The Nigger Factory (2 page)

2

MJUMBE

Mjumbe
is the Swahili word meaning messenger. On the campus of Sutton University, Sutton, Virginia, it was also the identifying name for the Members of Justice United for Meaningful Black Education. MJUMBE.

The name was chosen by Ralph Baker, a six-foot two-hundred-pound football player who had organized the group and served as its spokesman. Baker sat in the third-floor meeting room of the Omega Psi Phi fraternity house waiting for the results of Ben King’s phone call to Earl Thomas. He was also reliving the day.

The day had really started for Baker at four o’clock that afternoon. He had left a note in the frat house lounge after breakfast notifying the four other MJUMBE chieftains of a four o’clock meeting. When he came into the lounge at four the others were waiting.

‘Brothers,’ he had said, ‘the time has come.’

‘Right on!’ Ben King had said, sitting up.

Baker placed a stack of one thousand mimeographed sheets on the battered card table. Each man took one.

‘We been layin’ an’ bullshittin’ too long,’ Baker commented as the men read the paper.

‘Fo’ hundred years,’ Speedy Cotton mumbled.

‘Thomas said when he was elected that by the enda September he wuz gonna have everything laid out like a train set . . . I don’ need ta tell nobody that iz October eighth an’ we ain’ heard from the nigger yet. He ain’ nowhere near organized an’ . . .’

‘He a damn Tom!’ King said. ‘I tol’ yawl he wuz a Tom!’

The members of MJUMBE all nodded. Baker glared down at them as though they were to blame. Ben King and Speedy
Cotton sat on the same side of the table as usual, a set of diagrammed football formations in front of them. Fred Jones, Jonesy, tapped a deck of cards on the side of the table. Abul Menka, the only MJUMBE member who was not a football player, sat in the corner of the room with his feet propped on the window ledge.

‘So na’,’ Baker went on, ‘it’s pretty clear t’me that if anything gon’ get done, we gon’ do it!’

‘Right on!’

‘I wanna know what yawl think ’bout the stuff,’ Baker said gesturing to the paper. ‘We gotta have it t’gether ‘cuz we gon’ be meetin’ wit’ ev’y man, woman, an’ chile on this campus in ’bout fifteen minnits.’

‘That wuz the meetin’ we heard bein’ announced?’ Speedy Cotton asked.

‘That wuz it!’

‘Then this las’ deman’ means Calhoun gon’ get these deman’s t’night?’

Baker smiled. ‘I think you catchin’ on.’ Baker, King, and Cotton shared a loud laugh.

‘What ’bout practice?’ Jonesy interrupted. ‘We s’pose t’be at practice at fo’ thutty.’

‘No practice today.’ King snorted. ‘We gon’ be bizzy.’ He laughed.

‘Why today?’ Jonesy asked. All four men knew that Jonesy was the worrier. He was never comfortable until he was on a football field where all he had to do was knock hell out of anything that moved.

Baker ran a big black hand over his bald-shaved head. ‘I figger we got a surprize fo’ Calhoun. He been in Norfolk for two days an’ he ain’ gittin’ back ’til ’bout six t’night. By then we be done had our meetin’, ate, come back an’ wrapped everything tight . . .’

‘What ’bout Thomas?’ King asked.

Baker frowned. ‘I’m gittin’ to that . . . if Thomas ain’ at the meetin’, an’ he may not be . . .’

‘Why wouldn’ he be there?’

‘Look. Lemme say the shit. All right? . . . Thomas ain’ got no classes on Wednesday so he don’ be here. All right? So if Thomas ain’ at the meetin’, after we come back an’ git our shit right, we gon’ call ’im an’ tell ’im to come over here an’ do somethin’ fo’ us.’

‘We gon’ blow his min’ this time,’ Cotton laughed.

‘Him an’ Head Nigger if shit work out.’ Baker laughed louder.

‘We gon’ have him take Head Nigger this list?’ King asked waving the demands.

‘I wanned to s’prize Thomas.’

‘It’ll s’prize a lotta folks,’ Cotton remarked.

King, Baker, and Cotton enjoyed another good laugh. Jonesy simply frowned and Abul Menka, as usual, did nothing.

‘What if Thomas don’ dig bein’ out the driver’s seat?’ Cotton asked, getting serious.

‘Either secon’ or nothin’,’ Baker said setting his jaw. ‘From now on we runnin’ shit!’

