a lot to do and we had to get started.
The SCLC offices were on 125th Street and Eighth Avenue in the center of Harlem. I had telephoned and made an appointment to speak to Bayard Rustin. When I walked up the dusty stairs to the second floor, I rehearsed the speech I had tried out on John Killens. “Mr. Rustin, I want to say first that not only do I and my colleague, Godfrey Cambridge, appreciate and laud the activities of Reverend Martin Luther King and the SCLC, we admire your own work in the field of race relations and human rights.” John had told me that Bayard Rustin had led protest marches in the United States during the forties, worked to better the condition of the untouchables in India, and was a member of the War Resisters' League. “We want to show our appreciation and support by putting on a show here in New York. A show which will highlight the meaning of the struggle and, at the same time, raise money for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.” He couldn't possibly refuse the offer.
At the head of the stairs, a receptionist, sitting behind a warped wooden desk, told me that Mr. Rustin had been called away on an emergency mission, but Stanley Levison would see me. I was stopped. Could I still use my speech? Levison sounded Jewish, but then John Levy and Billy Eckstein were black men with Jewish names.
The woman spoke on the telephone and then pointed to a door. “Mr. Levison will see you now.”
He was short, stockily built, well dressed and white. I had come to talk to a black man about how I and Godfrey, also black, could help ourselves and other black people. What was there to say to a white man?
Stan Levison waited. His square face blank, his eyes direct, unapologetic.
I began. “I am a singer. That is, I was a singer, now I'm a writer. I want to be a writer …” My poise was gone and I hated myself. How could I dream of