"It was the decade after the Civil War." "Those first years of freedom were a time of change for Tom Harvey and his family." "But freedom was only the beginning." "Hold your horses!" "I got me a dumb nigger making trouble." "I gots the right to vote!" "Papa, this here's Will Palmer." "Mr." "Palmer." "Do you love me?" "This ain't the time nor the place to be talking about a thing like that." "And things had changed for Colonel Warner and his family." "We were married." "As far as I'm concerned you are a nigger." "Your father'd never forgive me if he knew I came at all." "What's that white lady doing here?" "I support with my heart's blood any action to safeguard the purity of white civilization." "Roots." "The true story of an American family." "This family gonna go forward." "From the end of innocence to the easy times of a new era." "I wish you could stay with me now." "Through the war overseas and hard times at home..." "He's Alexander Murray Palmer Haley." "...the family,s dream of freedom survived." "Haley." "Alex Haley. I'm a writer." "We call your race ""niggers.""" "I have been called nigger many times and this is the first time I'm being paid for it." "The fulfillment of a dream that lasted 200 years." "You old African!" "I found you!" "Kunta Kinte!" "One family,s triumph is a triumph for us all." "And now, Roots:" "The Next Generations." "People will be contrary and bad and mean." "Giddap." "A Christian woman can just take so much." "That's all I'm saying." "This is a line between flesh and blood that you can abide it or not." "Giddap here." "I've been patient, you hear?" "I've been patient as Job's turkey." "God is my witness." "Come on, mule." "Giddap here!" """Chicken George."" Good name for him." "Because he's just like a old, dirty chicken." "Fretsome, strutting and crowing." "That old man is not gonna cross my threshold with his dirty old rooster and his poached eggs!" "He got to stay somewhere. lt's your turn." "No, it ain't." "I don't care if he stay in a ditch alongside the road." "He's a uppity old man long past his time!" "Now, you shut your mouth, you old Sally." "You hear?" "!" "Come on, Papa." "You gonna be with us a spell." "Don't know if I wants to." "Now, Papa, I gotta be on the train to Memphis." "And I don't want you making no trouble for Irene." "Who's Irene?" "You knows who." "She's my wife." "Oh, that Irene." "Come on, Papa George, let me help you." "Don't need no woman helping me." "Where's my bird?" "Somebody stole my bird!" "No, Papa George." "She said she's gonna put it in the pot!" "I heard what she said!" "She stole my fighting chicken!" "Papa George...." "He's right here, Papa." "Elizabeth, go get that corn-shuck pallet so your grandpa can rest hisself." "Giddap!" "You satisfied keeping the old man?" "That's what we promised your Mama Tildy before she went to Glory." "And he family, ain't he?" "London, England." "That's where l was fighting birds for Sir Eric Russell." "That's the truth." "You hear me, Elizabeth?" "l'm Cynthy, Grandpa." "That's what I said." "Now around all them lords and earls I got the habit of eating my eggs poached." "London, England." "Everybody there eats their eggs poached." "Papa, you ain't gonna make no fuss whiles I's away in Memphis." "What you going for?" "l told you." "Politics." "Mr. Beeman Jones, the most important colored Republican done sent for me to come all the way to Memphis." "Prance around." "Call yourself the Committee for Republicans of Color." "Boy, do you know what the white Republicans call the Committee for Republicans of Color?" "Niggers." "Papa, you never did know nothing except fighting chickens." "Now, Tom, you ain't got no time to be talking about politics." "Now, don't you forget them dry goods from the store in Memphis, and the frogs." "Frogs?" "l told you, frogs." "Them braid fasteners for my black church dress." "Now, Cynthy, I want you to carry your daddy's carpetbag out." "Bye, Papa." "Boy, when the fool-killer come around you and your nigger Republicans sure better hide in the high grass." "ls that the truth, Daddy?" "What?" "All them stories Grandpa George tell about his fighting chickens." "Always won, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times?" "Well, Cynthy, he roamed from London, England to Charleston and places in between." "But I expect that chicken story, just like them fighting cocks a lot of flapping and crowing but when you plucks out all the feathers..." "...ain't much meat to it." "Then they ain't true." "Them tales he tells from the old times, they ain't true?" "About that Kinte and the funny words from Africa and all that?" "Hold on." "Hold on." "Now, that's something else." "Them stories from the far olden times, they's all true." "Papa!" "Coming, Elizabeth." "I recollect, when I was a little boy running around the quarters, shirttail naked my Grandmamma Kizzy used to tell me the selfsame tale about the old African who calls himself Kinte." "I know." "He call the river Kambi Bolongo and the slave catchers cut off his foot." "And just like your Grandpa George told you, my Grandma Kizzy told me." "And it was her daddy was the African himself." "And that make it true." "What you doing with your shoes around your neck?" "You're going to the depot, not the cotton patch." "Your mama would die from mortification." "I'll be staying at Judge Damian's in Memphis." "Any necessary communication can be addressed to me there by telegraph." "James!" "l heard you, Papa." "I wish you'd oblige me, sir, by looking me in the eye when I address you." "I didn't know I was being addressed." "I often wonder what you managed to find to occupy yourself for two years of college without touching a single subject of any practical advantage for gentlemen." "Poetry." "James, I had...." "l have the highest hopes for you to carry on the family tradition." "You have a keen, agile mind." "I'll still entertain the conviction that if you'd read law with a proper advocate..." "...you could be admitted to the bar." "You'll be late for your train." "The train will wait." "James" "Papa, it's no use." "The affairs of the Chesapeake, Ohio and Southwestern will not come down from father to son unless Andy is called to the bar." "Your brother is frequently called to the bar." "In fact, he never passes one by." "Jimmy, I am concerned about you." "A gentleman" "No, I will go further." "A man must at some time of his life reach a point where he says, ""This is my duty." "This I must do to be a man.""" "Colonel, Mrs. Warner is sitting outside in the carriage waiting for you..." "...to take her to the depot." "Yes, Minnie, I'm coming." "What about that gal in the kitchen?" "What gal?" "This teacher for the colored." "Oh, yes, yes." "She wrote a letter." "Bring her in here." "What's the matter?" "You want me to bring that colored gal..." "...right in here?" "Just do what I tell you, Minnie." "I ain't never heard no outside