“Miss Garfield?” he asked. “Was the Reconstruction era a failure or a success? You have three minutes. Make your case.”
“Well, Dr. Petersen, that depends on who you ask. W. E. B. Du Bois believed that Reconstruction was a long game. But he makes a moral case that it was a failure because Blacks and whites did not join forces against the white ruling class. He was disappointed about the loss of enfranchisement, and the rise of Jim Crow made civil rights impossible, but ultimately, Du Bois was optimistic. Should I go on?”
“Absolutely.”
“If you ask C. Vann Woodward, it was not only a failure, it was a tragedy, and the tragic hero was the white male aristocrat, who had tried to preserve a dying way of life instead of accepting that death.”
“I see you’ve read ahead.”
I smiled and nodded my head modestly.
“But you still haven’t answered, Miss Garfield. What do you think, personally? What is your opinion?”
“I would have to agree with Du Bois. I think it was a balanced achievement for African Americans.”
“Excellent, Miss Garfield! My goodness! Aren’t you surprisingly articulate?”
He smiled at me, and my own smile froze. “Oh. Um . . . thank you so much, Dr. Petersen. That’s so wonderful of you to say.”
*
“You watch that Petersen cracker,” Uncle Root said.
“Oh, he’s harmless,” I said. “He’s a liberal. A Marxist, too.”
I wasn’t going to mention my professor’s “articulate” compliment. Uncle Root hadn’t wanted me to attend graduate school so far away. He’d told me, several universities in Georgia had fine programs. But I’d wanted to prove I could make it on my own.
The old man snorted. “A liberal, Marxist cracker from Mississippi! There’s a phrase I never thought I’d hear. I believe I can die happy now.”
“Uncle Root, please stop using that word.”
“What word?”
“The C word.”
“I’m unsure what you mean, Ailey.”
“‘Cracker.’ You’re being prejudiced.”
“I am not. I simply have common sense. That’s why I call you every week.”
“I thought you called because you loved me.”
“I do, sugarfoot, and it’s because of my love that I’m telling you, I don’t care what that white man calls himself. A cracker from Mississippi can never be trusted.”
Those initial weeks, I only read books and articles and wrote reviews of both. There was a lot of reading, though, more than I’d anticipated. I was taking the full load of graduate classes. With those three classes combined, I was required to read between three and five hundred pages a week. But I used the magic trick that Uncle Root had shown me, when I’d been a research assistant. The old man had told me, reading scholarly articles wasn’t like reading a novel. There was no joy in the language, no delicious anticipation of lyricism. It wasn’t like reading original documents either, where you had to read everything and in order. For an article, I only needed to read the first and last paragraphs followed by the initial sentence of each remaining paragraph, writing down pertinent dates and facts as I went. Finally, I had to make sure to read the foot-or endnotes to the article and circle back, because those would point to important information in the text.
I was disappointed that none of my three classes required visits to the Old South Collections, the archives at the university. That was what I had been looking forward to the most about the program, and within days, I telephoned Dr. Oludara. Did she want me to look through the Georgia plantation portfolios? Just to see what I could find on the weeping time auction that she was writing her book about?
“My goodness, are you kidding me? Ailey, yes! But are you sure? Do you have time?”
“Yes, ma’am. I need the practice.”
“How much do I owe you?”
“Oh, it’s my pleasure, Dr. Oludara! Don’t you even worry about money.”
But within a few days, a package from her showed up on my front porch. Inside, there was a check for fifty dollars and several copies of journal articles. When I saw the thick stack of brand-new legal pads in the package, I called her back, lecturing: do not return to that office supply store, under any circumstances.
My three classes were on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday afternoons. Weekday mornings—Monday through Friday—I drank coffee and studied at Shug’s Soul Patrol, the only Black restaurant in town. At noon, I drove to campus and parked. If I had an afternoon class, I walked in one direction, to the history department. If not, I walked in the other direction to the Old South Collections, where I did research for Dr. Oludara. When I arrived, puffing from the stairs—the elevator was only for staff or patrons who were disabled—I waved at Mrs. Ransom, the head archive librarian. She fixed her glasses on her nose. Smiled in recognition. She handed me white cotton gloves, then the document request forms.