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THUNDER
GERERE














The
BLACK
CHALLENGE





The
BLACK
CHALLENGE
EDMUND O. AUSTIN
VANTAGE PRESS • NEW YORK
WASHINGTON • CHICAGO • HOLLYWOOD • TORONTO


X
;
A
ints
FIRST EDITION
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction
in whole or in part in any form
Copyright, 1958, by Edmund O. Austin
Published by Vantage Press, Inc.
120 West 31st Street, New York 1, N. Y.
Manufactured in the United States of America


(13.005503
TO MARCUS COX-A PROUD NEGRO.
I'll neverever I'en i die 1920's)
I hope that when I die and go to-
Wherever I am going
I'll never bend the knee too low to-
Whoever did the sowing.
I hope that when the Good Lord calls me,
And says: Who's a-going there?
I'll have the nerve to shout-whate'er befalls me
There's a Nigger coming here!





ODE TO THE N. A. A. C. P.
AND ITS FREEDOM FIGHTERS.
(The 1950's)
O Strivers in the Wilderness,
Erupting into bloom,
Upturning to the sun's caress
The face of him in gloom,
Expression of the black man's voice
To sing his lowly songs,
Crusaders thou, without a choice,
Go sing his age-old wrongs.
Sing to the world a carefree tune,
Nor note of gloom nor fear;
This to the world the heavenly boon
That only black men dare.
Out from the night, out from the dark
Swing low, swing high, swing long,
Voice of that night, voice of the lark,
Throating a golden song.
Nor power nor wealth may come to thee-
Thou hast no port, no goal;
For thou art e'en a ship at sea,
With freight-the Negro's soul.
And who may span that boundless sea,
Or limit its embrace?
Be this thy opportunity,
Voice of the Negro racel
E. O. A.





The
BLACK
CHALLENGE





CHAPTER I
“A CANAANI A LAND FLOWING WITH MILK AND HONEY!" -
This was Jeremiah King's summary opinion of Harlem
some few weeks after his arrival in New York as hé paused
at the corner of 135th Street and Seventh Avenue and
stood contemplating the hustle and bustle of black, brown
and light-skinned Negro life streaming around him.
"But with no strict Jehovah and his Ten Command-
ments to worry about and-no Moses," he added, as an
afterthought.
Thinking in Biblical terms came natural to Jeremiah
King. Back in his British West Indian island home, from
which he had so recently emigrated, his father had been
a minister of the gospel. From his very early beginnings
Jeremiah's youthful fancy had been fed on stories from the
Bible, particularly the Old Testament, reciting the progress
of the ancient Israelites in their toilsome journey from en-
slavement in Egypt towards Canaan, the Land of Promise.
During his contemplative pause on the Harlem sidewalk,
Jeremiah felt himself to be, indeed, akin and like unto
one of that imaginary band of invading Israelites standing
on the hill of Mizpah, and having before him the vision
of a Promised Land.
Jeremiah had used his short sojourn in Harlem to ad-
vantage. He had observed much. True, in his search for
knowledge and diversion in the pleasure palaces of this
"Nigger Heaven," as Harlem had quite recently been most
inelegantly termed by a well-known, but ribald, novelist,
on the hill of Mary band of invadir skin and like unt


10
The Black Challenge
Jeremiah had found the July weather to be much more un-
comfortably hot and disagreeable than even the heat of his
tropical island home, yet he contrived not to perspire too
profusely and endeavored at all times to maintain what he
considered to be one of the hallmarks of a true gentleman
-a poised and dignified leisureliness. All in all, it seemed
obvious to Jeremiah that Harlem was a most liberal place.
In any undertaking conducted there, the sky seemed the
limit.
Officers of the law Jeremiah had seen, both white and
black, but their purpose in the scheme of things seemed
rather to preserve the hilarity than to disturb it. In the
matter of business ventures, Harlem appeared a young, tod-
dling community, with the race to the dexterous of hand and
the nimble of brain-a totally irresponsible place made
as much to order for him as he had ever dreamed any spot
in the world could be. A desire to weave himself into the
fibre and texture of this place, to be a part of its sprawling
adventure, surged through Jeremiah; and he came to the
conclusion that he was going to enjoy a very satisfactory
existence, indeed, in Harlem.
As Jeremiah continued to pause there on the sidewalk,
he heard in the distance the deep, regular boom of a drum
come up the avenue. Suddenly, the air was cracked by the
shrill blare of a brass band. Up the avenue the sounds
came, nearer and nearer, the gladness of anticipation ripen-
ing into the fervor of consummation. People here and there
stopped in their tracks on the sidewalk; and advance agents
-children rushing along and weaving their way in and
out of those who had stopped to watch-heralded the ap-
proach of what it turned out to be, a mammoth parade.
At the head of the procession, a short, squatty, black
Negro bestrode an enormous white horse. The horse, a
chosen performer for the occasion, stepped proudly and
prancingly along like the charger of some king. Even from
the distance Jeremiah caught the flash of gleaming white teeth
as the rider grinned and bowed to the sidewalk throng.


The Black Challenge
11
His broad shoulders and thick, compressed body were en-
cased in a close-fitting purple military suit. Across his broad
chest was spread a golden sash bearing conspicuously in
black letters the insignia: "HIGH COMMANDER.”
Following the High Commander and upborne by two
stalwart aides-both black as their leader and similarly
dressed in purple uniforms-a large crimson banner flaunted
its brazen message aloft: “BACK TO AFRICAI” and below,
in smaller letters: "Return to the home of your African an-
cestors.”
The parade itself was so flamboyant that neither its plan,
its scope, nor its purpose impressed themselves on Jeremiah's
immediate comprehension. Of parades celebrating some sig-
nificant thing in the life of the community back in his West
Indian island home, Jeremiah had seen quite a few. He had
often enjoyed the antics of the gay masqueraders during
Mardi Gras carnivals. He had witnessed the battalions of
the British Army put through their paces. He had mingled
with the East Indian population of San Fernando during
the periodic gaieties of their Hosein festivals. All these
had had some accepted place in the life and habits of his
island community. But here was something which, in pur-
pose and in spirit, seemed entirely outside of, and foreign
to, the rushing life of Harlem-a “Back-to-Africa" Move-
ment.
Harlem, with its streets and avenues, their odors, their
crowds, their color, was truly intriguing to Jeremiah. Back to
the African jungles-habitat of lions and tigers and all sorts
of strange, wild animals, among them savage human beings?
Interesting enough, perhaps, but full of danger and uncer-
tainty. One would always have to be on the alert while
satisfying curiosity. But here in Harlem, and on its high-
ways and byways, were stray and idle groups of gossiping
men and women holding up lamp posts and cluttering street
corners; ribald laughter; quick banter and turns of speech;
deep, rumbling voices that sounded like drumbeats and
were yet mellow as flutes; and, underneath it all, a gay ir-


12
The Black Challenge
responsibility which seemed not to give a snap of the fingers
either for the Here or the Hereafter-this, indeed, was fit
hunting ground for an adventurous soul,
“Who in hell wants to go to Africa?” he muttered. To
whom was this invitation addressed, anyhow? Surely not to
him and all the brown and yellow and light-skinned people
collected there. Was not England, the birthplace of his
Caucasian mother, as much his home as Africa, the land
of his paternal ancestors? If so, how divide himself? Which
part of him belonged to Africa and which to somewhere
else? What was the matter with New York, with Harlem?
Wasn't this place good enough? And who was this bold
proposer-or these proposers-who had the folly or the te-
merity to preach the rank heresy emblazoned on these ban-
ners flaunted aloft?
The leader of the procession had reached 135th Street,
He swept his purple-and-gold oștrich-plumed cockade from
his head with a grandiose gesture and waved to the crowds.
His thick, stubby hair sprang in remonstrating kinks from
the top of his head like the erected quills of an agitated
porcupine. With the white of his eyes and gleaming teeth
set as focusing points in his black, perspiring face, he seemed
for all the world like some naughty ape which, in the glee
of newly found freedom, was intent on some wanton act.
An instant more, and the prancing white horse and its
rider came abreast and in full view of Jeremiah. Jeremiah
stared into that black face with unbelieving eyes. Excited
recognition came to him.
By the great jumping Jehoshaphat. That was Marcus-
Marcus Cox, his erstwhile man-of-all-work back home in
the West Indies some half-score or so years ago.
For a flashing moment those years rolled back their veil
and a clear picture came to Jeremiah out of the past. A long
dusty road lay ahead. Jeremiah himself bestrode an old,
rakish, raw-boned horse, riding to his law office in San
Fernando. Sometimes by his side, sometimes holding on to
the old horse's tail, at other times lagging still farther behind,


The Black Challenge
13
a short, squat young Negro was jogging along, often to
take the horse back to its home at their journey's end, at
other times remaining in town to perform odd jobs around
Jeremiah's office. And now, here was that young man, al-
ways voluble and precocious, bowing and grinning before
him in the flesh!
"I'll be damned! I'll be doubly damned!” mused Jere-
miah. “This is amusing. Marcus, the leader of a parade!
A movement! A High Commander, if you please, whatever
that meant, but obviously a person of some consequence
in Harlem, judging from the general excitement and the
plaudits of the crowd as he rode by on his white horse.”
“He sure is a great Niggah, that Cox! Wonder how he
gets away with it? He sure has got those monkeys by their
tails all right, all right!” remarked an approving bystander
next to Jeremiah.
"Monkeys, nutten!" ejaculated a scowling black giant
a few paces away. "He's you damned 'Merican Niggers'
leader, too, he is. Dat's de truf, and don't ye ferget it
neder!"
Jeremiah recognized in this speaker's brogue the West
Indian tongue, whose owner had been referred to as one
of the "monkeys" whom Marçus had by the tail.
His curiosity now aroused, Jeremiah followed the pro-
cession and kept pace with the prancing white horse as the
parade swept into a side street and came to a halt before
a low, rambling barnlike building covering almost half the
block.
The High Commander was about to dismount. Jere-
miah moved over from the sidewalk to greet his erstwhile
employee, but a half-dozen or so of the marchers automati-
cally formed a bodyguard around their High Commander
and Jeremiah was unceremoniously pushed backward to the
curb. Then, like a battalion of well-drilled troops, the men
and women paraders formed themselves into columns and
filed into the building.
Twilight had by now descended. An accommodating arc-


14
The Black Challenge
light near the entrance of the building burst into glow.
Simultaneously, a flare of light shot up from inside the
building. Jeremiah, following the long line of single-file
marchers, attempted to enter, but an undersized, bullet-
headed Negro barred the way. He looked impudently at
Jeremiah.
"Is yo' a member? . . . No? Den what yo’ wants? Dis
meetin's private; nutten but U. N. M. mens and womens
here,” he growled.
"What does that mean-U. N. M.?" inquired Jeremiah
in a tone and manner intended as ingratiating.
"Wah yo' mean wot dat means? Mon, git away from here
and doan be a dawmned jock-ass,” and the speaker prepared
to add force to his scowl.
Exasperated, but preserving his temper, Jeremiah pre-
sented one of his cards: “Jeremiah King, Barrister-at-Law,
Kingswood Terrace, San Fernando, B. W. I.," it read. Jere-
miah added: “I'm a very good friend of Marcus-I mean
Mr. Cox," he hurriedly corrected. “I come from his home
and would like to see him.”
The doorkeeper hesitated an instant. The card was im-
pressive.
“I'm sure Mr. Cox will be glad to see me," Jeremiah
urged, noting the hesitation.
Another purple-clad and bemedaled Negro came up. The
doorkeeper saluted the newcomer and explained: “Leftenant,
dis mon say he's a fren' of de High Commander. He say
he want to come in."
The newcomer beetled his brows, deftly switched a hang-
ing monocle to his eye, and slowly scanned the card.
“Might I axe you, Mr. Couns’lor, what yo' bizness wid
de President General High Commander might appertain to?
Dis is a gala night; plenty of 'portant bizness and ..."
then, suddenly, as the walker of a tightrope might flop to the
floor after a gallant effort to maintain his balance, he
turned about face: “Shucks! Leh'm in, sergeant. He from
down home, anyhow."


The Black Challenge
15
As Jeremiah was about to enter, a slow, surging glow
of neon lights across the front of the building broke upon
his vision. “Liberty Hall,” those lights announced.
Jeremiah entered, found a seat at the back of Liberty
Hall, and sat down.


CHAPTER II
THE DISPOSITION to explore new horizons when the old ones
become stale and humdrum was undoubtedly the cause
of Jeremiah's departure from his well-established West In-
dian haunts and his presence in Liberty Hall on this par-
ticular hot July night. Throughout all his thirty-six years,
Jeremiah had found the world, and life in it, to be very
satisfying-in fact, a delightful thing. He was thankful to
the Fates which had ordained him to be one of that in-
numerable caravan to adventure on the shores of this earthly
sea; but that had come about, he told himself, because he
had contrived to make it so. “The eye sees in it what it has
in it to see; and the world to a dog and to his master are
quite two different universes,” Emerson very cogently said
in one of his essays. Shakespeare's dictum, too, “First to
thine own self be true," was to Jeremiah an immortal truism;
and so, from his early years of comprehension to his ma-
turity, Jeremiah had developed the knack of not taking life
too seriously.
Thus it was that things in the world which inhibited
and restrained most other people—such as duty and obliga-
tion and the many passions born of those mental goblins-
had done very little either to incite his activities or to agitate
his conscience.
Not that Jeremiah King was devoid of these promptings;
but whenever the occasion arose to bestir himself or to re-
frain from so doing, it was the essence of his being to con-
sider first his own comfort, his individual well-being and,
16


The Black Challenge
17
above everything else, the preservation of his peace of mind.
Many years before, Jeremiah had drifted into marriage.
So successfully had he filled the role of domesticated man
that, in proper and due season, he had become the father
of a son. Little Michael, his son, had died when he was only
four years old. A period of frustration overtook both Jere-
miah and his wife Dora after their little boy's death. What
change Michael's survival might have made in the current
of his life and in his outlook thereon, Jeremiah would never
know. In the solitude of lonesome walks and strolls he had
pondered deeply upon these things but had found no an-
swer. Nevertheless, as time went by and his inward vision of
the prattling, kicking youngster with sparkling black eyes
became fainter and fainter, Michael's early release from life
seemed in some vague, dim way a matter of relief to his
father. Dora was always nagging, and Jeremiah dreaded to
think what greater conflicts might have arisen over the rear-
ing and training of a son.
Jeremiah had not married his wife Dora from any
urgent heart-promptings. In affairs of the heart, ever since.
the time, many years before, when as a law student in Lon-
don he had fallen desperately in love with an English girl
and that affair had come to naught through racial barriers,
Jeremiah had found it expedient to be very wary of romance.
The time came, however, when, as a matter of business and
professional diplomacy, it seemed desirable to have a wife
and a housekeeper. There had not appeared to him any par-
ticular reason why he should not have chosen Dora; and
as she herself was anxious to marry him, and, in addition,
as her father was a man of some substance, Jeremiah had
obliged.
But there was one element in this which Jeremiah had
failed to take into account: that was Dora's striving and
tempestuous nature. No sooner had they married than
Dora deemed it necessary to act as a spur and goad to him,
relentlessly pursuing him, first with urgings, next with
pleadings, and, finally, with naggings-all to the end that


18
The Black Challenge
Jeremiah make a better and better place in the sun for
themselves and, when little Michael came along, for him
also.
Naturally, Dora was ambitious to acquire some measure
of prosperity. She wanted a comfortable home and such
other appurtenances as would make her relatives and nu-
merous acquaintances, especially her erstwhile female com-
petitors, feel that she had chosen well in her matrimonial
venture. And so, when Jeremiah had deliberately elected, as
Dora saw it, to travel the path of ease and comfort and
had refused offers of several prosecutions on behalf of the
government, which might have meant almost immediate pre-
ferment and financial benefit, Dora's urgings and pleadings
turned to most bitter naggings.
Jeremiah had not taken kindly to Dora's promptings;
and when the naggings came, with their harsh reproaches, he
had found it expedient to fasten about himself the armor
of indifference. Jeremiah had his own views about both his
professional and his social activities. He considered himself
sole captain of their domestic ship, with no aides, advisers,
or accomplices. "Accomplices!” This word expressed his idea
to a nicety, suggesting to his legal mind one who aided and
abetted another for sinister purposes. To Jeremiah's mind,
any help tendered by his wife in his activities would always
be . . . sinister.
Jeremiah was not given to morbid introspection. He felt
one fact intuitively and instinctively-life was a personal
and present affair. Yesterday was an orange, juice-sucked,
to be tossed over a fence into the limbo of forgetfulness.
Tomorrow was a bare anticipation, void and formless, and,
whatever it might bring to him in its uncertain and specu-
lative course was certainly of no concern to anyone, espe-
cially to Dora, on whom he felt he had conferred her chief
honor, that of being known as “Mrs. Jeremiah King."
Jeremiah, however, never loved a quarrel; and so, partly
by a policy of evasion and mainly by an impenetrable non-
chalance, he had contrived to pursue his own devices through


The Black Challenge
19
the many years of their married life, especially after his
little son's death.
Money was often the cause of their conflicts. Dora had a
comfortable allowance from her father, but she persistently
made it clear to Jeremiah that, when it came to his finances,
she, Dora King, his wife, was first and foremost in con-
sideration and importance. What was left, after her wants
and whims had been satisfied, he could spend as he liked.
Now, money to Jeremiah had always been a most per-
sonal affair. Money, in bills or in coins jangling in his
pockets, was synonomous with individual liberty, freedom
to secure the things he desired and to do the things he
wanted. It meant boxes of the best cigars, cocktails at his
club, all the clothes he wanted, and, whenever the urge
seized him to be generous, to do so with that competence
and complacency which was of the essence of his ease-loving
nature.
Jeremiah never seemed able to accumulate sufficient
money. Indeed, after marrying Dora, it had been a most
difficult matter for him to realize that his wife constituted
a financial burden to him; and all through the years, as
Dora's demands on Jeremiah's purse-strings continued, they
appealed to Jeremiah as so many blows struck at his per-
sonal liberty.
A vague longing to wander, to loosen himself from a
tie which had come to constrict his personal whims, gradu-
ally took shape and substance within his being. Jeremiah
felt that he had reached the point where separation, total
and absolute, from his domestic state seemed the only solu-
tion to a most disconcerting problem.
Instinctively, his eyes and thoughts turned towards the
United States, Land of Promise to disquieted millions
throughout the world. Faint whisperings of New York and
of Harlem where, as rumored, hundreds of thousands of
people of color had a city of their own, came to him. At
thirty-six years of age, was he too old to pull up stakes and
start anew? Surely not! His professional and other intellectual


20
The Black Challenge
attainments should count for something; and, while finding
a place for himself, he surely would not starve. He had
put by a competence against any such calamity. Dora, during
one of her periodical huffs, had gone off on a visit to her
father in one of the remote parts of the island. What was
there, then, to prevent him from taking advantage of this
opportune time to avoid the bitterness of personal crimina-
tions and recriminations by removing himself quietly and
unobtrusively? Nothing, absolutely nothing! So it seemed
to Jeremiah.
Thus it came about that Jeremiah took an early train
on the Monday morning following his wife's visit to her
parents and arrived in due season at the capital port of
the island, from whence he embarked for New York.
He left behind him a deed in Dora's name to their
house, and a letter in which he told her that all the money
in bank in their joint account was now hers, as well as
everything else in and about their home, even his personal
accumulations, with which he did not want to burden him-
self. “And now, my beloved wife,” he wound up his note
(this was his last shaft at her, for even the Dove of Peace,
much less that of Love, had long since departed from their
household), "you may consider yourself 'free as a bird
of the air.' Get a divorce; do anything that you like. I shall
not return." :
This was his parting message; and as the train rumbled
on towards its destination, Jeremiah told himself that, in
all the things he had done, he had been exceedingly gen-
erous; and, in fact, he had done something which not many
men could have done.
Jeremiah boarded his ship and stood on its stern as she
gradually nosed her way out of the harbor into open water
late that Monday night. Behind him the lights of the city
sprang up. He watched them until they became mere twink-
ling specks in the distance. From beneath the horizon on his
left, a moon, a more than full moon, arose gently and shyly,


The Black Challenge
21
as a coy, dainty person might emerge from shadow into
light. Impulsively, Jeremiah's hands moved out and up-
wards as in a last farewell over the white churning waters
in the ship's wake, and he breathed deeply within himself:
“God! It's good to be freel"


The Black Challenge
23
nessed earlier that afternoon. It was as if he were attending
a theatrical performance and were waiting for the curtain
to rise on some farce.
“Liberty Hall-and a Back-to-Africa movement!" What
connection did the one have with the other in this free
and democratic America, where all men were created equal,
though not born equall The distinction between the two
concepts seemed a nice one to Jeremiah. A man might be
born a cripple, a hunchback, and, therefore, handicapped
and unequal; but he was created equal none the less to one
born with a perfect body and supreme intelligence.
“Eh, what?" he murmured to himself in true English
style and smiled as he continued to toy with the paradox.
In a moment, however, as he sat there in Liberty Hall
pondering, Jeremiah was jolted back to the actuality of
things by the sharp blare of a bugle. Advancing from the
wings of a stage at the far end of the room, a midget of
a black boy appeared. Head thrown back, the lad held a
bugle to his lips. With his unoccupied hand, the small
bugler tried to control the swaying of a long, unwieldy
sword which hung from his side and clanked ridiculously
on the floor while he essayed the business of bugling.
As the bugle rang out, the audience rose as with one
accord. Jeremiah, too, found himself on his feet. From either
side of the stage there filed out two parallel columns of
soldierly-looking Negroes, chosen especially, it seemed, for
their imposing height and stature. They halted at either
side of the rostrum with spears held aloft.
• A second bugle note rang out. The spears were lowered
to meet on either side, and through the center of this lane
strode Marcus Cox, the High Commander. He was dressed
in the same purple uniform as the one he had worn earlier
that evening, but now on his head there reposed a skullcap
of gorgeous gold, and, from his shoulders, a leopard cloak
lined with deep scarlet hung loosely and swept the floor.
The night was hot, the room was close with the odor of
perspiring bodies, but the High Commander advanced cool
o, found 1C audieness of buot;


24
The Black Challenge
and supreme. He approached the front of the platform with
a strut and swagger that reminded Jeremiah of one of his
gamecocks back in San Fernando. Pausing an instant, Mar.
cus made a profound bow, then slowly settled his squat
body into the seat of a black thronelike chair which was the
sole piece of furniture on the dais. Instantly, as the High
Commander seated himself, a black curtain bespangled with
golden stars rustled across the platform behind him, leaving
Marcus as the sole occupant there.
Looking around him, Jeremiah noted that the men and
women in that crowded audience were predominantly black
or of dark complexion.
“No doubt about it, this is an African movement!"
he chuckled to himself.
But Marcus, the High Commander, was about to do some-
thing. Slowly spreading his cloak over the back of the
chair so that the leopard background was revealed to the
audience, and carefully permitting its feline head to pro-
trude from the folds, Marcus Cox took a step nearer the
edge of the platform and, with an outward movement of his
arms like the first gesture of a swimming exercise, began
to speak:
“Mens and womens of this Universal Negro Movement
of the United States and of the world! Soldiers of this Black
Movement that's agoing to revamp the earth, I salutes you!
And know by these presents, you black sons of Ham-for
Ham was the first black man in the world according to Holy
Scripture-an' I don't means any hog ham eder. ..."
There was a rumble of laughter at this sally. Feet were
scraped and shuffled around the hall approvingly. Marcus
was quickly getting into his stride.
“Know by these resplendent presents that we held forth
today an example of our intentions for our posterities to
shine by and ambulate."
Jeremiah began to smile. Marcus was indeed spreading
himself.
"As the Shakesperians has said,” Marcus continued, "you


The Black Challenge
25
eder wants to be or yo' don't wants to be. Now, which is it-
you black brothers of this movement? And when I says
'black' I means black, and we all wants to be proud of our
blackness. We ain't 'shamed of rich black earth that God
Almighty's made to fertilize the earth. Why in hell is we
'shamed of good, rich black mens and womens?".
There was a burst of thunderous applause.
"No, sir! No, sir! We ehn't 'shamed a bit,” came back
the triumphant response.
“You know," Marcus continued, “I wants to transgress
for a moment. I wants to tell you this: Dere is plenty of
rhiney Niggers, many of dem who don't know who dere
mudders or fahders are. Dey're in Ha'lem, dey're all over.
Dey think it's smart to pass, to make believe they're every-
thing 'cept what they really are-just pure damn fools mak-
ing believe their skins are white while dere souls is just
black as hell."
There were loud guffaws at this shot, but Marcus held
up his hand for order and proceeded:
"I has no use for man, woman or chile who's 'shamed
of his race or color, Pussonally, I'se proud o' my black skin.
I thinks it gives me all d' strength I feels in my bones. I
aims to tramp d' earth wid all d' dignity and power of a
great big elephant. I aims to make every son-of-a-gun knows
that I'se around. I remembers back in dis place they calls
Ha'lem dese many years ago. Dere wasn't but a handful of
Niggers here den, just the few who was white enough to
squeeze in and think dey was passing. But after de great
big world war when de Kaiser tried to raise hell all through
Europe and we 'Mericans--white and black dis time, when
it comes to fighting-went over dere and licked de pants
off him-after dis fuss was all over, seems as if de Niggers
from all over d' world come and invaded Ha'lem. They
chase all the white people out of dere homes and flats. In
fact, de white people just ups and runs away. Dey just
smells the Niggahs coming and ups and leaves like jackrab-
bits. 'Twas just like when de ancient Israelitish people comes


26
The Black Challenge
to de hill overlooking Canaan and Galillee, and de Philis-
tines and de Hittites and all dose other ancient people heard
'bout dem coming and dey scampers away leaving dere
lands and possessions to the chillun o' God. 'Twas just that
away wid we black Niggers in Haʼlem. But my brudders and
sisters, dose same white people, dey plays a trick on us.
Dey left us in Ha'lem high and dry. De's caged us in here
between Central Park and de Ha'lem River. When we goes
below 110th Street, we kin walk on de sidewalks, it's true;
but we dasn't enter one a dere barrooms, dere res’rants, dere
hotels, nor anything dey's got; and when we ask for a job,
we gets nothing 'cept a po'ter or some handyman's job. Dey
has us pinned down. Ha'lem is just one big concentration
camp where we come up to after we've scrubbed de white
man's floors and done all his other dirty work downtown.
And it's de same way all over de world. We ain't got nuthin',
and we don't 'mount to nuthin'. Why, shucks! Hell! Gol
darn it! The sitiation of us and our chilluns is worse'n than
de dregs of de earth. We all is just hew'rs o' wood and
draw’rs o' water. We'se like de ancient Israelitish people
crossing de Dead Sea wid de 'Gyptians at our behinds. But
de great God Almighty ain't fergit us. Dere's a Pillar o'
Fire aleadin'; and I, Marcus Cox, is dat Pillar o' Firel Yo'
been sleepin' unto de third and fou'th generation, but,
please God, I'se going to wake you up! De time is now
ripe for you to wake up like a young giant all freshened up
from his nap. As I said afore, yo' can't do nuthin' in dis
white man's land, and dere ain't no use in trying.
“And where is we going, black soldiers of this Universal
Movement? Where is we going? We is going back to the
land of our fadders and mudders where we can rule our-
selves and show de white races of de earth that we's jest as
good as dey are any time!
“But we can't do nuthin' without money, fellow com-
rades. We need ships jes' like de white man. We need our
own captains to run de ships and black sailors and soldiers,
too. We can't walk 'cross de ocean, and white mens ain't


The Black Challenge
27
going to take us dere, 'cause he need us in dis country to
do his dirty work, so dat's dat, brothers and sisters, dat's
dat! We'se got to raise money, and all dis movement that
we got here today and all de other movements dat I'se per-
jected over the face of the four waters of heaven from
de Caribbean Sea to de China Ocean, we'se got to get our
chil'rens and our chil'rens chilluns and all of us go back
to the land where our great, green grandfadders come from
in bars of steel and shekels many, many years ago. Dat land
is Africa, Africa!” Marcus shouted. “All I'se asking the
white man is: 'Let my people go,'” he ended.
At the mention of Africa there was a dense tumult of
noise which lasted for many minutes. Jeremiah sat with a
cynical smile curling his lips. Surely an African colony, or
even a kingdom, to this fourth or fifth generation of Negroes
was not an answer to the problems Marcus had posed in his
colorful tirade.
“Who in hell wants to go to Africa?” Jeremiah repeated,
as in the earlier part of the afternoon, and yet this illiterate
gibberish was undoubtedly making a profound impression
on these people.
Again Jeremiah gazed around him. On every side there
was deep, grim, absorbing attention. It was gripping in its
intensity. Here, close beside Jeremiah, sat a little bald Negro
with a slanting forehead. He was trying to tease his smooth,
unyielding brow into encouraging wrinkles of approbation
with quick, nervous finger strokes. Occasionally, he cocked
his head first on one side and then on the other; and, his
forehead not sufficiently responding, his eyebrows were
taking up the burden with marvelous little twitches like
those a playful chimpanzee might make.
Over yonder, to the left, a black giant hunched forward
on the edge of his seat, his jaws puffing and his eyes bulging,
was following with gestures every word of the High Com-
mander. Occasionally, a deep grunt issued from his froglike
jaws.
Across the aisle another lantern-jawed Negro had reached


28
The Black Challenge
a state of ecstasy. Head thrown back, eyes tightly closed, wide-
lipped, he smiled most happily. Visions that black man had-
visions far greater than those of his High Commander, Mar-
cus Cox, could ever evoke for him. A little thatched hut ...
a crooning river ... heavy laden forest ... rustling leaves
... a dreamy sundown . . . peace and quiet ..: and the
rapture of an African jungle home. Back a few hundred
years, nay, back a much lesser span, and this man was
seeing with the eyes of his African ancestors. Here in Har-
lem nothing but pavements, rumbling noises, hustling life.
Nothing but work, work all the time. Yesterday the same,
today the same, tomorrow the same, morning, noon and
night. Working to pay the rent, working to buy bread, work-
ing to get a few clothes, No time to stretch, no time to loll,
no time to lie down and get a good sleep ... always working,
working for the white man.
No wonder this dreamer of a Back-to-Africa Movement
was smiling. His body was in Harlem, just as the body of his
slave ancestors had been on a North Carolinian or a West
Indian plantation before he was born, but the soul of this
dreamer of dreams, like that of his father and mother be-
fore him, was in Africa, shouting its African heritage, voic-
ing its African aspirations. Had a Negro spiritual burst
forth at that moment, that black man, unlearned in the art
of music, would instinctively have carried its tuneful plaint,
for in it was made articulate the cry of his starving soul.
From whence had this ability to emit such harmony
come to these Negroes? Was it or was it not some contribu-
tion of worth to so-called civilized man? And deep in this
Negro's being there might be other qualities of equal worth
to the world deserving cultivation by free and unbounded
opportunity. The Lord of creation had made the mountain
as well as the valley, the lion as well as the mouse, the great
storming winds as well as the gentle breezes, each to fulfill
and round out their turn and purpose in the Eternal Plan.
Who was there who dared put into practise any way of life


The Black Challenge
29
wood or inis pov,Marcus, and di
which would enslave the bodies or souls of these creatures
of God?
And Marcus, the High Commander! Marcus, rude, primi-
tive, atavistic! Marcus could evoke dreams and visions for
these people. Jeremiah King, educated, cultivated, refined
could not reach these people's hearts. Marcus was one of
them, Jeremiah was not. What a power existed in Marcus'
grasp for good or evil! And to what account was Marcus
intent on turning this power?
“As you all well knows,” Marcus' voice was ringing on,
“de principal purport of dis meetin' and dis promenadin'
parade we undertook today is to complete de displeted
treasuryship. We'se had much disbursements to make, and
de treasury is well-nigh empty-handed; so, brothers and
sisters, collection of dues is now in order, and de 'sembled
members knows well dere is a special 'sessment of $25 per
mens and $15 per womens which we got to make up tonight.
We got to make a fust deposit on our new ship we goin'
contract to purchase, and de name of dat ship, as yo' all
well knows, is Goddess of Liberty. De hour is gettin' 'long,
and we'll jes now proceed to de bizness of collectin'de
money. De honorable chamberlains will 'tend to dat bizness.”
As Marcus Cox concluded his speech and resumed his
seat on the black throne, prolonged handclapping and feet-
pounding resounded throughout the hall. He arose, bowed
many times, and sat down. There was a far-off look in his
eye as if he glimpsed things visible only to himself. As a
matter of fact, from the corners of his eyes, Marcus was
warily following the collections being gathered up.
Beneath the platform on which Marcus sat in solitary
grandeur was a railed-in space containing small tables. At
each table sat an honorable chamberlain, small black book
in hand, taking money and marking down beside each con-
tribution the name of the contributor. Soon the flow of
persons going forward to pay ceased altogether. A whispered
conference took place among the chamberlains, and then


30
The Black Challenge
the chief of this band went forward and handed Marcus
Cox a basket filled with bills and coins and a slip of paper.
Marcus Cox rose: “I'se glad to 'nounce de receipt of
$2,675.85 We should o' raised tonight no less dan $4,000;
but we got to take what we got and do de bes' we can.”
“Gheel" muttered Jeremiah. “That's surely easy money!”
And, leaning back in his chair, he chuckled.
The Negro by his side who had been teasing his fore-
head jerked himself around and scowled ferociously. "What's
de matter wid you, mon?"
Jeremiah hastily composed his features.
He decided that he must meet Marcus Cox without de-
lay. There was no plan or scheme in his mind. He had seen
a great many astonishing things in Harlem since his arrival,
but this performance, with its coincident golden shower,
seemed strangest of all.
For more than a half-hour after the last straggler had
emerged from that temple dedicated to black men's hopes,
Jeremiah walked up and down before the building. He
proposed to wait until morning, if necessary, to meet Mar-
cus Cox. He was willing now to admit that he had been
wrong in his prior estimate of Harlem as being without a
Moses; and since this Moses was none other than his former
man Friday, he proposed-well, there was no harm in mak-
ing himself known to him.
He was so absorbed in these thoughts that an automo-
bile rolled up and all but brushed him from the sidewalk.
“Look out dere what yo’ doing, Nigger; don't you see
me drivin' up? Don't you know dis car belong to de High
Commander? Git out de way, mon,” shouted the driver.
Jeremiah was about to respond; no living man could
with impunity address him as “Nigger.” He had never be-
fore in his life been accosted that way. He proposed to chas-
tise him in the only way a gentleman did those things-
with his cane. Fortunately, at this moment, Marcus Cox
himself appeared. The chauffeur immediately came to at-
tention and saluted his chief. Jeremiah stopped, hesitated,


The Black Challenge
31
and then advanced with hand extended to meet Marcus Cox.
“What a pleasure to meet you on this side of the water,
Marc ... Mr. Cox!” he greeted.
They met under the arclight on the sidewalk. Marcus
carried a small black bag in his right hand; and at Jere-
miah's approach he instinctively clutched it upward to his
side. For a moment he stared blankly at Jeremiah; then,
whether in relief that the black bag seemed in no danger,
or because of his genuine pleasure in recognizing Jeremiah,
his face relaxed into a broad smile.
“We-11, we-11, we-11, counselor! I'm sure glad ..." but
noting the look of consternation on the face of his chauffeur,
who had just been abusing the friend of his chief, Marcus
concluded in a crisp, businesslike tone:
“Jump in, King, if you're going my way.” And, to the
chauffeur: "Home! Ebeneezer, I'se tired!”
Jeremiah did not know whether Marcus Cox's way was
his way or not, but he jumped in.
As the door swung open, a shaded light in the ceiling
of the limousine spread its tiny glow within. Jeremiah be-
came aware of another occupant of the car, a young woman
-perhaps a very young woman-he could not immediately
determine. He became conscious of a pair of dark eyes
glowing like two black pearls into his.
“Hullo, Lido,” Marcus greeted; and, nodding towards
Jeremiah, “This is a friend of mine, Counselor King;" and
to Jeremiah: “King, this is my secretary, Miss Jones.”
And the Lincoln limousine rolled off.