niggers coming in the house before." "Now, I believe, sir, we were discussing your occupation or lack of it." "A gentleman in these modern times can hardly occupy himself writing scripts of light verse for irreverent magazines." "Come in." "Come in." "Minnie, tell Mrs. Warner l'll be right out." "You're the schoolteacher?" "Yes, sir." "Tom Harvey recommends you very highly, young woman." "I'm very grateful to Mr. Harvey for his confidence." "You want to borrow some books." "Well...." "What was your name?" "Barden." "Carrie Barden." "Well, Miss Carrie I'm a great believer in appropriate education for our colored children..." "...and I wish you well in your endeavor." "Thank you, colonel." "By all means, stay and peruse the shelves." "My son will assist you." "Although I'm not sure you'll find volumes simple enough for your usage." "Miss Carrie." "Safe trip, Papa." "Thank you, James." "Lot of books." "I'll wager you never saw so many books in one place." "It is a fine library." "Little harder than the First Primer or McGuffey,s." "Yes, sir. I imagine so." "If you have any trouble with the titles, I'll help you." "That's very kind of you." "Actually, there are a lot of old friends here." "Shakespeare, Paradise Lost Mr. Dickens, Mr. Whittier and Mrs. Browning." "Sonnets from the Portuguese." "You don't need any help, do you?" "I take the offer kindly, sir." "Do you think your father would allow me to borrow this?" "Why do you want that?" "Well, I have a student." "I thought she might find Mrs. Browning most sympathetic." "Well, I'll be damned!" "I mean, that is an amazing notion!" "A colored girl reading Elizabeth Barrett Browning." "It is." "Almost as amazing as her colored teacher borrowing it for her." "l'll come back when your father returns." "You don't have to go." "Hold on." "I'll just go now and...." "You've read Mrs. Browning?" "Yes." "I wasn't supposed to." "They didn't think her poems were suitable for females but all of us at college read them." "Col" "You mean you went to co--?" "Where?" "Fisk." "I was in second graduating class." "That's remarkable." "That is remarkable." "I mean, I don't suppose there are two people in Lauderdale County who have ever read Mrs. Browning's poems, and you're one of them!" "I trust you will accept my formal apology if I've offended you in any way." "Yes." "Yes, sir, if you like." "Please, continue selecting your volumes." "What is it, Minnie?" "When she done, call me and I'll see her out the kitchen." "All right, Minnie." "Do you know Whitman?" "Whitcomb?" "James Whitcomb" "No, no, no." "Whitman." "Walt Whitman." "He's a newspaper editor up north." "The Brooklyn Eagle, I think it is." "He writes poetry. lt's very odd, though." "Odd?" "Nothing spiritual or ideal about it." "It's earthy." "Physical love between a man and a woman...." "l hope I haven't offended you mentioning an indelicate topic before a la" " A female." "I think that's what's so uplifting about poetry. I mean you can think about so many things that would be..." "...most improper if it wasn't a poem." "That's true." "That is very true." "But most people just don't understand that." "l'd better go." "l have a copy of that book in my trunk." "If it ever arrives, I'd be happy to lend it to you." "I wouldn't put you to any bother." "Thank you, Mr. Warner." "Come on, Willy." "We're gonna miss the steam cars being flagged down." "Come on!" "Danny, hand me that catcher!" "Hurry up, son!" "Thank you." "Boys, when I give the signal, you start playing just like we rehearsed it." "Hey, you young'uns!" "Get off that track!" "The train come, you gonna be cut right in half!" "You hear me?" "You get off that track, and you stay off it!" "Are you sure it's safe, Frederick?" "This close to the track?" "Won't the horses bolt?" "Don't worry, my dear." "Jethro will hold their heads." "The train will be stopping in Henning every other day." "We must accept progress." "I'm not sure that a steam engine pouring out smoke is progress." "You are a romantic, my dear." "Andy Warner, you are just crazy in the head." "You're gonna break my neck." "Morning, Papa." "We thought we'd wish you a pleasant and profitable trip." "Andrew." "Where are my manners?" "Papa, may I introduce to you Miss Lucy Damson?" "l've heard of Miss Damson." "Colonel you knew me when I used to run around your place bare-bottom naked." "My daddy was overseer before the war." "Royce Damson." "I did not recognize you clothed." "I take it you're on liquor, sir, or you'd be aware your mother's present." "Mama, may I introduce to you Miss Lucy?" "Andrew, I'm here to bid your father goodbye." "Please don't force me to be unmannerly." "Yeah." "We can watch the trains come in when we get old." "Come on!" "Giddap!" "Folks, I tell you, this is a great day for Henning." "With the first train coming through, this town is gonna grow into a metropolis." "Danny, hand me my flag!" "There's smoke, Papa!" "It's coming!" "It's coming!" "Cynthy, remember you saw the first train to ever stop in Henning." "Papa, you ever ride on the cars before?" "First time." "Here I be a free man in my Sunday clothes with a first-class ticket to ride in my hand." "If you don't mind, Frederick I shall ask Jethro to drive me home before the train comes." "l don't trust the horses." "Of course, my dear." "I wish you a safe and successful journey." "Jethro." "Sir, welcome you to Henning." "It's a glorious day." "Let me help you with that." "Now, you be good and mind your mama, you hear?" "All right, you go on up a ways, uncle." "Excuse me, sir, this here a first-class ticket." "What are you talking about?" "Well, I seen it." "Now, go ahead and get on that car there like I told you." "That the baggage car with the second-class board benches." "This here a first-class ticket." "Now, look here, uncle if you wanna ride these cars, you'll do as I tell you, you hear?" "I don't want you to cause no trouble, you hear?" "I paid me for a first-class ticket." "I got the right to ride where this ticket say, in the first-class carriage." "Let's get going." "Hold your horses!" "I got me a dumb nigger making trouble!" "Now, you listen here if you want to ride this train, you go get on that Jim Crow car like I said." "Law say a man got a right to what he paid for." "The Jim Crow law says" "Perhaps I can be of some assistance." "I don't need no assistance." "Who are you?" "Well, I'm general counsel of the West Tennessee division of this railroad..." "..." "Colonel Frederick Warner." "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't know." "Colonel Warner, of course." "What's going on?" "I told him he had to ride on the baggage car, but-- l paid me for a first-class ticket." "Colored people always ride the first-class coach since the war if they got a first-class ticket." "That the law." "No more, it ain't." "From now on, in the state of Tennessee niggers do not ride in the first-class coach." "And that's the