Such Sweet Thunder (21 page)

He set about imagining her face as he had seen it in the light — caramel-colored, with three chins and big dark brown intelligent eyes.

He did not understand everything she said, but he sensed that she spoke with the tired but determined voice of one who longed for a rest from the heavy responsibilities of her position as superintendent of the Sunday school, but who could not rest simply because there was no one else with sufficient zeal and devotion to carry on the Lord’s work.

When she had finished she wearily rang the bell and the children shifted into little groups, and the teachers passed out the books and began to teach their classes.

He listened to Brother Jones with rapt attention. He held the book at arm’s length and squinted in order to read the text. His beautiful bald head picked up the light from the windows, and he immediately thought of Mr. Everett and Unc Dewey.

Brother Jones read the story of Jesus who was the son of God, and how when he was a little boy he answered all the questions of the wise men. “An’ then, children, He asked
them
questions — wiser questions — that they couldn’t answer!” He concluded with the observation that those who would go to heaven must have the innocence and faith of children.

“What’s in-a-cents?” Brother Jones gave a warm smile of approval.

“That’s right, son, ask questions.” He paused thoughtfully: “Inacence
is the ignorance of sin. Sin is what you do — even think! — that’s aginst the Lord’s teachin’s! When we are not obedient, don’t do what our mother and father tell us, or our teachers, or grown folks who’s tryin’ to help us for our own good, we grow up to be bad! Bad men an’ women who do bad things! O-bedience to the
word!
An’-an’
love
is the way of the Lord. Love’ll move mountains! Love thy neighbor as thyself! That’s what Jesus said. An’ if you love ’im, you’ll give ’im food when he’s hungry, an’ somethin’ to wear when he needs clothes for his back an’ shoes for his feet. Share the good things in life with others. Nothin’s no good to you, no how, unless you share it with somebody else!”

“What’s
share
mean?”

“To give to others some a what you got.”

The first bell rang and the collection was taken. He put his nickel in. Brother Jones passed out little cards with pictures of Jesus talking to the wise men, with writing at the bottom. A circle of light shone over Jesus’ head. Like in the picture over the bed.

The second bell rang and the scattered groups shifted into a solid mass occupying the center section of the hall and spilling over into the sections on either side.

Sister Jennings, the secretary, read the minutes, and Sister Mayfield, the treasurer, read the financial report and reported the attendance, and then reports of the various committee chairmen were made, Sister Williams for the Christmas Program Committee, Sister Kelly for the Young People’s Choir, Sister Watkins for the Baptist Young People’s Union, Brother Harkins for the Wednesday-night Bible Class, and Brother Bridges for the Delegation to the True Vine Baptist Church where the pastor was going to speak on the following Sunday.

After that Sister James said that they had a visitor who had something to say, a Mr. T. Wellington Harps, from the Local Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Mr. T. Wellington Harps rose to his feet and addressed the Sunday school assembly with a smooth easy eloquence. Like Mr. Bowles, but different. He looks like Dad — good-looking, too! — but he isn’t as good-looking as Dad! He tried to decide if Mr. Harps was as tall as Rutherford, and came to the conclusion that he was almost as tall. Gradually he noticed that Mr. Harps’s hair was not slicked down like Rutherford’s, but that it looked good just the same.

“We are not yet free citizens of America,” Mr. T. Wellington Harps was saying. “There is still much, much work to be done. We need
decent jobs, houses, and we need bright courageous young men and women to fight for them.”

He straightened up in his seat, hearing his mother’s eternal injunction: “Hold up your head, an’ push your shoulders back. Be a man!”

“Men with knowledge and patience to lead us. I don’t have to remind you that there was another lynching last month, for I am sure that you have read it in the
Voice
! Nor do we have to read the
Voice
or any other newspaper in order to know that we live every day with racial hatred.”

“A-men!” sighed Sister James.

“Ignorance! intolerance! gangsterism! disease! filth! We are no less innocent of these crimes against humanity than our white oppressors — don’t forget that!”

“Heah! heah!” cried Brother Jones.

“Heah! heah!” he whispered under his breath, looking around self-consciously in order to see if anyone had heard.

“And it’s not going to change overnight! The Lord might help us, but you and I know that the Lord helps those who help themselves!”

