Posterity (4 page)

For much of my adolescence and adulthood, I thought of these people as having betrayed the race. I used to walk up to them and call them
Brother
or
Sister
, loud and with a sardonic edge, when they looked like they were trying to “escape.” When I went off to college, I would make the “conversion” of errant classmates a serious project, a political commitment.

I used to reserve my special scorn for those Negroes who were always being embarrassed by someone else in the race. Someone too dark, someone too “loud,” someone too “wrong.” Someone who dared to wear red in public. Loud and wrong: we used to say that about each other. Nigger is loud and wrong. “Loud” carried a triple meaning: speaking too loudly, dressing too loudly, and just
being
too loudly.

I do know that, when I was a boy, many Negroes would have been the first to censure other Negroes once they were admitted into all-white neighborhoods or schools or clubs. “An embarrassment to the race”—phrases of that sort were bandied about. Accordingly, many of us in our generation engaged in strange antics to flout those strictures. Like eating watermelon in public, eating it loudly and merrily, and spitting the seeds into the middle of the street, red juice running down the sides of our cheeks, collecting under our chins. Or taking the greatest pride in the Royal Kink. Uncle Harry used to say he didn't
like
watermelon, which I knew was a lie because I saw him wolf down slices when I was a little kid, before he went off to seminary at Boston University. But he came around, just like he came around to painting God and Jesus black, and all the seraphim and the cherubim, too. And I, from another direction, have gradually come around, also, and stopped trying to tell other Negroes how to be black.

Do you remember when your mother and I woke you up early on a Sunday morning, just to watch Nelson Mandela walk out of prison, and how it took a couple of hours for him to emerge, and how you both wanted to go back to bed and, then, to watch cartoons? And how we began to worry that something bad had happened to him on the way out, because the delay was so long? And when he finally walked out of that prison, how we were so excited and teary-eyed at Mandela's nobility, his princeliness, his straight back and unbowed head? I think I felt that there walked the Negro, as Pop might have said; there walked the whole of the African people, as regal as any king. And that feeling I had, that gooseflesh sense of identity that I felt at seeing Nelson Mandela, listening to Mahalia Jackson sing, watching Muhammad Ali fight, or hearing Martin Luther King speak, is part of what I mean by being colored. I realize the sentiment may not be logical, but I want to have my cake and eat it, too. Which is why I still nod or speak to black people on the streets and why it felt so good to be acknowledged by the Afro-Italians who passed my table at the café in Milan.

I want to be able to take special pride in a Jessye Norman aria, a Muhammad Ali shuffle, a Michael Jordan slam dunk, a Spike Lee movie, a Thurgood Marshall opinion, a Toni Morrison novel, a James Brown's Camel Walk. Above all, I enjoy the unselfconscious moments of a shared cultural intimacy, whatever form they take, when no one else is watching, when no white people are around. Like Joe Louis's fights, which my father still talks about as part of the fixed repertoire of stories that texture our lives. You've seen his eyes shining as he describes how Louis hit Max Schmeling so many times and so hard, and how some reporter asked him, after the fight: “Joe, what would you have done if that last punch hadn't knocked Schmeling out?” And how ole Joe responded, without missing a beat: “I'da run around behind him to see what was holdin' him up!”

Even so, I rebel at the notion that I can't be part of other groups, that I can't construct identities through elective affinity, that race must be the most important thing about me. Is that what I want on my gravestone: Here lies an African American? So I'm divided. I want to be black, to know black, to luxuriate in whatever I might be calling blackness at any particular time—but to do so in order to come out the other side, to experience a humanity that is neither colorless nor reducible to color. Bach
and
James Brown. Sushi
and
fried catfish. Part of me admires those people who can say with a straight face that they have transcended any attachment to a particular community or group . . . but I always want to run around behind them to see what holds them up.

I am not Everynegro. I am not native to the great black metropolises: New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles, say. Nor can I claim to be a “citizen of the world.” I am from and of a time and a place—Piedmont, West Virginia—and that's a world apart, a world of difference. So this is not a story of a race but a story of a village, a family, and its friends. And of a sort of segregated peace. What hurt me most about the glorious black awakening of the late sixties and early seventies is that we lost our sense of humor. Many of us thought that enlightened politics excluded it.

