The wonderful world of law and order speech by Ossie Davis

Let's begin by describing introducing myself and how it comes about that I stand before you at a literary conference coming perhaps as a stranger and maybe my credentials are not above suspicion. I began yesterday by saying that if you say that I am a writer I will reply. I am an actor and if you accuse me of being an actor I will say no I am a writer. If you say that I am a negro I will escape by saying Of course not I am an American. But if you accuse me of being an American I will then dodge behind the fact that I am a Negro. Now this kind of duplicity this kind of double sided ness to my character and personality is not unusual we all know about it. We are faced with it as a part of the negro characteristics as a part of the characteristics that Americans are confronted with this question of identity who am I who am I not. WHAT DO I DO WHAT DO I don't. All of these things face us as individuals as groups as classes and certain as people involved in literature.

Which maybe that in itself will search for identity in our times. I can understand that though I begin in a facetious tone. I may have a serious substratum to the jokes and I'm going to rattle off at you in a few moments. I have chosen a subject. The wonderful world of law and order. And because I think it's one in which I can combine perhaps my concern with literature with my concern with social action in the streets and I am fortunate enough or unfortunate enough to see no difference whatsoever between the one and the other. I can appreciate and enjoy fully the literary tradition of us out of which the writers we have discussed have grown and I respect and admire and enjoy their works and I too have opinions I have formed critical judgments as an individual and as an artist about what I consider to be their respective merits.

However though I consider myself primarily a literary man I'm also an entertainer. So once again if you say that I am a literary figure I will say I mean this to Tina. If you say that I am going to tain I will said no I am a clown. Now I have a reason for telling you this and this particular reason is the basis for my whole philosophy and will lead into our discussion. One of the functions of literature as I know it is to enlighten the activities of a group of people whose interest is that lies at the heart of the writer himself. Now I have chosen in my writings to address myself primarily to the people who could not come to such a conference of men to even understand what such a conference was all about. I mean the people who are still left in the ghettos are still left on the streets still down in the cotton patch and whose literary experiences are nil because of circumstances.

But does this mean that the riches of literature are to be denied this great class of Americans white and black. I think not I think you would agree that the joys and the wealth of our culture belong indiscriminately to all. But I would like to go a step further and deliberately aim my message in my missiles at the involvement of that lowest strata in our culture and in our economy. The Negro people I would like if possible in a kind of hit and run fashion to carry my revolutionary message to them in a language which I think they can immediately perceive without at the same time being patronising while choosing to speak down at them from the heights of literary eminence. By that I mean I intend to use all of the elements of popular folk culture to try and weld them into an instrument of communication. Because in addition to being expression the expression of what a person

is the expression of what his personality is and what his point of view is. Literature is also communication and what I mean by that I mean more fully. It is not enough in my point of view merely to expose myself and all of the truth or the wonder of the or I feel that being a person upon the face of the earth I have in addition to communicate that feeling to others no. But even to communicate is not the end result as far as I'm concerned. I have deliberately set out to communicate in order to elevate. Now I must take an exaggerated point of view and exaggerated measure of my own importance to think that I have something which when communicated to a large mass of people can elevate them. But without that egotism without that divine right to inform and correct and educate. I think no artist ever gets off the ground. Now we have spoken about writers negro writers and we

necessarily had to deal with the kinds of writings they wrote and the situations out of which the kinds of writings they wrote group. The Negro in this country has to write protest because he is a Protestant he can't help but be he cannot accept a situation in which he finds himself. So therefore he is driven willingly to scream out against the oppression which surrounds him and defines him. Coffins cribs and cabins him so that what we write will be in the nature of protest. The protest has been and still is and must be LOUD bisa haranguing. It must irritate it must shake it must to stoop. It must move at the very bowels of compassion and must be angry. It must be aimed at corrective action not. But those are not the limits of protests. And I have chosen to approach the whole problem from another direction. I say that we can protest about an unjust situation on an intellectual level

by saying that in addition to being unjust the situation is also ridiculous and that we can show that it is ridiculous and therefore laughable and therefore not worthy of the behavior of educated cultural culturally advanced human beings such as must be the kind of people who inhabit America on this day. White and black. So I have chosen to make my protest in the form of pointing out the ridiculous institution which brings us to a critical point in our cultural and economic and political and social history in our country today. And I think that such a protest is valid. The theater as you know has long been giving given to pointing the finger really queue at that which it found ridiculous. Now I can imagine no other institution more ridiculous on the face of the earth and the institution of segregation. And though in its manifestation it is cruel though it is capable of committing murder and destroying me physically and oppressing me physically and brutally emasculating me. Still there is the possibility that I can maintain enough of

