The Heart of a Woman - Maya Angelou [42]
“It wasn't a crime against a human being.” I had to ex plain. I loved my brother and although he was in jail, I wanted Martin Luther King to think he was an uncommon criminal. “He was a fence. Selling stolen goods. That's all.”
He looked up. “How old is he?”
“Thirty-three and very bright. Bailey is not a bad person. Really.”
“I understand. Disappointment drives our young men to some desperate lengths.” Sympathy and sadness kept his voice low. “That's why we must fight and win. We must save the Baileys of the world. And Maya, never stop loving him. Never give up on him. Never deny him. And remember, he is freer than those who hold him behind bars.”
Redemptive suffering had always been the part of Mar tin's argument which I found difficult to accept. I had seen distress fester souls and bend people's bodies out of shape, but I had yet to see anyone redeemed from pain, by pain.
There was a knock at the door and Stanley Levison entered.
“Good afternoon, Maya. Hello, Martin. We're about ready.”
Martin stood and the personal tenderness disappeared. He became the fighting preacher, armed and ready for the public fray.
He came over to my desk. “Please accept my thanks. And remember, we are not alone. There are a lot of good people in this nation. White people who love right and are willing to stand up and be counted.” His voice had changed back to the mellifluous Baptist cadence raised for the common good.
We shook hands and I wondered if his statement on the existence of good whites had been made for Stanley's benefit.
At the door, he turned. “But we cannot relax, because for every fair-minded white American, there is a Bull Connor waiting with his shotgun and attack dogs.”
I was sitting, mulling over the experience, when Hazel and Millie walked in smiling.
“Caught you that time, didn't we?”
I asked her if she had set up the surprise. She had not. She said when Martin came in he asked to meet me. He was told that I was due back from lunch and that I was fanatically punctual. He offered to play a joke by waiting alone in my office.
Millie chuckled. “He's got a sense of humor. You never hear about that, do you?”
Hazel said, “It makes him more human somehow. I like a serious man to be able to laugh. Rounds out the personality.”
Martin King had been a hero and a leader to me since the time when Godfrey and I heard him speak and had been carried to glory on his wings of hope. However, the personal sadness he showed when I spoke of my brother put my heart in his keeping forever, and made me thrust away the small constant worry which my mother had given me as a part of an early parting gift: Black folks can't change because white folks won't change.
During the next months, Mother's warning dwindled further from my thoughts. The spirit in Harlem was new and old and dynamic. Black children and white children thronged the streets, en route to protest marches or to liberation offices, where they did small but important chores. Black Nationalists spoke on street corners, demanding freedom now. Black Muslims charged the white community with genocide and insisted on immediate and total segregation from the murdering blue-eyed devils. Wells Restaurant and the Red Rooster served the best soul food and offered great music at evening sessions to parties of blacks and whites and visiting African diplomats. The Baby Grand, where Nipsy Russell had played for years, had closed, but the Palm Café was a haven for hard drinkers and serious players. The Amsterdam News was vigilant in its weekly attack against the “forces of evil,” and G. Norwood, one of its social and political columnists, kept the community informed on who was doing what, to whom and with how much success.
The national mood was one of action, and the older groups, such as the NAACP and the Urban League, were losing ground to progressive organizations. Young blacks had begun calling Roy Wilkins a sellout Uncle Tom and Whitney Young, a dangerous spy. Only Martin and Malcolm commanded respect, and they were not without detractors.
The