Educated in Southern schools where the text-books of history always exalted the leaders of the Confederacy, raising Lee and Jackson and Johnston and Gordon to heights but little lower than the heroes of Grecian mythology, and ever tending to disparage and revile the Union cause and its leaders, Kenneth, like many coloured youths, had accepted the readymade and fallacious estimates set before him. It was, therefore, but natural that he set his hopes for stalwart, unafraid leadership too high and, at the same time, failed to realize that the South had never begotten an Abraham Lincoln, a Garrison, a Sumner, or even a meteor-like John Brown, bursting into brilliance born of indignation against stupidity or ignorance or wrong and dying gloriously for that cause. Kenneth’s eyes had partially been opened by his memorable talk with Judge Stevenson. Etched upon his mind by the acid of bitter truths were the judge’s words that the boasted Anglo-Saxonism of the South had curdled into moral cowardice on all subjects by the repression incident to the race problem. Nevertheless Kenneth was too inexperienced as yet in the ways of life to comprehend the full import of the older man’s cynicism. He yet sought him who would fulfil his ideal of a great leader who, like a latter-day Crusader, would guide white and black together out of the impasse in which the South seemed to be. Kenneth thus anxiously examined the three before him to see if by chance any one of them bore the accolade which would stamp him the Moses that he sought.
Naturally enough, his eyes first went to Dr. Scott, as it was of him that Judge Stevenson had spoken most favourably. Minister to one of the larger Atlanta churches, he had spoken frequently and with considerable vigour for Georgia in behalf of greater kindness and fairness toward the Negro. He was very tall. His more than ordinary height with his attenuated and lanky slenderness gave him an almost cadaverous appearance which the loose suit of black mohair he wore accentuated. From beneath the folds of a low collar there sprang a white starched-linen bow tie, the four ends standing stiffly, each in a separate direction, like the arms of a windmill. His rather large head was bald on top but around the edges ran a fringe of yellowish-white hair with curling ends that made his face appear rounder than it was. Bushy eyebrows shaded pale blue eyes that twinkled in unison with the ready smile which revealed large yellow teeth. Into his conversation Dr. Scott injected at frequent intervals ministerial phrases—“the spirit of Jesus”—“being Christians”—“our Lord and Saviour.” He always addressed his white companions as “Brother Anthony” and “Brother Gordon.” Kenneth he always called “Doctor.”
Kenneth felt a certain doubt of Dr. Scott’s sincerity. He tried to penetrate what seemed to be a mask over the minister’s face that effectively hid all that revolved in the mind behind it. Something intangible but nevertheless real blocked his path—an unctuous affability that seemed too oily to be sincere. No, Kenneth reflected, Dr. Scott is not the man. All of this examination had taken but a few seconds, yet Kenneth’s mind was made up. In prejudging him so hastily, Kenneth did an injustice to Dr. Scott that was unconscious but real. In his heart of hearts Dr. Scott had realized that to accomplish anything at all in the South towards enlightenment he must necessarily become, at least as discretion seemed to dictate, a mental chameleon. He had suffered because of that decision, for had circumstances placed him in a more liberal and intelligent environment, he would have been far more advanced in his religious and other beliefs. The traces of gold in the ore that was his mind had been revealed in the suffering which had come to him through his speaking out against a system that seemed to him wrong.
He had been reviled, misunderstood both deliberately and by those who were not so advanced as he. He had borne in silence whatever had come to him, even threats of tarring and of death from the Ku Klux Klan, seeking a course directed by wisdom if not by valour.
While he was being introduced by Dr. Scott, Kenneth examined critically the other two men. Mr. Anthony, who had volunteered the use of his office for the conference, as no comment would be likely if the four of them were seen in the office building, was first presented.
John Anthony might well have posed as model for a typical American business man or lawyer. Of rotund figure, well-fed appearance, hair close-cut, his face clean-shaven, clad in neatly tailored but undistinguished clothing, he sat leaning slightly forward, his fingers interlocked, his thumbs and forefingers holding his cravat while his elbows rested on the arms of his chair. He acknowledged the introduction to Kenneth with a brief “Pleased t’ meetcha.” He did not rise, nor extend his hand in greeting, but he at once shrewdly appraised and catalogued Kenneth. John Anthony’s interest in interracial affairs had been first aroused by the war-time migration of Negroes to the North. His personal fortunes had been touched directly by this loss of labour, and the resultant decrease in profits had caused him to inquire into the problem of the labourers who had been always so plentiful. Like most Americans, and particularly those in Southern States, he had had no idea of, or interest in, what Negroes were forced to endure. Though near to this problem, he had been a living example of those in the proverb who “live so close to the trees, they cannot see the woods.” His inquiry, conducted with the clear-sightedness and energy he had acquired from long business training, had revealed brutalities and vicious exploitation that had amazed and sickened him. He was too shrewd to believe that Negroes would be restrained from leaving the South by attempts to picture Negroes freezing to death in the North, or to try to beguile them by transparent falsehoods to the effect that the Southern white man is the Negro’s best friend. Though he did not voice it save to his more intimate friends, he felt naught but contempt for the hypocrisy of those who too late were attempting to flatter the Negro to keep him in the South. His motives were therefore curiously mixed in his support of efforts toward interracial goodwill. Economic in part were they, because retention of Negro labour meant the continuation of his own successful business career. Equally, almost, did they proceed from a hitherto latent sense of moral indignation against the treatment which the South had accorded to Negroes in the past. Direct of speech, analytical of mind, he went straight to the heart of the problem with that same perspicacity that had won for him more than usual success in his business of conducting one of the South’s largest department stores.
Here again did Kenneth figuratively shake his head and decide that John Anthony was not destined to be the Moses of the new South. He could not for the life of him dissociate Anthony’s interest in behalf of justice from his direct financial interest in keeping Negroes in the South, where, with the inevitable working of the law of demand and supply, a surplusage of Negro labour would mean continued high profits for men like Anthony. Kenneth was too young to know that the more largely a man profits from a liberal cause, the more loyal will be his support of that cause and the lesser likelihood of his defection when difficulties arise.
Of the three men, Kenneth felt greatest hope in the third—David Gordon—younger than Kenneth, alert, capable, and with an engaging frankness of face and of manner to which Kenneth warmed instinctively. Gordon was a graduate of Harvard, where he for the first time in his life had learned to know coloured fellow-students as men and human beings instead of as “niggers.” At first he had rebelled strenuously, his every instinct had revolted against dining in the same room, however large, with a “nigger.” So indignant had he been that he had taken it up with the president. Benign, kindly, clearheaded, and patriarchal, the older man calmly and dispassionately and without rancour had shown Gordon the injustice of his position—how unfair it was to deny an education to a man for the sole offence of having been born with a black skin. Before he quite knew how it had happened, Gordon found himself ashamed of what now was seen to be petty nastiness on his part. So interested had he become after his eyes were thus opened that he had made a special study of the Negro problem. After finishing both his college and law courses, he had returned to Atlanta to practise law with his father. His interest in the race question had increased since his return. He was now one of that liberal and intelligent few who are most free from prejudice an emancipated Southerner. Some inner voice told Kenneth instantly that greatest hope of the three lay in David Gordon—and men like him. …
The introductions completed, Dr. Scott opened the conversation.
“Doctor, we’ve heard of the society you’ve started in Central City. Tell us how you’re getting along.”