“Pure custom,” I said. “In some countries folks are not buried in the ground at all. In certain primitive communities the dead are put on a mountaintop and left there. At sea you’re dropped in the water. It’s all according to what you are accustomed.”

“Well, I have not been buried yet,” said Simple, “but when the end comes and I am, I want to be decent buried, not dropped in no water, nor left on no mountain, neither burnt up. Also I want plenty of whooping and hollering and crying over me so the world will know I have been here and gone—a bang-up big end. I do not want no quiet funeral like white folks. I want people to hear my funeral through the windows. If not, I am liable to rise up in my coffin myself and holler and cry. I demand excitement when I leave this earth. Whoever inherits my insurance money, I want ’em to holler, moan, weep and cry for it. If they don’t, I dead sure will come back and cut ’em out of my will. Negroes don’t have much in this world, so we might as well have a good funeral.”

Duty Is Not Snooty

Duty Is Not Snooty

“I REMEMBER one time you told me that you thought that if white people who say they love Negroes really do love them, then they ought to live like Negroes live. Didn’t you say that?”

“I did,” said Simple, “especially when they go down South.”

“That means then that our white friends should ride in Jim Crow cars, too?”

“It does,” said Simple.

“Why?” I asked.

“To prove that they love me,” said Simple, “otherwise, I do not believe them. White folks that love me and care about my race ought to sleep in colored hotels when they travel—which are mostly not built for sleeping. They also ought to eat in colored restaurants—which in small towns is generally greasy spoons. They should also wait an hour for a colored taxi in them places where white cabs won’t haul Negroes. Also let my white friends what plan to stay in the South awhile, send their children to the colored not-yet-integrated school, which is most generally across the railroad track in a hovel. And when they get on the buses to come home, let them ride in the back of the buses. If the back seats for colored is crowded, then let them stand up, even if some of the white seats is empty—which colored dare not set in for fear of getting shot through the windows. When nice white folks got through with all that Jim Crow, from eating to sleeping to schools to Jim Crow cars, then we would see how they feel for real.”

“If you are expecting our good white friends to go through all of that, then you are expecting them to be superhuman,” I said.