“No,” said I, “because it wasn’t until Genesis 2 and 7 that God ‘formed man of the dust of the earth and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul.’ His name was Adam. Then He took one of Adam’s ribs and made a woman.”

“Then trouble began,” said Simple. “Thank God, they was both white.”

“How do you know Adam and Eve were white?” I asked.

“When I was a kid I seen them on the Sunday school cards,” said Simple. “Ever since I been seeing a Sunday school card, they was white. That is why I want to know where was us Negroes when the Lord said, ‘Let there be light’?”

“Oh, man, you have a color complex so bad you want to trace it back to the Bible.”

“No, I don’t. I just want to know how come Adam and Eve was white. If they had started out black, this world might not be in the fix it is today. Eve might not of paid that serpent no attention. I never did know a Negro yet that liked a snake.”

“That snake is a symbol,” I said, “a symbol of temptation and sin. And that symbol would be the same, no matter what the race.”

“I am not talking about no symbol,” said Simple. “I am talking about the day when Eve took that apple and Adam et. From then on the human race has been in trouble. There ain’t a colored woman living what would take no apple from a snake—and she better not give no snake-apples to her husband!”

“Adam and Eve are symbols, too,” I said.

“You are simple yourself,” said Simple. “But I just wish we colored folks had been somewhere around at the start. I do not know where we was when Eden was a garden, but we sure didn’t get in on none of the crops. If we had, we would not be so poor today. White folks started out ahead and they are still ahead. Look at me!”

“I am looking,” I said.

“Made in the image of God,” said Simple, “but I never did see anybody like me on a Sunday school card.”

“Probably nobody looked like you in Biblical days,” I said. “The American Negro did not exist in B.C. You’re a product of Caucasia and Africa, Harlem and Dixie. You’ve been conditioned entirely by our environment, our modern times.”

“Times have been hard,” said Simple, “but still I am a child of God.”

“In the cosmic sense, we are all children of God.”