Baker continued to go over the afternoon in his mind. The four o’clock prompting for the MJUMBE team had set the stage for the four-thirty rally with the students. The five of MJUMBE had left the meeting room together. They had strode across the Sutton Oval that was set in the middle of the campus to the Student Union Building. They crushed the dead grass beneath their feet and quickly scaled the thirteen steps that led to a balcony overlooking the crowd of students that had already begun to gather. All five were dressed in black dashikis. All except Abul Menka were heavily muscled athletes who had shaved their heads when the coach complained about bushy heads not allowing helmets to fit tightly enough. All five were intent and stern-faced, silhouetted by a fading red disc that had darkened their bodies during an early-autumn heat wave. All bad. All Black.

The student response to Baker’s demands had been greater
than even he expected. He had thought there might be some question as to his authority. Nobody had even mentioned Earl Thomas. The students seemed very unconcerned as to who actually became the leader for the change the campus needed so badly. All they wanted was action.

Baker had been in his world. He bathed in the light of the handclapping, whistling, and shouted support heaped upon him and his comrades. It seemed that with the reading of each demand the support grew. He had said everything he could think of about Ogden Calhoun, the Head Nigger, and the members of the administration. When he finished, the five men marched through the crowd that still stood chattering like monkeys. All Baker could hear was:

‘Do it, Brother!’ and ‘Right on with power!’

There was little they could do now but wait. Wait and think. Baker knew that the support had been good, but he also knew that Ogden Calhoun had a reputation as a destroyer of student dissent. The Sutton president had been asked recently how Sutton had escaped the student disruptions that had rocked other Black campuses. Calhoun had replied to the interviewer: ‘I have a saying for students on my campus. It says: “My way or the highway!” In other words: “If we can’ git along,
you
goin’ home!”‘

So the lines were drawn. Calhoun had no room in his plans for student disruption. MJUMBE had no plans for going home.

Baker’s mind drifted. After the afternoon meeting his plan had started to become shaky. Just at the point when his name was on the lips of every Sutton student, he was knifing himself in the back by having Earl Thomas notified. He hated to think of turning the least credit over to a man he considered an enemy, but there was really no way out of it. While running for Student Government president he had preached Black collectivity; all political factions putting their heads together. And there was no denying that Earl Thomas was a smart politician. The
election had proven that. Then too, if Earl endorsed Baker, another bloc of students would fall easily into line.

In late August when Jonesy had arrived for summer football training Baker had started talk about MJUMBE. ‘If you ain’ out fo’ nuthin’ but revenge on Thomas fo’ beatin’ you,’ Jonesy had said, ‘forget it.’

‘I ain’ lookin’ fo’ nothin’ but progress,’ Baker had sworn. ‘I think MJUMBE can serve a two-way purpose. First, Thomas gon’ move if he know somebody lookin’ over his shoulder. Second, all the athletes would be down to back Thomas up if we wuz organized an’ spoke fo’ him.’

The possibility that MJUMBE might give Earl its backing was what had sold Jonesy. And now that the time had come Jonesy had not objected to any of Baker’s arguments about why MJUMBE should cast the first stone. But Baker knew well enough that Jonesy would pull out if he felt as though the group spokesman had lied about his intentions. Earl had been called.

That’s when things started fuckin’ up, Baker thought.

Earl’s line had been busy. Baker decided on a second’s notice that since Earl couldn’t be reached MJUMBE would deliver its own mail.

‘It’s six thutty,’ he said when King notified him of the busy line. ‘Calhoun was s’pose to git home ’bout six. He prob’bly got wind a the deman’s already. We can’ give ’im too much time to pull no fas’ stuff on us.’

They had started out. Five men in black dashikis crunching through the dead leaves across the quadrangle behind the fraternity house, across the football field to the big white house Sutton students called ‘the Plantation.’ Calhoun wasn’t home.

Calhoun’s absence implied several things to Baker. It indicated that Calhoun knew nothing of the demands. God knew he would have been setting up some counterattack had he heard. It also meant that MJUMBE might have
peaked
too soon.

As a football player Baker knew a lot about peaking. A team
is built up by a good coach to reach its emotional and competitive
peak
just before the charge down the shadowed runway; when the only sound to be heard is the thunderous clacking of forty pairs of cleats grating against the rough-grained concrete. The team tears down the ramp ready to tackle a moving van. Every inch of your body would be choking with the smell of forty men, practice jerseys, wintergreen, urine, and the sweaty jocks that lay in a corner hamper. Your heart strait-jacketed in your chest, climbing up bony columns of your throat, tightening you into a gigantic ball.

