“I am colored,” said Simple. “That man you was talking about were white. He could afford to throw out things. White folks have got plenty of things. Almost all we got is problems, especially the race problem. Everybody’s talking about it. The white folks down where I work is always discussing this race problem. I tell them that white folks can measure their race problem by how far they have come. But Negroes measure ours by how far we have got to go.

“Them white folks are always telling me, ‘Isn’t it wonderful the progress that’s been made amongst your people. Look at Dr. Bunche!’

“All I say is, ‘Look at me.’

“That jars them because I don’t look nothing like Dr. Bunche.

“Then they say, “Well, take Marian Anderson.’

“I say, ‘Take Zarita,’ which shakes them, because when I get through describing all the furnished-room gals in Harlem that never heard of Marian Anderson they change the subject.

“Sometimes they say, for example, ‘Years ago, Mr. Semple, Negroes could not stay at the Waldorf-Astoria.’

“I say, ‘Mr. Semple can’t stay there right now—because Mr. Semple ain’t able.’

“They say, ‘But in your case it’s money, not race.’

“I say, ‘Yes, but if I were not of the colored race, smart as I am, I would have money.’

“That shakes them again so they switch around to something else. ‘Look at Dawson and Powell, those fine men you colored folks have in Congress.’

“‘Yes,’ I say, ‘just two in Washington all by their lonesome. As many Negroes as there are in the U.S.A. there ought to be two dozen colored Congressmen. But half the Negroes in the South is scared to vote.’

“‘The Supreme Court says Negroes have the right to vote.’

“‘Can a Negro take time off from work to go running to the Supreme Court every time the Klan keeps him from voting? We can’t enforce no laws by ourselves.’

“‘You are most pessimistic about things,’ says the white folks.

“‘You would be, too, if you was black,’ I say.

“They mean well, them white folks I work with, but they just don’t know. One white fellow last week says, ‘Here. I was telling my wife about you and she baked some apple strudel and sent you one for a present for you and your girl.’

“I said, ‘Thank you,’ because I knew he meant well. He would also like to do well. Still and yet, he is one of the very ones who will argue with me most about how the Negro problem is improving, beat me down that things is getting so much better, how we got so many white friends in America. Just because he gives me an apple strudel, does he think I can give everybody in Harlem a slice?

“I wish I could. To tell the truth, I really wish we could.”

Bop

Bop