In your lifetimes, I suspect, you will go from being African Americans, to “people of color,” to being, once again, “colored people.” (The linguistic trend toward condensation is strong.) I don't mind any of the names myself. But I have to confess that I like “colored” best, maybe because when I hear the word, I hear it in my mother's voice and in the sepia tones of my childhood. As artlessly and honestly as I can, I have tried to evoke a colored world of the fifties, a Negro world of the early sixties, and the advent of a black world of the later sixties, from the point of view of the boy I was. When you are old enough to read what follows, I hope that it brings you even a small measure of understanding, at long last, of why we see the world with such different eyes . . . and why that is for me a source both of gladness and of regret. And I hope you'll understand why I continue to speak to colored people I pass on the streets.

Love,
Daddy

Piedmont, West Virginia
July 8, 1993

Elsie, Mabel (wife), Daisy, and
Alexander Graham Bell

Lincoln Steffens and son Pete

The Developing
Mind

J
OHN
A
DAMS TO
A
BIGAIL
“N
ABBY
” A
DAMS
S
MITH

“In your solitary hours, my dear daughter, you will have a delightful opportunity of attending to the
education of your children . . .”

John Adams knew firsthand what education could do for a person. The son of a farmer and a mother who was likely illiterate, he was granted a scholarship at age fifteen to Harvard College and the world opened before him. With his own children he was constantly advising them on what to read, what to learn, and what was important to know, and when he became a grandfather his interest in the education of his grandchildren was strong indeed. He was, too, a man of his times and he believed, most respectfully, that it was the mother's duty and “delightful opportunity” to educate her young children.

Here, Adams writes to his thirty-two-year-old daughter, Abigail—known as “Nabby”—about her role in the developing minds of her three sons. Newly elected president of the United States, he would be inaugurated on March 4, 1797, less than two weeks hence. The election to replace George Washington was bitterly factional. As well, no precedent had yet been set for how a new president would select his cabinet. It all weighed heavily upon him.

Philadelphia, Feb. 21st, 1797

Dear Child:

I believe I have not acknowledged your favour of the 20th January, which I received in its season.

I hope your apprehensions that “the party who have embarrassed the President, and exerted themselves to divide the election, will endeavour to render my situation as uncomfortable as possible,” will be found to be without sufficient foundation; I have seen, on the contrary, a disposition to acquiesce, and hope it will increase. I am not at all alarmed; I know my countrymen very well.

If the way to do good to my country, were to render myself popular, I could easily do it. But extravagant popularity is not the road to public advantage.

By the 4th of March I shall know what to do. I cannot build my house till the foundation is laid; at present I know not what house I shall have, nor what means to furnish it. These things will be determined in ten days. At present I believe it will be best for your mother to remain where she is until October. I shall go to her as soon as I can.

Your brother John continues to give the highest satisfaction to government by his great industry, his deep discernment, his independent spirit, and his splendid talents. I hear such commendations of him as no other man abroad obtains.

In your solitary hours, my dear daughter, you will have a delightful opportunity of attending to the education of your children, to give them a taste and attachment to study, and to books. A taste for science and literature, added to a turn for business, never can fail of success in life. Without learning, nothing very great can ever be accomplished in the way of business. But not only a thirst for knowledge should be excited, and a taste for letters be cultivated, but prudence, patience, justice, temperance, resolution, modesty, and self-cultivation, should be recommended to them as early as possible. The command of their passions, the restraints of their appetites, reverence for superiors, especially parents, a veneration for religion, morals, and good conduct.

You will find it more for your happiness to spend your time with them in this manner, than to be engaged in fashionable amusements, and social entertainments, even with the best company.

But I must restrain myself, and subscribe the name of your affectionate father,

John Adams

A
LEXANDER
G
RAHAM
B
ELL TO
E
LSIE AND
M
ARIAN (
D
AISY)
B
ELL

“I cut off the tail and sent it to Elsie by mail today
so that you might see it.”

By inventing the telephone in 1876 at the age of twenty-nine, Alexander Graham Bell changed the world. Imaginative and extremely industrious, throughout all of his seventy-five years, he was continually inventing and creating. Sound, communication, aviation, architecture, genetics, geography, geology, geometry, current affairs, linguistics, and, most importantly, the education of the deaf—he was interested in it all. He invented a metal detector and the first respirator, he was a founder and president of the National Geographic Society, he warned about environmental pollutants and coined the phrase “greenhouse effect,” and he was integral in bringing the teachings and methods of Maria Montessori to the United States.