my own balance and sense of you to say in addition to being oppressive and fascistic and in addition to killing me you are also behaving very ridiculously. Because sometimes the man who will not respond to the reality of your argument is can accept it. If you put it in another light altogether and I happen to believe that one of the traditions by which my people has been unable to survive in the oppressive atmosphere of the American culture. It has been the tradition of corrective and educational humor. Now we told jokes one to another but we weren't telling jokes for the sake of getting off fast quips and gags that stream of humor had to carry our sense of self. Our sense of history our hope of the future our religious concern about man's relationship to man. It had to point us to the future and tell us to wait. Bide your time. The day is coming when you can stand up and be a man. Now uma the folk Hilma of the Negro people is not the only way in which

the Negro chose to stand up and assert his manhood. Those of us who were gifted enough to play trumpets and beat drums in New Orleans and other places of oppression could stand up and with our horns declare our manhood and we couldn't say it in English language that I too am a man. Because that would get you killed. But there was a chance when you had a horn at your lips and you could communicate fully as long as you didn't do it in intelligible English. The fact of your manhood. This is the nature of jazz so far as I understand. No. But I am dealing in terms of humor. And I'm dealing in terms of humor and I hope it's what a socially responsible sense I would like to give back to the Negro people the human which they themselves created to give it back in the form which they created and to let it begin once again to serve the function for which it was originally created. I used yesterday in illustration and I think I sort of enjoyed hearing myself use it so with your indulgence I'll use it again today.

There is a man who has become synonymous with some of the aspects of our tribal name. Stepin Fetchit. Now we know that Stepin Fetchit made a living he made as a rich man by caricaturing certain ideas about Negro people which we know not to be true but which certain people wanted to believe. And this idea was that all negroes were lazy and they drawl in the game do Lampoon know who this man was not intellectually very bright. And he became a good stereotypical expression of what was wrong with the negro. And why they live in ghettos and why they'll never make it because they just haven't got it all shiftless. They're all lazy and they never think for themselves they must wait for someone to do something for them. Now on this basis we rightly protested. The use of Mr Stepin Fetchit and his character and his talents to demean the whole Negro race because we realized that the community above us was reading from his behavior. Certain things which we knew to be incorrect and using

his behavior to justify the continued oppression and which we found ourselves. But let's look a little deeper into what originally was the meaning behind Stepin Fetchit lazy character. I think I remember those of you have a long memory. Remember the short while ago we were slaves in this country and. We were required to work from sunup to sundown. There was no time off no coffee breaks none of the no social security none of the benefits that we have lately acquired. This was straight devotion to labor even above and beyond the devotion required of them you and. Me were required for the benefit of the masses to work themselves literally to death. Now you could if you were an honest man if you had no no way to escape literally worked yourself to death because it was cheaper to work a slave to death and get the work out of it and buy a replacement than to keep the one that you had working as a going concern. Now a slave like Stepin Fetchit who was a smart man who understood the ways and

mores of the white folks would suddenly discover that he was very dumb and unintelligent and when the master would send him to get a rope he would come back with a hold. And he said I'm to get I'm you. He come back with maybe a plow. Until finally the slave owner would get the idea that this this man was so dumb and so inefficient and so shiftless that nothing could be done but the sitting under a tree. Now you might ask. Now why. Why didn't the man take Stepin Fetchit and sell him a beating or get rid of it. Because subconsciously he identified and reinforced the slave owners prejudices against the possibility of negroes being responsible fought for any fission people. So the suit two purposes he saved himself by being too dumb to do the work that the Muse and the other slaves were doing. And therefore he survived. And he also gave the Overlords the satisfaction of believing that all negroes were somewhat this way now. Therefore what I'm talking about is the use of a stereotype

