“I don’t mess with things like that, Mr. Drake. Except for our Brotherhood, I keep myself to myself.”
“I went to Dr. Wanless at the University of Michigan. He advised me to consult an intelligent Negro.”
“Professor Wanless? I heard him speak at a meeting in Chicago. He was a fine speaker.” He had begun to use the plain Midwestern English which is natural to a Negro born in the Middle West and educated in the public schools. I felt that his resistance was lowering.
“I know that Black Israel is a Negro society. I suspect that it’s the kind of thing that intelligent Negroes disapprove of. Can you tell me anything about its purposes and methods?”
“Excuse me, Mr. Drake, but what use are you going to make of anything you find out?”
“I’ll tell you frankly I don’t know. I do know that the FBI is investigating Black Israel. If I find out anything that they haven’t already learned, I’ll turn the information over to them. You see, I discovered the body of the woman who was killed. The night before she died I heard her mention Black Israel, and I heard a man, another Negro, warn her to keep quiet. I got the impression from what she said that Black Israel was subversive.”
“So the FBI is after them,” the black man said. “It’s about time.”
“You have heard of Black Israel, then?”
“I’ve been approached. But I’ll tell you, Mr. Drake, I wouldn’t touch Black Israel with a ten-foot pole. It started out respectable enough but it went downhill fast. It’s my own opinion that somebody got into it who had an axe to grind. At one time I thought it was the Nazis. That was in forty and forty-one, when Black Israel started to go rotten.”
“The Nazis? What made you think that?”
“We had our own investigations, Mr. Drake. Investigations of certain – certain things which threatened to do harm to our cause. There was fascism behind some of the movements which claimed to speak for the Negro in America, – it was strong in Detroit. Our Brotherhood has always looked out for things like that.”
“But you said you no longer think that the Nazis are behind Black Israel. What made you change your opinion?”
“The kind of propaganda they used, chiefly. You know the propaganda that some politicians put out whenever the Federal anti-poll-tax bill comes up on the floor of Congress. That the black race is inferior, unfit for political equality, closer to the apes, careless children for the white men to look after and teach to do a few simple chores?”
I suspected that, consciously or unconsciously, he was quoting from the editorials of the racist press, but his deep voice vibrated with sincerity. He knew what he was talking about, since he had lived intimately with it for forty years.
“I know the kind of stuff you mean. Surely Black Israel didn’t use that sort of thing?”
“Oh, no, Mr. Drake. That’s the point. Black Israel has the same line, but it’s on the other side of the fence. They’re just as violent for black supremacy as the Southern politicians are for white supremacy. Their line is that the day of the white races is over, and the colored races are coming into their own. It’s a line that appeals to the unconscious desires of a good many people of my race, but all it can lead to is trouble. That’s what the Nazis want, of course, but I can’t imagine Hitlerites supporting propaganda for black supremacy.”
“I don’t know. Their motto is divide and rule, and they don’t care how they do the dividing.”
“But they’ve been backing the other corner. I know for a fact that there were fascist agents in some of the violent anti-Negro movements in Detroit. Dr. Wanless confirmed that in his talk on the race riots.”
“They’re quite capable of playing both ends against the middle. I’ll admit, though, that the Black Israel propaganda you’ve described sounds more like the doctrine the Japs have been using in East Asia.”
“That’s exactly what I think, Mr. Drake. I’ve done some reading about the Japanese line in Burma, and this smells like a fish out of the same barrel.”
“Do you know anything about the leaders of Black Israel?”
“They stay in the dark. Black Israel is a secret society. I’ve been approached – I told you that. I’ve listened to their come-on speech and I’ve read a couple of their pamphlets. That’s all I know.”
“Who approached you?”
He had been looking into my face as we talked, holding my attention with intent black eyes. Now he half-turned away and looked out of the open door. He ran the fingers of his right hand through his greying wool in a nervous gesture. Finally he said: “I won’t tell you, Mr. Drake. And if you use the information I gave you, please don’t mention my name.”
“Black Israel is dangerous, isn’t it?”
“You said that a woman you knew got killed.”
“I won’t mention your name. I’m very grateful for what you’ve told me. It was a pleasure to talk to you, Mr. Edwards.”
“Thank you.” A smile kindled on his lined and rather forbidding face. “Well, I better be getting back to work.” Before he went back into the sleeping car, a definite change took place in him. His large erect torso became somehow amorphous. Meaning went out of his eyes like a snake slipping into its hole. His movements became faintly shifty and apologetic, as if all his intentions were subject to change at a moment’s notice on somebody else’s whim. His personality shrank to fit the smooth black shell which white opinion has hopefully constructed for Negroes to live in. Watching this change, which I had never seen before because I had never before seen anything but the smooth shell, I felt a movement of anger and pity stir at the bottom of my mind. I felt that I had witnessed a partial death.
But the rest of my mind was vaguely elated. In less than three weeks I had stumbled across three bodies, each of which had seemed to be projected across my path violently and causelessly out of impenetrable darkness. Some of the shadowy horror of that darkness was beginning now to take form, becoming identifiable as a shape of human evil which I could begin to understand. Understanding it, I could fight it. I was determined to fight it. I hated the cause of those ugly deaths as intensely as I would have if Hatcher had been my brother, and the Jewish girl and the Negro woman my sisters.
Mary came to the door and joined me on the platform. “Mmm,” she said. “I can smell spring in the air.”
“Aren’t you sick of eternal spring, after those months in Hawaii?”
“I was when I left, but a few days of northern winter made me homesick for spring again. Maybe I’ll never go north again.”
“Aren’t your family in Cleveland?”
“Oh, yes. But they can come south. I really think that’s what we’ll do. What were you talking about with the porter?”
“I wrecked my blues last night. He’s going to clean and press them for me.”
“I like you in greys. It took you a long time to persuade him, didn’t it?”
“Oh, we got to talking. I’ve always been interested in the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.”
Later that day, when she would have less reason to connect my theory with my conversation with the porter, I brought up the subject of Sue Sholto’s death.
“I don’t believe Sue Sholto committed suicide,” I said. “I made some inquiries in Detroit before we left, and I found out that Black Israel is a violent and subversive organization. I believe that Hector Land belonged to it, and that his wife Bessie had learned a good deal about it, perhaps enough to put the finger on one or more of its leaders. Hector himself may be one of its leaders. In any case, I’m reasonably certain that Bessie Land was killed to keep her from talking. It’s barely possible that she was frightened into killing herself, but if so, somebody connected with Black Israel frightened her.”