law." "Conductor certainly, for the railroad, let me counsel you." "Mr. Hapgood sold this ticket in good faith to this man." "Clearly, it's a case of race ante legem until due notification of the statute in situ." "You mean I gotta let him ride?" "Well, what about the law?" "My dear fella, only a lower order of white riffraff needs such a law to allay their fears." "Tom and I know who we are." "We understand each other." "Well, what the hell you waiting on?" "Go ahead, get on!" "I don't care if he owns the entire railroad." "The law's the law in the state of Tennessee and that's the last nigger gonna ride first-class on my train, you hear?" "Give me that." "Yes, sir." "Board!" "Bye, Daddy." "Bye!" "Elizabeth!" "That was fine, darling." "You played real fine." "Daddy's proud of you." "Good night, Mr. Harvey, Representative Boyd." "Good night, darling." "Good night, dear." "Please." "Now, gentlemen, the truth of the matter is that the colored voter in Tennessee is facing a major crisis in the forthcoming elections." "Now, I'll be talking to all of the county leaders in turn." "Now, in the last election we delivered the colored vote solid to the Republican Party." "Now, what happened?" "They turned lily white on us." "There were no state jobs for coloreds." "Now, we cannot afford to let them take us for granted." "Mr. Harvey, you rode up on the cars with Colonel Frederick Warner." "Yes." "That was no accident." "You see, Colonel Warner is here to do business with us." "The Democrats want our votes." "Now, if you gentlemen can deliver those votes out there in the counties we got ourselves one sweet little deal." "With the Warners?" "In the old days, they owned more niggers than anybody in the county." "In the Johnson Amnesty they stole back the land from the coloreds." "You telling me I got to vote for them?" "Mr." "Harvey we are not talking about the last judgment where the Lord will separate the sheep from the goats." "We are talking politics." "I ain't never vote nothing but Republican." "I ain't gonna ask my people to vote for no nigger-owning rebel officer." "They want us bad, Mr. Harvey." "They're willing to make a deal." "We give them our support and they will protect the coloreds' civil rights." "They will protect the vote." "As long as we got that, we still got hope." "I be a blacksmith, that's all." "Ain't had no schooling." "Now you tell me I got to vote for them redeemer Democrats I got to believe it." "But something tell me my old daddy had the truth of it." "When the fool-killer come we all better be hiding in the high grass." "I know what you're doing." "You go on and get out of here!" "You're looking in the mirror, trying to see the face of your future husband." "You are out of your head, child." "You see him?" "What he look like?" "Handsome." "Real handsome." "He got brown eyes and he's real tall." "Oh, and, Cynthy, he got the nicest smile you ever want to see." "Can't see that face in no looking glass." "That's the boy I saw you with at the depot." "Hush up." "l seen you holding hands." "You hush up!" "And hugging and kissing." "Cynthy, I'm gonna do you." "l seen you." "That ain't the only thing." "He a white boy." "Not true!" "Not true!" "He ain't no white boy!" "You hear me?" "!" "He is colored!" "He is colored!" "Elizabeth!" "Now y'all just stop that squabbling." "What in the world is a matter with you children?" "Mama, you know what she--?" "Child, you better get in that house..." "...and clean yourself up." "But she-- lf you don't get out of here, child, you better." "Elizabeth?" "What his name?" "Who, Mama?" "Now, child, don't you trifle with me." "I said, who is he?" "Name John Dolan." "Don't know no John Dolan." "From over Ripley way." "I met him when I was help taking care Aunt Lacey Berwin with the pneumonia." "Where did you see him?" "Nowheres." "Except just walking, that's all." "What happened, Elizabeth?" "He mess with you?" "No, Mama!" "Mama, I swear!" "Leastways I knows you ain't pregnant because you finish your time a week ago Tuesday." "Mama, you shouldn't be saying nothing like that." "Why not?" "Child, that's a mama's business." "Keeping track of her daughter's time of month so she don't get in no sinful ways." "Yeah, but, Mama, you ain't got no right to expect nothing like that." "I just love him, that's all." "Mama, what there be wrong about that?" "Nothing." "But we's a respectable and Christian family." "Now, you wants to keep company with the boy, then you do it respectable." "There ain't gonna be running off behind the bushes." "Not in this family." "l know, Mama. I'm not" "You got to ask your papa's permission to keep company." "But, Mama, I loves John. lf l got" "Child, now that's all there is to it." "Now, you ask him when he get back from Memphis." "Now, listen to me, child, because till then you ain't to see nary hide nor hair of that boy." "Not till your papa say yes or no." "Yes, ma'am." "Please, ma'am." "I got to go down to the depot and fetch something for my mama." "And I'm gonna be late if I don't hurry." "All right." "l'll see you Monday, Elizabeth." "Yes, ma'am." "I didn't mean to interfere." "I thought all the children were gone." "Except Elizabeth." "I'm afraid she didn't read it at all." "I thought she'd feel close to Mrs. Browning, but it's a long way from Italy to Tennessee." "l'll get the books for you." "Oh, no. I didn't come for the books." "In fact, quite the contrary." "My trunk finally arrived." "Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman." "I said I'd lend it to you." "I didn't think you'd bring it here, Mr. Warner." "Perhaps when I bring the others back..." "...you'll leave it for me in the kitchen." "l have it now." "There's a poem here somewhere." "It begins:" "When lilacs last in the dooryard bloomed I read it last night, and I was most affected." "It's about Lincoln, when he died." "The star early drooped In the western sky I even started downstairs to the sitting room to just share it with someone." "But I suddenly realized that there's absolutely no one in this town I could talk to about anything like this." "Well, I do understand your feeling, Mr. Warner, but-- l do have one serious misgiving, however." "There is, of course, a profound and obvious difference between us." "There are passages in this book, words and apostrophes to the human anatomy, which might disturb your sensibilities." "You mean because I'm a female?" "That's what you mean?" "Well, it is true that ladies are of a purer nature." "My mama can hardly refer to the nether extremities." "She calls the leg of a table a limb." "I assure you, Mr. Warner, I call a leg a leg whether it's on a table or on myself." "Well, in that case, I'm very glad I didn't excise certain words." "I was gonna cut them out with my razor." "Oh, no!" "You wouldn't cut up a book." "That would be like mutilating a child!" "You're absolutely right, Miss Barden." "You will excuse