CHAPTER IV
THERE WAS very little of conversation in the car as Marcus
and his companions were driven home. For one thing, the
rush of the car and the street noises rendered conversation
difficult; and, for another, there had sprung into being
almost instinctively a faint prescience of adjustments to be
made which could not be attempted hastily and in the
presence of a third party. For the succeeding moments, how-
ever, this third person, Lido Jones, in such close proximity
to his senses, stimulated Jeremiah's curiosity.
A subtle perfume, delicate, illusive, but all-enveloping,
seemed to radiate from this young creature of whom he had
had but a flashing, yet arresting, glimpse. Soft, cream-color
complexion with two glowing pearl-like eyes that had mo-
mentarily transfixed his! And this essence which exuded
from her presence and filled the car as a totally exotic in-
fluence! What connection could there be between portly,
squat black Marcus Cox and this striking, exotic creature?
Perhaps it was that Jeremiah's nerves, stimulated by the
happenings of that day, were unusually alert, made edgy
by every untoward circumstance. Whatever the cause, Jere-
miah felt himself charged with the same kind of excited
expectancy as had come to him on a particular occasion
only once before in his life.
That had been long ago in his final school year as a law
student in London. He had just returned to his lodgings
32


The Black Challenge
33
wg unable to chally, in a loc on to Jennia
from a walk in Hyde Park with a girl-Jennie Stallings.
Jennie and he had come to see quite a lot of each other,
more or less secretly, but constantly just the same. They
had agreed that Jeremiah should write to Jennie's parents
and ask permission for an open engagement. He had sat
down, filled with youthful emotion and glowing with hope,
to compose a letter to Jennie's parents asking for the de-
sired permission. Draft after draft he had attempted and de-
stroyed. It was important-most important-to express all
the things he wanted to say in exact fashion and, especially,
to close his missive in terms that would adequately disclose
the glow and warmth of his devotion to Jennie. But words
eluded him and, finally, in a last moment of frustration at
being unable to find the language with which to close his
love-declaration, he had determined to appropriate the words
and phrases of some famous author-at the moment he had
forgotten whether it was Carlisle, Huxley, Spencer or
another writer of note of a past generation-to the object of
his adoration on a similar occasion, and he had brazenly
copied that language. “I am poor, without place or posi-
tion,” he had concluded, “but I am young and I am sincere
and true. I love your daughter, and there is no wealth or
circumstance in the world which can equalize the devotion
of a true heart.”
He had felt a great tender melting in his heart as he
had thus concluded his letter. He was young and in love.
There was nothing in the world that he could not grasp and
lay at Jennie's feet.
He had gone out and dropped his letter into a mailbox,
then turned into Hyde Park and sat on the little bench
under a spreading tree where Jennie and he had sat a few
hours before. As the moon came up over the trees and
flooded the greensward with its soft light, he had speculated
on what Jennie's parents would answer. That answer came
a few days later-dust and ashes. He had never been able
to see or make contact with Jennie again. . . . And so, in


34
The Black Challenge
due season, he had completed his law course, returned to
the West Indies, and ... married Dora. . . . But now, here
was Harlem! ...
The limousine came to a quick, almost abrupt stop, and
Jeremiah's musings were at an end.
As he and his companions alighted and lingered on the
sidewalk for a moment, Jeremiah found himself standing
before a four-story brownstone dwelling of distinguished ap-
pearance. Along its side, bordered by flowering plants, an
iron-gated courtyard ran back and toward the rear. Around
them on each sidewalk, lazily swaying with softly rustling
leaves, a lane of maples, flanked on either side by a row of
other substantial houses, extended througout the entire
length of the street. In the peaceful quiet of their shade, it
seemed that both the trees and the buildings were gently
nodding themselves to sleep.
A moment before they had faced the glaring noises of
the avenue; and now here, at the mere turn of a corner into
this side street, was a charming seclusion which mocked
those noises and made them seem remote and far away-like
stified echoes from another world.
And this imposing residence was Marcus Cox's! And it
was in this dignified atmosphere that he had been able to
establish a retreat! An amused chuckle escaped Jeremiah's
lips.
"Some house, ehn't it, boy?" commented Marcus as they
turned to ascend the steps.
“I'll say so," hastily agreed Jeremiah.
Reaching the vestibule of Cox's house, Lido Jones, in
the van, drew a key from her handbag and inserted it into
the door. The vestibule light shed its rays upon her; and
as she turned and gazed upwards for a moment, her full
face met Jeremiah's. Of a complexion as light as his, her
cheeks and lips colored and flushed with the healthy bloom
of perhaps some twenty-odd years, she was a striking figure.
Those sparkling black eyes which he had first sensed shot
curned and bule lighi handbag ani.Lido Tor


The Black Challenge
35
him a fleeting smile. Curiously, Jeremiah's gaze traveled
over and encompassed the black squattiness of Marcus Cox.
Musingly, he looked down at her slim, dainty figure.
“Damn funny!” he breathed as they passed inside to-
gether.


CHAPTER V
“WE'LL HAVE a bite to eat!” announced Marcus soon after
he had shown Jeremiah to a most sumptuous washroom and
Marcus himself had returned from the place.
From the kitchen, off the dining-room, came sounds of
clinking dishes and cutlery; and soon Ebeneezer, miracu-
lously transformed from a uniformed chauffeur into a white-
jacketed butler, passed silently around them filling their
plates and glasses with fine food and drink. Marcus took
water and, a little later, tea. Jeremiah took a cocktail, several
glasses of wine, and so did Lido. Conversation at the table
languished. Perhaps they were all hungry; perhaps the at-
mosphere of restraint still lingered.
Supper over, Marcus said to Lido: “There's some money
in my bag-reckon it and put it in the safe.” Then, turning
to Jeremiah:
"Come on into the li'berry, King. You smoke? But o’
course you do! I remember. Have a seegar!” And from a
console nearby, as they passed on into the library, Marcus
extracted a box of cigars and held them out to Jeremiah.
“H-m, Carolinas!” noted Jeremiah. “Nothing but the
best for Marcus!"
“Sit down and make yo’self to home,” Marcus said.
His stomach filled with satisfying food, his brain pleas-
antly stimulated with Cox's cocktails and wine, the aroma of
a good cigar in his nostrils as the smoke curled up from his
initial puffs, Jeremiah became conscious of a generous glow
in his insides.
"Well, how in blazes are you, Marcus? You seem to be
36


The Black Challenge
37
doing mighty well by yourself,” Jeremiah exploded, as if he
had for the first time become aware of his friend, at the
same time letting himself sink down among the inviting
cushions of a large nearby sofa.
Marcus Cox had taken a pipe from a nearby stand and
was slowly filling it with tobacco. He turned his gaze mus-
ingly on Jeremiah without immediate answer.
"I'll tell you, Mr. King,” Marcus finally responded-
and there was undoubtedly significant stress on the word
"Mister," "these United States of America is the greates'
country on God's earth, de greates' for white mens, for
black mens, for yellow mens, and every other kind of mens
and womens in de world. Lot of people comes to this man's
country from de bottom and dey's soon at the top; and a lot
of other people comes from de top and dey's at de bottom.
You comprehends me, King?" And, after a pause, “But yo'
done right to come to dis country, mon. De West Indies is
no place for a mon wid brains."
“And yet, Marcus," Jeremiah found himself replying,
"a few short hours ago you were advocating an exodus of
all your people to Africa. Are you thinking of going there?"
Marcus did not reply immediately. Stalking over to a
smoking stand in a corner of the large room, he snuffed
the match with which he had been lighting his pipe and
carefully laid it down.
“Maybe ... and maybe not,” he slowly responded.
There was momentary silence between the two men.
Jeremiah pulled at his cigar, and rings of white smoke began
to curl from the bowl of Marcus' pipe.
"How long yo’ been here?” suddenly queried Marcus.
"Just five weeks today."
"On a vacation?"
Jeremiah hesitated.
"Dora and I...” he began, then checked himself. “Mrs.
King and I had a little disagreement, in fact, ehr ... ehr ...
well, we decided ... I decided to pull up stakes and come
to this country ... for good,” he ended abruptly.


38
The Black Challenge
"So you couldn't make it-you split up, eh?" with what
seemed to Jeremiah to be an ever so slightly cynical note.
Jeremiah subtly resented Cox's tone. He resented thus
discussing his private domestic affairs with a man who, after
all, had been his handyman, but he held his countenance
and rejoined: “Call it that if you like."
“Well, that's neither here nor dere. The impohtant thing
is that you is here”; and, after a pause, “What yo' thinks
o' doing?"
Jeremiah shot a quick glance over at Marcus; then some
mischievous imp prompted him: "I'd like to be a High
Commander.”
They both laughed.
“Yo' thinks that a joke, don't yo'?” queried Marcus.
“Not by a damned sight," hastened Jeremiah. “That
$3,000 you collected tonight was real money, wasn't it?"
Again Marcus emitted a chuckle.
“King, yo' ain't changed a bit; yo’se jes' as sa'castic as
helll I bets yo' never seen so much money in yo' bawn days."
“Not at once and not so easy."
Marcus was silent for a moment.
“Yo' was in de hall, then, tonight, was you?"
Jeremiah nodded.
"What yo’ thinks of my speech?"
“Rotten!”
Marcus shot a quick glance over at Jeremiah.
“I 'spose you thinks you could ah done heaps better,
don't you?"
"No, not half so well with ... them," Jeremiah retorted.
“They understand you. They wouldn't understand me."
“Then what is yo’ kickin' 'bout?"
“I'm not objecting, but you asked me and I am telling
you."
“But de $3,000 was all right-no kick 'bout that, eh?”
drawled Marcus.
“No, nor about a great many other things."


The Black Challenge
39
“Udder things like what? For instant?” urged Marcus,
as Jeremiah hesitated.
"Well, this-for example," with a sweeping gesture of
his hands around the room.
“Mighty unctious, ehn't it?"
“Yes, mighty sumptuous,” but Marcus gave no heed to
the correction.
“Say, King," he resumed cautiously, “I may ... I may
be able ...to ... to use you."
Marcus held his pipe poised in one hand, and his gaze
roamed out through an open window as if to some distant
vista beyond.
“Ye-s-?” drawled Jeremiah slowly, with a half-curious lift
of his eyebrows. He had not expected this offer.
“Yes," mused Marcus, “we needs above everything else
a good lawyer, a good couns’lor. I don't trust no white
mens no furder than I kin throw a greased bull by his tail.
We has a young fellah, a couns’lor, but he don't know
nuthin'; he ain't on to contracts and co'porations and such
things, and we'se involved in a lot of sich things. We has
a big organization, a pow'ful organization, and I aims to make
it more pow'ful. We aims to shake de world, King. We'se a
sleeping race, King, and I'se de man who kin wake 'em up.
But right through here, I needs help; I needs a man with
brains. I needs a man to front for me sometimes, to plan
and scheme while I holds my people's interest and keep
dem in line and get some money-a lot of money. I wants
to put my people in politics ... to learn 'em how to use
dere votes. I wants to make much publicity, publicity among
de white race. I wants to reach dere hearts. This Africa
preachment is jes' one of those things. We has to have a
dream to lead us by, King. De Bible say mens can't live by
bread alone, and we black people ehn't satisfied with jes'
eatin' and drinkin' an' ... workin'."
“Blood, sweat, an' toill” he continued. "We'se had
enough of dat. We wants some of de easy things. Look out


40
The Black Challenge
dat window, King. Yo' see all dem houses out dere? You see
dis one? We grab all dese from de white folks. How? Dey
jes' gets scared and runs away. One Niggah, one skunk; two
Niggahs, two skunks. Dey smells us and dey skedaddles.
Ha! ha! ha!” he laughed ironically. “We don't care why
dey runs, so long as dey runs. If dat is de only way we kin
do it we'll jes' stinks dem out. I tells you, King, dis is a race,
a race to de swif' and de strong, to peoples wid brains. I'se
got a pow'ful lot of black Niggahs entered in dis race; and
if we jines together dey can't stop us. We boun' to get some
of de things we wants. We black people is goin' to do it
widout you white rhiney Niggahs if we has to, but it's up
to you’se, too. You'se eder wid us or 'gainst us.”
Marcus Cox had become as animated and alive in this
tirade as he had been in Liberty Hall earlier that night.
His right fist clenched, his left clutching his long black pipe,
he gestured wildly.
Jeremiah was regarding Marcus out of half-closed lids
shrouded by cigar smoke. He wondered how much of real
seriousness there was in this man and how much of pose,
of bluster-but he was intrigued.
While working at odd jobs in Jeremiah's home and
office in the West Indies, Marcus Cox had never impressed
Jeremiah as having any latent potentialities. If an appraisal
of Marcus had ever crossed Jeremiah's mind, he had merely
seen him as one of the many human beings of low degree
who came and went remotely across his horizon, existing,
mainly, perhaps, to cater to the comfort and well-being of
Jeremiah and such as he. That early afternoon and tonight,
however, and here, there and everywhere around him, in
that room and house, were costly furniture, rugs, pictures,
and lavish decorations of worth and taste! These were tangi-
ble evidence of this man's arrival at a status far beyond
Jeremiah's most extravagant fancy and far beyond what, had
he been asked a few hours ago, Jeremiah would have been
willing to concede that a man of Marcus' attainments could
ever have aspired to, much less achieved.


The Black Challenge
41
But this was Harlem! Harlem's reputation had but
faintly penetrated the distant confines of Jeremiah's island
home. On occasion, vague rumors had floated across the
ocean of the opportunities in this Land of Promise. It was,
indeed, these reports which had influenced Jeremiah to come
to New York rather than return to London, where he could
easily have resumed his practice of the law. But if Marcus
Cox could achieve this—and his eye roamed around Cox's
library once more to take in all the sumptuous evidence-
what was the matter with him, Jeremiah King? Surely the
education which he had acquired meant something! And
surely the ripe experience of his years at the bar in San
Fernando was equipment of some worth! There might be
more in this man's ravings than he, Jeremiah, had given
him credit for.
There was a knock at the door. In answer to Marcus
Cox's "Come in," Ebeneezer's head showed in the doorway.
"Is dere anything else you wants, Chief, before Ah turns
in?"
“Is Mrs. Jones in yet?" queried Marcus.
“Yes, sir, but Miss Lido has gone out,” replied Ebeneezer.
"Then bring me some whiskey, some soda and ice,"
ordered his master, "and, say-bring me a piece of dat
apple pie we had for dinner.”
Marcus caught the question in Jeremiah's eyes.
"De apple pie is for me, the whiskey for you. I don't
drink. At least, not as a rule,” Marcus explained.
This arrangement suited Jeremiah perfectly.
"What is the general purpose of your organization?"
Jeremiah ventured after a while.
Helping himself to a whiskey and soda from the bottles
deposited by Ebenezer on a nearby stand, he was now
meditatively observing the bubbling beads of his drink as
they chased each other up and down his glass. At the same
time he thought: “Marcus is certainly a darn fine host!"
Slowly he imbibed a first long sip from his bubbling glass.
Marcus was very hesitant in answering Jeremiah's latest


42
The Black Challenge
query, but Jeremiah had now become accustomed to the
careful manner of his host.
“I'se tole you already, King, but just through here we
needs to collect money."
"And then what?"
“Collect more money ... and still more money,” Marcus
continued as though communing with himself.
Jeremiah had by now unreservedly committed himself to
his drink. Before wafting it a final farewell, he tenderly
shook the last remains of the clinking ice and bubbling soda
and slowly drained the glass. Rising and moving over, Jere-
miah helped himself to another of his host's cigars. Lighting
it, he was about to resume the conversation, but Marcus was
saying: "You see, King . . . and there was something in
Marcus' manner of saying “King” that still grated on Jere-
miah's sensibilities. Jeremiah sensed that this was Marcus
Cox's subtle method of conveying to him that a great change
had taken place in their relations. “What the Negroes
in this country needs more than anything else is money ...
more money ... and still more money."
“Yes," rejoined Jeremiah, inwardly reminded that some
rehabilitation of his own finances would be very welcome.
“Yo' see,” continued Marcus, “de white man runs dis
country because he's got all de money. Niggers don't 'mount
to much 'cause dey ain't got nutten. Why, mon, suppose I has
a lot of money. I could do anything. If things was diff'rent
I might be President of dese United States-you dawmed
jockass!" he ended in a sudden burst of fervor.
Jeremiah was slowly stirring another highball. His spirit,
his mood, his reservations were expanding. Had Marcus
desired to be bugler of note in the legislative halls of the
nation, he might have been prepared to suffer it. But Marcus
Cox as President of the United States-indeed, of any coun-
try! What a hell of a country that would have to be, even
though his friend had proved himself a wonderful host!
Jeremiah smiled noncommittally. Apparently, however,
the man before him was serious, for coming forward and


The Black Challenge
43
bearing down upon him like a ship in full sail, Marcus was
almost shouting: “Yo' sees me today," he challenged, "yo'
sees me ridin' my white horse and leadin' dose Niggers up
Seventh Avenue? You sees me speechifying to dem in
Liberty Hall? You sees dem shelling out dere bucks? Well,
what yo' thinks of it? All I needs is a couple more mens
with brains like mine, and ... I bets ... I bets yo'...” he
groped, “I bets yo' hist'ry will send Marcus Cox's name
down de sands of timel”
In the short ensuing pause, Jeremiah became aware that
Marcus Cox was perhaps making a final appraisement of
him. He seemed to be looking through him.
“Yes, King,” Marcus continued, “I thinks . . . I thinks ...
1... can ... use you. Down in de West Indies I thinks you
got brains, lot of brains, but you was lazy, King, lazy as de
debil; but you has plenty of brains, King, and I is de man
dat can use dem."
Aside from supporting Marcus Cox in his ambition to
be President of the United States, Jeremiah was not in a
frame of mind to oppose any other of his aspirations, espe-
cially such as appertained to himself, so he soothingly agreed:
“Yes, Marcus, I think I could possibly be of some help to
you."
“I thinks so, too,” replied Marcus, appearing not to notice
this time that Jeremiah's tone towards his High Commander-
ship was much the same as in the old days when Jeremiah
had ordered: “Marcus, go buy me a cigar!”
“We could prob’ly put you in as Gran' Couns’lor of
de organization ... at a salary," he added, looking ques-
tioningly at Jeremiah.
But Jeremiah did not press the point. Instead, he stared
back inquiringly at Marcus Cox. Marcus, however, did not
proceed. Abstractedly, his gaze sought the ceiling. Finally,
after a pause: “Will you come over to de office tomorrow
mawning 'bout eleven? You knows where 'tis-down on Sev-
enth Avenue.”
Jeremiah nodded his acquiescence.


44
The Black Challenge
As they sat and talked later into the night, talked of the
West Indies and things and persons of interest there, relaxa-
tion came to them. Before Jeremiah departed, it seemed to
him that he had been able to whittle away the last vestige
of formality in the demeanor of Marcus Cox. On the part
of Marcus himself, there was a secret conviction that Jere-
miah King had been suitably leveled to his proper status
in the newly conceived order of things and that he might
become a very useful adjunct to Marcus's aspirations for the
downtrodden black people of Harlem and other portions
of the world.


CHAPTER VI
DEPARTING FROM Marcus Cox's home and reaching Seventh
Avenue, Jeremiah gazed down its sprawling electric-lighted
length. In the immediate distance, not two blocks away, a
twinkling chop-suey sign offered its onioned invitation to
late stragglers. The pleasant stimulation of Cox's whiskey,
the rather surprising denouement of the night's adventure
and what it might open in the way of immediate prospects
had had their effect upon Jeremiah. The twinkling sign,
with its suggestion of exotic things, was definitely alluring.
He had had quite a session with Marcus; a little midnight
snack might afford just the opportunity he needed for fur-
ther reflection.
Bending his head low to avoid collision with the upper
basement sill, Jeremiah descended, as it seemed, into the
very bowels of the earth to partake of chop suey.
A small, compact, low-ceilinged room-overly small and
compact for the purposes to which it had been adapted-
hot and stuffy, greeted Jeremiah. In the center was a railed-
in space where couples were dancing; at the far end on a
raised platform, an orchestra blared forth a lilting tune;
all around were small and large tables at which a few stray
couples sat huddled together. In the ceiling, over the dance
space, a revolving bowl-shaped chandelier, jewel-cut and
faceted with prisms of glass reflecting all the colors of the
rainbow, shed its kaleidoscopic light on the struggling danc-
ers below. Dim, shadowy, ghostlike, the varicolored lights
multiplied their numbers many fold, and the silhouetted
figures appeared like so many frolicking wraiths.
45


46
The Black Challenge
Jeremiah found a seat at a vacant table cluttered with
empty glasses and the remains of a late supper. The or-
chestra continued its teasing, dreamlike waltz. The refrain
blended with Jeremiah's airy mood and, unconsciously, he
hummed it. He had heard that particular melody again
and again at night spots during the past weeks—“Although
you belong to somebody else, tonight you belong to me.”
This was, indeed, the way he felt; and he applied that
feeling to Harlem. Others had created it, but tonight, to-
night Harlem belonged to him.
One of the band, with a soft, crooning voice, broke into
song, and the group of dancers on the floor, lost in ecstasy,
cuddled together. A generous glow of pure warmth and
good nature permeated Jeremiah. This room filled with
merrymakers, lithesome saunterers, swaying shadows! This
was what life should be-expansive, gay, friendly. That
gliding couple here, for instance, almost brushing him as
Jeremiah rose from his seat to lean over the edge of the
brass rail, the girl's arms encircling her partner's neck and
her head resting upon his shoulder, his arms about her
slim waist as if to draw the last measure of entrancement from
her swaying body to his-contentment, satisfaction, nay, a
sweet, gentle sadness suffusing her face as she nestled more
closely to him-surely, no greater bliss, no diviner solace
could ever again be snatched from Life's cup by these two
creatures than in this fleeting moment!
Jeremiah smiled his approval at the gaiety around him.
The music came to an abrupt end. The dance was over.
The prismatic lights of the central chandelier grew dim.
The multiplied shadows drifted away like ghosts. The nor-
mal lights of the room flared up.
The couple Jeremiah had particularly noticed, followed
by two others, were coming towards the table at which he
sat. By Jove! Those in the van were Lido Jones and a coffee-
colored young man. Jeremiah rose. Lido Jones smiled her
recognition.
“Why, Mr. King, you here?"


The Black Challenge
47
Jeremiah held out his hand.
“Meet a friend of mine, Mr. Webb,” she chirped gaily.
"Didn't catch the name,” Webb bubbled. “Oh, yes, King.
... Counselor Webb's my name.”
“Glad to meet you, Counselor," Jeremiah replied. In
his social code no one ever stressed his professional title dur-
ing introductions. Maybe his English training had made him
somewhat of a snob; but that, together with many other
things, would disappear with time.
Lido's other companions joined the group: Dr. Proud-
foot, with a fair, blue-eyed girl of dashing appearance; and
a white man, of medium height, thick-set, with an olive-
complexioned brunette bringing up the rear.
Introductions followed, and Jeremiah was about to move
away.
"Sorry to have appropriated your table,” he murmured.
“Oh, no, not at all; please don't go. Sit down and join
us,” Lido invited. “I'm sure we'd all like to have you stay,"
and she looked around for approval by the others.
"Yes, indeed," agreed Webb. “Make yourself at home.”
Then, turning, he fished under the table and brought out
a bottle. “Have a drink with us. How about you, Lido? And
you, Ruth?” turning to the olive-complexioned young
woman. “I don't need to ask you, Owen," he flashed towards
the male white member of the party.
Proudfoot and his companion had drifted over to an
adjoining table and were now chatting with a group
assembled there. Webb's hands wobbled as he officiated. His
straightened hair was much touseled and tumbled, and
there was a sparkling uncertainty to his stare as he poured
and talked at the same time.
“No, none for me, George,” remarked Lido Jones; and,
as he insisted boisterously, with, “You sure am one little
quitter, Lido," she looked severely at him and turned to-
wards Jeremiah.
Another dance had struck up. Lido Jones stood poised
like someone inviting a flight. She looked up at Jeremiah,
wom Ruthp" a drink w


48
The Black Challenge
and there seemed the slightest flicker of her eyelids. Jere-
miah was somewhat uncertain of himself. He had not
danced much of late; besides, he was not sure that his
West Indian style would do justice to this young Harlem
flower. Still, Lido Jones evidently wanted to dance, and so
did he.
He extended his arm: “May I?" and they jostled their
way into the dancing enclosure.
A peppy, spirited tune was lunging forth from the
band. It came to Jeremiah snappily, alluringly, temptingly.
He found his feet moving in time to Lido's and in rhythm
to the music. This slim, curling creature in his arms, wrapped
in a faint aroma of the same perfume that had assailed his
nostrils earlier that night in Marcus Cox's car, was very
pleasant. Was it the whiskey which had so stimulated him,
or was it some latent thing in his blood coming to life?
A gentle pressure of Lido's arms about his shoulders
caused him wonder. He looked around at the other dancers,
then down at the little black head of bobbed curls almost
brushing his cheek.
"Cutting a hog?” he murmured.
Taking her head from his shoulder, she looked quickly
at him. Then, replacing it, she murmured, “I thought you
were a lawyer."
"What has that to do with it?"
“Do lawyers ... cut ... hogs?”.
"Sometimes ... on dance floors. Am I?” he persisted.
“Not any more.”
“Before?"
“Hopping a little–and ..."
“And what?”
“Your shoulders."
Jeremiah smiled. “Wiggling too much, eh?"
"A little bit stiff.”
“Damn them!” he breathed.
She once more took her head from his shoulder. Her eyes
smiled into his.


The Black Challenge
49
"You're not a bit like a West Indian. You don't talk
like one."
“That's encouraging."
"You're a friend of Mr. Cox?"
“Are all his friends West Indians?”
"Oh, no-lots of Americans, too; but you talked about
Jamaica at dinner.”
"They just let me escape from there."
“Honest?” she questioned. “You're not a bit like one."
"Is that fortunate or unfortunate?"
“They're mostly pains."
“Am I a greater pain than usual?"
“No, you are very-different.”
“In my dancing, you mean?"
“I'm afraid I was rude," she apologized. “I forgot. I'm
so fond of dancing, and for a moment you were just ...
my partner.”
"I hope I still am."
“Yes, but I might have waited."
"For what?"
"Until I knew you better.”
“Why delay pleasant things? This helps, doesn't it?"
“Maybe.”
“How am I doing now?"
“You're going fine.”
She had again taken her head from his shoulder and
they were now talking face to face.
"I guess I do need a little loosening up-in my legs,"
he ventured.
“Your time's all right. You hold yourself a little stiffly.
Relax some and you'll be it."
"Oh, I see-just let myself go and sway and glide-like
this," and he wrapped himself more closely around her
and took her more tightly to him.
“That's it,” she breathed.
“Isn't that dangerous?"
“What, relaxing?"


50
The Black Challenge
“Yes."
“Why?"
“I can be a cave man.”
“At such short notice?"
“Yes, why not? If eventually, why not now?"
“Violent, eh?”
"The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence and the
violent-you know the rest?"
“Bible stuff, eh?”
“Who told you?"
“My Sunday-school teacher.”
“Where is she?”
“She's a he.”
“Where?"
“Dancing with me.”
“That's a good one,” he laughed. “Do you know any
more like that?”
"Yes, hunching shoulders again.”
“Damn the shoulders!” he repeated.
“Yes."
“You agree with me?"
“Surely."
The girl referred to as Ruth-Ruth Dennis,and her
white partner almost collided with them.
“Look out, girlie,” shouted Ruth to Lido.
"Oh, you downtown express!” Lido shouted back at the
galloping couple.
“Who is the blonde?" inquired Jeremiah.
“You met him, didn't you? He's an assistant district at-
torney."
“I haven't much memory for names”; and, after a pause:
“What's he doing in Harlem, slumming?"
“The same thing you're doing, enjoying himself, I
suppose," she replied coldly.
“I'm sorry. I was merely curious.”
"He's a friend of George Webb's and comes up quite


52
The Black Challenge
parted in an engaging smile. Jeremiah permitted her slowly
to disengage herself from his arms.
“A wonderful dance!” he breathed.
“Yes, I enjoyed it immensely,” she agreed.
They returned to their table. Webb was talking at the
top of his voice to Proudfoot. As Owen Murphy and his
partner approached, Webb turned to Murphy.
"I was just telling the Doc here about that case I tried
against you the other day. That was a great piece of cross-
examination I conducted, wasn't it now? Tell the Doc about
it.”
Dr. Proudfoot sat, one arm encircling the chair in which
his fair partner sat, his upper lip curled backwards in a sort
of grin, disclosing a single gold tooth. He was obviously
bored with Webb’s recital. A patronizing look was on his
face.
“I permitted you to get away with murder in that case,”
answered Murphy. “I just wanted you to earn the fee that
I knew you'd get if you won, that's all.”
"You did in the pig's neck!" retorted Webb. "I put it
all over you that time, and you don't want to give me credit."
“I'll tell you what I will do. The next time I try a
case against you, I'll convict your client, just to show you;
and you'll have to come to me on bended knees to get
a suspended sentence for him.”
"You mean, with empty pockets after you're through,”
laughed George Webb, looking at Owen Murphy uncertainly
but meaningfully.
Murphy gave Webb a sharp glance. “You're drunk,
George,” he said. “You'd better go home and sober up," and
he turned towards Lido Jones.
“Come on Lido, let's have this last dance."
As the party broke up Jeremiah was glad to have met
Lido Jones so soon again, but, absentmindedly, as he passed
out of the cabaret and strolled up the avenue homewards,
he pondered: “I wonder where in hell does that fellow
Murphy fit in in Harlem?”


