“You know not,” said Simple. “They Jim Crow me and lynch me any time they want to. Suppose I was to do unto them as they does unto me? Suppose I was to lynch and Jim Crow white folks, where would I be? Huh?”

“In jail.”

“You can bet your boots I would! But these are Christian white folks that does such things to me. At least, they call themselves Christians in my home. They got more churches down South than they got up North. They read more Bibles and sing more hymns. I hope when Christ comes back, He comes back down South. My folks need Him down there to tell them Ku Kluxers where to head in. But I’ll bet you if Christ does come back, not only in the South but all over America, there would be such another running and shutting and slamming of white folks’ doors in His face as you never saw! And I’ll bet the Southerners couldn’t get inside their Jim Crow churches fast enough to lock the gates and keep Christ out. Christ said, ‘Such as ye do unto the least of these, ye do it unto me.’ And Christ knows what these white folks have been doing to old colored me all these years.”

“Of course, He knows,” I said. “When Christ was here on earth, He fought for the poor and the oppressed. But some people called Him an agitator. They cursed Him and reviled Him and sent soldiers to lock Him up. They killed Him on the cross.”

“At Calvary,” said Simple, “way back in B.C. I know the Bible, too. My Aunt Lucy read it to me. She read how He drove the money-changers out of the Temple. Also how He changed the loaves and fishes into many and fed the poor—which made the rulers in their high places mad because they didn’t want the poor to eat. Well, when Christ comes back this time, I hope He comes back mad His own self. I hope He drives the Jim Crowers out of their high places, every living last one of them from Washington to Texas! I hope He smites white folks down!”

“You don’t mean all white folks, do you?”

“No,” said Simple. “I hope He lets Mrs. Roosevelt alone.”

Conversation on the Corner

Conversation On The Corner

IT WAS the summer the young men in Harlem stopped wearing their hair straightened, oiled or conked, and started having it cut short, leaving it natural, standing up about an inch or two in front in a kind of brush. When Simple took off his hat to fan his brow, I saw by the light of the neon sign outside the Wishing Well Bar that he had gotten a new haircut.

“What happened to your head?” I asked.

“Cut short,” said Simple. “My baby likes to run her fingers through it. This gives her a better chance.”