“Oh, I suppose I could’ve made money there. Dr. Cox at Bellevue told me I ought to stay there in New York and practise in Harlem, but I wanted to come back home. I can do more good here, both for myself and for the coloured people, than I could up there.” He paused and then asserted confidently: “And I don’t think I’ll have any trouble down here. Papa got along all right here in this town for more than fifty years, and I reckon I can do it too.”
“But, Ken,” Bob protested, “the way things were when he came along are a lot different from the way they are now. Just yesterday Old Man Mygatt down to the bank got mad and told me I was an ‘impudent young nigger that needed to be taught my place’ because I called his hand on a note he claimed papa owed the bank. He knew I knew he was lying, and that’s what made him so mad. They’re already saying I’m not a ‘good nigger’ like papa was and that education has spoiled me into thinking I’m as good as they are. Good Lord, if I wasn’t any better than these ignorant Crackers in this town, I’d go out and jump in the river.”
Bob was working himself into a temper. Kenneth interrupted him with a good-natured smile as he said:
“Bob, you’re getting too pessimistic. You’ve been reading too many of these coloured newspapers published in New York and Chicago and these societies that’re always playing up some lynching or other trouble down here—”
“What if I have? I don’t need to read them to know that things are much worse today than they were a few years back. You haven’t lived down here for nearly nine years and you don’t know how things are changed.”
“It’s you who have changed—not conditions so much!” Kenneth answered. “What if there are mean white folks? There are lots of other white people who want to see the Negro succeed. Only this morning Dr. Bennett told mamma he was glad I came back and he’d do what he could to help me. And there’re lots more like.”
“That’s nice of Dr. Bennett,” interjected Bob. “He can afford to talk big—he’s got the practice of this town sewed up. And, most of all, he’s a white man. Suppose some of these poor whites get it into their heads to make trouble because you’re getting too prosperous—what then? Dr. Bennett and all the rest of the good white folks around here can’t help you!”
“Oh, yes, they can,” Kenneth observed with the same confident smile. “Judge Stevenson and Roy Ewing and Mr. Baird at the Bank of Central City and a lot others run this town and they aren’t going to let any decent coloured man be bothered. Why, I’ll have a cinch around this part of Georgia! There aren’t more than half a dozen coloured doctors in all this part of the country who’ve had a decent medical education and training. All they know is ladling out pills and fake panaceas. In a few years I’ll be able to give up general practising and give all my time to major surgery. I’ll handle pretty nearly everything in this part of the State. And then you’ll see I’m right!”
“Have it your own way,” retorted Bob. “But I’m telling you again, you haven’t been living down here for eight or nine years and you don’t know. When all these Negroes were going North, some of these same ‘good white folks’ you’re depending on started talking about ‘putting niggers in their place’ when they couldn’t get servants and field hands. You’ll find things a lot different from the way they were when you went up North to school.”
“What’re you boys fussing about? What’s the trouble?”
Bob and Kenneth turned at the voice from the doorway behind them. It was their mother. “Nothing, mamma, only Bob’s got a fit of the blues today.”
Mrs. Harper came in and looked from one to the other of her sons. She was a buxom, pleasant-faced woman of fifty-odd years, her hair once brown now flecked with grey. She wiped the perspiration from her forehead with the corner of her apron, announcing meanwhile that supper was ready. As he rose, Kenneth continued his explanation of their conversation.
“Bob’s seeing things like a kid in the dark. He thinks I’ll not be able to do the things I came back here to accomplish. Thinks the Crackers won’t let me! I’m going to solve my own problem, do as much good as I can, make as much money as I can! If every Negro in America did the same thing, there wouldn’t be any race problem.”
Mrs. Harper took an arm of each of her sons and led them into the dining-room where their sister Mamie was putting supper on the table.
“You’re right, Kenneth,” Mrs. Harper remarked as she sat down at the table. “Your father and I got along here together in Central City without a bit of trouble for thirty-five years, and I reckon you can do it too.”
“But, mamma,” Bob protested, “I’ve been telling Ken things are not what they were when you and papa came along. Why—”
“Let’s forget the race problem for a while,” Kenneth interrupted. “I’m too hungry and tired to talk about it now.”
“That’s right,” was Mrs. Harper’s comment. “Draw your chairs up to the table. You’re not goin’ to have any trouble here in town, Ken, and we’re mighty glad you came back. Mrs. Amos was in this afternoon and she tells me they’re having some trouble out near Ashland between the coloured sharecroppers and their landlords, but that’ll blow