CHAPTER VII
ALL UPWARD movements have their blatant and, very often,
their comic phases.
To the youthful blatancy of Negro aspiration, which
becomes gleeful at the thought of misfortune overtaking
its traditional white enemy and oppressor, there must have
been a full measure of satisfaction in the occupancy by Ne-
groes of the fine old mansions and residences of upper
Harlem formerly possessed by whites. To a sympathetic
spirit, however, jealous of old melodies and lost in rapture
for well-preserved things of a bygone day, this change like
most other radical changes, is as pathetic as ... death.
No need to preach on the inevitability of all such changes.
That is granted, and is not here in question. But in the
silence of the night, or on other occasions when departed
spirits venture abroad—and there must be such times, or
else why does the torch of racial antipathy burn so unbrok-
enly if it be not fed by the breath of the dead?-can we not
imagine the consternation in the ranks of the white masters
when they come to revisit old haunts in search of beloved
survivors, nay, in search even of a mere memory? What gall
and wormwood to the disinherited Negro-baiter and mili-
tant Negro-hater! What horror to the gentle departed soul un-
accustomed to black hordes! And even to the tolerant spirit
able in life to conceive of a place in the sun for all God's
children, yea, even to such a spirit, what a pang of regret!
A few more years, and when these present black dwellers
shall have passed on and, in due season return as well to
53


54
The Black Challenge
disport themselves, there may be a meeting of black and
white ghost-revellers; and some night hell is likely to break
loose in Harlem. The police riot call will, no doubt, be
sounded, and then the gigantic discovery will be made
that there is no cessation, even in death, for racial hatreds.
True it is that the streets are still softly treed and
shaded, by night even as by day; true it is that the courts
and courtyards are still blossoming and flowering as of old;
true it is that, wherever one passes in and about these old
mansions, order and beauty is still preserved, here and there
even increased and added to; but-and the greater the pang
that it should be so—the people on these shaded sidewalks
sitting and droning in the soft summer night are not the
old masters. The jeweled candelabra, the tesselated mantels,
the tapestried walls within-all this, the natural and divine
right of the fine lords of Caucasia, is now possessed by ...
Niggers!
These were some of the fanciful thoughts that came to
Jeremiah after a more prolonged stay in Harlem; but the
morning after his initial visit to Cox's impressive brown-
stone mansion, and his later meeting with Lido Jones at the
Chop Suey Palace, Jeremiah's mind was most immediately
concerned with Cox's suggestion of the possibility of gainful
employment.
Accordingly, and promptly at eleven o'clock next morn-
ing, Jeremiah presented himself at the headquarters of the
Universal Negro Movement on Seventh Avenue. When the
occasion demanded, Jeremiah could easily forego his leisurely
tempo. He had done so that morning. Reaching his lodgings
in the early hours of the dawn, Jeremiah had mulled over
some of the events of the past day, but he had soon drifted
off into blissful sleep.
The building before which he now stood was a four-
story brownstone structure set in the middle of the block.
It had evidently been a private residence converted into
what seemed now to be an office building. On its southern


The Black Challenge
55
exposure an iron-gated courtyard ran back the entire depth
of the structure; and this, together with a green canopy
extending from the curb to the entrance, gave the building
a somewhat pretentious air. Marcus and his Movement un-
doubtedly had a flair for the gaudy.
The door was opened by a white-gloved, uniformed at-
tendant. As Jeremiah passed through, he found himself in
an outer reception room amid a crowd of pushing, gesticu-
lating Negroes. These stragglers wandered here and there,
some curiously examining the pictures of Negro celebrities
hung along the walls, others idly scanning the handbills,
circulars, and pamphlets upon the tables around the room.
Jeremiah took note of the glaring headlines of Marcus
Cox's propaganda: “Back to Africa!” “Build a kingdom in
the home of your fathers!” “Let my people go!” and similar
appeals.
Jeremiah strayed over toward a more than usually noisy.
group assembled before a large picture painted, it seemed,
overnight, so fresh, so bright the colors shone upon the
gilt-framed canvas.
“He sure is a li'l runt,” one irreverent bystander was
remarking.
"Hush you mout, mon, dat's King Tut! Doan yo' knows
a king when yo' sees one? Dat's de fustest Nigger king dere
ebber was.”
"Wah yo'talkin' 'bout?” interjected another. “Yo'se
full o' nonsense. Cannibal was de fustest Nigger king.”
“Kal Kal Kal” shouted a pygmy on the outskirts. “Hear
dot Nigger talk! Cannibal, dat's man-eatin' shark! You' means
Honnibel."
"I means Cannibal,” returned the first speaker. “What yo'
bets? I'se got six bits dat says I'se right.”
"Yo' lose all dot money, mon," jeered the small, wizen-
faced Negro. “Yo' better goes out and buys yo’self six bits
of g'ography befo' yo' talks to me.”
Their argument was interrupted by a thin, cadaverous,


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The Black Challenge
purple-clad Negro who burst into the group. Gold stripes on
his sleeves, chevrons on his shoulders, he must have been a
captain, perhaps a major or even a general.
“Foh de edi'cation of de honahed visitahs hey assemble,
I rises to 'nounce dat a frame pictuh of King Tut, de fustest
Nigger king in de worl', goes free to ebery new membah who
jines dis organ'sation today. Step right in de office and de
hon’able Chamberlain Phillips will fix yo' alls up.”
"Hear dat, Nigger, ain't I tole you so? King Tut is de
fustest Nigger king,” shouted the Negro who had so an-
nounced in the beginning, running forward and trying to
get the official announcer by his sleeve.
“Majah, say dat again, will yo? Will yo'?” he pleaded.
“To whom is you speaking-to whom? I'se Captain Gen-
'ral, if yo' please. To whom hab I de honah of addressin'
myself to?"
• Before the Captain General could receive his answer,
he was touched on the arm by a fellow purple-clad figure,
who, saluting, remarked: “Yo' is wanted on de 'phone, Cap-
tain Gen'ral.”
Within a brass-railed space persons in authority were
officiating. One could readily distinguish the latter by the
purple uniforms, which, Jeremiah now realized, consttiuted
the official garb of this Movement. Bells were buzzing, tele-
phones were ringing; on every side noise, bluster and dis-
order prevailed. Jeremiah wondered what kind of real work
occupied all these people. It was talk, talk, jabber, jabber-
a bedlam of sound everywhere.
For some minutes Jeremiah was lost in the confusion.
A passing wonder assailed him as to whether he could ever
fit himself into these people's affairs. Back in the West Indies
he had had some contact with such Negroes, but that had
been as a lawyer dealing with stray clients. He had never
seen them thus massed in a body for such a purpose as this
Movement purported to be. Above all, he had never had
to go to them; they had always voluntarily sought him.
Today, however, he was here among them in search of em-


The Black Challenge
57
ployment from their leader. Impulsively, he hesitated and
retraced his steps towards the door through which he had
just entered; then, turning, admonished himself: “I think
you're taking this thing too seriously, old man.”
Approaching a wicket gate at which a brass-buttoned
clerk half-sat and half-reclined before a broad desk, he pre-
sented this card: "Take that in to Mr. Cox and say that
Mr. King is here."
The man took Jeremiah's card, scrutinized it, and, then,
with a suspicious leer, inquired: “Yo' means de High Com-
mander President Gen'ral?”
Jeremiah nodded. “I'm here by appointment." .
“What yo'bis'ness? Eberybody got 'pintment wid de
Chief. Can't let you by on dat,” and he grinned cynically
up at Jeremiah.
"I don't want to see your chief-your chief wants to see
me; and I'd just as soon get out of here as not, so you may suit
yourself about it,” replied Jeremiah, irritated at this Negro's
demeanor. “I'll give you just two minutes to take that card
to Mr. Cox or leave it."
Jeremiah's manner had its effect. The cynical grin on
the attendant's face changed to a scowl; and, shambling
leisurely down a short hallway, he unlocked an iron gate
with one of a number of keys hanging at his belt and disap-
peared upstairs. Here, indeed, was the Saint Peter of this
Movement!
Soon the brass-buttoned servitor returned. “Come on,"
he jerked and, leading the way, showed Jeremiah up the
spiral stairway from which he had just returned and led
him into a waiting-room.
“De chief'll see you in a minute,” he grudgingly ex-
plained, with the air of one who had plunged and lost
on the turn of a wheel.
Jeremiah dropped into a comfortable-looking leather
sofa nearby and lighted a cigar.
Many minutes passed. Jeremiah looked at his watch.
“Half-past eleven!” His cigar was smoked to a stub. He won-


58
The Black Challenge
dered whether he had been forgotten or whether, perchance,
this were another of Marcus Cox's methods of impressing
a visitor with his majestic aloofness. He rose and paced up
and down the narrow room. The only sound from the inner
sanctum was the faint clicking of a typewriter. Perhaps
Marcus was dictating.
Another fifteen minutes passed by. Restless impatience
gave place to petulant anger. Jeremiah approached a glass-
paneled door and knocked.
Light footsteps came towards him from within. Soon the
door swung open and Lido Jones stood before him, pink
and fresh, as if she had had full twelve hours of rest instead
of having gone home at four o'clock that morning, as Jere-
miah recalled.
“How d’ye do, Mr. King?"
"Is Mar ...” started Jeremiah, then corrected himself:
"Is Mr. Cox in? I've been waiting out here for three-quarters
of an hour.”
“Oh, have you? That's too bad; Mr. Cox is a very busy
man, and visitors have to wait on the High Commander,
you know.”
There was that in the mischievous light of her eyes and
the mincing tone of her voice which convinced Jeremiah
that his speculation had been correct. He had been made to
wait outside to suit Marcus' pleasure.
As Lido softly tapped at another glass-paneled door and
a gruff “Come" responded, Jeremiah's gorge rose and, no
sooner had he been ushered into Marcus' presence, than he
exploded: "Did you keep me out there all this time for the
mere pleasure of having me cool my heels, Marcus? I thought
we understood each other last night.”
“I thought so too, Mr. King," dryly replied Marcus.
“That's the reason I kept you waiting. After all, I'm de
General of dis army, and you is ... you may be,” he empha-
sized, “only its Gran' Counse'ler. I only wants my couns'ler
when I sends for him," and Marcus Cox looked at Jere-
miah with cold, level eyes.


The Black Challenge
59
Jeremiah stood hesitantly for a moment. Whatever there
was of humor in the situation suddenly overtook him and
chased away the petulance.
“Oh, I say, Marcus, can't we cut out this ... this ...
buffoonery?" he suggested; and, as he noticed the glare which
leaped into Marcus' eyes, he hastily corrected himself: “I
mean, can't we get down to a man-to-man basis and talk
things over together chummily... as you know we must ..."
Jeremiah smiled at Marcus, “if I am going to be of any use
to you?”
Jeremiah had an engaging smile. It was perhaps the best
feature in his rough-hewn face. Marcus' bad mood changed
as suddenly. Going forward, he grasped Jeremiah's hand:
“All right, King, let's get down to business," at the same
time waving him toward a red morocco armchair.
“Since talkin' to you last night, King,” he began, without
further introduction, “I've been thinking. What yo' think
you kin live here on? How much money you wants?”
Jeremiah had turned this matter of money over in his
mind also; but there were so many things at which he had
to guess—the ability of Marcus and his organization to pay,
what his duties were going to be, and other phases of the
proposal—that he could form no reasonable estimate. Life in
Harlem was expensive. He had already spent pretty nearly
all the cash he had brought with him to New York. Yes,
two thousand dollars had all but drifted away. Jeremiah
was about to venture, with some misgivings, that about
four or five thousand dollars a year might be necessary when
Marcus broke in: “Yo' think ten thousands per year would
be sufficiency to help you rep'sent de dignity of our organ'-
zation?"
Jeremiah's heart stopped beating for a brief instant, then
leaped forward tumultously. “Ten thousand dollars! My
God, ten thousand dollars!” Why, he, Jeremiah, could ...
but he must be calm; he must not get excited; so, in what
he hoped was a casual tone, he replied: “I figured about that.
We can start out on that and see how the cat jumps."


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Marcus Cox pushed at a button on his desk. A brief
silence, and the door separating Lido Jones' office from
that of her chief opened. Lido's head appeared in the door-
way. “Want me, Commander?"
“Bring in dose credentials for Mr. King dat you prepared
dis morning; and-say," as Lido's head was about to disap-
pear through the doorway, “enter Mr. King's name on de
sal’ry roll at ten thousands per year-payable?" and his eyes
questioned Jeremiah's.
"Weekly,” hastily prompted Jeremiah.
“Weekly,” ordered Marcus. “Let's see, dat's how much?
Oh, you work it out Miss Jones, whatever it 'mounts to.
Put it down dat way."
It did not escape Jeremiah that, in his office, Lido was
"Miss Jones” to Marcus Cox.
Lido soon returned with the credentials. She handed
them to her chief. Marcus Cox came over to Jeremiah and
ceremoniously placed in the lapel of his coat a mysterious
purple enamel-and-gold button, with a small lion rampant
in the center. Then, as one who performs a solemn ritual,
he chanted: “I, Marcus Cox, High Commander of the Uni-
versal Negro Movement of the United States and of de
World, hereby appoints you, Jeremiah King, Gran' Coun-
'selor of de said 'sociation, so help me God!”
At the same time he handed to Jeremiah an imposing-
looking, plentifully beribboned parchment scroll, red-sealed
and gold-lettered, with a border of gay purple. Jeremiah
took it and was about to place it on the desk.
"Read it!” ordered his High Commandership.
And Jeremiah read: “Know all Men by these Presents
that the bearer of this, Honorable Jeremiah King, is, in
virtue and token hereof, the duly appointed Grand Coun-
selor of the United Negro Movement of the United States
and of the World, Inc.; and I do hereby in virtue of my
authority duly delegated to me by the Supreme Council of
said Association so to do, empower the said Jeremiah King


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61
to represent the said Association in all matters appertain-
ing to his said office as Grand Counselor and Advisor, and
I command each and every member of the said Association
to honor and recognize these presents, into whosesoever
hands these said presents may come.
Given under my hand and the Great Seal of the Uni-
versal Negro Movement of the United States and of the
World, this day of July, in the year of our Lord, Nineteen
hundred and
Marcus Cox,
High Commander.”
Jeremiah read it to the end, even to the signature. He
recalled vaguely now that he had wondered at the boldness
of this man's signature-a strong, flourishing stroke-when
Marcus had been in his employ at San Fernando. The pub-
lic schools there had at least taught Marcus Cox the art of
writing, even though, with respect to his speech, they had
not done so well. His broken, idiomatic English still per-
sisted.
For a moment Jeremiah's mind toyed engagingly with the
prospect of ten thousand dollars divided into weekly install-
ments. This grandiloquent parchment, evidence of his ap-
pointment, was so much dross beside that contemplation.
He suddenly realized that it was incumbent on him to
do something. He leaped to his feet. Cox was still standing
before him. “Shake, Marcus,” he said, “I'm with you."
Lido Jones was standing nearby. He subtly felt her to
be included within his good fortune. The impulse came
upon him to shake with her also. Were they not all members
of a common conspiracy? But, coincidently, and, in time,
Jeremiah recovered his caution. He must be dignified, even
as Marcus was dignified. He was now Grand Counselor of
this Movement. Whatever real purpose it had, there would
be plenty of time to discover; but there was one thing about
which there could be no doubt: a meticulous regard for
external appearances, respect for rank and titles, seemed to


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be a dominant policy of the Movement. Much as Jeremiah
would like to have extended his generous mood to embrace
Lido Jones, he merely smiled at her.
Marcus rose. “I got a 'pointment down town at de
public attorney's. I's got to tell you 'bout that later, King.
Jes' now I'll leave you here and have Miss Jones show you
'roun' and interduce you to my 'sociates.”
And so saying, a bulging brief case clutched within his
grasp, Marcus bustled off.


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She nodded and made a gesture towards the avenue.
“All the people out there and everywhere else like them."
"Who says they need help? They seem perfectly happy
and contented. Hear that?" as a loud guffaw came to them
through the open window. “Anyone with a laugh like that
doesn't need help.”
“Oh, don't be silly, you know what I mean. Everybody
knows that Negroes are a downtrodden people and need
their rights protected.”
“Their rights? I didn't know they had any rights. I
thought they had all wrongs.”
“You're making fun of me. But you know very well
what I mean."
"No, I don't know what you mean. Submerged colored
people are just like any other submerged people. If they
are poor and ignorant, they are imposed upon just like the
poor and ignorant of the Irish, the Jews, the Italians, the
Poles, yes—even like the submerged of the noble English.
Even these gods of the world have their submerged who
have more wrongs than rights. Why shouldn't I try to help
all those?”
“Because charity begins at home, and you ought to help
your own race first. Come on, let me take you downstairs
and introduce you around. Mr. Cox told me to do that."
“Can't we do that some other time? Let's sit here and
talk some more. What's your little office in this outfit?"
“Who, me?"
"No, who, I?”
“All right, Mr. Englishman. Who, I? I don't like par-
ticular people."
“I'm sorry," he smiled. “I shall be very unparticular
hereafter."
“See that you are,” she arched back; then casually:
“I am first Grand Secretary.”
“You are the only one of us who deserves a title. You are
a grand little secretary, all right."
“Who, I?" she mimicked.


The Black Challenge
“No, me,” he bantered.
"I know what title you deserve.”
“Tell me, and I'll ask the High Commander to make me
that.”
“Grand Kidder.”
"What's that?"
“Don't you know English?"
“Yes, but not American-not yet, only a few words."
"Well, let's hope it will be soon; you'll be all right then."
"Well, how about now?"
“Not quite so 'forty.'”
“How did you guess it?"
“Guess what?” laughed Lido. “Did you think I was re-
ferring to your age?"
"Surely! What else is 'forty'?”.
“When you're a full-fledged American, I'll tell you, but
not now. I think you've learned enough for one day; also, I
have much Grand Secretarying to do, and I must get to
work.”
"Oh, stick around a little longer, won't you?"
“Stick around? That's fine. You'll soon have your first
papers."
'“What first papers?”
“To be an American.”
“You mean because I said 'stick around'?”
"Surely! You're learning."
“Oh, I know quite a few more. I'm not so dumb after
all, am I? You remember? I know 'cutting a hog,' and
others.”
"You'll soon do if you travel that fast.”
"I hope so. But tell me, what's the shouting all about?”
"What shouting?"
“The United Negro Movement of this world and the
next?”
Lido laughed: “At least you have a sense of humor.”
“Do you know," he said, becoming serious, “I only dis-
covered that about myself last night when Marcus sug-


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gested that he could use me. I withstood the shock. I said to
myself: It must be my funny side."
“What's funny about Mr. Cox employing you?”
He looked at her. “I'm afraid you wouldn't understand.”
"It's one of those deep, dark English secrets, I sup-
pose.”
"I suppose so. But you haven't answered my question,"
he resumed, after a pause. "What's the purpose of this
Movement? What do they aim to do?"
"I'll tell you,” she said, her brows knitting, “it's best
for you to wait and form your own conclusions as you go
along. I couldn't tell you, anyhow. It isn't something to be
explained. You'll have to live it and get on to it that way.
You must come in and see Mother-she'll tell you."
"Your mother?"
“Yes, my mother. Didn't you think I had one?"
He feigned a reproachful look at her.
"Why, of course I did; only, I hadn't heard of her.”
“Well, we only met last night, you know.”
“That's so, but I seem to have known you for years and
years."
house, or other man
for its
"Yes,” she continued, “I'll have you meet Mother after
I come back from my vacation at Atlantic City. She was
out last night when you had supper with us.”
"Oh, she lives at Mr. Cox's house, does she?"
“Yes, we both live there. You see, Mother manages the
establishment which the organization has set up for its
High Commander. Mr. Cox is a bachelor ..." she was con-
tinuing when Jeremiah broke in.
"Is he? What's become of his wife and ... brats?” he
ended shortly.
A surge of color swept Lido's cheeks. She stared evenly
at Jeremiah and, with much of ice in her voice, questioned:
“What's become of yours?"
“Oh, so Marcus has been talking to you, eh?”
Lido Jones nodded.
"Just the same as we've been talking about him," she


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67
added. “But it makes no difference either to Mother or me
whether Mr. Cox is married and has ... brats," she snapped,
"or not. That is something which in no way concerns us. To
us Mr. Cox is just a leader of a great cause, that's all.”
Jeremiah felt sufficiently crushed. He almost hastened
over to her side in contrition, not so much for the things
he had uttered, but for the tone of his utterance.
“I'm sorry," he muttered, looking down into her up.
turned face.
“That's all right,” she exclaimed, “but it's just as well
to straighten you out. You're not the first who has imag-
ined things. Harlem is a funny place, you know.”
Jeremiah refrained from answering. In fact, there was
nothing to say further on that subject, but he was greatly
relieved, and he did not want to identify the reasons for his
relief.
“So you're going on a vacation soon, eh?” as if recalling
something that had been lost.
“Yes, at the end of next week.”
"Don't you need a chaperone?” he bantered in an effort
to recapture their former mood.
Lido was smiling again and looked archly at him.
“Maybe ... and maybe ... not,” she lisped.
“Will you call upon me if you do?"
“Yes, but in the meantime I have much work to do,"
she smiled back at him as she turned and went towards her
own secretarial sanctum. In a moment Jeremiah heard the
swift rumbling sound of Lido's typewriter.
“Quite a girl!” he pondered as he resumed his stand
at the window.


CHAPTER IX
MARCUS Cox concluded his downtown engagement and re-
turned to the headquarters of his organization late that
afternoon. Jeremiah was still in the office where Marcus
had left him some hours earlier. He was lost in thought. The
burden of his thinking was what he could best do to help
the Movement of which he had just become a member-a
member for pay, it was true, but a member just the same-
in honor bound to further its aspirations in every way pos-
sible.
Subconsciously, Jeremiah heard the outer door open and
close. He sensed that the quick, heavy footsteps invading the
undercurrent of his consciousness were those of Marcus, who
had returned from his downtown mission. Jeremiah made no
effort to remove his feet from the glass top of Marcus' ornate
desk to which he had elevated and propped them some half-
hour before; he now lay back in a swivel chair puffing at
one of Cox's fragrant cigars. Jeremiah found it easier think-
ing that way.
Marcus was standing in the inner doorway before Jere-
miah became fully aware of his presence. A spreading
grin wreathed Cox's countenance as he noticed Jeremiah's
posture.
“Mon, dis takes me back over ten years to down home.
Yo' 'members when you’se had a tuff case and you use to
loll back wid your feets on de table communin' wid de
spirits? You must be doin' some pow'ful thinkin', mon?".
“Yes, I have been thinking,” replied Jeremiah; and,
68


The Black Challenge
69
after a pause: "How did you make out with your business
down below today? You seem to be in mighty good spirits."
Marcus rested his brief case and hat on the desk and
slumped down into a chair across from Jeremiah, who now
removed his feet from the desk top and resumed an upright
position.
“I'll tell you, King, I'se far from being in good spirits,"
breathed Marcus in a tired voice. "I'se jes' weary. I'se had
one hell of a time wid dose people down at de public
prosecutor's office today. We knows this fellow Murphy there
a while now? Well, we's had contac' with him for some time
now, but he's only an 'sistant. The big chief of the office
is a man by the name of Smart-Jim Smart, dey calls him.
He's a reg'lar man-eatin' shark when it comes to puttin'
people in jail dat he have no use for. Dey say I'se been
raisin' too much hell 'mong de Niggers in Ha'lem. 'Sides,
dey wants money for dere political campaigning. De pri-
maries is next month, and dis man Smart wants to run for
gub'nor."
“Well, what has that to do with you and your work?"
broke in Jeremiah.
"Yo' see, you'se much too young in dis man's country to
know much 'bout dese things. Dis is a great country, King,
but it's a funny country in some ways. It's a great politician's
country. When a man wants to run for gub'nor, or president,
or some big office, he jes' looks up some big shot on de other
side of politics and puts him in jail. Dis man Smart has jes'
jailed one of de big fellahs from de Free-Wheeling Party,
dey calls demselves; maybe dey hang him. I don't wants to
be eider hunged or put in jail.”
“Well, you haven't done anything that you need to
be scared of, have you?”
"No-o-o," Marcus drawled, “but yo' never kin tell. For
one thing, we's been picketin de stores in 'twenty-fifth Street
dat's been taking de cullud people's money all dese years
and not giving them any employment, 'cept perhaps a po'ter's
job here and dere or some sich menial slave work. We wants


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The Black Challenge
better'n dat, King-we wants clerks', bookkeepers', and man-
agers' jobs. And not only de stores, but de banks, de tele-
phone company, and every other blessed business dat is run
up here in Ha'lem. We's part of dis country, King. We pays
taxes jes' like all de other people-dat is, all de taxes 'cept,
p'raps, income taxes; but dat's 'cause we ehn't got much
income. We wants to pay dese income taxes, too, but we
can't pay dem off a po'ter's job.”.
"Well, picketing is a perfectly lawful act, isn't it?” inter-
jected Jeremiah.
“Sure, sure! But it depends on who's doin' de picketin'
and who's yo’ picketin' 'gainst. Dese stores and oder places
that I'se talkin' 'bout is willing to spend dere money wid
de politicians rather than pay it out in good wages to
Negroes in decent jobs; and de politicians wants money to
start things up next month when de prim'ries comes around.
Dey say we has to stop picketin' till after election, and dey
wants two thousand bucks contribution from my organiza-
tion-or else."
"Blackmail,” pronounced Jeremiah.
“Maybe,” agreed Marcus. “Fact is dat is jes' exactly
what Smart put dat big Free-Wheeling politician man in
jail for; but yo’ see, it's one thing when Smart's party does it
and anoder thing when de oder party man does it. It all
depen’s,” droned Marcus, “on whose bull is bein' stabbed.
I don't want any 'countant from de prosecutor's office
nosin' 'round our books. When we gets stronger, we gets
even wid dese fellahs. Some day, King, I aims to have a
hundred t'ousand mens and womens voters in dis man's
town; and den, den-” Marcus gloated, "we gives fellahs like
dis man Smart hell. We knocks 'em over like kingpins.”
“Ninepins, you mean," suggested Jeremiah.
“Ninepins, kingpins, what's de diff'rence, King, so long
as we knocks 'em over.”
Jeremiah was viewing his friend Marcus, sitting on the
other side of the desk across from him, with thoughtful
eyes. His estimate of Marcus was undergoing a change. Jere-


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71
miah began to realize that this squat black man before him
had more of sharp, practical wisdom than he had given him
credit for. There was, too, in Cox's determination to right
some of the Negro's wrongs a spirit which began to com-
mand Jeremiah's respect.
In many of the social and other gatherings at which
Jeremiah had been present, he had sensed a sort of universal
tendency for conversation and, very often, debate on the
problems of Negro people in the United States—the discrim-
ination to which they were subjected, the segregated neigh-
borhoods in which they were crowded and compelled to live,
and a thousand and other limitations suffered by them. Here
and there in these groups he had met Negroes-or rather,
colored people, as they preferred to be termed—who seemed
to deprecate such discussions as if they themselves were
untouched by racial hatred; but aside from this minority,
ninety-nine per cent of colored persons felt that their situa-
tion was, definitely, a “problem” which they must somehow
or other solve.
As a barrister-at-law from a British West Indian island,
Jeremiah realized that he could not automatically take up
the practice of his profession in New York from where he
had left off in San Fernando. It seemed fitting that he should
mention this difficulty to Marcus.
"Oh, that's all right,” replied Marcus, "we don't have
no co't business anyway; leastways, not much, and Obadiah
Jackson can 'tend to that. He's our co't lawyer.”
In Obadiah Jackson Jeremiah recognized the lawyer who
had “razzed Jedge Laz'rus to beat de band,” as he had lustily
recounted to him at a Seventh Avenue meeting some few
days back.
"It ain't dat dat's worryin' me jes' now," Marcus ex-
plained. "Fact of de matter is that t'ings has come to a
standstill, an' I doan seem to be able to move 'em. We got
lot o' expense, and money doan come in fas' 'nough. 'Sides
dat, dere's a few fellahs right next to me dat I can't trus'...
tryin' to stir up trouble. Oh, doan worry,” as Jeremiah raised


The Black Challenge
73
in de debil's name should Niggers want to copy de white
man all de time? I say, let us quit imitatin' the white man,
quit actin' like white monkeys and act like black monkeys.
"Jesus, what's money?" he continued vehemently. “You
t'inks I'm a grafter like all de rest of dese Niggers in Ha'lem.
I uses money, shucks! Yes, I uses money like water. I aims to
keep on using it. I deserves it. I makes de Niggers respect
me; but I aims to help 'em, and dey is going to get dere
money's worth all de time from me, so help me God! I is
goin' to make 'em know dey is living in a world where dey
needs to wake up and do things."
Jeremiah sat somewhat mystified. He had not sensed any
real sincerity in all that he had seen of Marcus Cox's osten-
tation. His hasty conviction had been that Marcus was just
a plain charlatan living softly and easily on the gullibility
of his fellow Negroes by exploiting their ignorance. But an
attempt to raise this submerged tenth! My God, what a task!
Other men, men with great brains, in other times and coun-
tries, had had similar lofty ambitions down the years. Jesus,
the son of a Galilean, had tried it; but even this superman
had been crucified-and by his own people, too. It was not
the Jews who had acclaimed the Christ, but aliens and
strangers who had found in him the virtues which his breth-
ren had denied. An appeal to humanity at large was one
thing; an appeal to particular racial instincts quite another.
Was he, Jeremiah King, equipped to contribute any real
help to this black dreamer and his followers? And if he
were equipped, would his temperament enable him to do
so? After all, he, Jeremiah, had not the make-up of the
Crusader; and this would be some crusade if it were to be
a real one.
Both men lapsed into silence. Marcus Cox's office, taste-
fully curtained and screened, commanded a view of Seventh
Avenue. Up and down that avenue, as they both gazed out,
men and women and children of their race swept past,
some black like Marcus Cox, some brown, or yellow, or light
like Jeremiah-but all, all for a common purpose, jumbled


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and herded together as one class of Negroes, Niggers, col-
ored people, or whatever one's taste, or mood, or personal
disposition might prompt him to name them. Thoughtlessly,
aimlessly, a group banded together on the street corner;
another was skylarking there on the sidewalk; occasionally,
a loud abandoned guffaw resounded, smacking of primitive
unrestraint; again, voices were raised in angry disputation.
The afternoon sun beat down on the sweltering streets; and,
everywhere, to Jeremiah's eyes, while there was the super-
ficial appearance of a prosperous, bustling community, un-
derneath the surface of things was tawdriness, gilt and brass
besmirched with dirt, with incompetence.
He saw the cheap shops, with their bizarre, ill-kept show
windows; he saw a certain run-downness at the heels in any
and every place in which business was being attempted, much
as if this community had but recently recovered from some
blight.
Night time and the glare of lights! These hid a world of
pathos; but in daylight, in the disclosing light of God's
full sun, this "Nigger Heaven” was, perchance, all too close
to a ... "Nigger Hell.”
It came to Jeremiah like a flash of lightning illuminat-
ing a darkened area. Harlem-this man's town, as everybody
called it-Harlem was indeed there, but Harlem had not yet
arrived, no, not by a damned sight!
Jeremiah stole a glance over at his High Commandership.
He wondered whether, by any chance, Marcus was seeing
the same things he saw.
There was so much about Marcus Cox that grated on
Jeremiah's sensibilities: his English, or lack of English,
for one thing, although he did not see why he should expect
any more in this respect from Marcus; for another, Marcus'
proneness to use the word “Nigger” so freely. He had no
objection to Marcus Cox's referring to the submerged tenth
as “Niggers." He himself thought of them in the same way;
but Marcus might, by chance, include him, Jeremiah King,
in that category.
called it-Hanet bv a damned sight! vish Commandership.


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The Black Challenge
“Renegade nothin'!” rejoined Marcus. “I bets you I
could had you 'rested fo' what you t'inks of de whole damn
mess. You is sittin' here wid me and you'se jes' as squeamish
of me as a cat is of water. You looks down on me, you looks
down on all de blacks jes' the same as de white people looks
down on all of us. You mulatto people are only kiddin'
yo’selves when you t'inks you is different from black Nig-
gers; you'se just de same Niggers yo’selves. But what's de
diff? De white people is jes' the same. We has our mulat-
toes 'spising our blacks and browns and what-nots, and dey,
de white people, why, dere's de Germans dat hates the
Italians, de Italians hates de Austrians, de Russians is always
knocking de debil out o' de Jews, and de English-hell!
dey hates everybody else in de world 'cept 'emselves. So I
says again, what's de diff, King? What's de diff?”.
"Well, if that is so, what's all this fuss about then?
Why are you trying to build a Negro kingdom on the black
man's troubles if everybody, white and black, is subject
alike to these common annoyances? Suppose you had a
whack at the remaking of things, what would you do?"
"Say, is yo' tryin' to kid me, King?" Marcus answered,
rising, and his face lowering. “What would I do?" Then he
sat down. “I'll tell you what I'd do ... yes,” he added, his
face now radiating as with a pleasant thought, "I'd get some
kind of machine dat turns out all models alike, jes' like
Mr. Ford; and I'd make dem all wid legs alike, wid feets
alike, same color skin, same hair, same everyt'ing."
“And then," quickly chimed in Jeremiah, “every time
you looked into the other fellow's face you wouldn't know
whether you saw yourself or somebody else. And your wife-
helll You could pick up every other fellow's wife and make
believe you had made a mistake ... thought she was yours.
Ha, ha, ha! Good idea, Marcus. Beautiful world! You're
going strong, old man; go ahead, tell me some more of what
you would do.”
"Talking 'bout womens," Marcus replied, “I feels
strongly 'bout dat. When I has a woman, I aims to hab her
cat turns pleasant th: Yes," h


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77
all to myself. I doan aim to hab her messin' around wid
other men. Yellow niggers like you, King, you wants every
woman you sees-white, brown, black or yellow, dey's all de
same to you. Yo' see how quick you was to talk about de
other fellow's wife. Dat's de fust t’ing comes to yo’ mind.
Yo' perambulates aroun' jes' like a bunch o' mustard seed
spreadin' itself in grass. I guess yo' inherits dat. You gets
dat from your white fahders. Dey comes down from de moun-
tains on de little Nigger gals in de valleys. and widout sayin'
nuthin', not even so much as 'If you please,' dey takes a
Nigger woman and, cripes! befo' yo' knows what you is
talkin' 'bout, you is de result, you and all de udder yallow
niggers in de world, wid your light skins and kinky hair-
jes' as kinky as mine. Yo' is one hell of a mess, you sure is."
"I suppose you prefer your pure charcoal, eh, Marcus?"
retorted Jeremiah sarcastically.
“Yes,” snapped back Marcus Cox, “I does—I prefers my
charcoal. Dat's pure just like-white lead. Dey's both pure,
charcoal and white lead-black man, white man. Dat's where
de white man and niggers like me has it on you fellahs.
Dat's de reason white men doan want any you Niggers
messin' roun' wid dere womens; but shucks! dey may as
well tell de sun to stan' still, 'cause any time a woman
wants a man, she's goin' to git him, jes' the same as she
gits her dresses, her ribbons, and her furbelows. I doan
blame 'em, either. I'se just like dat myself. If I lubs a woman,
I lubs her. I'se goin' to beg for her; I'se goin' to steal for
her; I'se goin' to fight for her, and if dere is any killin' to
be did, I'se goin' to kill for her. I aims to gi' her everyting
her little heart desires, and I doan care whether she is black,
brown, white or yellow. Dey is all alike to me. And womens
is jes' the same. If a white woman sets her eyes on a black
man, and dere is somethin' 'bout dat black man that she lubs,
she wants him; she has to have him-same as when a white
man wants a nigger woman. What in hell is either of dem
goin' to care about de purity of de race. and whether de
one is charcoal and de other white lead or not-If dey can't


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go in de front room and gits what dey want, dey is goin?
in de back yard, in de bullrushes and steal it, jes, like down
in Egypt when de 'gyptian king's daughter went in de bull-
rushes and finds her-Moses. Hal Hal Ha! Say, King, does
yo' believes all you reads in de Bible?" questioned Marcus,
his broad face spreading in a grin as if the humor of his
own remarks surprised him.
Then, his mood suddenly changing, he did not wait for
Jeremiah's reply.
“Jokin' aside, King, we'se got to place our race in a posi-
tion dat if de white man doan likes us, he can't ’ford to hate
us, just as de Jews does.”
Marcus Cox's past dissertation had tumbled itself on Jere-
miah so suddenly that he was really at a loss whether to
resent, whether to agree, or whether to keep silent altogether;
but this last remark more intimately concerned his business
with Marcus Cox, so he replied: "Yes, you're right. But
how is that to be done? You know Negroes are a young peo-
ple, young in accomplishment, young in everything. We
haven't had the same start as the white races of the earth.”
“Yes, we had too. The 'gyptians was black people. Dey
had a start, but you know what happened. A lot of white
people come in and messed dem all up. Dey was soon neder
one t'ing nor de other, just like you. You can't be a black
man, and yo’ can't be a white man; but me," and he
thumped his chest with his hand, “me,” he repeated, “I'se a
black man and I'se proud of it! I aims to continue being
a black man. I aims to do everything I'se minded to do jes'
as I wants to do it. If I'se black in my insides I'se goin'
to let it show outsides. When I laughs, I'se goin' to laugh
as loud as I likes. When I sings, I’se goin' to sing strong
and hollow like a big trombone; when I cries, I'se goin'
to croon like de woods asighing at night. If I wants a red hat
I'se goin' to wear a red hat. What de hell does I cares
what de white man t'inks of me? Suppose he like black
clothes and I like red clothes-ain't my red clothes as good
as his black clothes? I doan mean that we should spill water