me, Mr. Warner." "I'm obliged to go across town to bring the lesson to a child stricken with measles." "So I must hurry." "My surrey's right outside." "Allow me to offer you a ride." "l can walk." "Oh, it's no trouble." "In fact, there's something else I wanted to discuss with you." "Some newspaper stories from Georgia." "A fellow named Harris has set down some old darky tales." "They're enchanting." "Mr. Warner, I do appreciate your kindness..." "...but I cannot accept your offer." "Well, why not?" "I would rather walk." "Please, Miss Barden" "And don't follow me down the road calling me ""Miss Barden.""" "I was not thinking of custom." "I simply wish to continue our exchange of views, but I do understand." "Now, I can drive around by Hollis Road." "And that way, no one is likely to remark our passing." "I simply wanted the time to tell you about Mr. Harris' stories." "Mr. Warner, I will ask you not to turn your head to talk to me if anyone's watching." "I appreciate your concern, Miss Barden." "Mr. Joel Chandler Harris from Georgia has written these newspaper stories regarding a delightful, delightful old gentleman named Uncle Remus." "And he tells these darky tales to the young white gentlemen on the plantation." "And they concern the adventures of the most astute critter that you ever heard of." "There's old Brer Fox and Brer Rabbit." "And I don't mind saying that whenever they have an encounter, Brer Rabbit always gets the best of Brer Fox." "That little girl sat up on that piano with her velvet dress and her fancy hair ribbon and she play that buttercup song like" "The good book says, ""Thou shalt not covet.""" "That's all you been doing since you been to Memphis." "Coveting." "Papa, you done missed the point entirely." "Mr. Beeman Jones showed what the colored can make of himself." "My children could have a house like that, with a cast-iron parlor stove instead of an old brick fireplace." "My grandchildren could play that piano." "You gonna lead all the niggers that's in the county to vote Democrat because your head done been turned by some fool buttercup song" "Papa, you just never did know nothing" "Tom!" "I ain't gonna have my cooking spoiled one more time with you and your daddy spatting on about politics." "Now, Papa George, you just keep on eating." "Anyway Elizabeth got something she wanna ask you." "Now, go on, Elizabeth." "Papa I wants to take up." "And I's asking your permission to keep company." "That's a fool thing." "You're too young." "Why Papa, I's 1 8!" "Mama was 1 5 when you was married." "That's before the war." "Different now." "Too young." "Papa, I's a woman grown!" "Don't talk back on me." "You're still a child, just a child." "Tom." "Now, you know she old enough." "And she done the right thing when she asked your permission." "Now you got to do right." "You can't say no without you talk to the boy and there a good reason." "I talks to him next week or the week after if I'm not too busy" "He waiting down the road right now." "Just hold on" "Cynthy, go down to the turn of the road, ask the young man to come in." "Papa, you just gonna admire John." "I know you are." "Some things was better in slavery days." "A man want a woman, he jump over a broom and keep jumping" "And Papa George you going in the back room and go to bed." "You tired." "Come in." "Papa, this here Mr. John Dolan." "Good evening to you, Mr. Harvey." "Come on in, Mr. Dolan." "Thank you, ma'am." "You'll excuse us, won't you?" "Elizabeth." "Elizabeth." "I brought you some pipe tobacco, Mr. Harvey." "It's Virginia burley, factory-packed." "Thank you." "Sit down." "Who your folks?" "Dolans." "We live about five miles past Ripley." "Don't know no Dolans." "Well, we just move up from Nashville two years ago." "Who your mama?" "Winnie Dolan." "She was a baker in a cook shop up to the war." "Your daddy?" "Micah Dolan." "He a carpenter." "Before the emancipation, he hire his own time and run a chair-making shop." "This here Micah Dolan he your natural father?" "Mr. Harvey it was Micah Dolan raised me up and put food on the table and clothes on my back and teached me the trade to be a first-class journeyman cabinetmaker." "If that's what it take to be a father then that's who it was." "Mr. Harvey, I'm asking your permission to take up with your daughter, Elizabeth." "Now, I have a good trade." "I can read and write easy." "I'm a Christian and a member of the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church in Ripley." "I don't drink whiskey-- l thinks on it." "It sure be getting late." "I reckon I'd better be getting on home." "I do thank you, ma'am, for your hospitality." "Papa, can I walk Mr. Dolan to the gate?" "It gonna be fine, honey." "Papa got to say yes." "Ain't no reason he won't say yes." "You gonna be cold tonight." "Oh, I loves you, Johnny." "You know, whatever happens-- -l know." "And you is the only girl I ever gonna love." "You gonna be my wife." "And that's for true." "Now, don't you worry." "It gonna be fine." "Papa say yes." "It gonna be just fine." "Elizabeth?" "Good night." "Good night." "Mama?" "He say he think on it." "It is a beauteous evening Calm and free" "The holy time is quiet as a nun Breathless with adoration" "The broad sun is sinking in its tranquility I don't remember any more." "It's lovely." "What is it?" "I was just thinking what my father would say if he knew I was sitting here reciting Wordsworth like this." "But then, he doesn't approve of much that I do." "What do you want to do?" "I don't know." "At college, I thought I wanted to be a poet or a writer." "But no one seemed to think I was very good at it." "What do you care?" "I mean, what anyone else thinks?" "There's an old Arabian proverb:" """lf one man says you are an ass, pay no attention." "If five men say you are an ass, go out and buy a saddle.""" "No. lf you wanna be a poet, then go ahead and do it." "Don't let anyone tell you you can't." "l'm afraid you don't understand." "Oh, yes, I do." "My mother worked in a wash house all her life." "And that's what I would have done." "But I wanted to go to school and learn things and teach." "And I did." "You are quite remarkable." "So are you." "You have a sensitive soul and a fine, delicate perception of life." "You should stand up to the world." "Stand up to your father." "Follow your feelings." "I know you can do it." "lt is getting late, Mr. Warner, I think" "You're quite right, Miss Barden." "I must apologize for detaining you this long." "Ah, here's an editorial reprinted from the South Carolina paper." """The old slave owner--""" "Papa have you ever considered allowing mama to read the newspaper for herself?" "Oh, no, Jimmy." "Your papa reads the suitable items for me." "I do prefer it that way." "There are things in the vulgar journals today that'd be distasteful to a lady of breeding." "I see no reason why your mother should be exposed to them." "Now:" """The old