Doc held his bag on his lap during the three-mile ride home, as though it was a comfort to cradle it there. That bag is the only fancy thing about Doc. It was a gift from a doctor at the Freedmen’s Hospital in Washington, where Doc studied medicine after he graduated from Howard University. His full name is printed on the side in gold—Toussaint L’Ouverture Booker, M.D. The bag is made of shiny black leather, in contrast to his shoes, which are scuffed white across the toes.

He leaned across to me and lowered his voice.

“I belong to the Socialist Party. You heard tell of it?”

I nodded my head.

“I git a newspaper from them, the Appeal to Reason. It come out of Kansas. They’s a lots of sense in it.”

“I dont know,” I said. “I always thought a man should own his land. I’d have to think about that there socialism.”

“Hell, let him own a little bit of land. Long as everybody got some that want it. But the man that does the work should own the coal mine. He should receive the fruit of his labor, like the Good Book say.”

“Aint many folks here would go along with it. How would socialism git that woman back yonder to share the fruits of her labor with a Negro?”

“I aint sayin that would be easy. But what’s called for is education. Education is the key, education and necessity. That woman Ethel need a doctor for her youngun, she dont care if it’s a Negro. She got a sick baby, that’s all. When you git right down to it, these folks wont have no hard time with socialism. Hell, they been socialized for years. They git the crumbs from under Lytton Davidson’s table, and them crumbs is parceled out pretty equal. They got socialized soup beans, socialized cornbread, socialized gravy. What we got to work for is socialized pork chops.”

I laughed. “I can go for that.”

“I want to start me a newspaper. And I want you to help.”

I whistled. “That would take some money.”

“Let’s go talk to Ermel. He got the money.”

“Ermel? Payin for a socialist newspaper?”

“He wont give a damn whether it be socialist or not, long as it aint for prohibition.”

Ermel laughed when we put the proposition to him, said he’d think about it. Nothing happened for over a year. Then the Justice Clarion announced it would no longer accept advertisements from his businesses, because “they flout the laws of propriety with regard to the separation of the races, and promote an unhealthy atmosphere by the dispensing of alcohol and the operation of gaming devices.”

Ermel was furious. We promised him free advertising if he would help us buy a printing press. And in 1906, the Annadel Free Press was born, with Doc Booker as editor and me as business manager and associate editor.