Kenneth poured forth his words like a burning flood of lava—indicative of the raging fires of resentment smouldering beneath. He paused, completely out of breath. Dr. Scott flushed until his face became a dull brick-red in colour. He restrained with an effort the anger caused by the coloured man’s impetuous words.
“I know—I know,” he said soothingly. “It’s hard, I know, but you must remember the words of Jesus to his disciples: ‘When men shall persecute and revile you—’ The spirit of Jesus is growing in the hearts of the South—it will come to your rescue in due season.”
“We’re always hearing about this liberal white opinion,” rejoined Kenneth, nettled by the unctuous suavity of the words, “but we so seldom see any signs of it—almost never in places like Central City. Sometimes I think it’s like trying to put your finger on mercury—when your finger is about to touch it, it rolls away—it’s somewhere else. Meanwhile lynching goes on.”
“You’re right, Doctor,” broke in John Anthony, who had been following the conversation with deep interest though he had taken little part in it. “We’ve got to do something, and that soon—the only problem is how to do it. Now about your society in Smith County—tell us how we can help you make it a success. Do you need any money to get it working properly?”
Kenneth turned to the quiet man who had proposed the first tangible offer to help.
“Thanks a lot for the offer,” replied Kenneth. “There are two things I can think of that’ll be immediately helpful. One is that you and Dr. Scott and Mr. Gordon do what you can to help mould public sentiment so this liberal white opinion will become a force in the South against the Ku Klux Klan and lynching and all the other forms of prejudice. That’s what seems to me to be most needed.”
“Yes—yes—I agree with you, but tell us just exactly how we can help you.” Anthony, in his direct way, was impatient of theorizing. “Do you need any money—credit—legal advice—that is, any we can give quietly without it getting out that we gave it?”
“Yes, there is something,” answered Kenneth. “Most of the men in our societies have been working on shares for so many years that instead of having any money, they owe their landlords large sums. The big problem is credit for the things they need until they sell their crops next fall.”
Kenneth gave a detailed statement of their needs and their plans. John Anthony took notes as he talked and agreed to see what he could do towards securing credit when they needed it. David Gordon volunteered his aid as a lawyer. They rose to go. Anthony gazed intently at Kenneth as he asked gravely:
“Doctor, have you thought of the possibility of—er—trouble if your motives are not understood? That is, suppose some of the poor whites are stirred up by the landlords and merchants you’re trying to take these coloured farmers away from—have you figured out what might be the result?”
“Yes, I have,” responded Kenneth. “I realize there might be some who’d break up our groups—”
“No—No—I mean to you personally,” interjected Anthony.
“I don’t think they’ll bother me,” was Kenneth’s confident reply. “But if something should happen—well, if I can feel I’ve perhaps pointed a way out for my people, I can die happy. … At any rate, killing or running me away wouldn’t kill the spirit of revolt these coloured people have it might stir it even higher. Not that I’ve any ambition for martyrdom,” he ended with a laugh.
Kenneth spoke with no bravado, with none of the cant of the poseur. His words, rather, were uttered with the simplicity of the earnest seeker after truth—the unheroic but sincere worker in a cause that is just.
“Let’s hope you’ll come through,” said Anthony. “I’m a Southerner with all the traditions and prejudices of the South, but I wish you luck.” He added after a pause: “You’ll need it.”
After Kenneth had gone, the three men looked at each other questioningly.
“What do you think of him and his plan?” asked Dr. Scott, half to himself.
It was Gordon who answered.
“It’s a good scheme—if it works. I’m mighty afraid, though, he’s going to run into deep water if his societies grow very large. And the pity of it is that we in Atlanta can’t help him if we dared.” Anthony grunted.
“And yet the South is trying to solve the race problem and leave educated Negroes like Harper entirely out of the equation. It’s about time we woke up.”
XX
Early Friday morning Kenneth left for Central City, before the Atlanta Constitution appeared on the streets for sale. Soon after his train left Macon on the way South, the engine blew out a cylinder head. They remained there until another could be dispatched from Macon to replace it. There had come to his stopping-place in Atlanta, a few minutes after he had left, a telegram which had been sent from a town twenty miles distant from Central City, telling him to remain in Atlanta until further notice. Jane had paid a man liberally to drive through the country to get the telegram off in time. It would not have done to send such a wire from Central City. All these things had so happened as though the very fates themselves were in league against Kenneth.
In total ignorance of what had happened to Mamie and Bob and the eventful chain of happenings since he had left Central City three days before, Kenneth sat in the stuffy, odorous, and dirty Jim Crow car, busied with his