slave owner feels no social fear of Negro equality." "He feels no desire to maltreat and browbeat and spit upon the colored man." "He doesn't oppose the education and elevation of the black man..." "...to civilized life.""" "Morning, everybody." "You are late for breakfast, Andrew." "I had a late night." "Horehound." "Mama?" "Horehound and wintergreen leaves in a decoction of soda water." "lt sweetens the stomach and the breath." "Thank you, Mama." "What were you doing, Andy?" "Discussing social implications of the recent election with the learned Miss Lucy?" "I thought so." "Avoiding overindulgence and dissolute companions leads to longer life, Andrew." "No, Papa. lt just makes it seem longer." "Coffee, Minnie." "For God's sake, coffee." "We're talking about different ways to treat the colored." "I suppose I cannot expect you to..." "...join in such a philosophical discussion." "Before breakfast?" "Well, I know Jimmy shares your opinion, dear." "I think it's very sweet for you to offer that colored schoolteacher the benefit of your education and advice." "Dora Fawcett said she never knew any gentleman to take such an active interest in the education of those dear little pickaninnies." "Minnie." "Ma'am?" "I want to go over that cold soup with you for Saturday night." "Yes, ma'am." "Hey, Jim. I bet you're offering that nigger schoolteacher the benefit of a lot more than your education." "What do you talk about when you're doing it?" "Philosophy?" "Andrew." "If you're bound to be ribald, lower your voice." "Your mother's in the next room." "Papa, I assure you, there is nothing to be concerned about." "That's fine, James." "I'm sure you'll manage affairs like a gentleman." "There is nothing to manage." "I know, I know. lt's just a phase all young men have to go through." "Your only responsibility is to be discreet." "What Papa means is, keep your darky a dark secret." "I would agree roughly with Miss Ellen Terry on the subject." "Do what you want, just don't do it in the street and frighten the horses." "Oh, did you say something witty?" "I'm afraid, my dear, it was not entirely suitable for ladies." "Papa?" "Papa, l" "Papa, it's been two days." "You got to tell me something." "I said I'd think on it." "Nine o'clock." "Going to bed." "Papa, you gonna tell me now." "You got to give your answer." "Taking up with a man walking with him from church and all that, means marrying." "l know, Papa." "John says" "That's why I ain't gonna give my permission." "You ain't gonna be marrying with that man." "Why, Papa?" "Why?" "Papa, John a good man." "He's steady." "He got him a good trade." "Papa, he saving to have his own cabinet-repair shop just the way you got the blacksmithing." "Oh, Papa, you just can't say no!" "Papa, you gotta say why!" "I said my word and that's it." "No." "You have got to give me a reason, Papa!" "You got a reason, Tom then you tell it to your daughter." "That Micah Dolan maybe raised that boy but more than likely, he never fathered him." "That boy almost white." "There's a little nigger around the mouth but alongside of that, he could pass for white most anywhere." "I ain't gonna have my daughter married to nobody looks so white." "Too white for black, too nigger for white." "Never belong nowhere." "John Dolan nigger enough to be born a slave, Tom, same as you." "l said my word." "What's the matter?" "You ain't making no kind of sense at all." "Ain't nobody remembered the way it was no more!" "We was stock on the master's place." "Like the cows and hogs." "The light-skinned niggers was the favored ones." "Work in the house with a broadcloth coat for the butler and a silk hat for the coachman." "The yellower they was, the more they prized that coat, that hat." "They lie for it." "They carry tales to the overseer against their own people." "They lord it over all over the quarters because they whiter, they righter." """Out of my way, blacker than me.""" "Tom, them days was long time ago." "That boy was running in his shirttail when freedom come." "I don't understand!" "Papa, you just can't say me no!" "Papa, please!" "l said my word." "I say no and that's all there is." "Because I'm the father of this here family." "Now, I done hung the switch over the door." "And ain't nobody gainsay me before my own family." "Papa!" "Papa!" "How you do this--?" "l hung the switch." "I ain't care if you hang the overseer's old bullwhip on the door." "I gotta speak for my children." "I know it don't sound, but I can't do no different." "That boy walked through the door with the lamplight shining on his face like the belly of a dead fish in a pond." "It come before me." "Since I remembers I seen that face on the old massas in Alamance County, on the patrollers before the war on the Night Riders, the Kluxers after, that train conductor." "That the face of mine enemy." "That's all I know." "Oh, Tom, honey, honey." "You got everything mixed up in your head like a magpie nest." "Old George Johnson from the old days, he saved your life." "He was your best friend up till the time he went west and he was white." "Ain't got nothing to do with Old George Johnson." "Marrying is different." "Now, you listen to me, Tom Harvey." "I done heard the stories in your family from the time I marry up with you." "Your grandma Kizzy was raped by the massa Tom Moore." "Your daddy, Chicken George, is half white." "You one-quarter white." "Don't try me, Irene." "You look your daddy's face, you see the face of your enemy?" "You look yourself in the looking glass, you looking at your own enemy?" "I hates the white blood in me." "I hates them niggers preening on their yellow color like it a sign." "Well, it a sign." "Before God, it a sign of slavery of the black man chained and beat down so he can't protect his own womenfolk." "Woman, stay out my head!" "Now, I said my word." "She my daughter, and I will not see her married to that man." "They tied you to a tree and they lashed you till you almost died." "But I tell you, Tom Harvey all the scarring from slavery days ain't on your back." "It on your soul." "Elizabeth!" "Listen to me." "John." "l got wonderful news." "Don't say nothing, not yet." "This gonna make it all fine." "You come by tomorrow and we get married next day..." "...by Reverend Calper at the C.M.E. Chur-- -l can't go." "What you talking about?" "I told you." "Papa won't let me take up." "I can't go with you." "That's crazy." "Why not?" "I don't know. I just can't." "I can't go against Papa." "Now, we loves each other, don't we?" "And I gots a chance to have a first-class cabinet shop in Knoxville." "Your papa can't tell you you don't love me." "I do. I do love you, John." "But my papa he the head of the family, and I can't go against the family." "I loves you, Elizabeth." "I'm going to Knoxville, Elizabeth." "I ain't be coming back." "So you come with me now." "Don't look back." "You just walk away with me now." "John." "Johnny!" "It's