“I don’t know about y’all, but I have to get up in the morning. Baybay, I’m sure Cloletha is wondering where you are.”
“No, ma’am, she knows, and might I say, your coffee was downright heavenly. You should give me the recipe.”
“It’s ground coffee beans and water and a coffee maker. It’s written on the back of the package.”
“It was scrumptious all the same, Mrs. Garfield.”
As she left, she giggled. “Lord have mercy, that boy.”
“As I was saying, Du Bois had the right idea,” Uncle Root said. “Yes, he ruled out some good men and women, but his principles continue to be effective.”
“Dr. Hargrace, every time we get together, you know I’m going to take Booker T. Washington’s side. He was for the Black community. All of it, not just one-tenth of one percent.”
The old man lifted his index finger into the air; it shook slightly.
“And every time we have this same argument, you know I’m on the side of the great scholar.”
“I know, but listen”—David picked up his glass from the marble-topped coffee table—“listen, now, if we let go of poor folks in this community, who’s going to be left? A bunch of bourgie, light-skinned niggers—sorry, no offense—”
“—none taken—”
“—walking around with their behinds on their shoulders? Who was out there marching back in the civil rights movement? Working-class Black folks. Who was the majority getting lynched during Jim Crow days? Working-class Black folks. What about my mama and daddy? Neither one of them have been to college. What about Mrs. Garfield’s brother? What about Miss Rose? Those are the folks Booker T. Washington was trying to protect. And I doubt when Dr. Du Bois was making up his Talented Tenth that he was even talking about all of us with degrees. I graduated from Morehouse and Emory, but dark as I am, would I even have counted to him? And don’t get me started on how he left the States and ran to President Nkrumah in Ghana. What kind of devotion to the race is that?”
The old man nodded slowly, taking it all in. “All right. May I rebut?”
“You may.”
“Though you resent his retreat to Ghana, Dr. Du Bois had a reason for that. He’d been accused of being a communist during the Red Scare. And even though he escaped imprisonment, what kind of peace could he have in this country after that? Further, there are plenty Negroes in Africa, and many of them are quite dark-skinned. But I’ll give you the desertion charge. I’ll give you that the great scholar wasn’t looking out for all in our communities. I’ll even give you that Booker T. Washington succeeded in doing just as much as Dr. Du Bois for the race, albeit in his own crude way, but David, you’ve got to admit that what Dr. Du Bois meant is everyone is not meant to be a leader of the race. Some folks bring us down, like that knucklehead Ailey brought to the picnic that time. What was his name?”
This had been a sore spot between us for a while. Even though I’d long stopped caring about Abdul, it still rubbed against my principles, the classist way Uncle Root low-rated him.
“You know his name,” I said. “You might be old, but you ain’t senile. At least, not yet.”
“Ouch. I’ll accept that insult because I love you so much. Oh yes, ‘Abdul.’ That was the knucklehead’s name.”
“You are so rude and snobby.”
“Sugarfoot, I most certainly am not. What is it you young folks say?” He tapped his temple, then gestured widely with that hand. “Ah yes! I just keep it real.”
“You were wrong. And Abdul was your fraternity brother, too?”
“Obviously, the standards for membership had been lowered since I’d joined the organization.”
David broke in gently.
“Um, anyway, y’all, let me ask this. What did you think about the Million Man March? You know I attended—”
I gave a loud hoot: “Yeah, and that was some bullshit!”
Uncle Root giggled. “You are very loud. But I will not say you were wrong.”
“Wait a minute,” David said. “Don’t you think the Million Man March was a good thing?”
I gave him the glass and told him, pour me some more scotch. When I took a drink, I expounded on my problems with that particular march. “Except for a bunch of crap rhetoric, what did them brothers, college educated or not, do at that march? And there was Farrakhan, trying to perpetuate like the second coming of Martin Luther King Jr.”