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79
all ober de parade, but what I means is dat Niggers ought
to find out what dey are good for and do jes' dat thing.
I'm tired of all dese black and brown people who is always
tryin' for to copy de white man. Dey's jes' like monkeys
trying to shoot a gun. De monkey ain't 'customed to any
gun, and de fust t'ing you know he shoot himself. What
de monkey need is a stick same as he know about in de
woods. 'Course, I'se only illustratin', but you gits my pint,
does yo”?"
Jeremiah nodded, and added: "The only flaw in your
reasoning, Marcus, is that you forget that when one's in
Rome, one has to do as the Romans do. Now, the Negro
race in New York, or anywhere else, can't do anything
else but try to measure up to its surroundings, to acquire the
civilization it finds itself in. Negroes can't go strutting
around like a lot of bushmen; that's just the trouble with
them. I suppose that is what your Movement means, that
you want to improve their effort, and by improving their
effort, improve their condition.”
“Say, King,” responded Marcus, "you has smart brains,
but you is awfully shortsighted. Man, let me tell you some-
thing. You knows why de black man can't build towns
and cities like de white man, like out dere?" and he waved
his hand towards the buildings out on Seventh Avenue. “I'll
tell you. It's 'cause for generations back dere mudders and
fahders been building mud huts, and you can't take a man
from de jungle who'se been building mud huts and 'spects
he's goin' to build a Wool'ruff Tower. De trouble ain't
wid his hands; his hands and his head's all right; de trouble
is wid his instinct. He ain't feel like foolin' wid any towers;
he jes' wants a little mud hut where he can lie out in de
shade and jes' eat and sleep. De best t’ing to do with de
Niggers is to take 'em all back to de place where dey was
born and let dem start fresh. Yo' doan train a race hoss on
a farm; all yo' train on a farm is a truck hoss. Dat's what
I believes in; and even if I doan wants to go back to Africa
myself, dat ain't proving dat Africa is not de best place in


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de world for de Negro race in de whole. I bets you dat in
de next fifty years dere won't be a Nigger-a real Nigger-
in dis country. Dere will be black people, no doubt; but not
real Niggers. If dey are black, dey will be washed out, no
pep, no snap, no ginger, jes' like dey are here in Ha'lem,
jes' imitation Niggers; and dey will all be de most unhappy
people in de world-jes' like you, King, neder one t'ing nor
de other. Why, mon, if you was a black man, wid a lot of
snap and pep, not lazy and lolling-like, wid your brains
I bets you you'd be a-Hannibal,” Marcus exploded.
“Look here, Marcus, I don't like your use of the word
‘Nigger'-to me, anyway. It grates on my nerves, and I
wish you'd cut it out. I just don't like it! The chances are
if I were black like you I wouldn't have any brains, so that
let's me out of being Hannibal or anybody like him.”
Then, suddenly, tired of the whole discussion, he added
hastily: “We get nowhere with this line of talk, Marcus;
we're simply wasting time. Let's talk of something more
practical, or, better still, let's go out and eat."
"All right,” agreed Marcus. “I'se hungry myself. Let's go."
As the two men strolled down Seventh Avenue, Jeremiah
came face to face with Dr. Proudfoot.
"By Jovel Counselor King, just the man I was thinking
ofl I'm having a few friends gather at my apartment on
Saturday night, will you join us?"
“Thanks, Doctor. What time?"
“Oh, any old time-say, eleven, half-past, or as late as
you like.”
“Righto," returned Jeremiah. “I'll be there."
Jeremiah noticed that no sign of recognition passed
between Dr. Proudfoot and Marcus Cox. How strange
that these two prominent persons of Harlem should not be
acquainted. “Don't you people know each other?” he ques-
tioned.
"We all have heard of Mr. Cox,” grinned the doctor,
“but this is the first time I've had the pleasure of meeting
him. Glad to meet you, Mr. Cox," and he bowed, some-


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81
what stiffly, Jeremiah thought. “I'd be glad to have you
with us, also, Mr. Cox-just a few friends.
Marcus Cox bowed but made no direct response to the
doctor's invitation.
“Are you going to Proudfoot's party?" Jeremiah inquired
as they continued their way down the avenue.
Marcus did not answer immediately. He was meditatively
stroking his chin.
"How well does yo’ know dese people?" he finally in-
quired.
“Dr. Proudfoot? I met him soon after landing. I met
him again last night after I left your house, in that chop-
suey joint we just passed below your offices, him and a
young fellow by the name of George Webb ..." and Jere-
miah stopped. He determined to say nothing of the female
members of the party-Lido, for instance.
"Oh, you met dat young upstart lawyer George Webb,
eh? Was that white district attorney fellah wid him? Dey
always travel 'roun' in Ha'lem together.”
“What's his name?" asked Jeremiah.
“Murphy, Owen Murphy," replied Marcus.
“Yes, he was there too."
“Webb and Proudfoot good friends?" questioned Mar-
cus.
“They seem so," answered Jeremiah.
“Yes, I think I'll go to the party,” finally said Marcus.
“De doctor only ring me in to be polite; but I'm goin'-
for a reason," he ended, as they stepped into Eddie's Chop
House. "I'se sure to meet Owen Murphy dere; and besides,
it's time for me to show des Ha'lem swell-head mulattoes
a thing or two."


CHAPTER X
JEREMIAH KING had no illusions about himself. He had
always made it a point as far as possible to know exactly
where he was tending. During the many years he had daw-
dled away in San Fernando, Jeremiah had by no means
missed the essence of things. It was simply that he refused
to be concerned whether his course of conduct brought joy
or pain to his contacts. He was essentially a realist. If ad-
vantage came to him, it was because he measured up; he
ascribed his discomfitures to a mere lack of fitness which,
he told himself, he could overcome were he to strive suffi-
ciently. He had no tearful self-pity for his failures, for
accomplishment to him did not necessarily mean striving
in the market place. He dreamed of a Perfection to which
he might bow down not because he was akin to it, but
because of his sheer unholiness, and he had no excuses to
offer for the latter.
Quite early in his matrimonial venture with Dora, Jere-
miah had come to the conclusion that his wife would always
be to him a crass spirit, a kind of thick, beefy affair which
only needed meat and drink and raiment for its sustenance.
Of industry his wife had had an abundance; of push and
hustle there was no lack; of imagination she had none;
and of that intangible quality which unites two human souls
at times when food is nauseating, when drink is beside
the question, and when raiment is but a paltry possession,
Dora King had not even the makings. Thus, he had come
to despise that soul, to condemn it, to resent being hemmed
82


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83
in by and with it. And yet, withal, he had been tolerant.
His aloofness was not an intolerant aloofness; it was simply
a vague distaste which brought with it deep silences.
. Strange and unnatural enough, Jeremiah had found him-
self possessed of the same distaste towards his father-a large
man, of powerful physique, with flat, broad, black face
and spreading lips adorned with stubby side whiskers; a face
not by any means cruel, and yet a face to disturb, perchance,
the dreams of a child. But his mother-ah, his beautiful
mother!—with her frail body and pale, white face set with
two mystic blue eyes that seemed perpetually pleading for
soft things and never to encompass them. She may not
have been beautiful to any other person in the world, but to
Jeremiah, his mother had always been the most angelic, the
rarest thing in all creation, an imperishable memory.
Many and many a time he wondered how it had come
to pass that this frail white creature, his mother, should
have joined herself to this thick black creature, his father.
He had heard the story over and over again from her lips,
but had never ceased to wonder.
His father, a Negro missionary sent to the African Gold
Coast from the British West Indies, had met his mother,
the daughter of a Scotch missionary, engaged in the same
work of saving black souls. And this pure white soul had
joined herself to this black soul in the hope that, thus
united, there might come to their credit on God's account
a larger bag of black native African souls. He, Jeremiah
King, had been the sole result.
After many years of striving in Africa, his mother's
health had given way and his father had been only too glad
to accept the pastorate of a church in San Fernando. Jere-
miah had grown up there, had been sent to college in Eng-
land and, finally, had studied law in London. His mother
had died while he was in England, and he had not even
been able to see her in her last moments. His father also
had died soon after his return to San Fernando. And now,
here he was in Harlem, pursued by the same strange des-


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tiny that had overtaken his father and mother: he was
Grand Counselor of a Movement dedicated to the uplifting
of black souls. What irony of Fate!
Thus did Jeremiah muse as he wended his way to Dr.
Proudfoot's home in response to the invitation extended to
him.
The taxi in which he was riding drew up with a jolt,
and Jeremiah pulled himself from his revery and got out.
As he paused on the sidewalk, his gaze swept aloft to en-
compass a white Indiana limestone apartment building ex-
tending for six stories from the corner far into the middle
of the block. Dr. Proudfoot was alleged to own this building.
“Not so bad for a little black man,” Jeremiah murmured
as he entered the doctor's building.
“Yas, sir, going right up; mind yo' step,” the elevator
boy was saying as he grinned pleasantly, and the car shot
upwards to the top floor.
“Which way is the doctor's apartment?" Jeremiah quer-
ied.
“De whole way-doctor got de whole floor for heself,"
at the same time pointing to a push button.
Dr. Proudfoot himself opened the door, a short, dapper
little man, pince-nez struck pertly on nose, upper lip cov-
ered in the center with a mere rake of a moustache and
bared back in a perpetual smile to show a single shining
gold tooth.
“How are you, old chappie? Awfully glad to see you,”
greeted the doctor. His accent was a cross between that of
Boston and the east side of London.
Jeremiah passed down a short hall and entered a fair-
sized room in which a phonograph was pouring forth a
breezy, jazzy tune. Fully a dozen couples were swaying and
"bumping” in harmony to the music. Close-linked, they
heaved together in semidarkness backward . . . forward ...
forward ... backward, rising, falling, rolling in one united
movement like the swell of an undulating wave. Soon the


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roamed from room to room. This gathering was quite unlike
Marcus Cox's cohorts, but it contained many things in
common.
As the liquor circulated, spirits expanded, and even the
stiffly dignified began to unbend. Loud noises, louder than
usual, much feet-tapping, indrawn cries, were coming from
the dancing-room. A human ring encircled a tall brown-
skinned beauty. It was Ruth Dennis doing a “Charleston."
Skirts working high, dainty silk things and occasional
glimpses of brown skin beneath, she twisted and turned and
whirled and kicked in delightful abandon. The noted author
half-stood, half-crouched in the center of the inner circle.
Pop-eyed, his tongue continuously licking his lips, he seemed
like some crouching animal about to pounce on its prey.
A desire for emulation seized him, and he jumped into
the ring towards the kicking performer. Not to be outdone,
a tall rangy blonde, the wife of a publisher, threw herself
in beside the author. The little brown girl, with sparkling
eyes, edged out of the ring. She smiled. All the black,
brown, and light-skinned males also smiled. George Webb,
next to Jeremiah, nudged him in the ribs and threw him a
sly, knowing wink. The white lady's skirts, working high,
also disclosed dainty silk things and occasional glimpses of
white bared thigh beneath. Dr. Proudfoot, at the edge of
the crowd, with his neck out from his short shoulders like
the lunge of a turtle's head from its flat body, craned forward
for a closer peep. His upper lip, bared backward, froze in
an ecstatic smile. He breathed deeply: "Oh, boy!” and
around the group of black, brown, and light-skinned males,
the echo replied: “Oh, boy!”
Jeremiah raised his eyes. They encountered those of Lido
Jones. She was standing somewhat apart, arm in arm with
Owen Murphy, who, much the worse for liquor, sagged
every now and then in an effort to maintain his balance. A
sickly grin overspread his face. Lido's brow was puckered
with a little frown and, as the echo of “Oh, boy!" resounded


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87
on every side, she turned disdainfully away. Her escort barely
avoided collapse.
The air was suddenly punctured by the angry burring
of the door bell. How often and long it had been ringing,
no one knew, but it now sent its metallic summons dis-
tinctly above all other noises. Dr. Proudfoot rushed toward
this belated guest. He had maintained his position at the
door all night, the first to welcome his visitors. Soon he re-
turned with a companion treading behind him-no taller
than the doctor, but almost twice as broad, as ponderous
and as heavy. It was Marcus Cox, dressed immaculately in
evening clothes, and with his "High Commander” gold sash
across his broad white-shirted chest. There was a moment's
hush which seemed to communicate itself to the farthest
confines of the doctor's apartment. The silence was broken
by a large, brawny black woman – Madame Castanet by
name, the richest black woman in America, or was it in the
world?—whose mother had made a fortune out of uncurling
curly hair.
"My God!” she ejaculated. “Look who's here! Well, I
swear ..."
She did not complete what she wanted to swear; but,
whatever it was, her immediate circle seemed to be in entire
accord with her, for, as Marcus advanced farther into the
room, there was much gathering of skirts and raising of
shoulders and eyebrows from the coterie of ladies gathered
about Madame Castanet.
Lido Jones, however, was there to save the night for her
High Commander. Whether she sensed the atmosphere of
chilliness or not, she swiftly disengaged herself from the
wobbling Owen Murphy's arm and, going forward, greeted:
“Oh, Mr. Cox, how glad we all are to see you!"
Marcus took both of Lido's outstretched hands, smiled
down beamingly upon her, and bowed right and left to the
assembled company. Then, with his quick, roving eyes, his
glance detected Jeremiah in a little foyer nook in an ad-


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joining room. Passing Madame Castanet and her attendant
ladies-in-waiting with the tiniest perceptible gesture of
scorn, he pulled up beside Jeremiah.
"Well, I came, King."
Jeremiah made room for Marcus on the small sofa un-
derneath a huge palm.
“Yes, I see you're here-and in full regalia,” his smile
taking in Marcus' sash.
“Oh, sure, why not?" His tone and manner were full
of a certain austere dignity which Marcus carried very well
at times; and Jeremiah noticed, too, that, whenever Marcus
Cox assumed this manner, his English became almost per-
fect, as if some disembodied spirit of another mood and
person were temporarily in possession of his black frame.
"I see no reason why you shouldn't; after all, you're
the only king Harlem has so far anointed."
“Stop your kiddin'l Do you think I came here for the
pleasure of foolin' 'round with these highfalutin mulattoes
and browns?” he questioned, looking disdainfully at Ma-
dame Castanet and her assembled court ladies. “I'm here
to meet Owen Murphy, that public-attorney fellow. Have
you met him or seen him?"
“Yes, he was in the front room a moment ago with
Lido," replied Jeremiah.
"Yes, she runs aroun' with him and that fellow Webb
quite a deal,” he remarked, and then added: “I'se supposed
to have a talk with Murphy here tonight, and I wants you
wid me.”
“All right, whenever you're ready," Jeremiah replied,
at the same time wondering what it was all about.
“Say, dis is one hell of a party, ehn't it?" resumed
Marcus after a while.
“I'll say so.”
"A lot o' whites. too."
"Didn't know there were so many in the world,”
laughed Jeremiah.
“Who is de pompous fellah over yondah?”


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89
"You mean the one with his hair sticking up like a
mop?"
"Yes."
“That's a famous author.”
"Not de one dat writes dat story, Blackbirds?”
“The same; he's all mussed up from doing a Charleston
just before you came in.”
“I reads dat book. Damn funny! You know Niggers doan
know when dey's made fun at.”
. “No? It's a virtue to be funny, you know; and if Negroes
are really humorous, it is real art to create them so. No
objection to that, is there?”
"I’spose not.”
“Would you like to meet him?" offered Jeremiah. “He
might want to put you in his next book.”
"I'd bust 'im in de mout if I ketches ’im.”
“They say that book made him a fortune. He might
divide the gate receipts with you as his next hero. You'd
make a perfect ‘Jake.'”
"Who's dat man 'Jake'?"
“Didn't you read Home to Harlem? Jake was the royster-
ing sweetback in that story, but a real he-man just the same.
How would you like to be such a character?”
“Hush yo' nonsens, King. You know, dough, white folks
is crazy about Nigger doings—what dey eats, what dey drinks,
and what dey does.”
"Yes, especially their sex performances. To most white
men and women, every Negro man is a black stallion and
every woman a mare for the entertainment of all the
stallions in the world, white or black. It's the jazz age,
Marcus, the age of whoopee, freak movements, and long
chances. That's the reason I'm beginning to think that even
you may land somewhere."
Marcus looked over frowningly at Jeremiah.
“Yo' knows, King, sometimes you gets my goat. I'll get
mad as hell some day and cuss yo' all out. I believes some-
times yo' means dose t'ings."


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“As you once said, Marcus, you could have me arrested
for what I sometimes think; but I guess we're both pretty
frank with each other.”
"Look at dat stringy, rhiney Nigger comin' ober heah-
looks like a swelled adjective! You knows 'im?”
Jeremiah rose and extended his hand in greeting to the
newcomer.
“Awfully glad to see you, Mr. Hutson. You know Mr.
Cox of course?"
“No, never had the pleasure. They just told me the King
of Harlem was here, and I came over to bend the knee to
him.”
Hutson's tone was slightly cynical, his gaze curiously
critical, as he looked Marcus up and down.
"I hear your hall and that large plot is for sale, Cox,”
Hutson remarked crisply. “If you'll name me a figure I'd
like to handle it. I've been wanting to meet you for some
time.”
Marcus did not reply immediately. His head cocked
slightly to one side, his eyes glowered into Hutson's.
“Nothin' I has is for sale,” he replied coldly.
“Huh?" and then, “Ha!” broke from Hutson's lips. “Well,
when you take all your Niggers back to Africa, let me know
and I'll take that plot off your hands. So long, King!” and
Hutson moved off.
“One ub dose bankin'-brokin' fellahs, eh? Takes all and
puts nutten. What yo’ say his name?" queried Marcus.
"Hutson.”
"Where de hell dese niggers gets dere name from?"
“Where in hell did you get yours-Cox? It's much the
same as Hutson, King, and all the others."
"I suppose some white man hands it to my fahder de
same time he hands 'im his top hat and old swallow-tail coat.”
“I suppose so," agreed Jeremiah.
"I aims to change it some day. No kiddin',” he persisted
as Jeremiah looked quizzically at him. “I'se 'shamed of it.”


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“Well, ‘Marcus' isn't so bad. Might shorten it, though,
and make it ‘Mark’ like Mark Antony, you know."
“Mark Antony! Who’se dat?"
"Don't you know? I thought you knew all about Shake-
speare. Heard you quoting him the other night in the hall."
"Shucks! Man, you doan hab to read Shakespeare to know
'bout 'im. Eberybody knows t’ings in dat man's book.”
"Well, Mark Antony was the fellow 'who made the famous
speech at Caesar's funeral. Maybe the same speech I'll make
over you some day,” smiled Jeremiah.
“Not ef I knows it! Say, King, yo’ knows what I'd like
to be?"
“High Commander? You're it already.”
"No! Jokin' 'sides, I'd loves to be a lawyer. Mon, I tinks
I sees myself in co’te: Gen’mans ub de juries—and I knocks
'em dead wid my speech! Den again, mebbe I gets real sassy-
like to de jedge, and he says to me: Now, Council; and I
butts in: No, yo' Worship ...".
"Your Worship? That's not how you address a court in
this country. You say: May it please the court."
"Yes, dat's it: Please yo' gracious hon-- hey's Lido
comin',” he broke off.
"You've been neglecting me tonight, Mr. King,” smiled
Lido Jones as she bore down on them and waved a playful
finger at Jeremiah. “Come on and dance with me."
As Jeremiah was about to move off, Marcus called him
back.
“Say, King, lean over heah. I wants to tell yo' somethin'.
... Ef I eber gets to be a real king l’se goin' to take you wid
me. Yo' knows what fo?".
Jeremiah looked at him, and he looked mischievously
back at Jeremiah.
“I aims to 'heads you," he popped out with a sudden
laugh.
“To what?"
“ 'Heads you. I chops yo' head off jes’ like de ole kings


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used to do to dere chamberlains in de ole days. I jes' itches
to do dat."
Jeremiah burst into a hearty laugh. Marcus had a quaint
sense of humor.
“What are you laughing at?" questioned Lido as they
moved towards the dancing-room.
Jeremiah told her.
“What a funny idea!"
"Oh, that's only Marcus' way of showing his love and
affection."
“Yes," she agreed, "he seems very fond of you. Only the
other night he was telling us of a famous murder case you
had down in San Fernando-the one in which you defended
the Indian girl's husband who became jealous of you and
killed her. Marcus said she was your sweetheart."
"Marcus talks more than he knows about,” he returned
gruffly.
As a matter of fact, this incident of Tahiti, the little
dancing Indian girl, was a thorn in the side of Jeremiah.
After the discovery of Tahiti's mutilated body and the arrest
of her husband, Jeremiah had felt it a sacred duty to defend
the man; in this way only he felt he could atone to Tahiti.
And he had succeeded! He had always felt proud of that.
“You don't seem so jolly tonight.”
“No?" he queried. “What makes you think so?"
“I don't think so I know so.”
"Well, you are having a good time."
“The time of my life,” she agreed. “Isn't it a great party?
Isn't Doctor Proudfoot a regular brick to turn this party on
for me before I go away?"
“Oh, is it your party? Where are you going?"
“Surely, didn't you know? I thought I told you the other
night. I'm going on my vacation to Atlantic City for a week,
maybe; then I'm going down to Washington, and from there
to Arundel-on-the-Bay for another week.”
“That's fine; wish I were going along with you.” he re-
marked gallantly.


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"Well, wouldn't that be great! Why can't you? You'd like
Atlantic Citya great place," she bubbled on.
"Maybe I will”; and, after a pause: "Where's Murphy?
I think Mr. Cox wants to see him.”
"I think he's back in the dining-room," she answered.
"He's pretty well pickled; been drinking too much whiskey,
or gin, or whatever else he drinks,” she explained.
"Didn't notice you drinking much."
"No," she answered. “I can't stand the taste of whiskey
or gin; but I do love wine. The doctor told me he had some
for me; and if you're very good I'll let you have a drink
with me."
“I'll always be good-to you," he answered in low tones
near her ear, and with the faintest suggestion of a tighter
pressure about her waist.
“All right, we'll be regular pals,” she agreed.
As they stopped for the second time, Marcus Cox was
standing beside a chair nearby. He beckoned to Jeremiah.
Marcus seemed somewhat perturbed.
“What yo' think?" he complained. “That damned Irish-
man's drunk as a lord; he's layin' off there in one of Proud-
foot's rooms, and me nor Webb can't get any sense into
his head. Guess we'll have to postpone our meetin'.”
“What's it all about, Marcus? I don't know the first thing
you are talking about.”
"Oh, dere's a little matter of a indictment--they got it
'gainst me durin'de war. De blasted English was back of it;
thought I was raisin' too much hell and might stir up the
Niggers all over-all over de world. We’se very strong on de
African Gold Coast and in Capetown. I managed to squelch
de indictment; cost me a heap o' money; but Murphy phoned
me some time ago that he had to dispose of it one way or de
udder. He said he was comin' up to dis little racket Dr.
Proudfoot was havin' in Harlem and axed me whether I'd
be there. I tole him no, I didn't 'tend no such foolishness;
but when you and me come down de steps on Seventh
Avenue and meet Dr. Proudfoot, den it 'curs to me I'd trot


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along and we could hab our conference with de blasted
grafter here.”
“Oh, I see,” observed Jeremiah; and again: “I see!”
As Jeremiah and Marcus proceeded through an arched
doorway beyond the dining-room toward one of the other
rooms beyond, they were met by George Webb coming out.
“No use, Cox; he ain't in any shape to talk tonight. We'll
have to put it off for some other time. Suppose we phone
you?”
Marcus Cox thought a moment. “All right, Webb. Let's
see. I has to go on a tour the first part of next week. I'll get
Mr. King to telephone you when I get back and 'range it.
Good night.” he added shortly, and, taking Jeremiah lightly
by the arm, they found their way out.


CHAPTER XI
THERE ARE cities and communities in the world which have
their own special flavor, atmosphere-call it what you will.
London breathes its own particular air; Paris envelops you
with its own distinct aura; and New York! there was some-
thing about New York which, to Jeremiah, was as authentic
as the flavor of either London, Paris or Berlin.
These are the highlights of the world; but here and
there, in America as in Europe, in Asia, Africa, or wherever
one may roam, there are lesser lights of cities which have
a gentle or, perhaps, a lurid perfume all their own; and once
scented, or glimpsed, or felt-according to differing tastes-
the stray sojourner's heart returns in memory even as a long-
swirling sea bird drops back to the breast of mother ocean for
snatches of sustenance and repose.
Atlantic City, “playground of the world”-as its sponsors
have so grandiloquently christened it-spreading itself along
the New Jersey shore line, with its minaret-towering hotels,
its boardwalk, and its crowds perambulating by day as by
night in one endless, never-ending procession. ...
Atlantic City! No poet has adequately sung its praises
nor expressed his lovel No painter has yet encompassed its
sprawling spirit within the narrow confines of his palette
and brush, for like many another place in the world, its
tunes, its tones, its moods are so diverse, so varying, so chang-
ing and changeful that nothing else in, about, or around it is
typical save its glowing sands and the perpetual swish and
wash and roar of the breakers as they roll unceasingly to
the shore.
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97
moment that heretofore his life had been a mere sauntering,
strolling affair. Today he felt quite different and he was
going to ...
Jeremiah was roused abruptly from his musings.
“Oh, look, Jerry, sea food, lobsters, a shore dinnerl” Lido
was bubbling. “Do let's go in and have a shore dinner! I do
so love 'em, only” she hesitated, “I wonder whether it's all
right? I wonder whether they will serve us?"
“What's a shore dinner, and why do you wonder if we
will be served?” smiled Jeremiah, abstracting his gaze and
thought from the ocean.
"A shore dinner? Don't you know? Oysters on the half-
shell; soft, oozy steamed clams; broiled lobster, chicken and
watermelon-nice, sweet dripping watermelon with black lit-
tle seeds peeking up at you and wondering whether you are
going to bite them or not," purred Lido.
Jeremiah knew nothing of shore dinners. His little island
home had no doubt possessed the ingredients, but he had
never asked for a “shore dinner" before.
"Well, what do you mean by, 'if they will serve us'? Isn't
that what they have 'em for, to serve people?”
Lido looked covertly over at her companion. She had
forgotten. Jeremiah was a West Indian. She had often heard
these people boast that they had no complex color problems
in the Islands; but surely it couldn't be altogether true.
There wasn't a place in the world where colored people
could go wherever they pleased and do whatever they liked-
except, perhaps, in the jungles of Africa.
“I've heard they are very prejudiced in Atlantic City and
don't serve Negroes on the boardwalk,” she explained; and
then, musingly, “But that's hardly different from anywhere
else."
"If that's so, how do you know about shore dinners? Never
saw any lobster palaces in Harlem," he retorted.
“Oh, I've had shore dinners lots of times, and not in
Harlem either,” she boasted.
Jeremiah pondered as he looked musingly at Lido. Black-


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haired, black-eyed, her complexion in its natural state a light
beige, but now, with her cheeks blushed with rouge, a
creamy peach color, it seemed to him a thoroughly Cau-
casian face, Latin, perhaps, Jewish, perhaps-except for the
nose—a possible representative of the innumerable caravan
from Europe, one of the many types which populate New
York's east side, and west side, and south side, and north side.
“In New York I go out a lot to Hunter Island's Inn, to
City Island, and other places with Mr. Murphy, that white
friend of George Webb's, whom you met,” she confided.
"We go to any old place we like."
“Oh, is that so? You travel around with white men, eh?"
rejoined Jeremiah, looking at her as from a distance.
“Not 'white men,'” mimicked Lido Jones. “I said a white
man.”
"All right, we won't quarrel about the plural–a white
man. What's the matter with me? We're both pretty white,”
he added, taking up one of her bare arms in his and play-
fully patting it.
“It isn't a question of lightness. With your ..." and she
hesitated, embarrassed, fearing to offend, but looking at his
hair.
“Oh, I know-you needn't hesitate; I'm not a bit sensi-
tive. You mean that with my hair curling up like Marcus
Cox's there could be no mistake.”
She could not tell whether Jeremiah, in spite of his smil-
ing frankness, were offended or not, so she merely nodded.
“Well, do you suppose I want to hide, or disguise myself,
behind a light skin? I wouldn't change my hair for any
other in the world.”
“That isn't it at all. It isn't a question of hiding. We want
what they have, and if we are fortunate enough to be able
to get it without question, why not take it? I am never going
to deny my race or my color, but I certainly am not going
around pinning placards on myself. They'll serve a white man
and a very light woman, or vice versa. They'll take a chance,
not being sure. There are so many different kinds of people


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99
in this country you can't ever be sure. Besides, one carries
the other along; but when both are doubtful, like us-you're
a little and I'm a little-I don't know, they may not take the
chance. I do wish I could have some lobster, though," she
added very wistfully.
“We are certainly going to have lobster if you want it,”
he replied, as if that ended the whole matter; and calling to
the Negro wheeler to pull up alongside "Jack's Lobster
Palace” at the Inlet, they jumped out.
"Let me fix up a little," Lido said sprightfully, taking out
her omnipresent compact case and dabbing at her nose and
cheeks. “Maybe that'll help some”; and, resting her arm
lightly in that of Jeremiah's, they entered the restaurant.
Was there a slight feeling of self-consciousness on Jere-
miah's part-just the smallest tincture of expectancy, as,
pausing for a moment to select seats, they found their way
to a table near a window overlooking the boardwalk and
the bay? When it was all over, Jeremiah tried to recall his
feelings, but never settled the matter to his satisfaction.
A waitress came over, laid a menu card on the table, and
passed on. There was no welcoming smile on her face, no
air of greeting, not the slightest hint of: “This restaurant is
glad to have you come in, and we're going to take care of
you well for the minutes that you are here.” Just a quick,
searching look. Jeremiah had known ever so many eating
places where both the food and the service-particularly the
service-gave you a kind of homey, chummy feel. But, pos-
sibly, there were too many transients coming and going for
this place to have developed such an atmosphere. Still, on
this occasion, the place was not even half-filled; and the night
was a lazy, strolling kind of a night, the air coming through
the windows from the ocean soft and balmy, with just a
sufficiency of tang in it to add piquancy. One got the feeling
that it was a night in which to be generous, to be cheerful,
to be expandingly gay.
Lido placed her wide-brimmed Leghorn hat on a chair
beside her and rested Jeremiah's alongside it. She again ruf-


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The Black Challenge
fled her curls and settled down to the pleasing prospect of
a shore dinner.
The waitress returned. She laid napkins and glasses of
water beside their respective places. Lido was chirping joy-
fully. “You're going to enjoy it,” she was saying, "even if it
is your first shore dinner. I've heard they are just wonderful
in this place.”
In the far distance of the restaurant, however, over on
the other side of the room where there was a railinged space
with a high desk surmounted by a cash register and an ele-
vated chair on which sat a thick, matronly woman with great
masses of blonde, wavy hair, a conference was going forward
between the waitress, the cashier, and a man-a short, stocky,
red-haired man who seemed to be in authority, perhaps the
proprietor. Jeremiah recalled that this stocky man had but a
moment or two before passed behind their table and held a
whispered conversation with a fat woman and her companion
a seat or two removed from theirs.
Now the short, stocky man was coming towards them.
He was even at that moment standing beside Jeremiah, his
hands lightly resting on the table beside him. He was saying
something. It suddenly occurred to Jeremiah that something
very unpleasant was about to happen.
“Excuse me, sir,” the man was saying. "what is your na.
tionality?"
Jeremiah looked steadily into the man's gray eyes before
replying; then, slowly, as if measuring his calibre, his quality,
he permitted his eyes to travel up and down his figure until
they rested again on his face. Finally, with deliberate slow-
ness, he answered: “What in hell is that to you? Who are
you, anyhow, and how dare you come over here and ask me
a question like that?”
“I am the manager of this restaurant. I suspect that you
two people are colored people, and we can't serve Negroes
here. It's a hard-and-fast rule-sorry.”
The man was not rude in manner. He was civil, polite,
apologetic, in fact.


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a snarl, a curse issuing from between the corners of his
lips as they opened themselves in a forced smile in Lido's
direction.
"Well, that's that!” he finally remarked, strumming on
the table with his fingers; then, quickly rising, as if waking
himself from a dream, he remarked, turning towards Lido
Jones: “Come, little girl, let's go.”
As they walked down the restaurant aisle and passed
through its doors, heads held high and eyes scornfully
sweeping group after group of other diners who had wit-
nessed their discomfiture, a little snicker from the fat over-
dressed female sitting behind them was wafted to their ears.


CHAPTER XII
“Ah could ah tole yo’so,” confided their Negro wheelchair-
pusher as Jeremiah and Lido Jones settled themselves for
the journey back down the boardwalk.
"Told us what?” questioned Jeremiah sharply and ir-
ritably.
“Tole yo’ dey doan serve no cullud people in dat rest'-
rant. Dat's de most prejudicest place dere is in Atlantic
City. De mostest patrons of dat place is s’utherners-crackers
from de Sout-and dey doan serve we people atall, atall!
No, sir! no chance whatsoever or howsoever," and he shook
his head vehemently.
He had stood alongside the window and witnessed the
entire proceeding.
Jeremiah, however, had no immediate inclination to
discuss his troubles with this man-their chair-pusher, their
servant. After all, the mere fact of a common heritage did
not, by that very token, make this man a fit auditor of his
woes. As a matter of fact, it had not been a southern man
or woman who had caused their rejection. He had distinctly
seen, now that he recalled it, the beginning of the whole
affair. It was the large, stout, overdressed, overdiamonded
female sitting with her companion at the table behind them
who had beckoned the manager of the restaurant and, in
a whisper purposely designed, no doubt, to be disquietingly
loud, had made objection to dining with—“Niggers!” There
had been some doubt expressed by the manager; and, finally,
after a conference with his assistants, he had come over
to their table.
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The Black Challenge
There was an empty feeling at the pit of his stomach. His
lips were so dry that he found himself wetting them re-
peatedly with his tongue. His hands shook. He was flabber-
gasted, upset, enraged-for himself and for Lido Jones. He
glanced covertly at her. He wondered how she felt, what
was going on in her mind. He heard her voice coming as
from a distance. It took him a few moments to pull himself
together and determine what she was saying.
“Don't take it too hard, old boy. You know I warned
you I was afraid of just that.”
"I didn't think it possible,” he muttered, more to him-
self than to her.
"Yes, not only possible, but most probable-absotively
probable,” she said, reverting to playful slang in order for
him to snatch some measure of cheer from her lightness.
"But we mustn't let that spoil our evening. That ... would
...be ...a ... crimel” and her eyes and smile encouraged
him.
"I guess you're right," but he lapsed into silence immedi-
ately afterward. It was not so easy to shake off as that. Sud-
denly, he turned towards his chair-pusher.
“Tell me something, George.'
“Mah name ahnt George."
"What is it?"
"My name is Abraham Lincoln Douglas. Mr. Abraham
Lincoln Douglas, dat’s me, sar!”
“Abraham Lincoln, eh?”
“Yes, sar, de same who freed de slaves; but dey calls
me Link for short.”
“So the slaves are free, are they, Link?"
“Sure dey is, befo' ah is bawn!"
“And how long has this kind of thing been going on
here?"
“What yo' means-dey doan serve cullud people?"
"Yes."
"All de time, and ah bin livin' here nigh to fifty yeahs.”
“Didn't you ever think of doing anything about it?"


