“Ailey, we gave each other hope,” David said. “Hope that brothers were going to work it out in this country. Like that Senator Obama, up in Chicago. He wants to help our people. And I think he could actually win, Ailey.”
“There will never be a Black president in our lifetime,” I said. “That is so ridiculous.”
“I’d vote for him,” David said. “And I know plenty other folks who would, too. And wouldn’t that be something? A brother in the White House?”
“Oh, I’ve dreamed of such a day!” Uncle Root said. “To see a man my own color running this country.”
“And what about a woman your own color?” I asked. “Why has that never occurred to you? I’ll tell you why. Because you Black men need to get some feminist principles!”
A stream of raucous laughter from both men.
“What’s so goddamned funny?” I asked.
“Negro men can’t be feminists,” the old man said. “That is a ridiculous notion.”
“What about you, David?” I asked. “Would you call yourself a feminist?”
“I think I am,” he said. “I mean, I’ve read my bell hooks, and she has some really great things to say.”
“Is that so?” I asked. “Like what?”
“I’ve got to go back and read,” he said. “I’ve had scotch. I can’t quote right now. Dang.”
“You are such a hypocrite,” I said.
“Stop harassing him,” the old man said.
“Uncle Root, you took Aunt Olivia’s last name. If that’s not a feminist act, I don’t know what is.”
“I liked the sound of it. And I liked the lady who had the name, too.” Uncle Root winked broadly. “But honestly, Ailey, before we married, Olivia told me she wasn’t about to take my name.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“Olivia told me, it was one thing for her to carry her father’s last name, because he was partly responsible for her being alive. But she wasn’t about to carry some other man’s load. She was a very independent woman. I was a young man with an ego, and that wrinkled me some, but when I thought on it, I stopped being bothered. You see, I was born with my mother’s name, because I couldn’t take my father’s. Not as his legitimate child, because Georgia law didn’t recognize our blood tie. My very presence was illegal. So I asked myself, what did it really matter if I took another woman’s last name? Maybe if my mother had still been alive I wouldn’t have, but she’d passed on by then.”
“I guess I never thought about it like that,” I said.
“And in this town, Ailey, if I hadn’t changed my name, they wouldn’t give a damn how many degrees I had or what I did for a living. All they were going to be thinking about was my white daddy. Like that peckerwood Jinx Franklin when I came back here.”
David and I had heard the story many times, but we nestled into the cushions of the sofa.
“It was 1934, and Olivia had the summer off from her doctoral program at Mecca. I’d already finished with my program. I hadn’t been home for a while, so we decided to drive down. It was a long journey in those days. When we finally arrived, I didn’t want to wake Olivia. I stopped the car and left her napping and walked into Pinchard General Store, owned by my brother Tommy.
“I called myself ‘passing,’ though Tommy was in on the joke. I waited right in line with the whites, but when I emerged from the store, somebody recognized me. One of those Franklins.
“‘Hey, you, boy! Jason Freeman!’ That’s what he said. And when he saw I hadn’t learned a damned bit of sense, and thought I was better than God and six more men, he spat in the dust and called me a ‘bastard.’ Correction. He called me a ‘half-nigger bastard.’”
David always had loved this story. “Aw, shit! Oops. Sorry.”
“No need for apologies, my brother. By the time I was through, I showed him there wasn’t any ‘half’ about it. But what made me go after him with the switchblade was that Jinx Franklin and his brothers had surrounded my car, and Olivia was awake.”
I reached for my scotch glass again.
“Oh my God. Uncle Root, you never told me that.”
“I thought I had,” he said. “Yes, Ailey, those men were rocking the car back and forth. Poor Olivia was shrieking. Who knows what they were planning to do? I called out, ‘You sumbitches! Get away from my woman!’ I was scared to death that day, but I had to protect her. So now I hope I have sufficiently explained to you, David, why I am a follower of W. E. B. and not Booker T. If I had been a devotee of the second man, I wouldn’t have had the courage to pull out my switchblade. And I hope I have explained to you, Ailey, why this Negro man is not a feminist. I wholeheartedly believe in equal rights for the sexes. If I didn’t, I couldn’t live among all you women. But there is one exception to my politics: I do not expect a lady to fight a man, white or otherwise, while I stand by and watch.”