In search of bisco by erkine caldwell

IN SEARCH OF BISCO By Erskine Caldwell My three younger brothers who graduated at Tuskegee left Alabama a long time ago. Now and then one of them comes to visit me and tries to get me to move up North where they live. But this is my home right here now and it’s where I want to stay. One of them is the principal of a school in Connecticut. One is a professor in Pennsylvania. The third and youngest of all is the pastor of a church in Michigan. Except for being better educated, all my brothers are just like me in most ways. They stay with our race and don’t try to live outside it. I know a lot of colored people go to the North thinking they’ll be living outside the race, but they soon find it just won’t work out that way. As long as a man looks colored, that’s the way he’s going to be no matter where he lives and he ought to be proud of it. And if he’s a Geechee like me, he can boast about it, too. The only real way the colored can live outside the race is to be light enough in color to pass for white, and that’s something a real black man just can’t do. I know my color and I’m proud to stay with it and be what I am. Some of my grandchildren have got a lot lighter color than me and my wife and the time may come when they’ll go up North to pass and leave our race. That’d be all right with me. You can’t expect the younger generation to keep the same old-fashioned ideas I’ve got. I was born and raised in the South and I’ve been colored for sixty-eight years. That means I’ve lived within my race all my life and I’m accustomed to it. And that’s why you won’t see me at my age getting out and demonstrating for integration and civil rights. That’s something for the young people to do and I’m not going to blame them for trying to change things for the better as long as they use good common sense about the way they go at it. I’ll stand behind them every step of the way as long as they do that. What I hope about it is that our young people will stick with Martin King and listen to him. If it wasn’t for Martin King, we’d still be back where we started from— which was ’way back nowhere. I don’t want to see some scatter-brain colored people do the wrong kind of agitating and do us more harm than good. If everybody will listen to Martin King, we’ll be all right. There’s something in the newspapers nearly every day about integrating the school so the colored and white children can get the same education. I’m in favor of both races getting a good education, but the big trouble is that nobody’s going to get a good education if the schools don’t provide better teaching. It’s a shame the way some of the white teachers misuse the English language. Those teachers have been to college and they should’ve learned the correct way to use the language if they’re going to be teachers. I’m not educated enough myself to explain what the right way to say something is, but I can tell when something they say sounds wrong. Maybe I ought to watch what I’m saying right now, but the way I feel about it is I wouldn’t want my children or grandchildren go to a school and come out of it speaking the kind of grammar some of the teachers do. And I’ll say that about any teacher—white or colored. Some of the young colored people right here in Jackson are getting restless and say they want to do something about their civil rights and organize demonstrations and such things. So far, nothing like that’s been done and some people like me keep on telling them not to be too quick about it. I don’t care what the law says, this is still a white man’s town. I’d want to hear what Martin King advised before starting anything like that in a little place like Jackson. Some white men never pay attention to any law and they can be real mean to all colored people when they want to be. The way I see it, action like that ought to start in bigger cities like Birmingham and Mobile and Montgomery where the colored live in bigger numbers and have some good leadership. The young people in Jackson need a leader with real good judgment before they start something like that and right now there’s nobody to take charge. Without some good leadership, the young people run the risk of not being able to control a demonstration up on the bluff where the white people are. That could start a race riot quicker than anything else I know of. And if things ran wild, all the colored would end up with more harm than good. It’s the same way about the Black Muslims in Jackson. Some of our people talk about wanting to join the Black Muslims, but there’s no leader for them here so far, and you can’t run that kind of organization without leadership no more than you can have a worthwhile church without a minister. To tell the truth, I’m suspicious of the Black Muslims, anyhow. I just don’t like their kind of talk. And when you look them straight in the face, they look mighty close to being something exactly like the Ku Klux Klan for the colored. Some people argue that we need the Black Muslims to give Negroes the courage they need to stand up and claim their rights. I’m in favor of us getting up all the courage we can, because that’s what we’re going to need a lot of from now on, but I’d feel a lot more comfortable with my courage if I got it from Martin Luther King. Maybe it’s because I’m proud of being a Georgia-born Geechee with my kind of tannish color, but anyway I always tell people I’m not black enough to be a Black Muslim. Buy the ebook: Amazon | Apple | B&N | Google | Kobo | Overdrive | Sony Connect: Facebook | Website ... - tailieumienphi.vn