your mama's word to give you this time." "You come inside now, child." "You'll understand, by and by." "He gone." "He just be gone in the night." "I done it for you, Elizabeth." "You ruined my life, Papa." "l done it because you're my little girl." "If I can't marry John I ain't never gonna marry nobody." "Liz?" "You all right this morning?" "Heard you crying most of the night." "Liz, I swear to you unless Papa change his mind, I won't never marry nobody neither." "I'll always stay with you, forever." "What you fretting for, child?" "Oh, Grandpa George, I'm gonna die." "l'm just gonna die." "Of course you are, child." "In the Lord's good time, everybody's gonna die." "Except me." "Or you, Elizabeth." "Elizabeth?" "I know." "I heard." "How could Papa do that?" "How could he be so mean and...?" "Grandpa George, couldn't you talk to him?" "See, child, some things about being a papa I rightly don't know." "All these years, when the children was young and a papa be needed, I wasn't there." "But your Papa Tom, he was there at the beginning." "But he being cruel." "It look like it to you, maybe to me." "But everything go by its nature." "It's the nature of the gamecock to fight for a young gal to be in love." "Your Papa Tom he gotta go by his nature." "Child ain't nothing I can do about nothing." "But I do love you." "I do." "Indeed I do." "I ain't say no more." "Except sauce for the goose ain't sauce for the gander." "What do that mean?" "Nothing." "Woman, what you talking about gooses and ganders for?" "You gonna forbid Elizabeth to take up with the boy on account of he looks white." "But you don't say nothing about a colored woman and a real, before-God white man." "What are you talking about?" "What colored woman?" "And what that gotta do with me?" "Nothing, excepting you bring her to town." "You go around talking about how high-toned and educated she is and all." "You talking about Miss Carrie." "Miss Carrie Barden?" "You out your head." "Miss Carrie a bona fide graduate of Fisk College." "That may be, but she still squat behind two shoes." "I, young in life" "By seeming cruel fate was snatched From Afric,s fancied happy seat" "What pangs excruciating must molest" "What sorrows labor In my parent,s breast" "Steeled was the soul and by No misery moved" "That from a father seized His babe beloved" "Such, such my case" "And can I then but pray Others may never feel tyrranic sway?" "She was a slave." "Phillis Wheatley." "Born 1 753." "I don't wanna read any more poetry now." "Mr." "Warner" "We got to talk." "I just can't take any more of it." "My God, the way my own brother thinks." "The way he talks." "The grins and the jokes." "Let's go on with" "No!" "I don't care, I just gotta come out with it." "Miss Barden?" "Carrie?" "I care for you." "Oh, why can't I just say it right out?" "I love you." "How could you?" "!" "I said, I love you." "It was all right the way it was, but you had to tarnish it all." "You don't understand." "Oh, yes, I do." "I thought we could meet on a spiritual plane. lt was so lovely." "The books and the poems and the high ideals." "But that wasn't the truth, was it?" "Oh, I know they've been talking, the sisters in the choir at church." """That high-and-mighty schoolteacher let that white man mess around with her.""" "Carrie, stop it." "They're right." "You are the white man." "And any colored gal is yours to take." "For God's sake, Carrie" "What difference does it make?" "Going to school, studying reading Horace Mann on education Emerson on self-reliance Elizabeth Barrett Browning." "Because after all, what am I?" "Just a little nigger gal you can take any time you wants to." "Do you understand what I'm telling you?" "I love you, I wanna marry you!" "No!" "Carrie!" "Carrie!" "Listen to me." "Listen to me." "You're crazy." "Color has nothing to do with us." "I said I love you, and you're gonna marry me." "You understand me, Miss Carrie Barden?" "I love you, and I'm gonna marry you!" "And I don't give a damn what the whole world thinks!" "What's the matter, little brother?" "You got your dauber down, for sure." "It appears to me that little sonny Jim isn't getting it regular anymore." "Well, you've come to the right place for expert advice." "Now, based on my experience, which I don't mind telling you, is considerable with every color from a nice café au lait all the way down to a blue-gum pitch-black, what you ought to do is send up to Memphis and buy that gal a red dress." "That's the ticket." "A red dress and beads, it is infallible." "There isn't a nigger gal anywhere won't put out for a red dress." "Will you shut up, Andy?" "You got to look at it scientifically." "Niggers are closer to nature." "White girls are more sensitive and delicate." "That's in their nature." "Niggers are lower on the scale of evolution." "They're closer to the monkeys." "They're more elemental, which is to say they just plain like to get it any way they can." "They can't help it, that's just the way they are." "lt's different with this lady." "What lady?" "Oh, yeah, the nigger schoolteacher." "I bet it is different with her." "It is. I've asked her to marry me." "That won't work as good as a red dress and beads." "l'm serious, Andy." "Yeah, sure you are." "I've already asked her, and I mean to marry her." "You're crazy." "You don't mean that." "I do." "You can't." "My God, you'll kill Mama." "Pa'll throw you right out of the house." "You won't have a cent." "I'm afraid that wouldn't bother me as much as it would you." "You're seriously contemplating marrying a-- l can't even say it." "Marrying a nigger?" "No, look here, Jim." "No white man sinks that low." "You'll wake up every day with nigger hair in your face." "What are you talking about?" "You've slept with them." "I am not dumb enough to marry one of them!" "Well, I am, if the lady will have me." "lf she'll have you?" "I'll tell you-- l'll tell you what, I'll show you." "I'll send to Memphis for that dress, and I'll bet you that nigger schoolteacher will lie down for me like the two-bit whore she is!" "Andrew, where is your decency?" "That will be all." "Do you hear me?" "Let me tell you something." "Before I let you marry your nigger whore, I'll kill you!" "Stop." "You will oblige me by going to your room and cleaning yourself before your mother chances to see you in this distressing condition." "I will not discuss with you the appalling spectacle of brothers in a common brawl." "Discuss it, Papa." "You heard what Andy said. lt's true." "I want you to understand, James, I'm a worldly man but certain codes of decency must be followed." "Proper respect for public opinion." "Listen" "The presence of colored women is a necessity, I'll concede." "They relieve the urgency of white men without distressing their ladies." "Therefore, if you wish to set this girl up somewhere discreetly I will arrange to increase your drawing account to cover the