by whites or by whomsoever after it has been disinvited and the protests content have been disgusted. Now most of the stereotypes we know about Negroes were invented by Negroes for the purposes of social correction. We do this all the time. It is a way in which a society will control its members it will criticize its leaders. It will state its aims through stereotypes jokes and humor but I want you my has been taken emptied of its bitter protest content and has been used against us. And this is sort of lead us sometimes to rebel against our own human and pretty victorious I have tried to restore the protests content of the negro's human now but to get to my most my more immediate topic the wonderful world of law and order. I would like to read with your indulgence a scene from Pearl of the Tories which will give you a chance to see me as an entertainer as an actor and I will escape your condemnation and censure as a

writer by being brilliant as a performer. Thank you. I have long I have learned how to survive in many ways in many areas. But I want to read this but I want you to keep in mind that I have more at stake than merely being amusing and entertaining or charming. I have something that I'm trying to say about the world of law and order by this particular scene which I hope you will indulge me in reading to you now. It is the second scene and it deals. It is the commissary scene a commissary is a place on the cotton patch where the man who owns the cotton patch sells food and seed and goods to the people who work the cotton patch for him. Now he sells them at such an exorbitant price that no matter how hard you work on the farm youll never be able to pay the bill and until you can pay the bill you can't leave. Therefore he has an arrangement which insures him a permanent supply of cheap labor

and his instrument of control is the company's store. The Commissary now our hero is old Captain Concha P. who represents the old unreconstructed South who has a benevolent attitude towards his people as you will understand but he has a son young Charley Cox AP who is our hope of the white liberal community in the south and in the north and I think he will recognize some of his great possibilities and his great limitations in the character as we see him. Now. Charlie Kutcher Pete has been brought up subversively by the negro woman who runs the house. She has taught child Akatsuki irreverence of Abraham Lincoln. Well this right away throws him into a tremendous disturbance because he has been taught the values of freedom and dignity. I worry and he has to live in the south where these values are denied. So right away our young liberal is in hot water and we get him off the ground he's in hot water now into the scene will come. The greatest stereotype of them all.

Uncle Tom. I call him get low because the question arises how low can you get get low. Now what we have first will recognize. Get low as a man who is really a masterful Uncle Tom. But as the scene goes along I think we will understand a little bit more of what get low is really all about. So now if you're prepared to go along with me I'd like to read for you this brief scene. Not intitled in the book The World of law and order but it basically is the world in the one world of law and order. It will be taken. From pretty picture was written by you. Well it's. Pretty victorious or a non Confederate romp through the cotton patch. This we are now in the little business office off from the commissary where all the inhabitants of cace Valley buy food clothing and supplies in the back of travel has been drawn that's a curtain for the benefit of those who are not theatrically

inclined. Let's get down to the AT rise of curtain a young white man 25 to 30 but still gawky awkward an adolescent in outlook and behavior is sitting on a high stool down stage right center. His face is held in the hands of Idella a negro cook and woman of all work who has been in the family since time immemorial. She's the only mother Charley who is very much oversized even though his age has ever known. I Del is as little as she is old and as tough as she is tiny and is busily applying medication to Charlie's blackeye. The scene begins as follows Tyler says I'll Idella I'll I'll and I will says Hold still boy he says but it hurts Idella because I know it hurts. Whoever done this to you must admit the knock your natural brains out. And challenge as I already told you who done it to me. Lol and I Della says try to cut your PC if you don't hold still let me put this hot post on you I you better. First to milk and then the breakfast. Then the dishes. Then the washing then the scrubbing then the lunchtime.

Next the dishes then the ironing and now just where the plucking and picking for supper ought to be. You. Said you didn't tell pole. I never says Of course I didn't but the sheriff did try to leap straight up the share. I did I says. Him and the deputy come to the house less than an hour ago. I like to remind you that the sheriff and the deputy are representative of law and order. Charlie says are they coming over here and I says of course they're coming over here sooner or later. And Charlie said but what would I do Idella what would I say. Nigella says to him quoting he that keep his mouth keep it his life childhood did they ask for me. I did as of course they ask for you. What did they say. I don't I said what I couldn't hear too well. Your father took them into the study and locked the door behind them. And Charlie says well maybe it was about something else. I don't says it was about you. That much I could hear. Charlie she says

Do you want to get us both killed. China says I'm sorry but an ideal overrides and by completing the proverb he that open it wide his lips shall have destruction. Now here's a situation where the negro is telling the white liberal. You talk too much you don't get me in trouble. You know you're opening wide your mouth. Cool easy. We got to work this thing out together. Now China says. But it was you who said it was the law of the land. I don't because I know I did. China says it was you who said it's got to be obeyed. I didn't know it was me so I was it was you who said everybody has to stand up and take a stand and I don't as I know it was meant dammit but I didn't say stand up and take a stand in the bar room. Donna says Ben started it not me. And you always said never to take a loan from the likes of him. I thought his not so loud. They may be out there in the commissary she goes and takes a look to see if the sheriff and the father in the commissary and she comes back and she says to him lovingly Look boy.