“Hee! hee! Lay it on ’um, brother,” cried Sister Watkins, smiling, the light of truth dancing in her eyes, causing the mountain of chocolate-colored flesh that engulfed her to quiver like a pudding.

“For every lynching that we investigate we need a battery of trained personnel to prepare the way. We need lawyers. Lawyers have to go to college — from four to seven years! They have to be paid. We need secretaries to write letters and compile necessary information. We need offices to house them in. We need the professional cooperation of numberless private citizens in all fields of knowledge. It takes money to fight in Washington for better and fairer laws! It takes your nickels and dimes, your pennies. And if we can’t have that, we need your goodwill in order to face the tremendous task that lies ahead of us.
You
— and
you
are the N.A.A.C.P. — you are Americans, just as surely as George Washington was.”

George Washington! he thought, suddenly gladdened by the feeling that he had heard that name before, that he had
seen
it under the pictures in the hall! The stern-looking man with the long white hair like a woman’s.

“Heah! heah!”

“A-men!”

“Praise Je-sus!”

“Now,” Mr. T. Wellington Harps continued, “when the Annual
Membership Drive begins next week I urge you to give. Make a pledge and give till it hurts. I know times are bad!”

“You kin say
that
agin!” cried Brother Wayne.

“But give
anyway!
Be hungry! Didn’t Jesus teach us by His own example upon this earth that
it is better to be hungry and free than to be a full-bellied slave!
”

The congregation rose to its feet and clapped its hands. Sister Watkins threw back her head, opened her mouth, and a beautiful sound filled the room:

“I, I shall not I shall not be moved! I, I shall not, I shall not be moved. Just like a tree! That’s planted by tha wa-ah-ter, I shall not be moved! Jesus is my savior!”

“I SHALL NOT BE MOVED!” the congregation answered, and suddenly the deep rich baritone of the reverend burst upon the air.

He thrilled to the vibrations of all the feet booming out the rhythm on the long narrow planks running through and beyond the wall behind the table where Sister James sat with a contemplative smile upon her face. He returned his gaze to Sister Watkins — She sings so pretty! — hardly able to keep his eyes off her quivering bosom. The reverend’s voice soared above the voices of the whole congregation, and a pang of shame singed his heart. He jerked his eyes away and looked at the floor, at
“the straight an’ narra way,”
at
“Jesus’ way”
and prayed to be better.

But then at the same time, when he looked at the turkey feather in Sister James’s hat, at the smiling faces and tapping feet and at the quivering bosom of Sister Watkins, he was possessed by a powerful, almost unrestrainable desire to laugh!

The reverend stood behind the table beside Sister James. He raised the pale pink palm of his right hand, and the singing stopped, as though his hand had turned the knob on the radio in the front room.

“Ain’ that a f-i-n-e young man?”

“A-MEN!”

“Yeah! Let’s e-v-e-r-y-b-o-d-y say A-men agin!”

“A-MEN!”

“Talk to ’im, Jesus!”

“Aunt Nancy …”

“A fine young man,” the reverend was saying, almost to himself. “Smart! Went to college. Eh, that’s what
I
like! An’ when he got his learnin’ he didn’t turn away from the Lord, neither! Or from his people! Naw! He-he re-in-forced his h-e-a-r-t with his
head!
”

“A-MEN!”

“I-I-I feel kinda
old
comin’ behind this, this fine young man. I-I started out so long ago! Things was different then. You, you oldtimers, you know what I mean!”

“Help ’im Lawd!”

“You remember how it was, the little country school at the end of a l-o-n-g country road. An’ then that longest road, the never-endin’ road — up and out of sin!”

“Jesus knows!”

“Jesus knows?”

“In
my
day, in my day a black man wanted to be a preacher — if the Lord called him — or a schoolteacher, maybe a lawyer or a doctor — an’ that was hard enough!”

“Yes! yes!”

“I’m tellin’ you, it was h-a-r-d! But taday,
taday
a black man wants to be —
insists
on bein’ the hardest thing of
all
, an American citizen! Ain’ that what he said?”

“Sure did, Lord!” exclaimed Sister Robinson.

“Talk to ’im, Jesus!”