The Black Challenge
105
“Me? Ah is only a poor wheel-pusher. Been doin' dat
all mah life. If dese dicty Niggahs wants to eat on de
bo'adwalk it's dem bis’ness. Ah mines mah own bis'ness.”
“That so," agreed Jeremiah. “Do you know what I'd
like to do right now?"
"No, sah, ah ain' no min' readah.”
"I'd like to get about fifty of the blackest Negroes I can
find in Atlantic City and march them into that restaurant
and sit down until we had a lobster feast.”
“Man, yo' shuh is looking to raise some hell, ain't yoh?"
"Yes, I'd like to do just that.”
"You'd have a race riot befoh mohnin'."
"And then—?"
"All us Niggahs would be chased out o' Atlantic!"
“That wouldn't be such a bad thing. What's the use of
living here if you can't have what you want?”
"Me? Ah gets all I wants. Doan lak no lobster, nohow.
Ef ah did ah'd buy him at de stoh!"
"Well, what about your children? Suppose they should
grow up and want to eat on the boardwalk?"
“Dey ain't got no sich foolishest noshuns in dah heads.
Besides, I ain't got no children.”
“No wonder!”. Jeremiah breathed, turning towards Lido
Jones. “I guess this is one of Marcus' problems.”
“Yoh means de mayor, Mr. Marks? He ain't got no use
foh cullud people, eithah. He's ah refohm man.”
"No, I mean Mr. Marcus Cox, the High Commander
President General of the United Negro Movement of the
World-didn't you ever hear of him?"
"No, sah, nevah heard tells of him," replied Abraham
Lincoln Douglas.
Lido Jones had sat silent during the whole bantering
discussion. She sensed that Jeremiah was exhausting some
of his steam.
"Come on, let's go on the pier,” she suddenly suggested
as Young's Million Dollar Pier showed in the immediate
vista.


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The Black Challenge
"Well, what about something to eat?” questioned Jere-
miah.
“Oh, I'm not hungry. I just wanted some lobsters. It
doesn't make any difference, anyhow. We've saved that
much money. haven't we?" and she took hold of his arm
chummily.
“Hang the money!” he growled.
Jeremiah knew that Lido was lying. She must be hungry.
She was attempting to soften the blow. He felt her manner
and, because he felt it, he reproved himself for placing
on her the burden of saving the evening's entertainment.
So, taking himself in hand, he answered: “Yes, one swallow
doesn't make a summer. Let's try somewhere else.”
The experience of a few minutes ago, however, had had
its effect. Automatically, doubt came to him; fear of a
recurrence of what they had just passed through; and, as
they descended from their roller chair and approached the
caged window for tickets to the pier, a grim spectre was
by his side, the same spectre, he suddenly realized, that must
stalk beside every Negro man and woman in the United
States in search, during their travels, of public accommoda-
tions in restaurants and hotels in cities and towns and
hamlets all over the country.
He had heard many race discussions since he had been
in America, in Harlem. He had heard about racial preju-
dice from Marcus Cox, from others. He had caught the sound
of it in his walks about the streets of Harlem, but he had
not heretofore measured its significance. Now it was invad-
ing his most inner life. In the past white people, to Jeremiah,
had been just-people. People like himself and Dora and
their many friends in the Islands were just-people. They
had no distinguishing marks save their accomplishments,
their achievements, their culture. People like Marcus Cox
and his kind were ... they were not just-people; they
were black people. Marcus Cox was right. Jeremiah King
had a color sense, a color complex, after all. He had had it
without realizing it. Was it because he had unconsciously


The Black Challenge
107
aligned himself with that other group which had just seared
him with the hot iron of their contempt? Was it because.
the white part of him had made him feel that he was not
like this—this other black kind?
For a moment he looked around. He and Lido had en-
tered the dancing pavilion, and they were waltzing. The
hundreds of other couples around him were white couples;.
but Lido-Lido, as he looked down at her was almost as
white as any girl in that place. She was just as well dressed,
just as dainty as the daintiest on the floor. He was proud of
Lido as she swayed contentedly in his arms. Was it because
of her light color? Or was it because of her grace and beauty
and-manner? Perhaps color had something to do with it. He
could not imagine himself dancing in this place with a black
woman, nor with a fat, ungainly, slovenly white girl, no-
not of any color. It was because Lido fitted so eminently well
into these surroundings. It was that and something more.
Now he realized it. It was because, light and pretty as she
was, her lightness and prettiness had that quality in it akin
to his, which made it possible for him to say: “You are
my kind!”
There was that in his being which thrilled triumphantly.
She belonged by virtue and token of her mixed race to him.
And, by Jove! they were there in that circle of white beings
who, at a beck, a nod, would deny them the right to be there,
to compete with them; but they were there just the same;
they were able to compete with them, and, by God! they
were going to compete, not alone by virtue of their lightness
of skin, but by virtue of their inherent quality, their culture,
their attainments.
Unconsciously, Jeremiah held his partner a little more
closely to him. Instinctively, he expressed the pride evoked
inside his soul by the tiniest increased pressure of his arm
around her waist.
The waltz floated on; its cry hung suspended as if in air.
No words-just a tune and its haunting melody throated by
the saxophones as they reached the crescendo of the com-


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The Black Challenge
poser's heartache. Jeremiah's mood and his fancy floated
on also. It encompassed Marcus Cox and their recent con-
ference in Harlem a few days back. Many of Marcus Cox's
shibboleths now emerged clearer, as if painted on a black-
board-his openly expressed distrust, his resentment of the
white man's dominance. Jeremiah also resented it-resented
it not from the standpoint of color but from the standpoint
of culture, of achievement. Damn it! That's where Negroes
deserved all they got. They were not fit; they were not
equipped to deserve any more. . . . Yet was this true? Was
he not well equipped? Hadn't he as much refinement as
any white man in the world? Didn't he have fine sensibili-
ties, fine ideals, fine fancies? Yet how had he been treated?
How much had all these assets weighed in that restaurant
a short while ago? Marcus Cox was right! Marcus Cox was,
so to speak, in the “right church but in the wrong pew."
He would talk to Marcus on his return, and maybe ... may.
be, together, they could do something useful after all.
“Let's go outside and get some air," he remarked sud.
denly.
Lido Jones had enjoyed the waltz immensely. She loved
dancing and would have liked to continue, but she was
ready.
: “All right, Jerry!"
They went out to the farthest end, where the last
frontier of the pier met the ocean. Underneath them the
tireless sweeping waters were roughing themselves against
the huge concrete-pillar supports; and a thousand phos-
phorescent twinkles flashed up at them from below. They
came upon a bench and sat down. From underneath the
horizon, where vaguely dark water had met vaguely dark
sky a moment or so ago, a moon, a more than full moon,
arose gently and shyly.
They sat out there until late into the night.


CHAPTER XIII
THERE ARE wild things of the earth majestic in their wild-
ness-the eagle with its untamed eye, its cruel beak, its lanc-
ing talons. The lion, the tiger, the savage-all majestic be-
cause of their unfettered abandon. Even so the stormwinds
and the stormwaves. Even so God, who strikes with asperity
-yea, with laughter.
Shall human beings shrink? Yes, if they be not made
of the laughter of the gods; if, bereft of the quality of the
stormwinds, they come to be weak and sexless things.
Was he, Jeremiah, a weak and sexless thing? Had he,
by virtue of his mixed heritage, become emasculated of the
strength that might have been his had he been a purely
white or a purely black man? Scientific men, men who were
supposed to have made a special study of the subject, had
often declared that persons of mixed blood like himself were
prone to inherit the weak traits of their respective black
and white parents. He wondered: could this be true in his
case?
His Atlantic City experience had bitten deeply into his
sensibilities. He had suffered a mortal affront-a hurt to his
spirit. How would a white man have answered this assault
had the situation been reversed? How would a black man
have answered it? What explanation had he to give for it?
How was he going to gird himself to meet it? For he saw
clearly that it was not a question of the past but of the
present and of the future.
He sat alone in his rooms-a small apartment on Edge-
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The Black Challenge
combe Avenue overlooking the park. He had chosen this
apartment (on the top floor) because of the view it com-
manded over the lights and shadows of the big city. All of
his past life in the West Indies he had lived close to the
ground; never in those years had he moved in a house more
than one story high. Here, however, he was on the thir-
teenth floor. He delighted in being as high up as possible.
It seemed to afford elbow room for his thoughts.
To the north, east and south the lights of the city twin-
kled out. Almost immediately beneath, just over the house-
tops beyond Broadhurst, Eighth and Seventh Avenues, the
vacuous shadow of the Harlem River wound its way north
and south like a gloomy trail between the campfires of two
bivouacking armies–New York and the Bronx. A cooling
breeze came through the open window by his side, and,
as he smoked, his thoughts were roaming far afield.
Civilization, he pondered, had a tendency to weaken
human beings. Certain ancient civilizations were said to
have never been so highly developed as immediately prior
to their decay and fall. Men built cities of wood and stone
to shield their degeneracy. They built Towers of Babel in
their egotism and their weakness. At times it were far
better, for one's own self-respect, to be a wild, primitive
creature. Extreme culture made a man too proud to fight;
but with ninety-nine per cent of the world not so highly
refined, it was hell not to have the fighting spirit when the
battle gauge was thrown down. A one-per-cent minority
became a solecism, a mere nonentity. without even the
moral justification of the martyr.
The habit and training of years called on him to laugh
off the affair of the Atlantic City restaurant. Two weeks
had gone by since his return from that trip, and he had not
been able to laugh it off, to forget. It still gnawed into
the bone and marrow of his spirit. He found himself
actually becoming morbid about it. As he looked back over
the occurrence, he wondered whether he had not been a
little weak. Had it not called for the exercise of courage


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The Black Challenge
transformations among the men and women of Harlem by
hair-straightening processes. He laughed aloud.
“My God! to think that even such a thought should come
into my mind!” Flee from the question that way? Never! He
recalled his boast to Lido Jones on the boardwalk in Atlantic
City: “Do you think I'd want to hide or disguise what I
am?” And that was still true-please God, it would always
be true. He would stand or fall by what he was.
He saw clearly now the tight ring in which men of color,
no matter of what shade, moved in the United States. He
sensed that it was the same all the world over. Looking
back upon his life in the West Indies, he divined that it
existed as strongly there as anywhere else, although it had
never obtruded itself upon his consciousness. He recalled
that all the best governmental positions in the Islands had
always been filled by Englishmen sent out from the home
country especially for the purpose of preserving white dom-
inance. No doubt about it—that was the reason-white dom-
ination, an intent to impress racial superiority. With the
English in the colonies, it sprang as a governmental policy
from the top; in America, this racial antipathy sprang from
the people themselves. Marcus Cox's Movement had appeal
because it expressed the growing rebellion in black men's
souls against the iron ring of white prejudice and antipathy
pressing on them from every side. It was an instinctive racial
gesture of self-protection. .
What was the answer-if there were answer at all? Re-
sort to the courts? No, hell, law could not control deep-
rooted prejudices. Law was only law in so far as it expressed
popular will. Witness prohibition enforcement laws-all
futile and doomed to everlasting failure. The answer could
not, in the nature of things, be an immediate answer; it must
be an answer of the ages, of time, of growth, of development
in power and in dignity by the black race. It should be an
answer in which every colored man in the world was in-
terested; and one of the first ways of answering it was to
nail one's Negro identity to the mast and place it there to


The Black Challenge
113
be observed before every other consideration. White preju.
dice, hate, and oppression had kept the Negro race alive-
that and something inherently capable of surviving in the
race itself. What was that inherent something which had
enabled it to survive? Clearly, it was a quality which the
Indian race did not have, because that race had almost
been exterminated. Was it the Negro's good nature, that
carefreeness of spirit which was said to be fundamentally
and peculiarly his, which the Great Force back of the world
needed and preserved when He preserved the Negro? Was
this happy-go-lucky spirit for which he was as equally
condemned as lauded really a fundamental trait, or was it
an acquired habit by virtue of which the Negro had bent
under oppression and adverse circumstances but had not
broken-like the Indian? The proud Indian had shot back
fiery glance for fiery glance of the white man and had wasted
himself away with lashings of his tiger's tail. The Negro,
in the same position, had acquired the ability to laugh it off,
to laugh it off ... and wait, wait for the day of deliverance
and power, when perhaps the tables would be turned. There
was only one other race in the world with good humor
equal to that of the Negro, and that was the Irish. Under
centuries of English oppression they, too, had continued to
smile and sing and dream. Had they not also survived? The
Creator of the world, in making the Negro, had put some-
thing into his spine which, during an emergency, when
the issue was either smile and survive or be gloomy and
die, had enabled the Negro to smile and survive. Why should
not he, Jeremiah, be proud of that part of his lineage which,
being black and condemned, had the capacity for a sur-
viving smile? And why should he not be proud, now that
the battle gauge of “race" had been thrown down for him
in a world where contests were waged by different weapons,
to wage his own battle not as an indeterminate hybrid but
as a Negro?
“By God!” he exclaimed in a moment of passionate in-
spiration. “Natural selection and all it implies, driving the


The Black Challenge
115
A hot flush surged through Jeremiah King and undoubt-
edly showed itself on his face. What did this man, Marcus
Cox, think he was with respect to him, Jeremiah? Did he
think he was his master, his boss? How ridiculous! He,
Jeremiah, had only associated himself with Marcus Cox out
of desire to be of assistance to him in his unwieldy and
stumbling efforts. What was Lido Jones to Marcus Cox,
anyhow? What business was it of his that,
“I has a strong interest in dat little girl, King. Yo' know
dat little Nigger Webb that yo' met at de cabaret de fust
night I meets you? Well, I had to get him tole 'cause he was
runnin' 'round too much with Lido, and I didn't like it
'cause I doan t’ink he 'mounts to much or ever will 'mount
to much anyways; and just as soon as I'se through with a
little matter that I has with Owen Murphy, l’se goin' to
give him a piece of my min' also. Oh, doan worry, I'm up to
all de little tricks o' dese white men chasin' colored gals.”
Jeremiah took note that, for once, Marcus had not used
the word “Nigger" in connection with Lido, as he would
undoubtedly have done in reference to anyone else.
He replied in what he desired to be a most casual tone:
“I thought Lido–Miss Jones-was only your secretary."
There was no mistaking Jeremiah's tone. At least, it
had a definite meaning to Marcus. His eyes blazed, and with
a cutting sneer, he replied: “Yo' thinks everybody is like
yourself, King. I ain't interested in Lido de way you t’inks.
It wouldn't do me no good ef I was. Lido is jes' like a daugh-
ter to me. Yo' see all de swell t’ings I got dere-well, it's
Lido's mother, Mandy Jones, that select dem all. She puts
my house away like a palace-jes' as yo' see it, and you didn't
see de half of it, either. No, King,” he went on, noting the
questioning gaze in Jeremiah's eyes, "yo's wrong again.
Mandy Jones ain't my kept woman, and she ain't my wife;
she ain't eder 'cause she won't have me for eder de one
or de other. But I'se crazy to hab her anyways she wants
me-ef she's only have me,” and there was a note of tender
sadness in his voice. “In de meantime she works for a salary


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from de U. N. M. for keepin' my house jes' like Lido and
jes' like . . . you,” Marcus ended pointedly.
So that was the connection! That was the mystery over
which Jeremiah had pondered ever since he had become
acquainted with Marcus Cox and Lido. Lido and her
mother in Marcus' house. What a reliefl Instinctively, he
rose and went towards Marcus Cox.
"Shake, Marcus, you're a good sport. I think you are
great, and ... you needn't worry about any harm coming
to Lido through me. I'd protect her as quickly as you would,
as though I were-her father," he ended, no other relation-
ship occurring to him at the moment.
The two men silently clasped hands.
“How are things out West?" inquired Jeremiah after a
while.
“Things is going pretty well in de other branches, and
I thinks we have 'nough money to make de final payment on
de ship, conditionin' her and everything."
"Where is she?" inquired Jeremiah.
"Laying up in de Nort' River, where she's been all de
time, ever since from in the war, leastways from the time
when dis country jumped into de fighting. We didn't make
the las' payment and we didn't do neary a t'ing to her be-
cause we was 'fraid de gov'ment might seize her; and I
didn't aim to have us Niggers do a damn, blasted t'ing to
help dose bloody English people out o' their troubles.”
“You mean you sympathized with the Germans during
the war?"
"No," replied Marcus slowly, sucking a long black pipe
in his mouth, “I don't sympathize with any Germans; but
as 'tween them and the English, I sure was rooting for the
Germans.”
“And the French, don't you like the French? They
surely have always been fair to your-to our people."
“Yes, but dey was in de same boat as de English, and I
hates England; I hates her very guts. What has the English
ever done to any place dey ever been in but leech, suck


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117
it dry, and leave it-same as dey do in de Islands where
you and I come from. Why, mon, why do yo' t'inks you
had to come to dis country? 'Cause de English squeezed
it so dry you can't make a living there. Dat's de reason. You
got more brains dan I, but you doan see it. Who has all de
nice places down in de Islands? Ain't it de English and de
Scotch and de Ir-no, not de Irish, dey's all in New York,” he
added, with a chuckle.
"And do you mean that, even after America went in,
you and your association still felt the same way about it?"
“Sure-leastways, I doan know 'bout my 'sociation, but
I know I does. I bets you,” Marcus continued, his voice
rising, “I bets you yo' doan know why dis country jumped
in. No, 'co'se you doan know. You’se too English to know.
Dey jumps in beco's Mr. Morgan and all de other rich
people of dis country had dere money ’vested with de Eng-
lish; and if de war had o' been lost, if de Germans had o'
win, dey'd have los' every blooming penny, dat's de reason.
Dey went in after their money, and not a damn thing else!"
“Ah, you're talking a lot of poppycock. You're talking
just like a lot of other ignorant people talked. The Ger-
mans would have been over here just as soon as they had
licked the Allies, as sure as sure.”
“Sure as sure, nothin'! That shows you doan know
nothin' 'bout it. Dat was a lot of 'ganda dat dey put out in
all de newspapers; but dey wasn't a bit of truf in it.
Why, shucks, mon, if de Germans had o' come over to dis
country I'd been de first man to get out dere, wadin' out into
de ocean to meet 'em. I'd been o' out dere fightin' like a
hell-cat, 'cause I'll tell yo' somethin', King, I loves dis coun-
try. She is de greatest country on de face of de globe, bar-
rin' none. De white 'Merican has no use for us Niggers,
neder for you nor for me, but he ain't pretendin' like de
English. De Niggers in dis country to the white man is just
like a lot of burrs de white man ketch in his clothes in a
briar patch. Dey is wid him and he can't turn 'em loose, but
he doan want 'em. He tell you so; he call you “Nigger,"


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but, all de same, you get a chance to make a living. Where
de hell yo' t'ink I could live like I living in this man's
country? They let me 'lone so long as I let dem ’lone and
don'fool wid dere . . . womans," he ended, looking sig-
nificantly at Jeremiah.
“And I suppose you are safe, then, for a very good rea-
son.”
“You go to hell, Jeremiah King. Yo' t'inks dey'd want
yo', don't yo’? I bets yo' I could get 'em as fas' as you could
--only,” he added quietly, after a pause, “I doan want any
of dem.”
“Sour grapes!” muttered Jeremiah; but Marcus Cox let
the remark pass.
Instead, he took a bundle of papers from his pocket and,
handing them to Jeremiah, remarked: “These is de con-
trac's for de ship, and this is a copy o' de bill o' sale they'll
give us when we makes de las' payment. Look over dem
and see whether dey'll be all right.”
“All right, Marcus, I'll go over them later. In the mean-
time, I have a few things on my mind that I'd like to talk
to you about."
“Shoot, King," replied Marcus.
“I'll tell you. Marcus, I've been thinking over things,
and, in the main, perhaps, they are all right; but there is
such a lot of wasted effort connected with them. I don't see,
for example, why you have to be injecting Africa into your
plans. These people don't want to go to Africa any more
than you or I do. What would they do there, anyway? From
all appearances, you seem to be spending a lot of money
and getting nowhere with it. You talk about the white
man and what you don't want him to do to you. Take, for
instance, your building on Seventh Avenue. I imagine
your rent there is pretty steep. Whom are you paying that
to but to some white man who owns it? Why don't you
buy? Why ..."
"You're wrong there, King, dead wrong,” corrected


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Marcus Cox. “We owns dat buildin'; we done bought it
and paid for it."
"You do?”
"Yes, sir, I tends to dat; and, 'sides, I knows all yo' is
goin' to say. You'se goin' to ax me why we don't 'vest in
some mo' real estate, some mo' buildings; why we doan have
groc'ry stores and laundries; and why we doan make t'ings
as de white man does and give our people 'ployment.”
“Yes,” agreed Jeremiah, "why don't you do these things
instead of wasting their money-instead of spending money
on a ... foolish dream?” he ended flatly.
“You ain't the fust man who's thought of them things,
King. I'se thought of 'em too, long time ago. I'se tried
some of dem; but dey doan work. Fust thing you know, we
'stablished a lot of dose things and dese Niggers all bust up
in a row. Dey t’inks everybody is gettin' rich 'cept demselves.
No, yo' can't call a plover with a siren; and dese Niggers
is all plovers. Dey's all like a flock of dose birds in de air,
and you got to stan' behin' a bush an’ whistle to dem soft-
like. Dey ain't many dat wants to go to Africa. Dat's truel
All de same, dey'd 'tribute a million dollars to buy a ship
to go dere when dey wouldn't put up a cent for a groc'ry
store; and once I gets a ship and gets she sailin' de high
seas, I'll work from dere. I'll come clean from heaven plumb
down to earth, as a manner o' speaking."
“I'm afraid you're a dreamer, Marcus. You are not prac-
tical. What good is a ship sailing the high seas going to do
you and all these people?”
“You eh’nt see 'cause you eh'nt got any vision, King. What
you lacks is 'magination, mon. Dat's why I'se where I is. I
has plenty of 'magination. I sees more'n my ship sailing
de high seas. I sees she down in Jamaica. She goes in to de
harbor dere, de fust ship of de Black Star Line; all de
Niggers from all ober come running down to de dock. Whose
ship is dat? Dat's Marcus Cox's ship! Who is dis Marcus
Cox? Eh’nt yo’ hear de news? He's de man who is raisin'


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hell in de United States, rousin' up all de Niggers dere. Dat
is one of dere ships. De same t’ing in Africal De fust thing
yo' knows, dey wants to know all 'bout it. All our agents
has to do is to jine 'em up, takes dere money, build more
ships, send 'em all over de world. De fust time de ship
docks in London, de English is goin' to laugh. Dey's goin'
to say: What de hell dose Niggers knows about runnin'
ships? De next time de ship reaches dere, dey ain't goin'
to laugh so much. And when de third ship gits dere, dey
ain't goin' even to smile. Dey is goin' to sit up and take
notice. De same wid all de white people in de oder coun-
tries. Meantime, all de Niggers in de world is going to be
wid us, and we is goin' to have plenty of money-for every-
thing," he ended.
“And what about America? How are Americans going
to feel about your ship project?"
"Oh dey'll loll along de dock and kid us 'long and say
to demselves-tol’rant-like-let de Niggers amuse demselves.
They is jes' playin' at ownin' ships. Then when dey sees
we means bus'ness, dey'll say: See, dose is our Niggers; we
trains 'em to do these things. Jes' like one time I was in
a cab'ret in Paris, and dere was two black boys in dere,
and man! you should a-hear those babies sing. A 'Merican
man says to de white woman wid 'im: 'Dose is 'Merican
Niggahs. Great, ehn't dey? We gives 'em de chance to do
dose things in New York.' Pretty soon after they stops
singing', a dance starts up. Den comes one of dese black
boys with a white woman on de dance floor. Man, she was
a peach-a Roosian duchess or princess or some kin' a thing
like dat. But she was pretty ’nough to be anything. Dis
black boy took hold a she and starts one real black-bottom
wid she on de floor, and man; de white man from New
York get up from de table as if something suddenly sting
'im and he says, loudlikes, so as everybody could hear:
'Come on! leh's get out a here. De idea of lettin' a Nigger
man dance wid a white woman. Dey oughta be lynched.'”
“What happened then?”.


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of de United States or of Russia. When I gets my ships run-
ning all over de world, maybe de people in Haiti or San
Domingo or Liberia done invites me to rule 'em.”
“Well, suppose you were President of Liberia, you would
be under the wing of Great Britain. If you were President
of Haiti, you'd be under the wing of the United States.
You'd be only a figurehead in any event."
“I would, eh? Yo' t'inks so? I'd chase de blasted English
out o' Liberia befo’ you could say Jack Robinson; and in
Haiti I'd teach de United States to respect me.”
"Well, you'd have to borrow money, and they wouldn't
lend you unless—".
“Dat's jest it, King. I wouldn't borrow dere damn money.
We'd collect money of our own. Didn't I tells you de oder
night dat money, money is de great t'ing? Doan you
'members I tells yo' so?"
"Sure you did, and that's just the reason I'm talking
about all this waste of money around you. When you had
your kingdom, then what would you do with it? Where
would your subjects get the money to give you if you
didn't establish things and industries from which to earn
it-stores and shops and mills, and schools and banks, and
all the things that God Almighty put people into the world
for?"
"Dat's true and it ain't true. I ain't educated like you,
but dere is something in me dat tells when t’ings is right and
when dey ehn't. Just like a woman's 'tuition. Dere is many
a place an' time when yo' has got to ask yo' heart and not
yo' head. Dis practical worl, as yo' calls it, is all head. Look
at de way dey treats us Niggers-all dey need is a li'l heart
stuff.”
"Not on your life!” returned Jeremiah. “The Negro
should not ask for sympathy-that's heart stuff. You think
Abraham Lincoln aimed to abolish slavery because he was
thinking altogether of the Negro. No, sir! His big brain
realized that slavery was more pernicious to white America
than to black America. He knew that the United States


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123
couldn't get anywhere in the march forward with the can-
cer of slavery in its midst. He used his head, and he visioned
a great fact. It simply happened that reason in that case
coincided with the dictates of his human heart. Nature is
so constituted that, when the heart tells you anything is
right, it generally turns out right according to reason. You
just test it and see. Half the time, when a man is cruel, he's
just being unreasonable, that's all.”
“You gets my head dizzy wid your arguefying. Yo' tells
me one t'ing is wrong, and den yo' turns 'round and proves
she's right as hell. If I was a lawyer man like you I could
disputes you; but yo’ has it all yo' own way. All de same I
acts on my instinks. When I meets yo' dat night in front of
de Hall, my instinks tell me suddenly: ‘Dat's de man yo've
been lookin' foh, Cox,' and straightaways I angles for yo'.
Yo’ is goin' to do me good, and yo’ is goin' to do yo’self
good-if yo’ lets yo' li'l heart move yo’ sometimes.”
"But after all, Marcus, isn't this the place for us to
start? You know the first thing a good general does is to
cement his front-line trenches. And New York-Harlem-
is the place for you to begin. We could use a little money
here to great advantage, and it would be good practice,
anyhow. Let us raise all the money we can, but let us spend
it well, spend it for practical things that will pay dividends
and make for real prosperity.”
“For instant?" prodded Marcus.
"Well, there are a lot of Negroes in Harlem. Even your
own members would be sufficient. You could establish some
co-operative shops, stores, and businesses of various kinds.
You might encourage thrift by forming a bank. You might
erect a few apartment houses and give them living space
at a low rate of profit, say, about four per cent, using their
own money. You could invest their money in other opera-
tions which would give them employment of a superior
kind even if, in the beginning, you had to hire a few whites
to teach them. But what is needed most of all is to organize
them-organize them industrially, economically, politically


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and every other way; teach them that, as Negroes, their only
salvation is to band together for every purpose in the world,
solidly, substantially, and not chasing a visionary fool thing."
“Maybe you is right, King. Dat's what I wants from you
-ideas, man, ideas! Does yo' thinks you can look into dese
things?"
“I think so, and," he continued, "there is one thing that
should be done immediately. You should establish a legal
department to protect all your members. If they are entitled
to things within the laws of the country, and they them-
selves are orderly and law-abiding, you ought to fight for
those things. 'It's all right to talk about Africa, but it's a
long time before you transplant them; and, in the mean-
time, we are all in America. It's rot to talk about traveling
along the lines of least resistance."
“Say, King, yo' is talkin' like a real man now. You musta
had some ginger spring into yo’. But what yo' sayin' dere
'bout a legal department is jes' what de A.C.S. does.
"Who are they, Marcus? Never heard of them before.”
"Dey calls demselves de 'Sociation of Colored Strivers;
but I calls dem de 'Sociation for Certain Strivers, because
dey's only two or three that runs de whole show and draws
down most o de money. Dey's jes' like a bunch o' under-
takers; dey thrives on lynchings. One fellah, he talks about
lynchings; de other fellah, he writes about 'em; and dey's
one little mousey-faced fellah who travels all over de coun.
try smellin' out de lynchings. Every time dere is a lynching
dey raises some money; den dey spends dat, see? And dey
sits by and waits till another Nigger is burned in Alabama
or Texas, or wherever dey burns us people."
“Is that the bunch who publishes the newspaper called
the Crucible?”
“De same. Dat's run by de fellah that I showed you at
Proudfoot's party dat night, de one who was standin'
around in a corner like a billy goat hunchin' heself up on
a rock on a rainy day. I used to reads dat paper; but man, it
gives me de blues, so I stops! It 'minds you of a dawg sit-


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125
ting out in a field at night and bawling up at de moon. It
doan get nowhere—just bawl and bawl like a little puppy all
de time."
“Say, Marcus, you know the thing that has made more
for Negro progress in the United States than anything else?"
Marcus looked questioningly at Jeremiah.
“The institution of Jim-Crowism. I am convinced that
driving the Negro back upon himself and his own resources
is the best thing in the world for the Negro as a race.”
Marcus Cox stared his surprise. "My God!” he finally
blurted out. “Look who's here! When did you get that
idea?”
“I've been pondering things over, and I've come to
that conclusion. Let me tell you of an experience I had in
Atlantic City."
“Yo' means de time dey turns you down in dat res’trant?”
Jeremiah nodded. “You heard all about it, did you?"
“Yes, Lido tells me and Mandy about it, and I nearly
lafs myself to death; but Mandy was mad as hell."
"And what did Lido think about it?”
“She? Oh, she says she gets even wid dem jes' de same.
She goes back next evening wid Owen Murphy who was
down dere, and she gets her lobsters jes' de same.”
“Do you mean to say that she went back there to that
restaurant with a white man?"
"Sure. Why not? Ef she can do it; and she did. De only
reason you is sore is dat you di'nt have de chance to do it
yo'self. Yo' wouldn't think it 'mounted to anything if it
was me who was chased out. You'd say, 'Serves yo' right';
but jes' because it was yo'self, yo' ego is disgusted," and he
chuckled mockingly.
Jeremiah said nothing more. He felt very much shocked,
outraged. The affair in the restaurant had assumed mo-
mentous proportions to him. It was a very sore spot in his
heart. And to think that Lido, his companion, his friend,
should have returned to that restaurant after their dis-
comfiture and dined with Owen Murphy, a white man!


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“Why doan you sues 'em and collec' damages?” Marcus
questioned. “Dere's a law 'gainst dat kind o' thing, yo' knows.
Go tell it to de 'Sociation for Certain Strivers,” he again
mocked.
Jeremiah stared at Marcus without answering. For the
moment, he forget all about Marcus' presence. He was
still thinking of Lido Jones and her disloyalty to him, as he
viewed it.
"Yes, yo' should sue dem,” repeated Marcus.
"Sue, helll" retorted Jeremiah irritably. “What good
would that do? Public sentiment is with the restaurant
people. That's not the answer to the problem.”
“What is de answer, den?”.
"The answer is power, fitness, money, wealth. I'll bet
if Negro capital existed which could go alongside that man's
place and establish a restaurant of the same kind which
would serve all comers, that man would soon be glad to
serve colored people; and wherever that kind of thing hap-
pened, do the same thing until white people in business
realized that Negroes had ability, power, a punch! Equality
is not an abstraction merely to be mouthed. It's a fact to be
accomplished, and not by begging on the part of Negroes
of the white people to be permitted to have a place in the
sun, but by securing it through sheer force of their own
ability and power."
“Say, boy, I jes' loves to hear you talk dat way. Yo' musta
eat some o' dose Nigger peppers from ‘Badoes lately. What
else has yo' got on yo' ches'?”.
Jeremiah paused for a moment, then remarked: "You
know something, Marcus?”
"No, what's dat?"
"Why can't we start a newspaper?"
"A what?"
"A newspaper, a weekly, maybe bi-weekly.”
Marcus got up from his chair, walked over to the win-
dow, and stood looking out there for an instant; then
turning, came eagerly towards Jeremiah.


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"Say, boy, you has an idea, all right. Dat's a spliffin'
one. By golly! Why eh’nt I thinks of dat long ago? A real
newspaper, and me all ober de front page! Marcus Cox
does dis. De High Commander does dat. De President Gen-
eral does de oder thing. Mon, you done earn all de salary
I’se ever goin' to pay you," and he placed his arm admir-
ingly on Jeremiah's shoulders.
"Well, that wasn't exactly my idea, having one person
on the front page. My idea was a more serious—"
“When does we start, boy?"
"Well, we might go downtown and call upon some
printers and see what terms we can make for printing.”
"No, we ain't goin' to call on nobody. We’se goin' to
print it right on de premises, down in de basement wid
our own machinery. We'll print our own newspaper, den
nobody kin shet us down." And, after a pause, as he gazed
dreamily out over Edgecombe Park, “Say, King,"
"What is it, Marcus?”
“We two is going to knock hell out de world yet!"


