A History of the African-American People (Proposed) by Strom Thurmond (19 page)

Interoffice Memo

November 23, 2002

Percival:

Way ahead of you.

I found out where Wilkes is getting his stuff—from a famous anthology of documents compiled by Herbert Aptheker. Anyhow, according to Aptheker, John Merrick of Durham, North Carolina “had been put in business by two Southern millionaires, Julian S. Carr and Washington Duke.” “The speech,” he adds with acid spraying, “is fittingly ‘reasonable.’”

That’s interesting about the Elephant Man, whose name was George Merrick, not John. The physician attending him and writing about him, Frederick Treves, always called him John, which says something about the quality of his concern and compassion, I’ve always thought. Anyhow, the book and the plays and movies about the Elephant Man all call him “John,” so it’s understandable that you’d make that mistake, egregious as it is. For accuracy in information, consult a scholar.

Happy to oblige.

Jim

No. They postponed the hearing in order to “gather more information.” What information?

O
FFICE OF
S
ENATOR
S
TROM
T
HURMOND
217 R
USSELL
S
ENATE
B
UILDING
W
ASHINGTON
, D.C. 20515

November 23, 2002

Dear Percival and James,

A little bird tells me you two are not working as expeditiously as you might.

WHOA now! I’m not saying you are unindustrious, Perkal and Jimby. Far from it. I am saying that you are confused by two things:

1. The paucity of the material I’ve sent you.

2. Despite everything, some lingering distrust.

As a result, I am conjuring up a picture of you two sitting in your racing cars, revving up at higher and higher speeds, but not able to see that flag that says “Go” or even to make out the track.

I can handle #1 and send more (see below).

As for #2, well, pufferbellies, I think I can only hope you will grant me the trust I am granting you. Let’s be clear about this. I am granting it. Grant it in return. Do not dissemble. Let’s curl pinkies on this: spit and swear.

Has the Senator seen this material? Yes and no. Have we talked in detail about it? Yes and no.

No
in the vulgar sense of two separate and distinct corporeal presences getting together over brandy and flapping their lips.
Yes
in the meaningful (the only meaningful) sense of things in which essences leave the calm chamber of the imagination, holding in their arms the agency of the sublime. In other words, this is the Senator, Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, Senior Republican and Senior Senator, and Senior Lawgiver.

If that doesn’t convince you, I despair. Or, rather, I would despair, were despair in my blood.

Belief, gentlemen, belief!

So—here are some more materials, giving what I now regard as the full picture. The first represents the tiny, but undeniably present, number of African Americans who urged unspeakable violence. I’ll give that first and then tell you about the second. The first is from an Address to the U.S. Congress in 1896 from “The National Association of Colored Men,” a fortunately and significantly short-lived group of radicals (I use the word advisedly) from the North who were furious at and jealous of Booker T. Washington and sought to gain notoriety by advocating violence. (You will not fail to see the parallels to such later groups as The Black Panthers, the followers of Malcolm X; as well as individuals like Cassius Clay, Reggie Jackson, and Al Sharpton.)

“We mark the opening of the militant period of our race in this country…. We hail and accept the burdens of the new time without fear and without favor.…That time [for militant action] we conceive to be now. Our calm, deliberate advice is for every member of the race henceforth to employ every weapon of every kind of warfare legitimately and courageously in the demand for every right.”

I gather one of you is a literary type, or both of you? Which one? The black one? Anyhow, it doesn’t take a literary scholar to see at work in this passage the sort of rhetoric Communists used a little later. Words like “calm,” “deliberate,” “legitimately” try to mask a howl to “every” Negro man, woman, and child to use “every weapon of every kind of warfare” any way they wanted. Any thuggery, murder, looting, raping would be, you see, “calm” and “legitimate.”

The next is from the much misunderstood W.E.B. DuBois. Here Dr. DuBois writes a Negro schoolgirl and reveals attitudes toward racial advancement that I am proud to say (and DuBois would be too) anticipate the Senator’s own. The letter is dated 1905, written when the Senator was only 4, so it is remarkably anticipatory. Now, DuBois was sometimes unable to resist in his oratory a certain self-indulgent and undisciplined rhetorical flair, but here he speaks his heart.

“I wonder if you will let a stranger say a word to you about yourself? I have heard that you are a young woman of some ability but that you are neglecting your school work because you have become hopeless of trying to do anything in the world. I am very sorry for this. How any human being whose wonderful fortune it is to live in the 20th century should under ordinarily fair advantages despair of life is almost unbelievable. And if in addition to this that person is, as I am, of Negro lineage with all the hopes and yearnings of hundreds of millions of human souls dependent in some degree on her striving, then her bitterness amounts to crime.

