The Heart of a Woman - Maya Angelou [70]
We looked out the windows. Thousands of people circled in the street and all of them were black. We paid and made our way to the crowd.
“Here she is. Here's one of them.”
“Sister, we told you we'd be here. Where you been?”
“How do we get inside? The police said …”
“They won't let us in.”
The shouts and questions were directed at me. I began a chant and used it moving through the anxious crowd: “I'll see about it. I'll take care of it. I'll take care of it. I'll see about it.” Not knowing whom to see, or really how I would take care of anything.
Rosa was waiting for me in front of the severely modern building by the large glass doors.
“Can you imagine this crowd? So many people. So many.” She was excited and her Caribbean was particularly noticeable. “And the guards have refused entrance.”
“Rosa, you said you'd get tickets from the African delegations.”
“I know, but only the Senegalese and my friend from Upper Volta have shown up.” She had to shout, because the crowd had begun to chant.
She leaned toward me, frowning, “I've only got seven tickets.” The people on the sidewalk shouted. “Freedom!” “Freedom!” “Lumumba! Lumumba!”
She said, “Little Carlos is here. The Cuban, you know. He took the tickets and went in with Abbey, Max, Amece and others. He'll bring the tickets back and take in six more. It's the only way.” Carlos Moore was an angry young man who moved through Harlem's political sky like a luminous meteor.
I looked over at the black throng. Many had never been in midtown Manhattan, thinking the blocks south of Harlem as dangerous as enemy territory and no-man's-land. On our casual encouragement, they had braved the perilous journey.
Carlos came trotting through the double doors. “Sister, you have arrived.” He grinned, his little chocolate face gleeful. “I am ready for the next group. Let's go! Now!”
I turned, and without thinking about it, plucked the first people in the crowd.
“Give me your placards. You're going in.” I held the ungainly weighted sticks and Carlos shouted to the chosen men and women. “Follow me, brothers and sisters. Stay close to me.” They disappeared into the dim foyer, and I redistributed the placards.
Rosa had walked away into the crowd. I took her example and moved through the people near the building.
“What's going on, sister?”
“The crackers don't want to let us in, huh?”
“We could break the motherfucker wide open.”
“Shit, all we got to do is die. And we gonna do that any goddam way.”
I stopped with that group. “Nothing could please the whites more than to have a reason to shoot down innocent black folks. Don't give them the pleasure.”
An old woman grabbed my sleeve. “God will bless you, honey. If you keep the children alive.”
She sounded wise and was about the age of my grandmother. “Yes, ma'am. Thank you.” I took her hand and pulled her away from the seething mass. She would go in with the next group. We walked to the steps together. I turned and raised my voice to explain what had obviously happened.
Informers had alerted the police that Harlem was coming to the U.N. So security had been increased. In order to get into the building we had to exercise restraint. The cops were nervous, so to prevent some trigger-happy idiot from shooting into the crowd, we had to remain cool.
The people assented with a grace I found assuring. The old woman and I reached the top steps as Carlos came through the doors. “Six more. And we move. Now!”
Carlos gathered the next five people along with the old lady and led them into the building.
For the next thirty minutes, as Carlos siphoned off groups of six and led them into the building, more cadres of police arrived to stand armed and confused on the sidewalks and across the street, while plain-clothes white men took photographs of the action.
A marcher grabbed my sleeve. “What you folks think you're doing? You told us to come down here and now you can't get us in.” The man was furious. He continued, “Yeah, that's black folks for you. Running around half shaved and grinning.”
I wanted to explain how some fink had