expenses." "Papa, you're not hearing me." "I'm going to marry Miss Barden." "I made you a handsome offer." "I expect you" "My God, Papa!" "You are a hypocrite in a whited sepulcher!" "l will not discuss unthinkable- l could keep her in niggertown as a concubine. I would have your blessing for discreet fornication." "Nobody'd give a damn, would they?" "Papa, you brought me to church and you taught me the Commandments." "I aim to marry her in the name of Jesus Christ and in the sight of God Almighty!" "What happened to Andrew?" "Nothing, dear, an accident." "I am afraid, my dear, this matter is not suited to a lady's sensibilities." "l must ask you" "Don't be a fool." "Do you think I'm deaf and blind?" "The three of you roaring ""nigger whore"" through the house?" "I'm not stupid, Frederick." "I've known about men and their Negresses since I was a little girl." "My father, my brothers. I know that Andrew does not confine himself to that white slut he parades around town." "You, Frederick, when you were younger, were not so fastidious." "It's not the same, Mama." "I mean to marry this lady." "Oh, no." "White men marry white women and hold them in such high esteem they set them under glass jars on the parlor table to collect dust." "I shall need witch hazel and court plaster." "Proud of your morning's work?" "March all them poor, poor niggers down to the election to vote for them Democrats." "I done explained to you, Daddy the way we vote this morning was between the lesser of two evils." "That's what I said." "Two things gonna ruin the colored man:" "The boll weevils and the lesser of two evils." "Now, what I say" "Gotta take this to the forge." "Damn, damn." "Damn it!" "Damn it!" "Papa George, now you just calm yourself." "Now, I ask you, how come, just when I'm going make him holler ""enough"" in the argument, that's when he walks right out the room?" "Sister Irene, may I speak with you for a little?" "Sure can, child." "We're just going on out to the back yard." "Elizabeth, come on and sit with your grandpa." "Walk right out." "Walk right out on me." "Damn it, damn, damn." "Sister Irene, I'm so frightened." "I had to speak with somebody." "You didn't miss your time, did you, honey?" "That what it is?" "What do you--?" "No." "No, that isn't it." "Well, praise the Lord who looks after the righteous." "I know." "Everybody in town thinks I've been sleeping with Mr. Warner." "You thought so." "Didn't you?" "Well now, honey, I didn't think nothing because it just wasn't none of my business." "He asked me to marry him." "Mr. Jim Warner, Colonel Warner's boy?" "What'd you say?" "Nothing. I just ran away." "I mean, it's not possible." "You can't even think a thing like that." "I never heard anything like that, never." "Then what you feared of?" "I can't sleep." "I'm afraid to sleep." "You've been dreaming." "I don't remember the dreams after." "But I wake up, and I'm shivering and afraid." "My mama raised me to be a Christian." "She said, ""Carrie, you ain't gonna be no nigger." "And don't you let no man, white nor colored make no nigger whore out of you.""" "But there's something inside of me that's laughing at me that wants me to be bad and dirty and sinful." "l'm afraid of it." "Oh, honey, honey." "What am I gonna do?" "Oh, child." "Oh, my God." "What am I gonna do?" "Well look like to me the question be is you feared of this white man because he white or because he a man." "lt must be because he's white." "Maybe, and maybe more." "But let me tell you something because you's just a little bitty baby in slavery days and I was a growed woman." "The only comfort for us in them days that was man and woman loving each other and taking care of each other the best they could under the circumstance." "And childrens now, ain't nothing bad, nor dirty, nor sinful about that." "The yearning of a man for his woman and a woman for her man child, that's God's doings." "Because when you're growed up past a little girl when your breasts come and your flow start and all that what makes you a woman God, he done that because that be his plan." "Not just to multiply and replenish, like it say but for the joy of it, child." "For the joy of it." "Sister Irene you're the only folks I've got left, you and Mr. Tom." "What am I gonna do?" "First you close your eyes, and you look ln your heart." "And you ask yourself, ""Do I love this man, and do he love me?""" "Oh, Lord." "Mama!" "Mama!" "Oh, Lord!" "Mama, he just fell off in the fire." "Oh, no, Papa George." "Papa George!" "Papa George." "Oh, Papa." "He don't be feeling nothing, despite the burns." "Praise be to Jesus." "Tildy?" "Where my Tildy?" "She gone to Glory, Papa." "That woman never around when you needs her." "Papa, you just rest yourself." "Papa you hear me?" "Me, it's Tom." "Well, I know that. I ain't simple." "He just fell in the fire." "Ain't your fault, child." "You did all you could." "Ain't nobody's fault." "It's just time." "Papa, what you laughing at?" "What the joke?" "Lord God Jesus this here George Moore." "Welcome him to the bosom of Abraham where he gonna be with his Matilda who was my mama and with his mama, who was named Kizzy and with her daddy, the old African whose name was Kunta Kinte." "He was the head of this family." "No." "Wipe your feet there on the mat." "Ain't gonna have no mud tracked in on my carpet." "This way." "Come in." "Blacksmith here." "Come in, Tom." "Come in." "Sit down." "All right, Minnie." "Tom, you will be pleased to learn we have made a clear victory in this election." "Thanks to your leadership and the support of the Negro voters." "I pledge my continued effort to advance the cause of colored men in this part of the state." "However, it does appear that you and I, Tom have a problem on our hands." "Now, I admit I was dubious when you brought this teacher in." "I do not entirely approve of radical Negro schools such as Fisk." "But I acquiesced, indeed I encouraged her by lending her books." "You raising some grievance against Miss Carrie Barden, colonel?" "She's obviously not a fit person for the job." "We figured she doing all right." "Tom, I'll put it to you because you're the one who brought her here." "How can we best remove this woman from the school and the town and the county as well?" "The alternative would be most tragic." "Most tragic." "For the well-being of our Negroes, I'd recommend to the county board they padlock the door and close the school down." "is that what you has to say to me, colonel?" "Tom, you and I understand each other." "We have worked side by side in our election victory." "Let us meet this difficulty in equal harmony." "I thinks on it." "Of course, I would not press you, Tom." "I will not expect your answer until tomorrow." "He can't just close down our school." "He can and he will." "He say Miss Carrie ain't a fit teacher?" "That's a lie, and we can prove it." "That ain't got nothing to do with it at