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131
ing, but she was a wise, patient mother and deemed it best
to hold a relaxed rein on this young filly. She realized that
Harlem was by no means a cloister, and an attempt to make
it so for her child might prove disastrous. Accordingly, she
always sought to maintain very comradely relations with
Lido; and, when differing with her, she differed as one equal
with another. Amanda now sat in an easy chair alongside
her daughter. The women bore a striking resemblance.
Amanda Jones was still handsome. Of a complexion
more bronze in color than Lido's, she had the same glowing
black eyes and nicely molded brow and features as her daugh-
ter. There was very little to suggest the Negro in either,
and yet they were both obviously persons of color.
“I don't see why you don't marry Mr. Cox and be done
with it,” Lido was saying to her mother.
Amanda Jones looked intently at her daughter. “I'll
never marry a black man on this side of Jordan, Lido."
“I suppose you are going to wait until another one like
Father comes along."
Lido regretted immediately this remark. Her mother's
eyes clouded in a passionate mist. "I don't want you ever
to say anything like that to me ... ever again! You hear
me, child?”
"I'm sorry, Mother, I didn't mean to say that; but I
don't see the difference between working here as you do
and marrying Mr. Cox. Everybody thinks you ought to be
married to him, anyhow; and, after all, when a man can
give you as much as Mr. Cox can, I don't see what difference
his color makes.”
“Do you think I'm worrying about what people say,
especially these Nigger women in Harlem? I suppose by
people you mean Mrs. Castanet, Gertie Davis, Nina Lang-
ford, and that truck with their gin parties and pajama
rackets that I hate to see you mixing with. Why, the whole
bunch of them ain't one generation removed from the white
people's kitchens. It takes more than money to make peo-
ple, daughter; it takes blood, good blood. As far as what


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Marcus can give us is concerned, I am not crippled yet. I
can still work for myself. I don't want anything but what
I work for from him or anybody else."
“But. Mother, you talk about blood. Aren't we all col-
ored people just the same?"
"Sure we are all colored people. I'm not claiming to be
anything else. Fact is, I'd just as soon be what I am as any-
thing else in the world. I'd certainly rather be your mother
than your father, as far as blood is concerned; but I'm
talking about class, child, class!"
"Well, I think there are plenty of nice people around,
only you never go out anywhere, Mother. You sit back in
this old house and mope, mope all the time. If you can't
get what you are looking for, why not do the next best
thing?"
“What's that? Marry Marcus, eh? I'd just as soon marry
Ebeneezer. He and Marcus are just the same, no differ-
ence, only one's got a little more push than the other. But
just imagine yourself tied to people like that for a lifetime,
to be rubbing up against them; to have to do their bid-
ding; to have to ... succumb to them,” she ended, not find.
ing an apter word. “Faugh! The bare thought gives me the
willies.”
"Well, say, Mother! Tell me something. Of course, we
are both in the same boat, and this isn't meant as criti-
cism; we're only talking between us, understand?”
Her mother nodded.
"You talk about standards. Tell me, just what do we
look like in our present position?".
"You mean working for Marcus Cox and his bunch of
Negroes? I suppose, Lido, you think-and everybody else
would do the same—that if Marcus Cox and his people were
a bunch of white crazy people wanting to return to Jerusa-
lem or Siberia or some other such place, it would be all
right for us to be working for them just as we are; but just
because they are black Niggers, it is different. I tell you, I


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135
“I find him very entertaining-has quite a sense of
humor.”
“Marcus tells me he has a wife in the West Indies,”
ventured her mother after a pause.
"Is that so? Hadn't heard about it. Tell me some more
about him.”
Lido's voice was well controlled, but as her mother
again searched her daughter's features, she divined a slight
blanching of the skin.
"Well, that's what divorce courts are forl" her mother
remarked after a pause, as if answering a question.
“What in the world are you talking about, Mother?
What made you say that?"
“Oh, nothing," and, after a pause, very wistfully:
“Daughter, I wish you wouldn't run around so much with
that white fellow, Owen Murphy.”
“You see, Mother, there are lots of places that I can go
to with Murphy that I couldn't go to with many of our
young men around here; and, after all, I don't see why I
shouldn't enjoy those places in the way I can.”
“Yes, daughter, but there comes a time when one has
to pay for all one gets; and in a case of this kind it's always
the man's price that a girl has to pay. You understand,
dear?”
“All right, Mother, I promise I'll take care of myself.”
The door bell rang, once, twice, thrice, in quick suc-
cession. They both sat up alert. “Who can that be?" ques-
tioned Amanda Jones.
They heard Ebeneezer's shambling footsteps below and
then the swinging open of the door. Soon Ebeneezer him-
self was coming upstairs.
“Gen’man to see you, Miss Jones.”
"Me?" questioned Lido.
“No, de Madam.”
“To see me?” queried Mrs. Jones in surprise. “Are you
sure?"


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“Yes’m.”
“Did he give any name? What's he look like?”
"No ma'm, no name. He's a white gen’man.”
Amanda Jones turned to her daughter. "Come on down
with me and let's see who the visitor is,” and they descended
the stairs together.
There was a short hallway leading from the entrance
vestibule directly into a foyer in Marcus Cox's house. De-
scending the stairs from the upper rooms, one could look
directly into this hallway. As Amanda Jones and her daugh-
ter reached the foot of the stairway, a voice came out of
the dimness:
"Manda!”
Mrs. Jones' form stiffened instantaneously, and her hand
clutched at her daughter's arm. A white man, of medium
height, spare of figure, with finely cut features and steely
blue eyes, came out of the shadow.
"Mauricel” Lido's mother gasped, and then automati-
cally drew herself up and stood in her tracks. “What do you
want here?” she added in a cold, hard voice.
"I came to see you,” he answered, recoiling a little and
twirling the straw hat in his hand. “Aren't you glad to see
me again?”
"No, I hoped never to set eyes on you again in this
world,” she ended passionately.
“My God! and I've travelled all the way from California
to find you. Who is this?" approaching Lido. “Is this ...
our ... little ... daughter?"
He was standing before Lido, had taken her chin in
his hands, and was gazing down curiously into her face.
“I am Maurice Fitz-Johns, your father, child.”
He leaned downward and kissed her upturned lips.
Lido's arms found themselves reaching up towards her
father's neck. A heavy mist enveloped her eyes.
Maurice Fitz-Johns turned towards his wife: “I came to
take you and my daughter back with me. Things are dif-


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Marcus Cox's mouth opened and his eyes glared. Was
this man actually referring to him? He rushed forward
with raised fists.
"Oh, please, Father! Please, Mr. Cox!” and, tugging at
her father's arms. Lido led him through the open door and
down the steps. She forgot that she had no hat; she forgot
that only a pair of thin bedroom slippers were on her feet;
but out to Seventh Avenue, down that Avenue to 135th
Street, and then eastward she walked hand in hand with
him to the subway station, unheedful of her friends who
chirped to her, unheedful of the Negroes who stopped to
stare at her, arm in arm, with this white man.
At the subway station, her father said: “Come, go with
me, child.”
"Where?"
“California.”
“I'd sooner die than leave Mother.”
At length he stooped to kiss her. Reaching down into
his pocket he drew a thick roll of bills and pressed them
into her hands.
"No," she sobbed, “I don't need them."
"Yes, take 'em-I want you to have them. Good-bye,"
he said.
"Good-bye,” she whispered. “Maybe sometime I'll come
to see," and he rushed for a closing subway door.
Back in Marcus Cox's house, Lido's mother found her
way into the dining-room and sank down upon a chair.
Her elbow resting on the table, her chin cupped in one
hand, she sat as if frozen. Marcus Cox occupied a chair
across the table. He, too, was silent for many minutes.
"I thought you say he's dead," he remarked finally..
"He is—to me,” she replied.
"You know I think I goes out there and kill dat white
man."
She raised her head and looked at him. “What good
would that do you, Marcus?"
"I think you still loves that man. If it wasn't for him


CHAPTER XV
HAPPY THE man without a background, who has nothing
in his ancestry but-missing links. The past has no frown-
ing ghosts to point with accusing finger; and the future
must, therefore, of necessity, be an open sea. If failure over-
takes him, he can but slink back into the obscurity from
which he came; and if success crowns his efforts, he stands
like a monumental figure, a rock-ribbed oak, the first of his
line to establish a name and status for posterity.
In this respect most black Negroes are fortunate souls. In
this respect, also, even light-skinned colored folk are equally
fortunate, for the tincture of proud white ancestry which
the Fates at times mete out to them is brought, for the most
part, with such furtive secretiveness and from such a hushed
liaison that one is often more prone to have it covered by
the darkness of silence than to boast about it.
Marcus Cox was a proud, disdainful black man. Groping
back into the past for a noble Ham Tree on which to hang
his lineage, he found not even a leaf nor a twig. Had he
had the good fortune to have been born in distant Africa,
he might have manufactured for himself a royal heritage, no
matter how primitive, how far removed from civilized
sources; but, coming as he had from the Island of Jamaica,
where for hundreds of years all imposing black lineages
had been lost, he preferred to hug to his soul the conviction
that it was supreme greatness in itself to have emerged from
such a huge blankness.
Marcus had no memory even of a mother, much less
140


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141
of a father. Mothers, all the world over, are static, definite
persons-but fathers? Well, from the day Father Adam de-
nied responsibility to God for what had happened in the
Garden of Eden, fathers have ever been somewhat illusive
figures.
No beatific black female eyes, with blue-white irises, had
ever gazed down lovingly into his infant cradle. No crooning
black voice had ever lulled him to sleep. He had just found
himself living as a boy, around the age of thirteen or four-
teen, in the family and household of the Reverend Ezekiel
King, Jeremiah's father, and, thereafter, he had lived as life
came to him.
Jeremiah was not fully cognizant of it, but Marcus loved
him, loved him even as a David loveth a Jonathan. To Mar-
cus, Jeremiah, the son of the Ezekiel King who had harbored
him in his childhood, represented the only link which con-
nected him with the origin of his life. To his atavistic soul,
Jeremiah was the sole surviving chieftain of the clan-his
clan, his tribe. When they had met under the arc light in
front of Liberty Hall many months ago, his heart had leaped
forward to welcome the representative of the chief of his
tribe. The only thing he later told himself necessary was to
impress upon this clan brother was the fact that, in this
new land in which they both found themselves, he, Marcus,
also possessed chieftain qualities. They two, Jeremiah by
virtue of birth, he, Marcus, by virtue of character, were the
leaders of all the other members of the tribe in the world.
Of blood relationship, he knew nothing; unknown heritage
mattered not.
“I grow'd up jes' like a little tree from de earth,” he
would whisper to himself in times of stress, “but, by cripes!
I'se goin' to make 'em all set up and take notice.” And this
was the spur that goaded him onwards, nothing to lose but-
obscurity; everything to gain, perhaps an African kingdom,
even if, failing to achieve the substance, he woke up some
day to find the shadow erected within his black soul.
Amanda Jones, on the other hand, was also a proud,


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disdainful Negro woman-Negro by all the rules of the
game, but not so accepted by her. To herself, she was a
Creole, if you please. There was more than a difference
in terminology. There was a difference in spirit derived from
ancestry. Unlike Marcus, the pride that raged in her heart
sprang not from the fact that no one could point an accus-
ing finger to the blank void which lay behind, but by reason
of the tremendous foliage which had bloomed about the
tree of her pedigree. She was a Boissere! When the first neck
of land of the Island of Trinidad had arisen from its watery
sources, there had been a Boissere-no matter his race, color
or condition; white man, black man, beggar man, thief-all
the same when touched by the transforming rays of antiquity
-perched on its topmost eminence; and the Boissere family
ever since that day had carried on as only the Boisseres could.
Their men had been proud, lofty, hot-tempered souls, own-
ers of broad lands, spirited horses, famous gamecocks, was-
trels at times, but universally gay, proud and lofty. Their
women were equally famed for their beauty and for their
spirit. No man, throughout the years, in Trinidad or in any
of the numerous other islands for hundreds of miles around,
who would not have accounted it a prize to have won the
hand and heart of a Boissere woman.
One of the proud boasts of the family, one that it hugged
to its pedigreed heart with a fierce joy, was that not for
many, many generations had its blood-whatever its inde-
terminate character-been polluted by a black man or a
white man. Amanda had become the exception. Urged on
by young, hot love and by a father lacking in diplomacy,
she had broken the family faith. Many and many an hour
since then had she sat in sackcloth and ashes. She still loved
her husband. She had to take her medicine; but, with the
help of all the blood that ran in her Boissere veins, she would
never betray the family faith again. No, she would not suc-
cumb to black Marcus Cox.
Marcus Cox realized this. Back in the West Indies, no
matter what other good fortune Fate might have brought


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shouted into Ebeneezer's ear: “Leh's go and get Mr. King;
and we's three all goes down together."
They found Jeremiah delighted to make the trip, and
soon the car was speeding south towards lower New York
and Staten Island.
“Open 'er up! No cops to bother us at dis hour,” Marcus
directed as they crossed the ferry and approached the Hylan
Boulevard. Then, turning to Jeremiah: “What's de matter
with you? You hasn't said half-dozen words tonight. You'se
as silent as a drownded rat. What yo' say we has a drink?"
As a matter of fact, the silence was no fault of Jere-
miah's. In the early part of their journey down through the
city, Marcus had been the one who seemed disinclined to
talk. Two or three attempts at conversation on Jeremiah's
part had been met with short grunts, and so Jeremiah had
left Marcus to the thoughts which possessed him as he
slumped back in his corner of the car. Marcus' invitation
to drink was very welcome to Jeremiah.
“That's the first idea you've had all night,” he rejoined,
“I think we both need it.”
Yes, Marcus did need a drink. Thinking of Amanda
Jones was the one thing in the world which made him blue;
and he needed optimism, a perpetual driving cheer if he
were to carry on in the struggle to which he had committed
himself.
Ebeneezer chose a level spot alongside the roadway and
brought the car to a halt. Soon he busied himself in the re-
cesses of a compartment near the driving wheel and brought
forth a bottle of whiskey, another of ginger ale, and a
thermos container filled with ice cubes.
“Go on, Eb, pour yo'self a drink and set down. We's
all have a good time,” invited Marcus after he and Jeremiah
had clinked glasses.
They sipped their drinks in silence. Behind them a grass-
grown pasture; in front a rolling field spotted with small
trees and an undergrowth of stray bushes, from which


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145
gleamed the occasional flare of a firefly; above them, the
stars.
Marcus' voice broke the silence. Its quality had changed
from that of a few moments ago. He had evidently recov-
ered his High Commander's spirits.
“Dis is a gor'jus night, ehn't it, King? Look at de stars."
“Yes, one forgets the stars in New York. Too many
electric lights, I suppose."
"I never fergets dem, King. Sometimes I lies out on
my verandah in de woods and I plays dat each star I see is
a so'jer-a so'jer in my army; and I drills dem and orders
dem aroun'. I thinks we'se marching on de moon. We'se
got to take her-she's de enemy, see? And I forms my star-
so'jers fust one way and den de udder so's we attacks un-
awares, like all de great generals does. We creeps up gradual-
like and den we makes one gran' rush, and bing! we knocks
her ober. Say, King, where de hell you t'inks de moon go ef
we knocks her over?”
"Search me, Marcus, you're doing the knocking."
"Well, what de debil does we care so long's we knocks
her over.”
A loud roaring noise came to them from the distance
behind; and, heralded by the steady gleam of a single head-
light, a motorcycle flashed by, slowed down a couple of
hundred yards ahead, swerved around and came back to
stop on the opposite side of the roadway. The policeman
shut off his motor, propped his cycle on its supports, and
approached.
“What you fellows doing here?”
Silence a moment, then Marcus' voice.
"We's taking a drink officer, and I thinks there's some
more left in dis bottle," as he held up a half-filled bottle
to the glancing rays of an arc light a dozen paces away.
The policeman came over to the grass-bank on which
they sat, looked them over deliberately for a moment, and
then reached for the bottle in Marcus' hand. Putting it


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to his lips for what seemed to Jeremiah an ungodly long
minute, he remarked: “Whiskey, eh? Don't you fellows know
it's agen the law to transport liquor? What'd you say you
come around to the station house with me?"
Both Marcus and Jeremiah gazed uncertainly at the
officer. Was he serious? Of course not. That must be .his
little joke. However, he looked both tough and rough.
"Come on there; get a move on you’se. It sure's whiskey
all right, and damn good whiskey, too,” he added as he
took another swig from the bottle.
Jeremiah arose. “Surely, officer, you're not serious?" and
there was an anxious note in his half-statement, half-ques-
tion.
"Like hell I ain't! Who's driving this car? Come on,
get a move on you, I said; and that goes!” He swaggered
over towards his motorcycle.
In the dim half-light, Marcus gazed at Jeremiah and
Jeremiah gazed back at Marcus. Ebeneezer was standing
somewhat apart.
“Say, chief,” he whispered, bending over towards Mar-
cus, "you and Mr. King jumps in. I gets in after and makes
believe I follows de cop. Den I shoots by and drives like
hell. Dis li'l car kin do ninety. I'se got a gun in de seat, and
if he ketches us, dey's goin' to be one mo' dead Irish in
the worl’.”
Marcus pushed Ebeneezer aside. “You talks like a billy
goat, Eb. Hey! hois' me up," as he extended his hand to
Ebeneezer, “I knows how to handle dat cop.”
And he went over towards the motorcycle where, for
the third time, the uniformed guardian of the law had
the whiskey bottle to his lips.
“Dat's damn fine liquor, ehn't it, officeh?” observed
Marcus.
"It sure is, boy; best I've tasted since prohibition. What're
you fellows, bootleggers?”
“We ought to be, but we ehn't. We jes' have two bottles.
De udder one is over dere in de car. I has plenty more in de


The Black Challenge
147
country where we going, though, and we doan need what
we have here pertic'lar."
The policeman eyed Marcus knowingly. “Say, bo, you
look like a regʻlar guy."
“Dat's my middle name, Marcus Regulus Cox. Maybe
you hears of me ef you reads de papers reg'lar. I is de
President General High Commander of the United Negro
'Sociation of the World.”
The Irishman's face broadened into a generous grin.
“That's some little title you got, kid. What else have you
got with you?"
“Dis," at the same time displaying a yellow bill which
he had furtively slipped from his pockets.
“And the liquor in the car?"
“Sure, I tells you I done brought it down here thinkin'
as I'se meet you; and say! ef you's ever down at de High-
lands, in Jersey, you know, drops over and sees me. Hey's de
number. Eb,” he shouted, “get another drink from de car
for my fren' hey."
The guardian of the law collected his booty, straddled
his motorcycle, and was about to move off. He shouted to
Marcus as he moved away: “If any of my partners ever stop
you coming through here tell 'em you're a friend of Officer
O'Brien-Mike O'Brien,” and in a moment he had roared
out of sight.
“Good night, O'Brien,” shouted Jeremiah when he was
sure his voice could not reach the officer, “and may the good
God Almighty take you into the lowest depths of hell!”
Turning to Marcus: “What did you give him?"
“Twenty bucks.”
"I'd have seen him in hell first."
“Well,” mused Marcus, “de law is de law, you knows;
and dere's no use seein' a man in hell when you gots to go
’long wid him to see him dere. He never 'tended to take
us to any station house, nohow; but he's 'titled to his li'l
graf'. Ef it wasn't for dat, prohibition would be as dead
as hell."


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“That couldn't have happened under English law,”
remarked Jeremiah.
“De hell it couldn't!” returned Marcus. “But even ef
it couldn't it was a damn good thing it could'a happen hey,
'cos we'd been in one hellova fix ef, instead o’de cop lis'nin'
to reason, we'd have to ask de jedge fo' mercy. Me? I prefers
de 'Merican way o' doin' things. To hell wid you Inglish.
Inglish justice ehn't got any heart in it an' no reason eder.
It's stiff like de English demselves. It stinks.”
Ebeneezer's voice broke the momentary silence which
followed: “You knows, boss, when we gets to Africa, I want's
yo' to make me a bicycle cop. I'd jes' loves to patrol roun'
loose-like.”
"Shucks! Eb, I makes you my chief of police-dat's
what I do. But,” he added, "ef I ever ketches you graftin'
I chops yo' head off.”
They got into the car and moved off. Ninety Ebeneezer
had said the Lincoln could do-ninety it did. Silent, steady,
almost like an automaton, he shot forward the smooth, live
thing of iron and steel, swerving around a curve here, grind-
ing the brakes there, but always shooting forward with in-
credible speed, uncanny precision. He was king of the
night which enveloped them, king of the breeze which lashed
their cheeks, one with the drowsing trees and silent things
which, moment after moment, flashed by and receded far
behind.
Half an hour after their stop, they rolled into Atlantic
Highlands and were soon driving towards the wooded slopes
among which Marcus Cox's bungalow nestled.
It was Jeremiah who, glancing through the window
beside him, first noticed the glow in the sky.
“Seems like a fire over there," he remarked, pointing.
“Brush burnin', I guess,” muttered Marcus, following
the direction of Jeremiah's finger.
Half a mile and they drove on in silence.
“Boss," ejaculated Ebeneezer, “dat looks like a fire for
true, and mighty close to de bungalow, too,” he added.


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dense foliage. Soon, they emerged into a more open but
still sandy roadway.
“Dis runs back of de house,” whispered Marcus to Jere-
miah. Jeremiah did not reply. Strengthening rage was well-
ing up in his being. So the Ku Klux Klan had their little
parties up North also!
The car came to a stop. Fifty yards away, through a
lane of poplars, Jeremiah saw the back door of the bunga-
low.
“Keep de car running, Eb, and stay right here,” cau-
tioned Marcus. “We’se goin' in. Come on, King. Eb, has yo'
got yo' gun?"
"Yes, boss,” and the rakish muzzle of a forty-eight Colt
showed in Ebeneezer's hands.
Jeremiah was not a fighting man. A lifetime of soften-
ing intellectual pursuits had dulled any primitive instincts
with which he might have been endowed. For the last few
minutes, however, at sight of the burning cross-at the sound
of the pistol when it had barked the first and second time
and the dog's death cry-a certain savage joy had sprung up
within him. Had one been able to see his face, it was a
chalky white, but it was not fear that possessed him-it was
white rage; it was the fighting face of his mixed kind.
“What yo' got inside?” he questioned, unconsciously
assuming Marcus's lingo in his tense excitement as Marcus
raised a half-open window and crawled inside the house.
“Come on down to de celler and see,” Marcus whispered
back as he caught Jeremiah's hands and gave him a hoist.
They slipped down a dark flight of stairs and found their
way to the front part of the house overlooking the sloping
land and the burning cross. They could see but not be seen.
Evidently, whoever were outside-for, up to the present
time, they had only been able to guess by the pistol shots
that there were human enemies lurking around-were all
concealed in the far clump of trees around which they had
skirted through the woods.
“Here she is!" confided Marcus, switching on a tiny


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electric bulb in the head of an ugly-looking machine gun,
the muzzle of which protruded from an innocent-looking
hole cut in the lattice boardwalk extending along the
foundation of the bungalow.
“Creep upstairs, lie flat on de floor of de verandah, and
see if you sees anything," suggested Marcus to Jeremiah.
Feeling his way up the stairs down which they had come
a moment ago, Jeremiah found his way on the north veran-
dah. Peering over the edge of the shrubbery rising close
to the house, he saw, first one, and then, appearing gradu-
ally and stealthily, a dozen or more white-robed, white-
hooded figures gathering in a clump of bushes fifty yards
or so on the left.
He cupped his hand to his lips, and his voice broke the
silence.
"You white-livered sons of bitches! Get out of there
or we'll shoot you full of holes!”
The wooden cross had all but spent its flames; nothing
but thin wisps of smoke and an occasional flare from half-
burnt pieces of wood remained. The moving figures flitted
here and there below among the trees like ghostly shad-
ows.
There was a moment of stillness following Jeremiah's
voice. Then, simultaneously, a dozen flashes from the woods
and as many pistol shots rang out. Another fusillade and
whistling things through the trees in front of him told
Jeremiah that real, honest-to-goodness bullets were being
hurled in his direction.
He shouted down to Marcus: "Give 'em hell, Marcus!
Shoot into the far end of the trees on the left.”
There was a roar of sound from underneath the piazza
where Jeremiah lay flat on the floor, and then a steady rat-a-
tat as Marcus' gun kept up its play. Shouts from the woods,
cries of warning, of fear; a noise as of the scattering of a lot
of crows from a dead carcass whipped away by some superior
force. In a few minutes, complete silence, the silence of the
woods.


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Jeremiah still lay flat on the floor. Marcus stood above
him.
“Dey's gone," remarked Marcus. His eyes were shining
large and bright, and he was perspiring profusely.
A little while afterwards, they sat out and breathed more
freely on the porch.
“No use trying to go to sleep any more tonight-or
rather, today, Marcus. It's daybreak," observed Jeremiah.
“No, I guess not, we kin take a nap later, whenever we
feels like it,” replied Marcus.
Silence for a while and then Jeremiah's voice: “This is
one hell of a country, Marcus."
“Sure, what's de matter with it?"
“Nothing." And then, after a pregnant pause: “I'm be-
ginning to be crazy about it myself.”
“Yo' knows something, King?" Marcus' voice startled
Jeremiah. He lay at full length on a rattan sofa-he must
have dozed off for the moment. “Half of life is a bluff, jes' a
plain bluff.”
“There you're wrong again, Marcus," replied Jeremiah
irritably. “It's resistance; its power-a punch-that counts.
It was the force of those machine-gun bullets that drove
those skunks away.”
Marcus laughed a thin, cynical laugh.
“Yes, King, but you knows something?"
"What?"
“Dose cartridges that I fires is all blanks."
“The hell you sayl” remarked Jeremiah, and soon they
lapsed into silence.
A little while later, as dawn came over the hills in the
north, they went down to the lawn and buried their dead dog
under the charred and disfigured emblem of the White Man's
Faith.


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I'm afraid the Universal Movement draws most of its strength
from the class of people of whom that is true.”
"Well, I've noticed,” answered Jeremiah, “that the re-
ligious Negro treats his religion almost superstitiously.
There's a lot of elasticity about his fancy which can be
turned one way or another; and, fortunately, there is just
enough of uncertainty about all there is in the Bible to
permit of clever deviation-about Moses, Jesus, and all the
rest of the Biblical heroes.”
"You'se hit de nail on de head, King," burst in Marcus.
"I'se been tryin' to tell Mandy dat dese five years."
“You've been telling me nothing of the sort,” retorted
Amanda. "Everything that anybody says that sounds good,
you have always been talking about. The 'Great Appropria-
tor' ought ot be your name.”
"Well, anyhow, it takes brains to 'propriate. I admires
a clevah tief,” and he grinned shamelessly at Amanda Jones.
“Say, Mandy, when is yo' goin' to let me steal you?” he
ended, looking roguishly at Amanda.
Amanda Jones was taken by surprise. She glanced quickly
at King and then back again at Marcus. This was the first
time Marcus had been prompted to declare himself before
a third person, even her daughter; but she gathered herself
together.
"I'll tell you, Mr. Cox,” she answered lightly, “when
you build your African kingdom I'll consider an application
to be its queen.”
“Oh, I was jest foolin'-I knows you ain't studyin' me,”
but he looked wistfully at her.
“What are you going to do about the challenge to de-
bate with you issued by this A.C.S. crowd?” inquired Jere-
miah after some moments of silence.
Marcus Cox had slipped off his shoes, drawn up another
chair in front of him, and now was resting his stockinged
feet across the second chair. “My feets hurt!” he explained.
Jeremiah continued to look inquiringly at him.


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“We ehn't goin' to do nary a thing. We's got our paper
now, and we'll jest give 'em hell in de Trumpet."
“And then you'll be sued for libel, perhaps."
“Shucks, man, what we care for dere suits? Leh’m sue
and get fat. Dat's our meat, King-noise, plenty of noise.
Every time dey hits us we's fifty times stronger. But say,”
he broke off, as if the fact had that moment occurred to
him, “dey is havin' a meetin' down at Lafayette Hall to-
night. What's de time? Half-past nine? Suppose we drops
down and looks dem over, eh King?”
Jeremiah agreed.
Marcus scrambled up and began replacing his shoes.
“Where's Lido?" he suddenly inquired, looking up towards
her mother.
“She's out-had some kind of an appointment. She'll
probably be back by the time you return."
Jeremiah's level eyes measured Amanda Jones. He had
a shrewd guess that even at that moment Lido Jones was
out somewhere with Owen Murphy.
At half-past eleven that morning, Jeremiah had ascended
the spiral stairway and opened the door of Lido's office
adjoining his and Marcus Cox's. Her back, as he entered,
was toward him; and she was so engrossed in a conversation
over the telephone that she did not sense his approach. “Yes,
all right,” she was saying into the mouthpiece, “half-past
seven. I'll meet you. ... Where, did you say? ... Yes, Mott
Avenue and 145th Street, downtown subway side. . . . Sure.
... Goodbye.... Half past seven.”
Instinctively, Jeremiah had guessed that Lido was mak-
ing an engagement for that evening; and, by the same token,
his mind reverted to Owen Murphy. The man had called
up on two or three occasions when Lido was out to lunch,
and the call had been switched to his wire.
Ever since the night in his apartment when Marcus had
let drop the information that Lido had returned to the
Atlantic City restaurant the evening after they had been


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refused service, and had dined there with Owen Murphy, a
certain coolness had sprung up between them. He had had
to consult with her frequently, for she apparently had the
affairs of the association, especially the financial affairs, at
her fingers' ends; but, except for a studied politeness on his
part and an equally studied restraint on hers, the cordiality
which had united them from the time of their very first
meeting now seemed to have all but departed. For reasons
which he had not stopped to analyze, but which had grown
in strength and intensity, Jeremiah resented Owen Murphy's
attentions towards Lido Jones. Equally, he despised what.
ever there was in her which encouraged these attentions. As
he gazed across the table now at her mother, he wondered
whether Amanda Jones also knew; and, if knowing, whether
she condoned these excursions and meetings between her
daughter and Owen Murphy. What did she hope could be
gained from such a relationship between her colored daugh- •
ter and this white man? Had not her own experiences taught
her anything? Or, was it that, in spite of those experiences,
she was flattered that her daughter had arrested the atten-
tions of a white man?
Marcus' voice broke in on Jeremiah's speculations.
"Come on, King, leh's go," and he and Marcus departed
for the meeting of the Association for Colored Strivers at
Lafayette Hall.
As they entered the hall, the meeting seemed in full
swing. Scattered among the many colored people on the
platform, there were a few white men and one white woman.
The slim-headed, coffee-colored Negro whom Marcus had
described to Jeremiah at Proudfoot's party as the “shouter"
of the A.C.S. was speaking.
Whether he recognized Marcus Cox's entrance, or
whether he had approached this point in his discourse or
not, neither Marcus nor Jeremiah could divine, but the
speaker declared: “Now, there is in Harlem an insidious, a
dangerous movement among Negroes. Its principal purport
seems to be to encourage and develop differences in the


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group itself, based wholly on the lightness, or brownness,
or blackness of the individual. That, ladies and gentlemen,
is a sinister, a damnable question. No man or woman
in this hall or outside of it is responsible for the fact that
he finds himself a Negro. No man or woman is responsible
for the fact that he is a black-skinned Negro, a brown-
skinned Negro, or a light-skinned Negro. That is his mis-
fortune. But it is a fact that whether light-skinned, or dark-
skinned, or black-skinned, he is a Negro under all the
rules of life in this country just the same. And, united we
stand, divided we fall!"
There was prolonged applause. Marcus began to fidget
in his seat beside Jeremiah.
“And there is more than that to the story. I and my
associates," and he turned around and bowed to the gather-
ing on the rostrum, "and the large majority of the right-
thinking and intelligent citizens of Harlem and, indeed, of
the entire country, question-they seriously question-the
sincerity of this movement. This movement, made up for
the most part of certain illiterate persons who, by virtue of
their background and lack of information and culture,
utterly fail to grasp the lofty ideals of American citizenship
and life, are committed to the dangerous policy not of
acquiring American citizenship, but of encouraging the
emigration of a substantial part of our population who
might, under proper leadership and guidance, be of some
assistance to the race in its hard struggle upwards. Further-
more, it appears that this deluded movement has not been
honestly administered. I understand-we understand--that
even now there is pending an indictment against the self-
created leader of this movement for misuse of its funds."
There was a general craning of necks forward. This
seemed news to most of the audience. Marcus Cox had now
taken out pencil and envelope and was diligently making
notes.
“And, my friends, I think it behooves every one of us
here tonight as good colored American citizens to combat


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this movement, to rebuke it. How shall we do this? The
answer is simple: by educating and informing the masses.
There is no organization so well fitted, so well equipped to
perform this task, as the Association for Colored Strivers.
But it needs funds, my friends; and it's up to you women
and men to support this association. My white friends here
with me tonight are doing a great deal for us," and he again
bowed to those on the platform around him, “but we need
not only your moral support but your financial support
as well. Such donations as may be made here tonight will be
applied to the purpose of widely and publicly combatting
the Universal Negro Movement of the United States and
the World.”
The speaker sat down. There was a sprinkling of well-
mannered handclaps; but, underneath, there was silence.
Jeremiah thought he discerned in the audience quite a
number of Marcus Cox's cohorts.
Marcus Cox arose. The handclapping had not yet
abated. He raised his hand in an endeavor to attract the
attention of the chairman of the meeting.
Finally, Marcus shouted: “Mr. Chai'man, I craves the
privilege of a few remarks.”
“What's the name, please?" asked the chairman, cupping
his ear with one hand.
“I'se Marcus Cox, de same who dat elongated Nigger
talkin' 'bout a few minutes ago–Marcus Cox, de High
Commander of de Universal Negro Improvement 'Socia-
tion,” he repeated.
There was a whispered conference on the rostrum. Sev-
eral of the white men leaned towards the chairman and
nodded vehemently. "Let him speak!” The whisper carried
itself through the hall.
The chairman rose. “It's rather an unusual proceeding,
Mr. Cox, but my associates think it well to hear your ex-
planation.”
"I ehn't aimin' to explain nothin'," announced Marcus.
"I jes' wants to tell you gen'mans a few things.”