Everybody down here don't feel as friendly toward the Supreme Court as you and me do. Not you big enough to know that. And don't you ever go out here and pull a food trick like you done last night again and not let me know about it in advance you hear me. Charlie says I'm sorry and I was jealous when you didn't come down to breakfast this morning and I went upstairs to look for you and you just sitting there looking at me with your big eyes and I've seen that didn't hurt you. My my my. And whatever happens to you happens to me you big enough to know that. China says I don't need to make trouble Idella delicious I know that some and I know it was another post on his eye and says now no matter what happens when they come I'll be right behind heaping nerves calm and your mouth shut. Nonsense. Charlie says yes and as soon as you get a free minute come over to the house and let me put another hot posters on that I thank you I'm very much obliged to you Idella says Charlie.

Idella What is it son. Sometime I think I ought to run away from home so I know honey but you already tried that. Sometimes I think a lot of want to be from home again. At this moment his father comes in from the commissary. He says Why don't you boy why don't you. He's talking about running away. Now he comes in his age and with it a bit but by no means infirm. He's dressed in the traditional Southern linen the WIAT have a shoestring tied a long coat trailing mustache of the old Southern Colonel and his left hand he carries a cane in his right hand a coiled bull whip. His last line of defense. He stops long enough to establish the fact that he means business. Threaten them both with a mean cantankerous eye then hangs his whip. The definitive answer to all who might foolishly question his confederate power and glory upon a pig. Charlie freezes at the sound of his voice. Idella tenses but she keeps on working on Charlie's eye

cap and crosses down and rudely pushes out of his hands aside and lift Charlie's chin up so he may examine the damage done to his eye and he shakes his head in disgust. You don't know boy what a strong stomach it takes to stomach you just look at you sitting there all slumped over like something a hole says drop steam stink you know I don't I said Don't you dare talk like that to this child. You know Cap'n says When I think of his grand call God rest his confederate soldier hero of the battle of Chickamauga. Get out of my sight and Charlie starts to get up and leave he says not you you. He means I jealous ago he says wait a minute now you've been close to this boy than I have died now you no thought ever entered his head you didn't know about it first and you got anything to do with what my boy has been thinking lately I don't oppose the moment well I didn't know you had been thinking lately.

OK just don't play with me. When you know what I mean. Now who've been putting these integration or ideas in my boy's head was it you. I'm asking you a question and it wasn't you I did as well why don't you ask him. OK ask him ask him. Oh hang on say a word unless you tell him to and you know it. I'm asking you to not tell a lender. Have you been talking immigration to my boy. I don't as I can't rightly answer you any more on that than he did. OK and by God you will answer me I'll make a stand right there right there all day and all night long till you do answer me. Not jealous as well that's just fine. OK what's that what's that to say well I've never said what I mean I got nothing else to do. Suppers on the stove. Rice is ready. OK first fried turnips biscuits bakes DUIs stew and think. Them lemon pies you want special supper in the oven right now just getting ready to burn

it. Gotta get out of here I don't know says oh no hurry old Cap'n he says. Now I'm warning you both of that little lick over the eyes a small skim from the Compared to what I'm going to. Now I won't stop till I get the bottom of this still ignores me to get out of here I don't want to be fought take my cane and either looks at him and give the chuckle and walks out of the door and he sticks his head out of his and save me somebody meant to go with them lemon pies you gave me. And he turns to his son the captain turns to his son the last of a long line of peace who is supposed to carry on the tradition of the old Sol. And is not doing very well and he says. He looks at his son and he says the sheriff was here this moment. And Charlie being a very polite boy says yes or is that all you've got to say to me. Yes or yes. You are a disgrace to the southland. Tyler says