Bell was convinced that children learn through their play and by doing. He believed that education was “a leading forth from within rather than a putting in from without” and that “exercise of the mind is just what children need. It develops their reasoning powers and arouses their interest.”

Here, at forty, Alexander Graham Bell writes to his two daughters, nine and seven years old.

Edgartown, Martha's Vineyard
Sunday, November 13th, 1887

My dear Elsie and Daisy

I wish you could be here with me in Martha's Vineyard, for I am sure you would enjoy playing on the sandy beach, and watching the great big waves dashing on the shore. I am sure you would enjoy looking for the beautiful shells and pebbles that are thrown on the beach after every storm.

I was walking on the beach this afternoon with Mr. [Hity?] when I saw a funny black object on the shore. It looked like a book with a long tail!!

What do you think it was? It was the dead body of a fish—and it was the funniest fish I ever saw! It was flat like a book. Its eyes were on the top of its head, and its mouth was in its stomach! But where do you think its teeth were? I opened its mouth—but there were no teeth there. Guess where they were. Did you ever hear of a fish with teeth on its tail?!!!! I never did, but this fish had teeth all over its tail, and all over its back. It was covered with teeth so that you could not touch it without being bitten.

It could bite you by wagging its tail. I cut off the tail and sent it to Elsie by mail today so that you might see it. I hope it will reach you safely.

The mouth of this wonderful fish was very beautiful. Its lips were not soft like yours but quite hard and covered all over with beautiful little ivory pearls. I cut off the lips so that you might see them. I sent them to Daisy by mail.

The people here call the fish the “Stingaree” though its proper name is “The stinging ray.” The fish I saw was only a baby. Captain Osborne says he has seen one with a tail four feet long covered with teeth an inch long. He says that the teeth have poison on them when the fish is alive, so that it is dangerous to touch them. He knew a man who tried to catch one in the water, but the fish stuck its long tail into his leg and hurt him so much that he was glad to let it go. The leg swelled up and he was unable to walk for months. You need not be afraid of the tail I have sent you, because the fish has been dead for a long time, the teeth are dry and there is now no poison on them. Now my dear little girls I must say good-bye. I hope you are both good and gentle. I hope you are trying to learn as much as you can from Miss Hudson and I hope you try to make Mamma very happy and proud of you both. I expect Grandpapa and Grandmamma Bell tomorrow. Won't you write a nice letter to Grandmamma? I am sure she would be glad to hear from you—and so would I. Good bye for the present.

Your loving father
Alexander Graham Bell

J
ACK
L
ONDON TO
J
OAN
L
ONDON

“Do you, desiring to be a success, think your success
depends on the advice of a failure?”

Jack London was the most successful writer of his generation. Over his lifetime he produced an astounding quantity of work: two hundred short stories, four hundred pieces of nonfiction (essays, articles, war correspondence reports, and book reviews), and twenty novels. Yet, by 1913, at the age of thirty-seven, London was dying, his body failing. He was still writing, but by his own admission, only churning out pieces for the money. Years of excessive drinking and extravagant living had left him with kidneys diseased beyond hope.

Bitterly divorced from his two daughters' mother, Bess, London was a mostly distant father. High living kept him from his children, as did Bess's refusal to allow the girls ever to see their father in the presence of his second wife, Charmian.

Here London writes his twelve-year-old daughter, Joan. It is interesting to note that Joan's mother, Bess, was a teacher.

Glen Ellen,
Aug 17 1913

Dearest Joan:—

I have just dispatched a telegram to you, telling you that letter follows.

(1) Regarding bulkhead—I havent the money now. In another year I'll have the money. In the meantime we'll have to endure the damage of the winter rains. Tell mother, by digging drainage ditches, this damage can be minimized at the cost of several dollars for a day-laborer. Ask Uncle Ernest to indicate where the drainage ditches should be dug, how deep, how wide, etc.

Now (2). Please remember that an English teacher is a teacher of English, for not very many dollars a month salary for two reasons: (a) She has failed to get married & have a man buy her clothes & food for her; (b) she can't write stuff that brings money from the editors and publishers. In short, no matter how good an
“English”
teacher she may be, she has proved that she can't write salable English. Again, in short, she is a failure. Do you, desiring to be a success, think your success depends on the advice of a failure?

Now, Joan, when your Daddy tells you he is a top-writer in the world, do not think he is bragging. He is telling you in order to show that he has succeeded where teachers of English have failed. He is telling you this in order to prove that he
knows
where literary success lies, and where the failure—English teachers do not know.