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161
It was now Jeremiah's turn to fidget and squirm. Little
creepings of his flesh began to disturb him, and, for an
instant of panic, he looked behind him towards the door.
There he was with Marcus, and Marcus was about to spread
his impossible gibberish to an intelligent audience.
But Marcus had already begun. With his favorite out-
ward fling of his long well-shaped hands, he seemed to be-
come a dignified person. A broad, benevolent smile was on
his face.
"Ladies and gen'mans of de A. C. S.,” he began, turning
slightly to the right, “and de few fren's of my own organi-
zation who I see 'sembled here: de learned gen'man who has
just spoke is full of words, beautiful words, but ... just
plain words. Dere's no sense to 'em; dere's no truf to 'em.
De fact of de matter is, he doan know a damned t'ing dat
he's talkin' about."
There was a sally of laughter at this blunt statement,
especially from the right wing of the house. Jeremiah began
to feel a little more comfortable. Marcus, at least, seemed
to have complete command of himself.
“Now, my fren's, dere is many kinds of movements and
organizations. Dere is movements dat springs from de head,
and dere is movements dat comes from de heart. Our or-
ganization and movements springs from de heart of all de
persecuted Niggers in de world—not only de persecuted
black Niggers, but all de persecuted brown and mulattoes.
Co’se, maybe we doan cater to a few fohtunate ones, light,
brown or black, who has got de jump on us udder fellahs,
like de heads of dis A. C. S. Dey kin 'ford to talk from a
platform and beg de public for money all de time. Dere
jobs depends on dat. Fact is, dey ain't talkin' for anybody
but deyselves.”
"Hear! Hearl" shouted a thin, piping voice from the
right wing. “Give 'em hell, Commander.”
“All right, Sam, I aims to," replied Marcus and con-
tinued.
“As I was sayin', I doan have to come here and ask de


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public for monies. De membahs of my 'sociation supplies
dere own funds. I doan have to ask you white men and
women on de platform for a penny. I never 'poses to. We'se
too proud to do dat. We aims to pay our own way as we
goes along. Now, dere must be some reason for dis state
of 'fairs. All de mens and women membahs of our 'sociation
all de world over is poor, hard-workin' Niggers. I admits we
ehn't got many high-brown-all dem kind wid us is working
for a salary.”
There was a general snicker throughout the hall at this
dig.
“But all our membahs is dat po'tion of de Negro race
who craves a li'l place in de sun-not for deyselves, minds
you—and I want you to get dat straight 'cause it's impohant
-not for deyselves as individuals, but foh de Negro as a
whole racel It's a very easy t'ing to pick out a Nigger here
and there, no matter what his color may be, and push him
along; but I tells you, it's one hell of a job to push along
ten millions of undermerged Niggers. Dat's de job I and my
'sociation is undertakin'. If you gen'mans doan happen to
like my membahs, you doan have to. Mos' of dem is as good
'Merican citizens as you highfalutin fellahs. But l’se wid
dem; I aims to stay wid dem till hell freezes up."
There were whoops and catcalls from all corners of the
hall. Apparently, Marcus had gotten to his audience.
"You'se right. Dere is a li'l matter of a indictment 'gainst
me. It doan 'mount to nothin', though. I'll meet dat when
de time comes. It de blasted English who's behin' dat.
Dey's scared stiff dat I raises up all de Niggers in South
Africa and udder places where dey grinds dem down under
dere heels. But I aims to 'tend to dat, too, after a whilst. In
de meantime, my answer to you fellahs up dere on de plat-
forms—and I doan have no ref'rence to de white gen’mans
and ladies, I mean all you Niggers up dere who is jest
seekin' foh to live off speakin' words 'stead of gettin' down
and bein' real Niggers and doin' something for yoh race-
you doa highfaluñell free
--
-


CHAPTER XVII
NEAR A lake which spreads itself at the foot of a rolling hill
beyond a narrow asphalted roadway, with an undulating
greensward used as a golf course extending for as much as
several acres back to the edge of a clump of trees in the
distance, perched as it were impudently on the very top of
the high ground surrounding it, there is a long, low ram-
bling white house in Primrose Park, in the Borough of the
Bronx, the City of New York. By day a sickly, half-yellow,
washed-out color; by night, blazing electric signs outside
and subdued lights shining through glass-enclosed veran-
dahs from within, throwing out and taking back their
reflection from the waters of the lake nearby. Innumerable
automobiles are parked here, there, and all over its surround-
ing terraces, shedding their little red back-lights like so
many scattered crimson eyes in the dusk. Tallyho Inn-
for that is its name-lies just a step removed from the more
blatant, garish lights of Harlem and looks, for all the world,
like some little fairy temple set on the topmost eminence of
a woodland glen.
As Owen Murphy and Lido Jones stepped out of Mur-
phy's rakish Packard roadster and ascended its steps, the
shrouded half-glow of descending darkness, punctured by the
lights which sprang up all around, made of that woodland
roadhouse a secluded habitation.
“Hello, Al,” Murphy greeted the proprietor, “how's
tricks?"
“Wie gates, Counselor?” grinned Al Grubber, fawning
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165
on Murphy as if he were both a close acquaintance and a
person of some importance.
As a matter of fact, Owen Murphy was, as an assistant
public prosecutor, a person of some importance to Al Grub-
ber, proprietor of Tallyho Inn, in the Borough of the
Bronx, in the City of New York.
“Here, Charlie," the proprietor called towards one of
his waiters, "take care of the counselor; and,” he added in
low tones for Murphy and the waiter only, “bring the check
to me when you're through.” Then he laid a light, restrain-
ing arm on Murphy's arm. “Got a moment, Counselor? I
would like to ask you a question.”
· Al Grubber and Owen Murphy sat for several minutes
at an unoccupied table and conferred in low tones. Owen's
head was bent over the table near the German's mouth, his
fingers tracing an idle pattern on the tablecloth as he listened
to what Grubber had to say. Soon Murphy nodded his head
vigorously several times and, as he rose, he took Grubber's
hand. “All right, Al, that's a bet. I'll do my part, and-
you'll deliver,” he ended, gazing meaningly at his host.
The waiter had shown Lido Jones to a table set inside
a small recessed nook surrounded by a group of French
windows overlooking the lake a few hundred feet away—the
choicest spot in the inn for a happy little tête-à-tête. To the
right of their table, beyond the rows of other tables with
diners which lay between, was a small dance enclosure.
The musicians, five Negroes, were at that moment ascending
the platform and tuning up their instruments.
"Just agreed for a little retainer,” confided Owen to
Lido Jones as he reached his seat, enthusiastically rubbing
his hands together.
"You seem to do business wherever you go,” remarked
Lido.
"Yes, got clients all over-that's what my office is for,
you know, girlie,” he responded cheerfully. "I wouldn't stay
in that job for a minute if it weren't for what I made on the
side-couldn't stand the racket. Why, the salary they pay me


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wouldn't even ... wouldn't even take you and me out two
or three times a week, Lido,” he ended.
“Does it cost that much to-take me out?” she questioned
a little icily.
But Owen Murphy either did not catch, or ignored,
Lido's direct question. He was explaining to her: “These
fellows, these roadhouse people, make theirs pretty soft,
you know; and there's no reason in the world why they
shouldn't be made to give up ... a little. All I have to do is
to play ball with the Federal people; and, say, Lido, I'll buy
you a little car yet, girlie.”
“Apple saucel" murmured Lido, but the words were
mechanical; absentmindedly she had just been thinking of
Jeremiah's remark to her that morning in the office: “You
sure are one little date-maker, Lido." What right had he
to be nosing into her affairs? He had probably stood by her
desk and heard her entire telephone conversation with
Murphy.
"No kidding," Murphy was saying, "I mean it; but it's
got to be fifty-fifty, you know."
Once more she rested her eyes on Murphy.
"You've been drinking again, Owen.”
"I just had a couple of shots before I picked you up."
“How many's a couple for you? I suppose a dozen at
least.”
As a matter of fact, Owen Murphy had had just four
drinks of alleged Scotch whiskey that afternoon; but they
had been fair-sized drinks, and he felt very cheerful. As he
had hung around the bar of the speakeasy on his way up
town with two of his office cronies, and had imbibed first
one drink and then another, he had concluded, in thinking
of this very appointment with Lido, that the time was ripe
to approach the goal. There was no sense in any more
finesse.
"What are we going to eat?" he questioned.
Lido was looking over the bill of fare.
“Could get you up a nice steak–a nice planked steak,


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"What's funny about him?"
"He struts around like Hamlet looking for his father's
ghost.”
“Is that supposed to be funny?"
“No, it’s ‘As You Like It,'” he giggled. “I'll bet you
that's over your head."
“Yes, it is over my head," she mocked. “Mr. Murphy
is the only person in the world who ever sees anything."
"I'll bet you don't know what I meant.”
"You were trying to be smart by connecting Hamlet
with Shakespeare's other play, 'As You Like It.'”
"Bravo, little temptation, you're there a hundred ways,
but ... I wish you'd be nicer to me."
"Like what?" she questioned.
But he was not yet ready to proceed.
There was a lull in the music, and the waiter was
bringing their dinner. They returned to their seats. They
were both hungry, and the food looked appetizing. Conver-
sation lagged. It was merely a case of, “Hand me the salt,
pleasel” “How about that pepper near you?” “Ghee, this
steak is good,” uttered by one or the other.
Owen Murphy had, in the meantime, changed his drink-
ing order from cocktails to highballs-rye whiskey and gin-
ger ale, but Lido refused to have her ginger ale mixed
with whiskey.
Coffee was brought on, and Murphy lighted one of
his long, formidable-looking cigars.
Lido, too, lighted a cigarette and exhaled cloud after
cloud of thin, flowery smoke. Parted and pursed in the
act of exhaling, her lips were pretty lips, cherry red lips,
lips filled with warm, red blood, tempting lips—at least,
so they seemed to Owen Murphy.
“Do you know, kid, you're a swell girl," and his eyes
filled with desire.
“That so?" she breathed, looking over at him out of
half-closed, half-veiled eyelids, smoke-laden, dreamy, and
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169
"I guess you don't know it yourself.”
“Well, I sure don't hate myself!"
"Well,” and he paused, "when are we going to make
it?" His tone and look came across the table to her with
significance.
"Make what?” She had had an uncanny feeling all eve-
ning that some disturbance was ahead. During the last
few minutes it had left; and now-here it was again.
“Oh, you know jolly well what I mean. What's the
use of playing dumb? When are you going out with me?"
The roughness in Murphy's voice irritated her.
They were in that little dining nook, secluded, very much
to themselves. Below them an occasional car whizzed by
along the narrow roadway. Far out on the lake, as far as
one could see, little lights from gently gliding boats flitted
here, there and everywhere on the dark surface of the water.
Happy laughter-light, teasing at times—rapturous laughter,
came to them.
"Why, I'm out with you now, am I not?" she returned
with studied ingenuousness.
“Hell!” he replied quickly; and again roughly and
crudely: "You know very well I don't mean that. When are
you coming down to my flat and give me a night of it?"
His voice came slow, deliberate, demanding.
Lido Jones had sensed what was coming. She had been
sparring for time. The female in her was now ready to
meet the male in Murphy at his own game. She did not
reply at once. Instead, she poised the half-smoked cigarette
firmly in her fingers, placed the end daintily between her
cherry-red lips, puffed a huge cloud of smoke therefrom,
and covered him with a cool, reflective gaze. Then she
answered: “Never!” and she hesitated just a trifle and re-
peated: "Never! Unless I am married to you."
No immediate answer came from Murphy. Instead, his
lips turned themselves down in a sneering smile, and he
stared across the table at her. An abrupt laugh, half-snort,
half-grunt, sprang from him.


CHAPTER XVIII
PARTING FROM Marcus Cox on the sidewalk in front of his
home after the meeting of the Colored Strivers at Lafayette
Hall, Jeremiah had just reached his apartment when the
telephone bell rang-softly at first as if in summons to some
gentle encounter, then anxiously and stridently as he opened
the door of his bedroom and took the receiver from the
hook.
: “That you, Jerry?” The voice sounded distant, far off,
and, somewhat plaintive. “Been trying to get you for some
time.”
“Hello, Lido!” At the other end of the wire, there was
something in the welcome of the "Hello, Lido” which
reassured Lido Jones and told her she had made no mistake
in calling her grouchy friend, Jeremiah.
Leaving the restaurant as soon as Owen Murphy had
wandered out of the room, she had hurried over in the
direction of the lake and sat down. For many minutes
she was unable to think clearly. Gradually, she became
calmer and her thoughts were more ordered.
As a woman, a young woman, sitting alone alongside
that lake, Lido Jones had no feminine fear such as might
have possessed many of her sex under the circumstances.
She felt quite able to take care of herself; indeed, had done
so all her life, and she would stay out there on that bench
beside her lake all night if need be. No, it was not that
kind of fear that possessed her. It was simply an uncanny
feeling of strangeness, of being out of place-of being alone
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The Black Challenge
in an alien world. That restaurant back there which she
had just left, it contained all white people save the few
musicians of her own race, and they didn't count. Out
there before her on the lake, all those boats and the voices
coming from them were white voices without doubt. No
colored person could possibly be there. She was alone, in
this strange place, surrounded with Owen Murphy's kind,
without kith or kin of her own.
The streets of Harlem? No. that feeling of aloneness
would never overtake her there, and she had traveled those
streets at all hours of the day and night, oftentimes very
late at night and alone too. Harlem! Harlem was her Har-
lem. She knew it. She was part of it. No harm could come
to her in Harlem. Even Broadway, any street or thorough-
fare in the city, with its hard pavements and its electric
lights, she would be at home there also, with taxis and
streetcars and elevated railroads roaring by. But out here
in the woods? It was a lonesome, uncanny place!
Owen Murphy had undoubtedly gone. She had heard his
car roar down the roadway as if expressing its driver's
temper. She could go back to the inn and ask them to call
a taxi for her. No! She was through with that restaurant
and all the people there. The diners had snickered after
her as she had made her way down the aisle and out the
door. Should she call her mother? No! Her mother would
give her the devil, anyhow, and she couldn't stand any
scolding tonight. Mr. Cox? No! He would be entirely out
of place coming up there for her. Somebody might see her
driving around with her black High Commander at this
ungodly hour of the night. Besides, he wouldn't under-
stand either. Mr. King-Jerry? Why not? Jerry had been
very strange and cold lately. She knew the reason, though.
Either her mother or Mr. Cox had told him about her
dining with Owen Murphy at Atlantic City. He had made
several sarcastic remarks to her about it. But shel What did
she care? It had given her a real thrill to go back to that
Atlantic City restaurant next evening and be served by


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175
those white people. She figured she had put one over on
them. Besides, she was entitled to as much fun and pleasure
as she could get out of life, no matter from what direction
it came. Race? Race and color meant nothing to her. It
was only a talking subject.
She wondered how Jerry would receive her call. Would
he snub her? She wouldn't be able to stand that either.
Still, she might try.
So it was that, after much cogitation and quite a few
misgivings, she decided to call Jeremiah, hoping to reach
him at home. She had reached him.
His voice came again to her over the wire: “Where are
you?”
"I'm up here in the Bronx, at Tallyho Inn," she ex-
plained, “and I want you to come and get me."
"All right, tell me how to get there."
"Just get a taxi and tell the driver to bring you to
Tallyho Inn, in Primrose Park. He'll know how to find it-
it's a well-known place,” she added.
"I'll be there as fast as he can drive.”
"You'll find me sitting on a bench near the lake off
from the inn," she directed before ringing off; and, care-
fully wrapping her cloak about her, she returned to her
bench beside the lake.
It was characteristic of Jeremiah, she thought, that he
had not asked any more questions. She had hoped that he
would simply sense her need for help and come to her. He
had done just that, and she was glad. Explanations would,
of course, come later.
“One has to make mistakes," she told herself, “and
this hobnobbing with Owen Murphy had been one whale
of a mistake.”
She used to be rather proud of her foragings in the
camps of Caucasia. She had been sure that none other of
her girl companions in Harlem had carried it off quite
so well as she had. At times she had felt convinced that
she more properly belonged to those camps than to Har-


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lem; and, although she had never stopped to determine
how, when, or where, little imaginings of an ultimate lot
for herself different from that which overtook most colored
girls had arisen in her ambitious heart. She had been a
little reckless, a little thoughtless, she now realized; but
she would forget it-would put this fiasco out of her mind.
A minute or two later, however, Lido Jones discovered
that she could not get rid of the subject so easily. It kept
recurring to her.
"He called me a ... Nigger!” she repeated to herself.
She hated, even in thought, to formulate the last word,
so humiliating it was to her. A wave of resentment passed
through her, and she muttered: “I should have thrown one
of those tea cups in his face. ... I'm sorry I didn't-the
dirty cad! It's just what Mother has been telling me all
along. A colored girl to a white man is eventually nothing
but a ... Nigger. The damned skunks!"
She realized that it was not the fact that Owen Murphy
had approached her with the suggestion that the day, or
rather, the night of reckoning had come when he thought
he should collect for all the good times he had afforded
her. After all, she, Lido Jones, knew enough of life around
her to understand that this expectation of a return on the
part of men from women to whom they had been attentive
was a customary thing, a part of the game. She knew, with
equal sureness, that some women-nay, many women-
automatically, and as if by a common understanding, si-
lently acquiesced in this regular system of rewards and
punishments-for it must be punishment to many of them
who merely swapped one pleasure in casual fashion for
another. No, it was not this which had outraged her spirit.
It was that word . . . "Nigger" sneered at her from Mur-
phy's lips in his moment of frustration.
“And yet the word “Nigger,” in and of itself, was a most
common one to Lido Jones. She had been hearing it around
her ever since she could remember. In company with her


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177
girl friends, in their happy and bantering talk fests, it was
a common thing for one of them to say: "Look here, Nigger
girl, you need to be told something, and it's me who is
going to told you.” This and other slangy expressions were
frequent in their conversations. How many times had not
her friend Ruth Dennis, equally light in complexion as
she, but who just seemed to take to this rough language
as a duck to water-how many times had this chum of hers
not addressed her in identical language! Yes, how many
times had she, Lido Jones, herself not replied to Ruth and
others in like manner! But this had all been girlish horse-
play; the typical horseplay of one colored friend to another
in Harlem. Always there was the accompanying smile in
the teeth of it. Tonight, for the first time, that word-that
venomous word–had been hurled at her cruelly, with con-
temptuous manner and intent, to humiliate, to defile her
and ... by a white man-a white man whom she had per-
mitted to get that close to her, so close within her breast-
works that she had perhaps ... yes . . . perhaps all but ...
Many a time had Owen Murphy kissed her; many a
time had he caressed her fiercely, passionately; and she
had responded, too-yes, she had responded; and at times,
under the mood of the moment, with all that was purely
male in him calling to all that was purely female in her, it ...
might ... have been ... possible. And now-God! She felt
contaminated by every one of those caresses. In the vividness
of her hot contempt for herself, for such permission as she
had given, each of these past and gone kisses seared her
mind. Each caress was to her a quick, short, stabbing jab.
The memory of them surged through her with the force
of a thousand hot irons tearing at her insides. Tears sprang
to her eyes and went coursing down her cheeks. She did
not even know they were there. ...
There was a quick tread on the grass, and Jeremiah King
stood alongside her bench.
"Hello, little girl," he greeted, taking her hand in his.


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181
but she sensed also that it was not mere anger. Jeremiah was
hurt. She paused before replying.
"I didn't think of it in that light.”
"You were just anxious for a good time. You'd have sold
your soul for that. All of you girls are alike. I suppose,
no doubt ... you've been ... very . . . close . . . very int-
very intimate with that man,” he finally hurled at her.
He had turned his face on her and was lashing her with
his staring eyes..
Instantly, Lido Jones was erect. She snatched her hand
away from Jeremiah's knee where it had wandered, and
she glared back at him. The blood left her face, as it usually
did in moments of passion and stress. In the half-dim light
which lay like an enveloping shadow over them, had there
been a watcher on the shore, they would have appeared, for
the moment, like two carved figures in a posture of threat-
ened combat.
“Jeremiah, you are—" For a moment, it seemed as if
short, ugly, unrecallable words would spring from her
lips. As quickly as the impulse came, it died. Her mood
changed, and she said in a low, pleading voice: “Is that
nice, Jerry? Is that a nice thing for you to say to me-after
I've been so honest and frank with you? I've told you
everything. Is that the thanks I get for my frankness?"
"You've been frank and candid only because he turned
you down, insulted you, made it impossible for you with
any spark of decency to continue with him. You didn't
have brains enough to sense that that was what he was
after all the time; that you were selling your-your soul
for a filthy mess of pottage-a good time, and-my God! How
much closer could you have been to him, anyhow? Do you
think you are conferring a favor on anybody by refraining
from running around with white men? For my part, you
can run around with them all you want; go the limit-
do any damned thing you like. You're not hurting me nor
anybody else. You're just cheapening yourself.”
She did not reply immediately. She was trying to con-


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trol herself. Some of the things this man said were true,
but many were not. He was being unjust. She had not made
a confidant of him in order to be chastised. She had merely
sought friendly comfort and refuge.
“You know, Jerry," and there was a cutting coldness
to her voice, “the trouble with you is that you're just one
everlasting prig. You don't give me credit for learning my
little lesson. Look at you! You were just like all the other
monkeys who come from the Islands before they insulted
you in that Atlantic City restaurant. You thought you were
some indeterminate white person. It took that cut to put
some punch, some backbone into you."
“Let us hope you respond in the same way,” he retorted
with unmistakable sarcasm.
"You go to hell, Jeremiah King!" she blurted out sav-
agely and sidled over to the far corner of the boat.
Silently, they returned to the landing place and sought
their waiting taxi.


CHAPTER XIX
THE GREEN HILLS that nestle around and beyond the High-
lands on the New Jersey shore brooded in the distance. Mar-
cus Cox sat out on the open verandah of his bungalow which
commanded a full view of those spreading, green-wooded
slopes.
The sun was going down, off there to his right where
lay the waters of Sandy Hook leading out into the open
Atlantic. From afar he caught the ghostlike reflection of a
steamer, of many steamers, proceeding, it seemed, into
the very skyline where white fleecy clouds banked them-
selves above the edge of the horizon.
His black pipe in his mouth, his legs lazily spanning
the balustrade, Marcus smoked and awaited Jeremiah's
arrival.
It was Friday afternoon, and Jeremiah and he were to
have their conference with Owen Murphy and his Man
Friday, George Webb, the following afternoon.
Marcus looked at his watch. Half-past fivel He wondered
whether Jeremiah had missed the three-thirty boat.
Jeremiah, however, had not missed the boat. At that
moment he was taking his time and strolling along the
mile-and-a-half stretch of road leading from the depot to
Marcus' bungalow. It was such a pleasant day-ideal for
walking-and the hillside and garden patches around him
were so green and attractive that Jeremiah had decided to
walk instead of taking a taxi.
He reached the intersection where the pathway turned
183


The Black Challenge
185
intermittently trying to secure portions of his food.
“ 'Have, Jocko!" reproved his master.
But Jocko did not behave—had no intention of behav-
ing, at least so far as retrieving bits of bread and boglogna
from his master's grasp was concerned. Or was it his master?
Was it not his friend, his pal? Evidently, he was the latter
to the monkey, for even at that moment he was snuggling
his little blunt nose up against the old man's ear, intent on
snooting the battered derby off his head.
“ 'Have, me say, Jock. Me tie you up if you no 'have,”
he threatened, jangling a small chain which hung across his
knees.
Jocko looked down at the chain cautiously, curiously, as
if it were the strangest thing in all the world to him. A
limpid expression crept into his shiny eyes-age-old, plead-
ing, as if all the millions of other monkeys in the world were
peering out and pondering on the customs and usages of
chains. Yes, this man, threatening him with a chain, was
indeed his master! And this master was irritable and un-
kind. He, Jocko, would have to wait until this other appe-
tite was appeased before he could play at his game of
snatching. This man was not now his friend and-there was
the chain! Rovingly, his eyes lifted themselves to the tree
tops. Two nesting birds were twittering and frisking from
twig to twig aloft. Little Jocko's lips bared back and his
white teeth gleamed as his eyes followed the chirping birds
Beneath the tree where the pair sat, low-hanging
branches bent almost to the ground. Jocko bared his teeth,
glanced down at the chain, and then, quickly, suddenly,
with a single bound, he leaped off the old man's shoulder
and, at almost the same moment, was peering down on them
from the branches above.
The old Italian scrambled to his feet with surprising
alertness.
"Cumma here, Jock! Cumma here!” he ordered. “Cum,
cumma little jock-cumma to ole Pedro,” he pleaded.
But Jocko seemed in no hurry to obey. Instead, his gaze


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The Black Challenge
was directed upwards farther afield, towards those other
branches which spread themselves above and connected
with other trees, other spreading branches in the woods
where they lingered.
The old man clutched a low-hanging branch as if to
swing himself up to his monkey.
“That's useless!" shouted Jeremiah. “Look-he's away
off there!” And as the old man lifted his uncertain, watery
gaze into the tree tops, he saw his Jocko going farther and
farther away.
He crooned: “Jock, cumma here, cumma to ole Pedro,"
at the same time plunging into the trees. Jocko was now
chattering gayly high up in the branches of another tree.
Dusk was gathering. Jocko's disobedience had driven the
old man into a panic.
“Me breaka yo' neck when me getta you!” he jabbered.
But Jocko did not propose to have his neck or any
other portion of his body broken; and as the birds began
to voice their evening melodies, and the crickets and the
108°? me tocusts, and mayuras, c
frogs, the locusts and katydids, sent up their chorus of
evening song to the gods of the woods, it seemed to Jere-
o m
miah that, above them all, he could detect the chatter of
Jocko blending itself with those other woodland sounds. It
seemed as if in the wilds of his African or other forest
home-from whatever nursery life had come to him-he had
found his destiny from the beginning of things.
Marcus Cox, hearing the uproar, came down the path-
way.
"What's de matter?" he inquired.
For answer, a loud, weeping wail came from old Pedro
among the trees. “Gone-gonna-Jocko gonna!”
Jeremiah explained, and added: “Just one more little
monkey gone back to Africa or to hell," and smiled at
Marcus.
Marcus raised his eyes questioningly to Jeremiah. He did
not relish his Grand Counselor's humor.


CHAPTER XX
MARCUS AND JEREMIAH sat out on the verandah next after-
- noon after an early dinner. The one was sucking at his old
black pipe and the other was puffing at a long cigar. They
were both at their ease-Marcus in a pair of khaki pants,
white shirt open at the neck showing his broad, hairy chest
beneath; and Jeremiah in a pair of knickerbockers, his col-
lar, too, opened at the neck. His bare arms, much whiter
than his face smitten by the sun, had taken on a glow of
red. Marcus' hands and arms, bare, too, were long and
hairy as an ape's.
"White man-black man,” thought Jeremiah, as he
looked over at Marcus. "In appearance only ... both black
by all the codes of all the worlds. One speck of black blood,
a black man. One speck of yellow blood ...a Chinaman-
perhaps; Perhaps not. Certainly one speck of Indian blood,
not an Indian; for had not Richard Croker taken to his
heart and home in sunny Ireland his Indian princess without
astonishing the world? And was not the love affair of John
Smith and Pocahontas a classic of white America? Both
of these damsels were fit mates for white lords of creation.
A speck of black blood-never. ..."
Marcus had been busy all day. Jeremiah had been busy
also following Marcus around while he worked, pruning
trees, cutting grass, and doing other chores in and about
his acre of land. Jeremiah enjoyed looking on. He had no
interest in the actual work, however. With Marcus, it was
his delight, his hobby. It came natural to him to be cutting
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The Black Challenge
grass and raking leaves. His forebears, for generations in the
West Indies, had laboured thus. Many another in his posi-
tion, graduated from the necessity for such labor, might have
despised it and escaped from it; but Marcus' soul was big
enough to divine that this physical labor was a dignified
thing so long as his spirit was free, so long as he was not
urged to the doing of it by whips and jibes and by ...
necessity. He took immense pride in doing things around
his bungalow with his own hands and in telling about the
rustic chairs and tables which he had made from logs out
of his own woods, the woods surrounding his bungalow.
As they sat on the verandah, Marcus recounted to Jere-
miah how he had himself made that addition to the porch
on which they sat. The railing on which Jeremiah's legs
were comfortably stretched, he also had built, cleverly inter-
lacing the supports and crosspieces with pronged branches
so as to carry out its rustic design.
“Yo' see that big white birch-bark swan? I makes dat.
And dat hanging lamp?"-a lamp made out of a thousand
twigs just like a bird's nest-he, Marcus, had also conceived
and fashioned that.
“I guess when you get back to Africa, that's what you
and the rest will be doing," smiled Jeremiah, a note of
banter in his voice.
“Yes, why not? Isn't dat as good as anyt’ing else?
After all, dat'd be native genius,” he grinned back, not
a whit disturbed by Jeremiah's sarcasm.
“Look at de Chinese and de Japs. Dey makes dere little
carved iv'ry gods and dere elephants, and de whole worlds
jes' goes crazy 'bout 'em. Go into de stores and try to buy
one o' dem t'ings, and see what dey costs. Shucks, man, look
at de fuss de white people is makin' over de t’ings that come
out of King Tut's tomb. When we goes to Africa, and their
ships put in at our ports, dey'll be just as crazy to buy de
goods we makes wid our hands and brains. It all 'mounts
to de same ting. Supposin' I builds my little birch boats
and swans and little carved t’ings, builds 'em all my bawn


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The Black Challenge
nothin's, and all dat-leh' 'em call me what they wants. I
doan care, and ef I want to tarry a little and lay down
under a shade tree and live like dat sometimes, yo’t’inks
I'se goin' to worry what becomes of de damn old world?
De world? She has been takin' care of herself dese-how
many years, King, tell me dat? How long's de worl' been
takin' care of herself?"
"Let me see,” said Jeremiah, scratching his head. Then
after a pause, “I swear I don't know, Marcus."
“Neder does I, and neder does I care. But what's de
diff? What's de diff, King?” laughed Marcus.
"What time do you expect Murphy?" Jeremiah ques-
tioned after a brief silence. “Are they coming down on the
boat?"
"No," replied Marcus, "I think he and Webb is goin' to
drive down in Murphy's Packard car, and then dey goes
to Long Branch. I thinks Murphy got a cottage down dere
somewheres, and dey plays poker and drinks rum and fools
wid de gals till Monday mawning, when dey goes back to de
city."
“Delightful life!" smiled Jeremiah.
They smoked in silence for some minutes.
"Did you read de copy of de indictment I sends you?"
Marcus inquired abruptly. “Dose fellows will be here any
minute now, I guess.”
“Yes, I read it,” replied Jeremiah.
“What yo 'thinks 'bout it?" queried Marcus after a
pause in which Jeremiah had leaned over the balustrade
and flicked the ashes from his cigar.
“As I understand it, the indictment charges you with
grand larceny in two counts. First, appropriating $25,000
of the monies and funds of the Association to your own use
by false entries and omission of entries in the Association's
books; and, second, it charges you with grand larceny in
the same way of the sum of $20,000 at another time.”
"De first $25,000 is de money I buys my house wid;


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The Black Challenge
over of Marcus' house to the Association and the transmis-
sion of the funds in Jamaica to the Association's bank
account in New York.
“Marcus,” he advised, "both acts in the eyes of the law
are unlawful, perhaps criminal acts, all depending on the
intent-your intent to steal, to defraud the Association;
but how does it happen that the thing has run along all
these years? I thought you said you had spent money to
settle it.”
. “I did t'ink it was all fixed up. Yo' see,” he explained,
“dese indictments come up during de war. I'd been speech-
ifying 'round pretty plain. I done tell de members what
I t'inks of de English and what I t'inks of de whole damn
war; and befo' I knows it, de 'thorities gets after me-de
British consul in New York sicks 'em on me. I'se sure of
dat; he and dat little rat-face George Coates dat I trowed
out de 'Sociation for stealing. He goes down to de British
consul and complain dat I living off de members' dues and
dat kind o’t’ing. At dat time George Webb was our law-
yer, and jes' befo' he goes to camp to learn to be a so'jer,
he tells me quick one day: ‘Mr. Cox, if yo' gets me $5,000
I fixes dat indictment up fo' you.' I gits him de $5,000 and
I doan hear no mo' 'bout it until jes' recently, when Owen
Murphy ring me up 'bout it again. He was de same man
in charge of de t'ing when George Webb fix it up befo', and
dey's very t'ick all de time. Yo' never sees Murphy gaddin'
'round Ha'lem widout Webb. He's 'Me and My Shadow,'
as de song says,” ended Marcus.
A moment he pondered, then continued: “Dere's some-
thin' funny about de whole business. Yo' 'member I tell
yo' about de time I had to chase George Webb from de
house because I didn't like his gallivantin roun' wid Lido
all de time? Well, it doan take long after dat for me to
have dis whole t'ing reap up again.”
This explanation of Marcus was enlightening to Jere-
miah. He wondered if it were possible that the strings of


The Black Challenge
193
justice of the great State of New York could be pulled by
such remote and personal considerations. That was highly
improbable, he thought. It must be just a coincidence.
It must be that, sooner or later, the thing had to be for-
mally cleaned up, and the time had now come.
"I don't think we need to worry, Marcus. I think every-
thing will be all right."
"I ehn't worryin' any, but ... I doan know," he added
reflectively.
"I guess we'll be able to settle these things with-
Murphy," Jeremiah was loathe to call the man's name. He
thought very bitterly of him in connection with Lido Jones.
“I doan know about dat," he rejoined. “I'se got some-
t'ing to say to dat man Murphy dat I doan t'inks he's
goin' to like.”
“Then I wouldn't say it,” counseled Jeremiah, “at least.
not now," he ended.
"I doan know 'bout dat eder," quietly rejoined Mar-
cus, sucking vigorously at his black pipe.
A short silence, and Marcus knocked the ashes from his
pipe. There was a noise as of a slammed car door from
down below the slope. Marcus rose abruptly and peered
through the shrubbery.
"Here dey is now, Webb and Murphy comin' up de hill.”
“Hello, Marcus," greeted Murphy, apparently in high
good humor. “Nice place you have here,” his eyes roaming
around.
Marcus Cox held out his hand and drawled slowly,
“Howdye do, Murphy?”
Jeremiah rose as Murphy came up the steps.
“Howdye do, Mr. ...".
“King," added Jeremiah.
“Sure-King! Forgot the name."
Jeremiah nodded to George Webb as he followed Mur-
phy up the steps and on to the verandah.
"Take your coats off and make yo’selves at home,” in-
uia.