“There are in the U.S. today tens of thousands of colored girls who would be happy beyond measure to have the chance of educating themselves that you are neglecting. If you train yourself as you easily can, there are wonderful chances of usefulness before you: you can join the ranks of 15,000 Negro women teachers, of hundreds of nurses and physicians, of the growing number of clerks and stenographers, and above all of the host of homemakers. Ignorance is a cure for nothing. Get the very best training possible & the doors of opportunity will fly open before you as they are flying before thousands of your fellows. On the other hand every time a colored person neglects an opportunity, it makes it more difficult for others of the race to get such an opportunity. Do you want to cut off the chances of the boys and girls of tomorrow?”

Just copying that makes my heart sing.

There’s a character in Dickens, one Dick Swiveller, who says to a friend, “Why should an uncle and nephew peg away at one another, when all might be bliss and concord? Why not jine hands and fergit it?”

Substitute for “uncle and nephew,” “Bunny, Perkal, and Jimby,” and you see the application. All might be bliss and concord. All will be bliss and concord.

Here’s my hand—jine it!

Ever,
Barton

James R. Kincaid
University of Southern California
University Park Campus
Los Angeles, CA 90089

November 24, 2002

Dear Juniper,

Percival and I have read your letter with deep concern and sympathy. We are protected from Barton’s flesh and jump suits by distance, and he has not yet sent any pictures, though I suppose that’s next; but we can have compassion for anyone who has to spend weekends with him, cooking and playing Parcheesi. (What sorts of things did you cook?)

You seem like a nice young man, and I think I can help. Percival asked me to write to you, as he is less skilled than I at such things. Perhaps I should say that he is simply less experienced. He does not extend to his students the same degree of personal warmth that I radiate almost against my will. I extend warmth to my students and they feel it. (I know this from student evaluations.) The mind is only a small part of the whole person, Juniper. I am sure you know that, having encountered at NYU professors you took to. (Probably some like Percival too.) My students do come to me for help. I find that most student problems have to do with (a) parents, (b) roommates, (c) sex. The last is by far the most prevalent topic of concern to students these days, and in other days too. It just doesn’t go away, and I try to help. Percival says my students talk to me about sex because I steer them in that direction. But you’ll notice his students don’t talk to him at all, except to complain about grades. Grades, you observed, are not on my list at all.

Parents, I find, are ill-equipped to deal with the problems of comely youth. Obviously. They are themselves a problem. I try to get my students to detach themselves from parents, without at all interfering. It’s simply a part of growing up, and I am happy to play a useful role in a natural process. You may have tried consulting with your own parents about Wilkes. Were they of any help? You see my point.

As for Wilkes, do not see him again. Here is the direct advice part. I have decided that both Snell and Wilkes are unreliables. Do not lean on them. Tell Wilkes that Snell has ordered you not to interfere in the proper flow of information, that dating a client is forbidden, that you are so attracted to him (Wilkes) you need to withdraw for your own sanity, that you are moving in with Sister and adopting a child together, that you have but three weeks to live, that you are entering rehab for prescription pain killer abuse, that you are Roman Catholic and can’t bring yourself to sin like that any more. Anything!

Don’t tell anyone you have cut it off with Wilkes. If he complains to Snell, tell Snell that Wilkes is obsessed with him (Snell) and really wants to see him, not you. You are seeing Wilkes, you say, on a regular basis, just as ordered. Tell Snell Wilkes is just using you to get at the boss, that all he ever talks about is “Martin this” and “Martin that.” That’ll satisfy Snell’s ego and convince him you are indeed seeing Wilkes. Of course there’s a chance Snell will go after Wilkes himself, but, believe me, if he does, your name will never come up between them. It’ll be Parcheesi passion all the way.

Get it out of your head that Wilkes has hypnotic or Sven-gali-like powers. What it is, Juniper, is that you are a nice young man and simply need somebody to talk to. You have dilemmas, of course, but who doesn’t? That they are sexual dilemmas, by and large, should not make you feel ashamed.

I know I am far away but I am here.

Very glad I could help you.

Sincerely,
Jim

November 24, 2002

Dear Reba,

Your letter has upset me a lot. You don’t just meddle but ask personal and insulting questions.

What you and Wilkes do is nothing to me. I just don’t care.

Sincerely,
Juniper