“Just goes to show you how Jesus works in the hearts of men. Do you follow me? I want you to think with me for a minute. We — us! — who are standin’ upon this little piece of God-given earth
taday!
Who have walked through the valley of despair, have grown hoarse, tryin’ to separate the goats from the sheep, tryin’ to git to the top a the hill where the air is clean an’ bright with the radiance of God’s holy face! As we git close to the top, it’s almost, almost too much to bear! We stumble along on callused feet! Our bones ache! An’-an’ then one day comes along a young man an’ he says, ‘Come on, old man, let me help you up!’ Aaaaaa-Lawd! An’ you reach out an’ take his hand! Ah Jesus! It’s, it’s the clearheaded, clear-throated voice of Mr. Harps’s generation that’s speakin’ God’s words taday! An’ an’ …” He looked out into the room, as though he were trying to pick the words out of the air. Then gradually his gaze settled upon the faces of the children. His eyes shone brilliantly and he smiled.

“An’ when
I
look upon the faces of these fine young boys an’ girls, Mr. Harps seems like an old man! As
old as me!
’Cause L-A-W-D! If-if the world kin change so
quick!
In the twenty–thirty years between Mr. Harps an’ me Jesus! What must the world be like that God is showing to these big bright eyes lookin’ at me now.”

“A-MEN!”

Mr. T. Wellington Harps smiled at the reverend with admiration, and the congregation, noticing it, exclaimed with proud a-mens.

“He’s the best preacher in the whole world!”

The reverend scanned the faces of the children.

“What languages do you speak?” To the rest of the congregation: “Do you follow me? Do you understand what the Lord’s tellin’ me to tell you? They got words
that ain’ never been said yet!
They already
been
places, are gonna go places, that you an’ me an’ even Mr. Harps, heah, ain’ never gonna know! I say, the Lord works in mysterious ways! I-I — you know —”

“Help ’im, Lawd!…”

“Hee! hee!…

“You know — sometimes I’d like to make the Sund’y school fill up the whole church, the balcony an’ all — with bright eyes like these — an’ make the church the Sunday school — to- to teach the old to see with the eyes a the young — so that Je-sus! — help me, Lord! — could have a — a birthday party e-v-e-r-y Sund’y!…”

“Praise the Lord!…”

“Yeah!”

“Talk to ’im, Jesus!”

“Ha! ha! —” The reverend laughed, nervously, ecstatically, “aaaaaa — men! — mornin’ service just gonna have to be late taday!…”

“Preach till the Lord tell you to stop!” cried Aunt Nancy.

“Aw — He’s my everything.…” the reverend sang, and the congregation started to join in, but were immediately prevented from doing so by the sudden admonition from the rear of the room:

“Let ’im sing!”

They quieted down, while the reverend, oblivious to all save the inspiration that lit up his eyes, continued:

“He’s my ev-va-ry thing … Jee-suss! — is my everything. Heee’s the
Lily
of the val-lay! He’s the bright an’ Mornin’ Star! —Je — suss is my everything!…”

Unconsciously now, they all began to sing, all the voices blending into One Great Voice, rising and falling, chorus after chorus.…

I hope it never changes, he thought, gazing upon the reverend’s ecstatic face. The childish serenity in it reminded him of Rutherford, a skinny little boy with all those brothers and sisters. He felt grown-up. He felt old. He felt happy because he felt grown-up and old.
My name is Amerigo Jones and my mother’s name is
 … He grew sad because he only
felt
grown-up and old, but wasn’t, could not talk like it and act
like it, because he was only a little boy. Tears of rage and self-pity choked in his throat and bewildered his mind with a sense of injustice, of humiliation in being a child, only five years old!

So little when she’s so big. He wondered how old Miss Chapman was, regretting that by the time he got big enough she would be too old. Everybody in the w-h-o-l-e world will have gray hair like Old Lady! Anyway, different! He was lost in the swell of the Great Voice until finally the song came to an end, although he heard it just the same, even if he couldn’t actually hear anything but the reverend saying:

“Mr. Harps, I think that I kin speak for all a us at St. John’s an’ say that we’ll do our utmost when the N.A.A.C.P. drive starts next week!”

“A-MEN!”

He sat wearily through the first half of morning service. The seats got hard and the glare from the candelabra made him sleepy. His stomach growled. It was getting hotter by the minute. Finally he, Tommy, William, and Lemuel nudged each other and sneaked out.

“Dad home yet?” He ran into the kitchen where his mother stood in front of the stove, mashing the potatoes.