194
The Black Challenge
vited Marcus; and, turning towards the rear of the bun-
galow, he called: “Ebeneezer, bring us a drink. These gen-
tlemens is thirsty, I doan doubt.”
Owen Murphy winked over at George Webb.
"A little drink wouldn't go bad, eh, George? It's a
tiresome ride through Staten Island, and it's as close as
hell.”
He tugged at the collar which encircled his thick neck.
He was breathing hard for so young a man.
Ebeneezer arrived and laid a tray with glasses, ginger
ale and soda, and a bottle of whiskey on a nearby table.
They went over, one after the other, and helped them.
selves. Marcus, too, poured out a drink of whiskey into
a glass with ice. He sipped at it slowly.
"Well,” he abruptly opened, looking towards Murphy,
"what's de verdict? How about dat indictment? I thought
dat was fixed and through with long time ago.”
“No, it was just pigeonholed. The chief was going
over a lot of old matters the day I called you up, and he
asked me why I didn't get rid of it, get it off the calendar.”
“Well, how is we goin' to get rid of it?”
“That's up to you, Marcus," replied Murphy.
“I thought when I pays you dat $5,000 jes' befo' you
went to camp,” Marcus remarked, turning to George Webb,
“dat dat was to end de whole matter."
"I thought so too,” lied Webb, “but you see, Mr. Mur-
phy's chief came across it, and now we have to get it out
of the way for good.”
“Jes' what does yo' mean?” Marcus queried, still ad-
dressing himself to Webb.
Webb did not answer. Instead he looked expectantly
at Murphy.
“I'll tell you,” Murphy interpolated. “I have a little
plan in my head. It's this. You let Webb enter an appear-
ance for you-or rather, I think he already appears as your
attorney of record. You authorize him to handle the matter
now, and I might be able to take him into the chief, explain


The Black Challenge
195
the whole thing, and perhaps recommend a nolle prosse,
that the indictment be quashed,” he explained. “But,” he
added, “you and Webb had better go into the next room
and arrange matters; arrange your retainer and everything.”
He glanced significantly over at Webb.
"No need to go in de next room," replied Marcus
promptly, "we'se all men here; we ain't no chilluns; and
we kin speak our min's right out in meetin'.”
“Well, you see, Mr. Cox, I have to have ... to have a
retainer-a substantial retainer-so much down cash and
so much balance to come when the indictment is quashed,”
Webb suggested haltingly.
Marcus Cox stroked his chin thoughtfully for a mo-
ment. “Oh, I see," he remarked and turned his glance
towards Jeremiah.
Jeremiah stared back at Marcus Cox without any ap-
parent indication of what he thought or was thinking.
“How much dat's goin' to cost?" queried Marcus, his
eyes roving from Murphy to Webb and back again.
“Five thousand down and five to come-after it's all
over,” promptly replied Webb.
“Ten thousand dollars in all,” mused Marcus. “Dat's
a lot of money-a whole lot o' money.”
“Well, there's more work to this than you think. I'll
probably have to get up a little brief; and there's confer-
ences and ... other things to be taken care of,” he explained
in his halting, stammering manner.
Jeremiah sat by watchfully. Occasionally, his gaze sought
the distant hills and just as often returned to Murphy and
to Webb. He now broke in, addressing himself to Webb.
“Isn't the question of a crime in this case altogether
a question of intent?" he inquired.
“Exactly,” responded Webb. “That would be almost
the only question of fact for a jury if the case were tried.
I think I can persuade Murphy's chief and Mr. Murphy
himself that Mr. Cox did not commit a crime-in intent.”
“Suppose Mr. Cox were to make a deed of the house


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The Black Challenge
to the Association and turn back the $20,000 to the corpora-
tion, wouldn't that end the matter? Wouldn't that satisfy
the public prosecutor? After all, no harm has been done.”
. "It's not quite so easy as that," interjected Murphy, siz-
ing up Jeremiah. He didn't like this man's smooth voice;
there was something challenging in its quality. "If it were as
easy as that there wouldn't be any thieves in Sing Sing
today. All they'd have to do would be to disgorge when
they were caught with the goods.”
"Mind what yo' say 'bout t'iefs,” warned Marcus, his
voice acquiring a belligerent note.
“I was only drawing an illustration, Cox-I wasn't, of
course, referring to you! Ha! ha! No-not by a damn
sight," and Murphy laughed boisterously.
Marcus' eyes sought Jeremiah's and lingered there for
a moment.
Outside a gentle breeze was rustling the trees. The
night voices of the woods began to make themselves heard.
It was getting dark.
Marcus Cox rose and switched on a light in the birch-
bark porch lamp set in the rafters of the verandah over-
head.
It was Jeremiah who took up the conversation.
"Suppose you give Mr. Cox a few days to think this
matter over, Mr. Webb. That'll be time enough, won't it?”
he questioned.
“Yes, but no longer," replied Webb.
"Yes. delay is dangerous," chimed in Murphy with sig-
nificance.
Marcus' neglected glass of whiskey and melted ice lay
by his side. He half-leaned, half-rested himself against a
small round table by his chair. He gathered up the glass and
sipped absentmindedly at his whiskey. Finally, with a last
draught, he drained the glass and set it down on the table
beside him. Taking a kerchief from his pocket, he slowly
dried his lips; then, replacing it, he turned his gaze towards
Owen Murphy.


The Black Challenge
197
“Dere is one thing, Murphy," and his voice was cool,
his tones slow and deliberate, “dere is one thing that I
wants to mention to you about while we'se all here frien'ly
like. It's about dat little secretary girl o' mine, Miss Jones.”
• The air was charged with stillness. It may have been
the quality of Marcus Cox's voice.
“I want yo' to keep yo’self to yo’self and stop chasin'
dat girl. I had to tell George Webb de same t'ing, and now
I tells you to keep yo' distance. Yo' stands me?" and he
looked deliberately into Murphy's cold eyes, which glared
back surprisedly but disdainfully at him.
Owen Murphy made as if to rise from his chair, but
Marcus Cox waved him back. A hot flame of contempt was
surging over Murphy's flushed face, of contempt for these
people, and ...
"I knows what yo’ is thinking," continued Marcus, "and
I ain't through yet. I understan' that you took dat little
girl out de other night in yo' car and yo' insults her.”
“She told you that?" demanded Murphy.
“Yes, she tole me dat,” replied Marcus, and paused.
It came-came abruptly, swiftly, crudely, as if irresistably
springing from Owen Murphy's insides.
"The cheap little Nigger!” he rasped.
Poor Owen Murphy! He could not help it. Generations
of white blood, the blood of white men, were speaking
through his lips. At the same time, generations of black
blood moved in the veins of two Negro men-one thor-
oughly black, the other light as Owen Murphy, but a Negro
man just the same; and, simultaneously, two figures hurled
themselves at one figure.
Marcus Cox reached his objective first. Owen Murphy,
sensing the result of his hasty explosion, half-rose from his
seat. Instinctively, his hands raised themselves as a defensive
barrier. He was too late. The knuckles of Marcus Cox's fist
found the point of Murphy's jaw with a resounding smack,
and Murphy sank to the floor and rolled over like a stuck
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The Black Challenge
George Webb sprang from his chair, but Marcus' voice
stopped him.
“Stan' back dere, you little black Nigger, or I'll nail
yo' de same way.” George Webb sank back into his chair.
Jeremiah and Marcus had met in their rush at the point
where stricken Owen Murphy was now lying.
Jeremiah gazed at Marcus, and Marcus gazed at Jere-
miah.
"Well, I guess you've done it now.”
“Yes, I guess I has,” replied Marcus wearily, “but I'se
glad. I feels relieved now. I'se been itchin' all night to
splash my fis' in dat white man's face jes' as I'se done. He
can do his worstes' now. I doan care."
Owen Murphy's eyes opened slowly. He gazed about
him as a sleeping man awakes from a dream. Now he re-
membered. It all came back to him: he had been socked on
the jaw! He roused himself into a sitting position and
passed his hand over the point of his chin where Marcus
Cox's fist had connected.
Seeing his friend attempting to rise, George Webb
stooped over and helped him.
“I guess you fellows better get out o' here befo' I kills
yo',” growled Marcus.
George Webb took their hats from a nearby table and
holding his friend by the arm, helped him down the steps
and out to the pathway.
At the foot of the hill, Owen Murphy turned, halted
for a moment, and then, with all the hurt and hate of an
outraged soul, shouted up at the bungalow: "You black
son of a bitch, I'll fix you! I'll make you sleep in Sing Sing
yet."
The night repeated it; the air repeated it; the trees
sighed it: “You black son of a bitch!”
Marcus Cox and Jeremiah turned towards each other.
They silently grasped hands and both were . . . unafraid.
A whinnying noise came to them from the far end of
the verandah. They listened. Jeremiah went over, peered


CHAPTER XXI
DRUMS BEATING, brass instruments blaring, banners lifted on
high, purple-uniformed and gold-braided, the parade of the
Universal Negro Movement of the World started early that
Saturday morning from Lenox Avenue and wound its way
westward up the hill through 145th Street and on to River-
side Drive.
As before, Marcus Cox led the procession on his pranc-
ing white horse. As before, when Jeremiah had first gazed
on that spectacle, a lofty banner shouted its crimson mes-
sage: “BACK TO AFRICA."
Truly a curious sight for the dignified dwellers along
Riverside Drivel As one elderly gentleman, taking his morn-
ing constitutional, testily remarked: "Must be all the Nig-
gers in the world.”
For once the Drive forgot its nice manners. For once
windows were lifted, heads protruded, and, occasionally, a
dishevelled figure showed itself from behind curtains in-
discreetly opened.
Jeremiah himself was part of the parade today, he and
the Joneses, mother and daughter, bringing up the rear
in the High Commander's car driven by the purple-uni-
formed Ebeneezer.
Their goal was Fourteenth Street, where, alongside a pier,
lay the rejuvenated good ship, Goddess of Liberty. They
were to make a trial trip down the bay that day. No doubt,
even at that moment, smoke was belching from her funnels
in readiness.
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The Black Challenge
201
The affairs of the Association had been moving smartly.
The cornerstone of a new building on the site of their
old ramshackle hall had been laid the week previously,
a seven-story apartment building with commodious audi-
torium, restaurant, and reading-rooms occupying the ground
floor, and, somewhere below, a swimming pool, handball
courts and other amusements for children. The living apart-
ments were to be chosen by lots when completed, thus
eliminating any possibility of favoritism among the mem-
bers.
This much Jeremiah had accomplished, and he had laid
the groundwork for other improvements. They were work-
ing on plans for a large, modern hospital where black
doctors and nurses could hold forth and secure all the ex-
perience they wanted on black bodies. He wished he could
do as much for the lawyers. He thought they needed prac-
tice more than doctors; but their situation was different.
Marcus, too, in spite of an occasional vacation at the
Highlands, had been unusually active. At Jeremiah's sugges-
tion, he had hied himself to Atlantic City, and prestol a
branch movement had sprung into being. Not long after-
wards, as a result, beholdt a strike along the boardwalk
in the ranks of the black chair-pushers. All these black
strivers needed was a rallying cry, and “Back to Africa"
was as good as any other. “Organize! Organize!” They had
caught the shibboleth.
It was not so much “Back to Africa" in body as “Back to
Africa” in the quality of their independence and spirit,
that independence and spirit of which the slave marts of
the world had robbed them through many generations.
Marcus himself typified his Movement. Back in his home,
he was a morose, silent, brooding figure; but Marcus be-
striding a white horse, Marcus haranguing his tribe or lead-
ing them forward-that was a different Marcus!
There he rode now, broad, chesty, expansive and ex-
panding, bowing and grinning to the throngs as they gath-
ered along the sidewalks of the Drive. Self-conscious? Mind-


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ful of the gibes and sneers and wisecracks which occasionally
shot through the stark, surprised silence of the watchers?
Not a bit. With shining eyes and white gleaming teeth, he
was a supreme person, impervious, untouchable.
Week after week, ever since its initial number, the
Trumpet had sent out its challenge-a new challenging
note to black and brown and light-skinned America. There
was dignity in being a black man, a brown man, or a yellow
man-dignity to the first because of his blackness, and dig.
nity to the others because of the strain of black strength
pressed into them.
Of necessity, there were disputes. Harlem itself was di-
vided into distinct camps. There were the Marcusites, the
anti-Marcusites, and those in between, wanting to be shown.
There was only one cloud on the horizon, and it was
more on Jeremiah's horizon than on Marcus'. It was easy
for Marcus to forget things or to ignore them. When he had
crashed his fist against the point of Owen Murphy's chin
at his bungalow, fear of any consequence growing out of
his indictment by the great State of New York had immedi-
ately departed. Not so for Jeremiah. He was fearful of the
vice-talons of the law. To him, a crime was a ... crime, a
disagreeable concept.
The same thing was true of Amanda Jones. A day in
prison would have been a lifelong disgrace to her. Even
having to defend oneself against a charge was a calamity.
She and Jeremiah were, at that moment, discussing
the situation. Lido was out on the front seat of the car
with Ebeneezer. Nattily dressed-as nattily as the nattiest
of the women along the Drive--with her bright coloring
and black eyes, she attracted as much attention as the
parade itself. Innumerable guesses followed her: “That
must be the big Nigger's wife. . . . What a shame! ...
What a pity! ... Nice little thing like that married to a
big black man. . . . She looks like a white woman..."
Lido was enjoying it immensely. It was quite a lark.
Jeremiah's and her mother's undertones from the rear


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203
seat of the car sounded like bees droning in the distance.
She and Jeremiah had been quite distant after that night
in Primrose Park. It was wearing off, however, and they
were getting to be better friends.
"When's the trial coming up?" Amanda Jones was ask-
ing of Jeremiah.
“Next week, when the fall term of court starts, I believe.”
"Are you going to be his lawyer?"
"I can't-have never been admitted to the bar in this
country, you know," he explained.
“That's a pity.”
“No, I don't think so," Jeremiah replied. “It would
be better to have a good American lawyer."
"White or black?"
“Well, to be frank, I don't think much of the breed
around Harlem; but that's equally true of the rank and
file of white lawyers. You know it takes experience to make
a good lawyer; and the colored brother suffers from lack
of that. His brains and training may be all right, but he
needs more experience than falls to his lot around the
small district courts. If I were Marcus, I would hire the
best trial lawyer that money can buy.”
“Why don't you talk to him? He doesn't think I know
enough of these things to listen to me.”
"I've told him that a half-dozen times," Jeremiah re-
plied, “but he has a crazy idea in his head. He says he'll
be his own lawyer; if I can't try his case he'll do it himself.
Claims he can do it just as well as most of the lawyers he's
seen in court."
“That's ridiculous!” exploded Amanda.
“Not only ridiculous, but very dangerous," dryly re-
joined Jeremiah.
“It would be awful if anything were to happen to Mar-
cus. He's the only one who can hold these people together,"
and Amanda Jones looked questioningly at Jeremiah.
"Well, he hasn't committed murder; they can't hang
him. The worst that can happen to him is a prison term.”


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"A prison term? You talk about that as coldly as if it
were a plate of ice cream,” she observed huffily.
“Yes, why not? One, if he be disillusioned, has to face
ultimate possibilities; and this is nearer than that, it is a
... probability."
“That would be awful,” she repeated. “I can't think
of that as being possible.”
Jeremiah glanced over at Amanda Jones with half-
veiled eyes. Finally, he ventured: “You see, Marcus is a
reckless skate, after all. He can still rough it with the rough-
est. He doesn't care a darn little bit for himself. He could
be made to care if somebody else were involved, somebody
who was ... whom he knew to be finer,” he explained, “and
who would also be hurt."
“Like who?" she questioned.
“Like yourself, Amanda.”
He had addressed her by her first name on occasion,
when they had come to talk very seriously together; and
she, too, on similar occasions, had called him by his first
name-Jerry, the name that Lido often used.
"You are Marcus' great little god,” he continued. “You
could make a real big man of him, I believe, by marrying
him. Why don't
stared over silher. Was he s
Amanda Jones stared over silently at Jeremiah. He was
still somewhat of an enigma to her. Was he serious? Was
he being sardonic, or what? She wasn't sure. She looked at
him and held her peace.
Lido's voice broke the silence: “There's the ship! Look,
Mother, our Goddess of Liberty!” Her cheeks flaming and
her eyes sparkling with excitement, she turned her face to
them in the rear of the car.
Jeremiah thought that he had never seen her so beauti-
ful. He gazed from mother to daughter. “Undoubtedly two
fine spirits, two thoroughbreds, but cast upon such strange
soil,” he pondered.
Marcus, dismounting from his white horse, was met at
the head of the gangplank by Captain Joshua Hippolyte,


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The Black Challenge
Marcus, a trifle winded by his hasty trip down the deck to
the captain's bridge.
"Forgot something?" queried the captain.
"Yes, I fergets my white hoss. We's got to go back and
git 'im-and den we all takes a ride down de bay together.”
Captain Joshua Hippolyte was every inch a captain,
nurtured in the best traditions of the sea. His superior in
authority, his High Commander, had spoken. He signaled
for the departing tug, turned the ship's head about, and
went back to the pier for Marcus' prancing white horse.
They all sailed down the bay together.


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their nat, indeed, were abet, and enco, for their gatherin
had gone out and selected that spot for their gathering
place, the better to aid, abet, and encourage him.
What, indeed, were the white people doing to their chief,
their leader, their High Commander? Grand larceny! Mis-
appropriation of their money! Why, that was a joke! There
wasn't a man, woman-nay, nor a child-in that assembly
who would not pluck out his or her eyeballs and lay them
at the feet of Marcus Cox. Had he not worked wonders
for them? Had he not built, purchased, created, somehow,
a great big ship for them? And had they not all sailed down
the bay the Saturday before with flags flying and brass band
tearing away on deck How come? they asked each other
in the typical language of Harlem. Their money, the money
that each and every mother's son and daughter of theirs
gave had been contributed to "the cause”-their great big
cause, the cause of their suffering race-and it was Marcus
Cox's to use without question, without accounting. Were
they not the United Negro Movement of the United States
and of the World, and was not that Association they-
themselves? They could not understand how any such
charge, any charge at all, could be laid at Marcus Cox's
door when they were perfectly willing to give him, yes,
their last penny.
The fact that the Universal Negro Movement of the
United States and of the World, Inc. was an entity, sep-
arate and distinct from them, from each and every one
of them, and that Marcus Cox had been charged with
larceny of the funds and property of that intangible and
dead thing known as a corporation, was incomprehensible
to them.
"How come de co’poration to make charges 'gainst de
High Commander when we is all satisfied?” argued one
giant bystander in the throng.
“It's not de corporation; it's de white people who is
jealous ub us and our ship,” expounded another.
Whatever the original reason, the battle gauge had
been thrown down many weeks ago in that little bungalow


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211
w
nswe
in the woods of New Jersey; and even at that moment
the case of “People of the State of New York against Marcus
Cox” was being called by the fat, round-headed clerk of the
court as he adjusted his tortoise-shell spectacles on his
stubby red nose.
Owen Murphy was on his feet and, with a cynical
leer over at Jeremiah King and Obadiah Jackson as they
came towards the railing, he answered in a loud, pompous
voice: “The People are ready."
To Owen Murphy this courtroom was his own special
bailiwick. He, perhaps more than the judge sitting upon
the bench, represented the law—the strong arm of the
law. It was when he let up that the criminals had a breath-
ing spell; it was at his bidding that they were pounded
and ground into the dirt. He proposed to do some grinding
right here in this case. Who was his opponent? That black,
moon-faced Obadiah Jackson? What a joke! He'd make
mincemeat of him. Maybe King, that stuck-up rhiney-faced
Nigger was going to try the case-some kind of an English
woodshed lawyer. He'd teach him a few tricks also. But
where was Cox, the defendant?
A few minutes before, Marcus had risen from his seat
and whispered to Jeremiah: “I'se goin' in de washroom
for a moment; you hol' things down till I come back," and
he had not yet returned.
“The defendant is ready,” called Jeremiah in answer
to Owen Murphy.
The judge-Judge Guffy was his name-glanced down
at Jeremiah from beneath a pair of bushy, bristling eye-
brows. One saw Judge Guffy's eyebrows before any other
part of him. Black in color, with graying patches around
the edges, set underneath a flat, bald dome of a head, these
eyebrows jutted out like hairy embattlements. There was
a small, boxlike contraption on the desk before him and
a pair of earphones connected therewith which occasion-
ally he adjusted to his ears and at other times permitted
to rest loosely on his shoulders.


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In a lull of the court's business some minutes before,
Marcus had whispered with a snicker into Jeremiah's ears:
“De justice outside de courthouse is stone blin'; dis one
in here seems to be stone deaf.”
“Is one of you the defendant?" inquired Judge Guffy.
“Where is the defendant?”
“He just stepped out; he'll be right here in a moment,"
replied Jeremiah, at the same time turning to look back-
wards down the entrance aisle. Judge Guffy's gaze and that
of the rest of the courtroom followed Jeremiah's.
Yes, Marcus Cox was right there. He had that moment
entered the door and was coming up the aisle. Purple-uni-
formed and gold-braided, High-Commander gold sash across
his breast, his cockade hat with flowing ostrich plume trail-
ing in his right hand and sweeping the floor, he presented
a most unusual figure for a New York courtroom-a figure
to make the bystanders and court attendants stare and,
having stared, to direct a questioning gaze at each other,
uncertain whether to smile or be ... contemptuous of the
monstrosity of this—Nigger who was importing his monkey-
shines into the sacred portals of the Supreme Court of the
State of New York.
"My Lord!” gasped Jeremiah. “He's done it.”
So that was why Marcus had gone to the washroom-
to change into his regalia. Jeremiah turned towards the
bench to see what effect it was having on Judge Guffy. Owen
Murphy was openly snickering.
For a moment Judge Guffy's eyebrows seemed to bristle
more bristlingly. Then, as one peered into his steely blue
eyes, one discerned a merry twinkle lurking in their depths.
“Who are you?” he was saying as Marcus came inside
the railing and stood beside Jeremiah.
“I is de defendant, Marcus Cox, High Commander of
de Universal Negro Movement, your worship, and I wants
to handle my own case. My fren' here, Mr. King, is a law-
yer; but he ehn't admitted to de bars of dis state. He's a
English lawyer; but I would like yo' worship to do me


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The Black Challenge
Jeremiah that either New York was very good to the Irish
or the Irish were, compassionately, very good to New York;
for, as represented on that jury, they were there in con-
siderable force.
But Obadiah Jackson was leaning over and whisper-
ing: “Try and get some Jews on. They ain't so preju-
diced.”
"Shucks,” whispered back Marcus, "dey's all de same
when it comes to judgin' a black man. 'Sides, I loves de
Irish. Dey's good lovers and good haters,” and he lifted
his eyes and once more surveyed his jury. A large, raw-
boned member of the panel met his gaze and smiled frankly
at him. Marcus grinned back at him.
Owen Murphy was now on his feet. He was making
his opening address. He did not intend to be lengthy, he
explained. It was not necessary. The case of the People
against this defendant was simple, clean-cut, clear-cut. The
evidence consisted mostly of documents—the books, the
check stubs, the cancelled checks, and the books of the
Negro corporation, the corporation of which the defendant
Cox was the moving spirit, the dominating head. The oral
evidence, such as it was, would come from the lips of the
defendant's employees, his associates, his friends. There
could be no gainsaying this testimony. He would ask them
to lay aside any sympathy they might have for this erring
and misguided colored man; he would ask them to treat the
defendant as though he were one of themselves-and in the
saying this, there was that oily smirk in his voice, in his
manner, in the characteristic rubbing together of his fat
hands, which sent a hot flush through Jeremiah. Murphy's
voice rose ringingly, as he asked the jury to protect honest
men and women from ... thieves.
Marcus Cox leaped to his feet. “Objection!” he thun-
dered. “I 'jects to dis man callin' me names—at dis stage
of de game, anyhow," he added.
Judge Gaffy adjusted his earphones and leaned forward.
Marcus repeated, now more collectedly: "I 'jects to my


The Black Challenge
215
le’ned enemy over dere callin' me names.” Marcus, as his
own lawyer, was beginning well.
“That's right, Murphy, don't sum up, just state what
the evidence will be,” admonished the judge.
"The galled horse winces!” apostrophized Murphy un-
der his breath, with his lips bared backwards, but loud
enough for the jury to hear.
He, the representative of the People of the State, felt so
confident of the facts that he took it upon himself to elect
to try this defendant only on the first count of the indictment,
that of appropriating and converting to his own use $25,000
of the corporate funds of the Universal Negro Movement.
He would show them, though, as evidence of the defendant's
larcenous intent, that the defendant embezzled other funds
of the corporation. He had transmitted $20,000 to a bank
in his home in the West Indies.
George Washington Coates was the first witness called
on behalf of the People-a skinny, elongated black Negro
who leaped to the witness stand with the air of a hungry
dog yapping at an inviting bone.
“Dat's de one I trowed out de 'Sociation; de cat-face Nig-
ger! I wishes I strangled 'im," growled Marcus to Jeremiah.
"Bang!" went the gavel on the judge's desk; and looking
severely over at Jeremiah and Marcus, Judge Guffy re-
marked: “If you two want to confer together, you'd better
go outside. This is no place to hold a conference."
“Mr. Coates,” smoothly began Owen Murphy, “I show
you a piece of paper and ask you what that is-if you know?"
"Sure I knows,” responded Coates, “dat's a check. I
writes it; de Grand Commander ober dere," pointing at
Marcus, "he signs it. He tells me to draw it; I draws it. He
signs it. He sends me ober to de bank and says to me, 'Hab
dat ce’tified.' I does it; I brings de check down to Broadway
where he goes in some white man's office and dey's all sittin'
'roun' a table. He says to me-de Gran' Commander says
to me-'George, I’se takin' title today.' He hands ober de
check to a white man, and de white man gi'es he a paper, a


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The Black Challenge
deed-de deed to de house up on a Hundred and T'irty-
eight Street."
“What was your position in the Negro Movement of the
World-in the corporation at that time-the date of that
check?" pursued Owen Murphy.
“Me? I was Gran' 'Sistant Treasurer.”
“Are you still that in the corporation?"
"No," snapped George Washington Coates. “He," point-
ing to Marcus, “trowed me out 'cause I tinks-"
Jeremiah prodded Marcus, and Marcus jumped up.
“I 'jects,” he shouted. “I 'jects to all dat Nigger has
to say-he's jes' a goddamned liar anyhow."
There was a gasp from the back of the courtroom. Most
of the jury smiled broadly. The big, rawboned Irishman, the
one who had smiled at Marcus, let out a loud guffaw. Judge
Guffy adjusted the earphones which he had a few moments
before cast aside and leaned forwards. Jeremiah was whis-
pering furiously in Marcus' ears.
“May it please de cote,” Marcus now blandly, suavely,
urged, “dis man is tryin' to say what's in his min'. I 'jects
to dat. His min's a dark secret anyhow; and I 'jects to dat
as irreverent, infinites’mal, and ..." he groped for his
words, and finally blurted out: "non compos mentis.”
Judge Guffy's mechanical ears were now aiding him.
“You mean irrelevant, immaterial, and incompetent,
don't you?"
“Dat's jes' it, Jedge; dat's jes' what I means, jes' what
you done says."
"Objection sustained!” pronounced Judge Guffy, gaz-
ing up at the ceiling after a moment's pause as if for in-
spiration.
“Never mind the reason,” cautioned Owen Murphy to
the witness, “but tell us,"
Again Jeremiah was whispering in Marcus' ears.
"Please yo' honor and gen'mans of de juries, we's willin'
to 'cede all dis man is talkin' 'bout. We's willin' to permit
dat I buys dis house for $25,000, and I takes it in my name.


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The Black Challenge
handball court, and other amusement areas in that building
for the children of their members; that, in time, they aimed
to provide special educational centers for the children
of their groups; that they were at that moment organizing
a bank, and plans had been drawn for a community hospital
at which colored doctors could operate, since they had
found difficulty in securing such experience in the white
hospitals of New York; that, in brief, it was his, Marcus'
aim and that of the men and women with whom he was
associated, to organize the Negroes in all parts of the world,
wherever they lived, into an intelligent movement which
he felt sure would make for improved living, improved
outlook, and improved usefulness.
His story was simple; it was effective; it was impressive.
Judge Guffy had leaned forward and was listening intently.
The jury, too, had their attention focused on Marcus.
Judge Guffy's voice broke in on Marcus' recital.
“And what's all this Back-to-Africa stuff that I've read
in the papers about you and your Movement, Mr. Cox?
You need not answer the question if you don't want to, but
it may have some bearing here. I'll have it stricken out if
it's not material,” he promised.
Marcus was both surprised and flattered. After all, these
white people, this white judge, anyhow, whom he supposed
very much aloof and apart from Harlem and its affairs, had
read, had heard about him.
He turned towards Judge Guffy: “Well, it's like this,
Judge,” and Jeremiah, as he leaned forward and listened,
sensed that he was going to hear the inside story of “Back
to Africa” for the first time, "when we first forms our li'l
organ'zation, dere was just a few of us, and we talks 'mong
usselves that dis man's country was no place to live in, dat
is, for a Nigger man or a Nigger woman; even if we wo’ks
for lot of money it ehn't no use—we can' even spen' it.
We can't go 'roun' like white peoples and enjoy ourselves."
“And what about Harlem? Aren't there plenty of places
up there?" questioned Judge Guffy.


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223
"Well, doan yo 'thinks we want to go out of Ha'lem
sometimes?" plaintively questioned Marcus.
“I see,” nodded Judge Guffy. “Go on!”
"And, as I was sayin', we 'cided de bes' thing to do was
to buy us some lan' in Africa and builds ourselves some kin'
of a place where us could do as we damn pleases-'cuse me,
Judge, I means, where we kin lives as we likes; and we
talks dis thing over with some moh people and some moh
people; and de projeck grewed and grewed and it's still
growin'. But dat's de idea-to fin' us a place whey we can
spread ou'selves, and whey we doan need to go in at de back
door to get what we wants."
Judge Guffy took off his earphones and turned to Owen
Murphy.
"Are there any questions you want to ask, Mr. Murphy?"
and his blue eyes wandered out speculatively as if at some
distant object in the back of the courtroom.
"I sure have, Judge-your honor,” he corrected, leaping
to his feet. This was the moment he had waited for.
"Marcus—," he began.
"My name is Cox, Mr. Cox, if you pleases, Mr. Murphy,"
returned Marcus with a belligerent note in his voice.
“All right, Mr. Cox, then,” emphasized Murphy, “do
you draw a salary from the corporation?"
"No, I doan draw no salary.”
"How do you live?"
“What's dat?” returned Marcus, turning his head to one
side.
“I said,” repeated Murphy slowly, “how ... do ... you
. . live?"
“De organʼzation suppo'ts me.”
“Oh, I see, the corporation supports you."
“Yes," responded Marcus tartly.
"You own an automobile, don't you?"
“Yes."
"What kind of a car?"
Marcus turned towards the bench: “Does I have to


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The Black Challenge
"I doan know 'bout a million dollars, but consid'ble
money."
"Would you say a half-million?"
“All of dat, if not more," replied Marcus proudly.
“And you've had your share?"
“Yes, whatever I needs.”
"Now this $20,000 that you sent to the West Indies,
what's it doing there?"
“It's dere for a purpose.”
“What purpose?"
“De interes' is used to supp'ot a fren' of mine."
"A friend of yours-man or woman?” pressed Murphy.
“A woman, a ole woman.”
“Oh, a ole woman, eh?” mocked Murphy, and con-
tinued: “So this organization which, as you say, 'grewed
and grewed from a mere handful, this organization which
'grewed' so big that you are able to collect over a half-
million dollars from its members—this is the organization
whose funds you use to purchase your house, to buy your
Lincoln car, to get your furniture, and to support a ole
woman down in the West Indies, eh? Is that true, Mr.
Cox?”
Murphy had goaded and jeered Marcus to the limit of
exasperation. He now leaned forward in his chair and,
shaking his finger at Murphy, answered: "Leh'me tell you
somethin' for good and all. I'se de organ’zation and de
organʼzation is me, dat's what. I does all de work; I makes de
organ'zation what it is. I collected de money. De mens and
womens members gives it to me to do what I likes; and if
I chooses to throw every cent of it into de ribber, dere ehn't
nobody who's goin' to stop me, you hear what I says? I
ehn't afeard of what you kin do, neder,” and so saying he
crossed his arms across his chest and looked defiantly at
Owen Murphy.
About an hour afterwards, the jury went out and brought
back a verdict of “Guilty.” Marcus was remanded to the
Tombs to await sentence.


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to that which a great leader of a great people once made
to his Jehovah when, smiting a rock in Horeb, he tossed
the tablet of stone to the earth-a broken mass. ...
Virulent summer had gone; majestic autumn, symbol of
decline and retreat, had arrived. Jeremiah felt today the
weight of his years the way a tired man, striving toilsomely
uphill, suddenly becomes aware that the load on his back
is heavy and the journey long. And yet, there was that in
him which lifted his spirit to the hills, to the hills because
they were high.
“Yes,” Amanda Jones was saying as she gently rocked
herself on the porch of the bungalow the evening after
Marcus had elected to be deported from the United States
rather than be imprisoned, “it's such a pity! When every.
thing was going so finel” And, after a pause: "I suppose
we'll have to carry on, though.” .
“I suppose so," replied Jeremiah wearily.
"And is Marcus still in—"? Amanda hesitated. The word
"jail" had an ominous sound for her.
“The Tombs?" completed Jeremiah. “No, the judge al-
lowed him out on bail during the two days that the ship
will be getting ready. He went uptown to finish some busi-
ness. I expect he'll be here any moment now."
In a far corner of the verandah, Lido Jones was powder-
ing the tip of her nose. Perched on the back of her chair,
little Jocko, now their pet monkey, catching his reflection
in Lido's pocket mirror poised before her, was making
frantic efforts to possess himself of that wonderful reflector.
“Behave, Jocko!" Lido reproved. “Do you know what
happens to naughty little monkeys who try to be smart?
They are spanked!” She playfully made as if to tweak his
small blunt nose, at the same time going towards Jeremiah
and her mother.
“Here, Jerry! Take your old monkey.”
Jeremiah withdrew his eyes from the distant hills and
met Lido's bantering smile.
“And its mistress?" he tossed up at her.
ilmself or before 21g his