Just a short entry for now. I'll get to the rest later.
For Part One, please read
A World Of Laughter, A World Of Tears
Comments in the
Comments Thread, please.
They called us traitors.
Think about that for one moment:
they called
us traitors. The same men who had accredited my university only to withdraw all funding, the same men who were stripping us not only of our rights, but also of our dignity as human beings, the ones who considered themselves enlightened and humane for not walling us into ghettos behind barbed wire as their brothers and sisters were doing down south, though the walls that they built of laws and culture were just as vile as the chicken wire and concrete monstrosities that had arisen from Birmingham to the bloody streets of Tampa. It had been made clear that we no longer served any purpose in their society. It had been made more abundantly clear that our presence in the nation of our birth was no longer required. And yet when we took the mess of pottage offered to us for our birthright, when we reluctantly picked up stakes to move to the one nation that had promised to welcome us with open arms...they called us traitors.
Well, as the man said, if this be treason, then let us make the most of it, or so I thought at the time. It was a simple matter of liquidating my family's assets through a front corporation set up by sympathetic whites, then purchasing the tickets for passage on an ocean liner, huddling down in steerage with our like-skinned brothers and sisters so that our presence would not alarm those of lighter hue as they played up above. Purchasing a ticket on an aeroplane was, naturally, out of the question, as Negro terrorist threats had led the airline companies to "temporarily" suspend service to troublesome minorities.
We docked in West Germany, then made our way across a single border to an airport, where fifty of us were herded onto a single prop-driven aircraft that looked as if it had seen far too much service during the Great...during the Second World War. Hours on the craft, with my wife Amelia clutching my arm in fear, with our children alternately dozing and finding whatever mischief they could get into in our cramped quarters. Finally a landing on a snowy runway out in what looked to be the middle of nowhere. Dazed, hungry, and jetlagged, we all made our way down the ramp, following signs helpfully written in English. "Engineers"...that was mine. "Physicians" went off to the side, meaning that I was for now separated from my cousin and his family, who had joined us in our exile. Elsewhere I saw notices for other educated and skilled trades, all useful to a developing society.
We were herded into single-room shacks that I would have turned my nose up at only a few short years ago. Now the two beds, the kitchenette, and the shelves of books seemed the height of unimaginable luxury. However, we had no time to settle, as a thickly accented voice called through the door that the "meetink" would be starting soon.
Bundling up tightly, my family and I made our way down what served as a main street of our makeshift, prefabricated village to a sort of main hall. Soldiers stood at attention as we found our seats, clapping our hands against our arms to ward off the early-morning chill. A short, squat man, bundled in fur, ascended to the stage at the front of the auditorium. He stared at us all with what looked like the same sort of fear and disgust that we were all to familiar with back home.
This was a mistake, I thought.
It's going to be just as bad...no, worse, since I barely know a few words of the language, and won't know when trouble is going to hit. I've killed us all.
The man grunted, then spread his arms wide, opening his mouth in the ugliest, most beautiful sight that I've seen in my life.
"Comrades" he shouted in his thickly accented English. "Negro comrades. Welcome to the Soviet Union!"
-Dr. Calvin Hudson, quoted in
If I Forget Thee: Tales From The Second Diaspora
LATE NIGHT ACCIDENT ON BELTWAY: SENATOR IN CRITICAL CONDITION
WASHINGTON-New York Senator Jacob Javits was gravely injured in an automobile accident on the Washington, D.C. Beltway last night, in an incident allegedly caused by a hit-and-run driver. Witnesses state that the car driven by Senator Javits was forced off of the road by two Caucasian men driving a late-model black sedan.
-
Washington Post, 2/14/62
JAVITS FACING MONTHS OF REHABILITATION, RESIGNS SEAT "FOR GOOD OF NATION"
-AP Wire, 3/2/62
"Cohn speaking"
"Roy..."
"I'll take it."
-Alleged phone exchange between Governor Nelson Rockefeller and former White House Chief Of Staff Roy Cohn following Rockefeller's decision to appoint Cohn to the Senate seat vacated by Jacob Javits
FUGITIVE MALCOLM LITTLE, AKA MALCOLM X, SPOTTED BY CI IN MEXICO CITY. AWAIT INSTRUCTIONS. -H. HUNT
-Confidential
