The Heart of a Woman - Maya Angelou [41]
“It's not that I love Reverend King or all black people or even Harry Belafonte. I have a daughter. She's white and she's young now, but when she grows up and finds that most of the people in the world are black or brown or yellow, and have been oppressed for centuries by people who look like her, she's going to ask me what I did about it. I want to be able to say, ‘The best I could.’” I was still suspicious of most white liberals, but Shelley Winters sounded practical and I trusted her immediately. After all, she was a mother just like me, looking after her child.
At home Guy talked about the movement. I was pleased that he and Chuck had joined a youth group of the Society Against Nuclear Energy, and I gave him permission to participate in a march protesting nuclear war.
Avoiding the evening subway rush, I always stopped in a bar near the 125th Street stop of the A train. The place was rough because its bartender and regulars were living lives of little gentleness.
The ice would slide away in my glass while street-wise men and world-wise women marveled over the nation's excitement.
“You see them Negroes in North Carolina. They mean business.”
“Charlie better straighten up. We're tired of this shit.”
“Man, that Martin Luther King. He's not a man made of blood.”
“He's a fool. Love your enemies? Jesus Christ did that and you saw what happened to him.”
“Yeah, they lynched him.”
“Black people ought to be listening to Malcolm X. He's got it right. Crackers are blue-eyed devils.”
“I don't go for that hate talk. Negroes ain't got time to be hating anybody. We got to get together.”
I returned from lunch. In the outer office Millie Jordan was working over a table of papers. Hazel was busy on the telephone. I walked into my office and a man sitting at my desk, with his back turned, spun around, stood up and smiled. Martin Luther King said, “Good afternoon, Miss Angelou. You are right on time.”
The surprise was so total that it took me a moment to react to his outstretched hand.
I had worked two months for the SCLC, sent out tens of thousands of letters and invitations signed by Rev. King, made hundreds of statements in his name, but I had never seen him up close. He was shorter than I expected and so young. He had an easy friendliness, which was unsettling. Looking at him in my office, alone, was like seeing a lion sitting down at my dining-room table eating a plate of mustard greens.
“We're so grateful for the job you all are doing up here. It's a confirmation for us down on the firing line.”
I was finally able to say how glad I was to meet him.
“Come on, take your seat back and tell me about yourself.”
I settled gratefully into the chair and he sat on the arm of the old sofa across the room.
“Stanley says you're a Southern girl. Where are you from?” His voice had lost the church way of talking and he had become just a young man asking a question of a young woman. I looked at him and thought about the good-looking sexy school athlete, who was invariably the boyfriend of the high-yellow cheerleader.
I said, “Stamps, Arkansas. Twenty-five miles from Texarkana.”
He knew Texarkana and Pine Bluff, and, of course, Little Rock. He asked me the size and population of Stamps and if my people were farmers. I said no and started to explain about Mamma and my crippled uncle who raised me. As I talked he nodded as if he knew them personally. When I described the dirt roads and shanties and the little school-house on top of the hill, he smiled in recognition. When I mentioned my brother Bailey, he asked what he was doing now.
The question stopped me. He was friendly and understanding, but if I told him my brother was in prison, I couldn't be sure how long his understanding would last. I could lose my job. Even more important, I might lose his respect. Birds of a feather and all that, but I took a chance and told him Bailey was in Sing Sing.
He dropped