The Heart of a Woman - Maya Angelou [31]
Jack said, “You'll have to draft a release and you can type it on stencils. We've got a mimeograph machine in the office.”
Stanley continued, “We can provide paper and envelopes, but you'll have to address the envelopes by hand. Some of the money you've already made can be used for postage. We can't use the franking machine for your project, I'm sorry, but we'll be glad to help you.”
I had no idea of how to work a mimeograph machine, nor did I know what a stencil or franker was. The only thing I had understood, and which I knew I could do, was address envelopes by hand. Again, and as damn usual, I had opened my mouth a little too wide.
Art shook hands and told me to pick up the mailing list the next day at a midtown address.
Outside in the afternoon sunshine, Stanley and Jack thanked us all again, and said they'd see me the next day. They hailed a taxi.
Godfrey, Hugh and I went to a bar across the street. Hugh said, “You were right, girl. I was proud of you and you know I meant what I said. I'll be up there to help whenever I can.”
“Yeah.” Godfrey paid for the drinks. “But you got to understand. I'm not going to address no envelopes. If I did, my handwriting is so bad, the post office would send the mail to the Library of Congress for framing and posterity. I'll drive you anywhere you want to go. I'll help you stuff the envelopes and I'll come over to your house and have dinner.”
I told them I had never worked a mimeograph machine. Hugh asked if I could type a stencil. When I admitted that my two-finger typing had been limited to an occasional letter, they looked at me with wry alarm.
“You've got a hell of a lot of nerve. You volunteered to ‘take care of it’ and you don't know shit.” Hugh spoke more with admiration than anger.
“She knows she's got to do it. Come hell or the Great Wall of China. She's got to do it. I'm betting on you, kid.” Godfrey called out to the bartender, “Play it again, Sam. For my buddies and me.”
I wrote a simple announcement of Cabaret for Freedom listing the actors, the producers and the director. The mimeograph machine was much simpler than I expected. I took Guy to the office with me the first day, and he explained how the machine worked. The stencils were a little more complicated, but after a while, I realized that all I had to do was take my time, admittedly a lot of time, typing the script. Soon Godfrey was taking hundreds of envelopes to the morning and afternoon post.
The Village Gate filled to capacity to see our revue. The actors were happy and after they were paid, some took bills from their pockets, offering the money to the SCLC.
“Did a gig last week. King needs this five dollars more than I do.”
“I put my money where my mouth is. It's not much but …”
Time, opportunity and devotion were in joint. Black actors, bent under the burden of unemployment and a dreary image of cinematic and stage Uncle Tom characterizations, had the chance to refute the reflection and at the same time, work toward the end of discrimination.
After Cabaret for Freedom, they would all be employed by suddenly aware and respectful producers. After Martin Luther King won freedom for us all, they would be paid honorable salaries and would gain the media coverage that their talents deserved.
“Give me that check. I'm going to sign it over to the SCLC. I'm sticking this week.”
It was the awakening summer of 1960 and the entire country was in labor. Something wonderful was about to be born, and we were all going to be good parents to the welcome child. Its name was Freedom.
Then, too soon, summer and the revue closed. The performers went back to the elevator-operating or waiting-on-tables jobs they had interrupted. A few returned to unemployment or welfare lines. No one was hired as a leading actor in a major dramatic company nor as a supporting actor in a small ensemble, or even as a chorus member in an Off-Off-Broadway show. Godfrey was still driving his beat-up cab, Hugh continued to work split shifts in his family's liquor stores, and I was broke again. I had learned how to work office