all, and you knows it." "Fool." "Why'd he have to go around saying he gonna marry her for?" "Oh, is that what sticking in your craw, marrying?" "If he just lay with her and leave her with a big belly and no name for the child, that'd be all right?" "The point is that woman was my responsibility." "I brung her here." "I talks big how we need a graduate from that Fisk University." "It was my pride." "And my pride been brung low." "Why can't she behave herself?" "Why she let that white boy go sniffing around her skirts for?" "You like that Colonel Warner, blaming it all on Miss Carrie like she's some Beale Street woman from Memphis." "How come he don't say nothing about his own son nosing around a decent Christian woman like a randy goat?" "Because that's his son, and he white." "Papa, is you gonna turn Miss Carrie out the school and drive her out of town?" "Now, you go on, girl." "This ain't none of your concern." "So you gonna make the judgment, like the massa in the slave time?" "Child, don't you say nothing." "That's your father." "I know." "And he had the say over me but you ain't the father over Miss Carrie Barden." "Elizabeth." "You ruined my life, Papa." "You gonna do the same thing to Miss Carrie?" "Tom, she ain't herself." "It's the melancholy." "She don't mean nothing." "Now, Elizabeth, that school gotta keep on." "Meaning, sorry as it is it's the only way black folk gonna break out and climb." "That school gotta keep on." "So you gonna do what the white man tell you?" "You gonna knuckle under, Papa?" "Now, Elizabeth, you hush." "The colonel tell you to jump and what you do, Papa?" "You jump." "Jump." "Jump, Jim Crow." "Elizabeth." "Elizabeth, stop that!" "Stop that!" "Elizabeth." "Now, that's enough!" "Don't you touch this child." "I knows you's a mighty man, Papa." "I heard your old stories from Grandpa George about the African." "You forgot about him, Papa?" "Kunta Kinte that was his name." "He die a slave, Papa, and you be free." "What you done with that freedom, Papa?" "You gonna jump, Papa?" "You gonna jump, Jim Crow?" "Colonel Warner I done come with the answer about Miss Carrie Barden and the school." "This how it be." "We ain't gonna turn Miss Carrie Barden out the school." "Put the padlock on the door take away the county money we set the school up in my house or the blacksmith forge or the field." "That school belong to us." "And we gonna have the teacher we wants." "The school gonna go on." "Tom." "From my son." "I found it this morning on my shaving stand." "He went to Memphis last night with that Negress." "By this time they have been married." "Tom, I understand you had no part in this." "I consider you a good, decent kind of colored man who knows what's right and who your friends are." "Well, colonel, I is sure learning." "You and I both understand this is wrong but they say that in every evil there is a compensating good." "They're gone, and at least we're shut of that woman at the school." "Then I best go, colonel." "We gonna have a lot of hunting before we find us another teacher with the quality of Miss Carrie" "Mrs. Warner." "Andy!" "l'm coming up there, Andy." "Andy, if you pop me out of my clothes" "Earl, I'm occupied with a lady." "You can squeeze them Damson plums any time." "This is something." "You want a drink, Earl?" "Damson plums." "Reed Golightly just rode into town." "Your brother's coming back." "He said he seen him on the Ripley road with his nigger woman sitting right beside him." "Well, as the fellow said, ""Am I my brother's keeper?""" "He's got his nerve." "He's gonna drive that slut right up Main Street in front of decent white women." "You remembers what we talked about last night, don't you?" "About what we all gonna do if he brung her back here, because the boys is ready." "They're getting a bit edgy because he is your brother." "They just want to know what you gonna do." "I'm gonna finish this bottle." "Then I'm gonna make me some Damson plum jam." "What about your brother?" "I have no brother." "Whatever the boys feel they have to do it don't matter to me one way or the other." "Hey, boys." "Hey, Jesse." "Get on over here." "All right, Jim Warner is coming back with his nigger bride." "Hey, darky if you like white men so much how about a real one?" "Jim!" "Luther." "Mr." "Jim, colonel asks you up to the house." "He say I stay here and take care of your buggy for you." "Thank you, Luther." "Good afternoon, Papa." "I assume you have carried out the act threatened in your letter." "We were married by Judge Braithwaite." "You remember" "The legal aspects of the liaison can be annulled on several grounds, such as" "Papa." "Papa, look at me." "Papa, it isn't a liaison, you understand?" "Carrie and I are married." "She is my wife. I won't allow any annulment or anything of the kind." "You got to face it, Papa." "I love her." "I...." "l'm obliged to say you are no longer my son." "I have reviewed the deeds to the family properties and revised my last will and testament." "All these instruments will be amended to efface you from the family." "I assumed that, sir." "I know that I have no right to ask anything from you." "But look at them." "Earl Crowther and those men that used to ride with Bedford Forrest and the Klan, they're just waiting there." "The only thing that's holding them back is that you're here." "They're afraid of you." "I need your protection for me and for my wife." "Papa, that's all I'm asking from you." "I will make it clear that no one in this town is to physically harm either you or the woman." "But all white men will merely treat you as if you were black." "As far as I'm concerned, the mark is on you." "You are a nigger." "We're happy to have you with us, Mr. Warner." "Thank you." "Thank you very much." "We's all glad you came back to the school, Sister Carrie." "Oh, yes." "Mr. Jim." "Thank you, ma'am. I do appreciate it." "Yes, sir." "Welcome to the community." "Thank you very much, sir. I appreciate that." "Meet some folks." "How do you do?" "Papa, I wants to go to Memphis to school." "I want to be a teacher." "That's far away." "Memphis?" "I's asking your permission out of respect, Papa but that what I bound to do." "And that what you do." "Goodbye, Daddy." "Next on Roots:" """l feel we have kept company long enough for me to propose to you that we discuss the contract of marriage." "Sincerely, W.E. Palmer.""" "I will, with a suitable show of modesty, allow you to place my name in nomination on your slate." "Good." "Against your own pa." "I don't need you." "I can make my own contacts." "Papa?" "Will got something he want to talk to you about." "Dearly beloved, we are gathered here tonight-- l'm going to make a success out of this business." "That's my way of winning this here fight." "I means on making do." "And I means on going straight forward." "This here our grandchild." "This family gonna go forward." "This family gonna go forward."