Baker had been a bad coach. He knew now that he should have called the Plantation before he and his cohorts started out. There had been an emotional letdown when there was no one at the Calhoun residence to accept their papers. They had stood on the threshold with hearts the size of a football, ready to slap all authoritative danger in the face. The silly old maid seemed to mock them, though she knew nothing. The air had been let out of them.

Now they sat. Thinking and waiting.

‘Thomas will be here in twenny minnits,’ King said barging through the partially open door.

‘Good,’ Baker said without conviction. He took a look at his watch. In twenty minutes it would be seven thirty. It was getting late.

The MJUMBE spokesman reread the sheet he had handwritten and practically memorized. He would take everyone through their parts again before Thomas arrived.

He looked at his comrades closely; looking for signs of panic or fear; looking for things that he might feel if they were indicated anywhere in the room.

Baker started with the man he knew best. He had grown up in nearby Shelton Township, Virginia, with Fred Jones. Jonesy was a plodder, a man of few words who checked things out very carefully before getting involved. Since their elementary school days Baker had always been the outspoken, active leader and Jonesy the quiet, steady henchman who did
his leg work and faithfully stuck by him. Everything about the smaller man signified concentration and determination. Baker knew that as long as he, Baker, kept his word there would be no problems.

Baker had met Speedy Cotton during their freshman year at Sutton. Speedy was a coal-black, West Virginia miner’s son who had been a second-string high school All-American at halfback. They had spent quite a few nights together going over football plays in Baker’s room when they started playing football together and had become even faster friends when they pledged for the fraternity. College was not really of primary interest to Cotton. He wanted to play football and perhaps go on to play professionally. Baker supposed that his political involvement was based solely on their friendship, but the wiry six-foot-two speedster wasn’t afraid of anything and Baker knew that he wouldn’t back down.

The MJUMBE spokesman shifted his attention to Ben King. When it came to courage there were few legends that he could recall that did Ben justice. During their junior year at halftime in the last game Ben had come limping off the field. Pain had been chiseled into the deep creases around the young giant’s mouth and eyes. Baker had watched King conscientiously avoid Coach Mallory and the trainer as he grimaced in the corner of the locker room during the intermission speech. Twice he asked King if someone shouldn’t be notified, but was put off with a frown. Only after the game did the huge tackle permit himself to collapse from the pain. X rays taken that night showed that King’s right ankle had been fractured, but somehow he had played on, had virtually held up the left side of the Sutton line, and insured the hard-fought victory.

The question in Baker’s mind was whether or not Ben could or would keep his mouth shut. The big tackle had a notoriously bad temper and had been expelled from the track team for tearing up the training room during a fit of rage. It had been all Baker could do to avoid a fight between King and Thomas when Thomas, speaking the day before the election,
said that ‘certain bullies would not be able to threaten anyone into voting against their wishes.’

Baker knew that there was also a great deal of hatred and animosity between King and the university president. Calhoun had been the one to put King on the carpet after the training-room explosion. Baker nodded thoughtfully, thinking that he would have to watch King as closely as he watched Thomas.

In the dim light of the meeting room a flare ignited in the darkest corner where Abul Menka lit still another cigarette and attracted Baker’s attention. If ever there was a man who puzzled the MJUMBE leader, Abul was that man.

When Baker arrived at the first pledgee meeting of Omega Psi Phi during the spring of his freshman year, the only man present he did not know was introduced by the Dean of Pledgees as Jonathan Wise. Baker had seen Jonathan Wise (who later began calling himself Abul Menka) driving around campus in a new Thunderbird with women hanging all over him, and he could not have imagined the man as fraternity material because the style-conscious New Yorker from the Bronx already had everything. And the perplexing thing was that during the two-month pledge period Abul had done nothing to indicate why he was there. Even during ‘Hell Week,’ the last week of the indoctrination schedule, when their line, ‘The Jive Five Plus One’ was not allowed to sleep, Abul never complained, never reacted even in private to the paddlings they were receiving or confided in the others during their restless nights in the ‘Dog House’ when they waited nervously for Big Brothers to come in and deal with them.