The black men, nearly all wearing suits, were directed into the largest meeting room and told to sit against the wall in two rows behind a long board table. Waddell sat at the head of the table, hands folded on a sheaf of papers.

Across the table from the Negro delegation sat the newly formed Committee of Twenty-five—bank directors, railroad presidents, mill owners, insurance men, attorneys, brokers, two ministers, and a doctor.

Sam stood near the door. When everyone had crowded into the room, Waddell addressed the Negroes without preliminaries: “There will be no talking. No discussion. No argument. We are presenting an ultimatum.”

Then, without heat or fire, he read the White Man’s Declaration of Independence. The black men listened, first puzzled, then angry, then full of fear. Lawyer Henderson stood. “Colonel, you’ll be pleased to know that the Manlys have already left town.”

“Who’s that sitting next to you?” Hugh MacRae demanded.

“Carter Peamon, sir,” Peamon said.

“If you’re not the spitting image …”

Henderson continued trying to make his point. “The Daily Record is now defunct.”

“Sit down!” Waddell said. “I don’t want to hear a damned word out of you. Give us your answer in writing.”

“But Colonel—”

“Sit down! I’m not finished.”

Henderson slumped into his seat. Carter Peamon shifted nervously in his chair—MacRae kept staring at him. Sam had to admit Peamon looked a lot like Manly—same light complexion, same stylish moustache, same slight build.

Waddell read the amendment encouraging the present mayor and aldermen to resign. Alderman Elijah Green opened his mouth to protest, but nothing came out. He turned his hat in his hands. To Sam, he looked like a defendant who had just read the guilty verdict in the faces of the jury.

“You will have until tomorrow morning at seven-thirty to reply in writing. Deliver it to my house on Fifth Street.” Waddell looked into their faces. Nobody said anything. “If you comply with all our demands, we may avoid violence. Otherwise,” he said, glancing back at Hugh MacRae, “we will take strong measures.”

Sam waited for the discussion, the argument, the heated debate. For a change, nearly everybody who mattered was assembled in one room together across a table. Surely, now was the time to talk things out, negotiate, come to some kind of understanding everybody could live with.

He understood Waddell’s tactic: start with an unequivocal, impossible demand. He had seen union negotiations, political haggling, railroad commission budget hearings, congressional debates. Always, they started from a fixed point. Always, they declared irreconcilable differences, then proceeded—over the course of hours of tedious, wearing talk—to reconcile them.

But nobody on either side of the table said anything. The Negroes sat, polite as kids in Sunday school, waiting to be dismissed. Come on, Sam thought—say something! Now’s your chance! Prove you can’t be pushed around.

But nobody objected or protested or even cursed. Then get what you deserve, Sam thought.

The whites sat tense and upright.