yes. I could kill you boy you understand that I could kill you with my own two hands. Yes. I could beat you to death with that bull whip. Put my pistol to your good for nothing hit my own flesh and blood and blow you bastard brains all over this back if you want to Lance live in drop I've got to be but in that county I'm right. Charlie says. Yes. He grabs the boy by his collar and rares him up and says Are you trying to get nonviolent with me. Oh and. Thank you. Charlie Charlie dangles until calm is restored. And he says Paul I'm ready with the books. That is if you when you're ready. Oh Captain flings him into the chest I will thank you thank you. What with all your Yankee propaganda your barroom brawls and your other

non Confederate activities. I didn't think you had the time. So China takes up the account books and begins to read. Cotton report fifteen Bales picked yesterday and sent to the cotton gin bringing our total of 357 Bales to date. OK I'm as impressed. Three hundred fifty seven. Boy that shot Pickett chalices get low Jenson with 17 bales up to now. Oh Captain is happy he says Get Low jets and you allow him. Did you ever see a cotton picking up doc in your whole life and this child and he says a commissary put little catamite still lost in his dream of law and order he said Did you ever look down into the valley and watch you'll get up picking his way through that cotton patch. Holy Saint Mother's Day I'll bet you Charlie says commissary port o Cap'n wakes up from his dream is all right. Commissary report Charlie says.

Yes or well. First there has been some complaints of the flour has spoiled the beans are rotten and the meat is tainted. Cabbages cut the price only China says but it's also a little wormy. Ok i'm says well then sell it to the negress and child I can't swallow that he said well it is something wrong. Tom said nothing. No sir no sir. I mean I mean sir we can't go on doing that. And the captain asked innocently Why not. It's tradition and so I says Yes sir. But times are changing. All this death in the case the book according to this book every family in this valley owes money they'll never be able to pay back the cap'n says of course it's the only way to keep them working. Didn't they teach you nothing in school.

And Charlie says we're cheating them and they know we're cheating the knot. How long do you expect them to stand for it. You know campuses as long as then negroes and solaces but how long before they start are raring up on their hind legs and saying enough white folks not that's enough. Now you start thinking like I'm somebody in this world I'll blow your brains out. You can to stop it stop. Stop it stop. Boy you're tampering with the economic foundation of the southland. Are you trying to ruin me. One more word like that and I'll kill him. I'll shoot out one more word and I'll fling myself in your mom's grave and I'll die of apoplexy. I'll trap you had me. At the height of his passion into the still comes good old good luck good luck has a patch on his head because Missy has tried to put a progressive thought into it and had to rely on a baseball bat to accomplish that particular fact.

OK look if he's get those and I want to tell you you won't get low says nothing nothing that is. Well Missy my woman well sort of get to the truth of the matter. I got a little business. No cabs and niggers ain't got no business and if you don't get the hell back like Cotton Patch You bet I get I said but I get no stars to beat a hasty retreat oak retreat as another thought is it. Oh don't don't don't don't go don't go get low. Good old faithful get low. Don't go don't go. Well good Lord knows now that he's home safe. Well you'd have both balls. Now OK. OK he says not just the other day. Just the other day I was talking to the Senate about you. That was that great big knot on your haid good luck says Missy I mean a mosquito. Well Cap'n examines the Balkan bump and says he must have been wearing brass knucks.

And he was telling me the senator was how hard it was impossible he said to find that old fashioned solid hard earned Uncle Tom type nigger nowadays. I laughed in his face. Get Low says yes. By the grace of God there's still a few of us left. OK because I have told him how you and me growed up together and the same mammy. My mammy would yo mother Get Low says yes are bosom buddies. You know can say. And how. And and all Katniss and I used to saying that favorite spiritual of mine to come in and come in for my herring and get low joins in on the harmony. I am always calling who like you.

Now this is proved too much for Charlie who remembers a liberal friend and can't stand that little behavior so he starts to sneak off with his father because of the way you go in and childish as well maybe they need me out in the front. Ok i'm just come back here. The turn around show get low that I and Charlie shows get low the witches but good Lord has created God Almighty. Somebody done cool caught this child who hit Mr John. Tell Uncle did know who hits you. Child doesn't answer. OK I'm certain I would you believe it. All of a sudden he came Selwood and just last night the boss was telling me this son of mine made his several full fledged speech Goodloe says you don't say OK Adams is all about Negroes negroes he called. So you look college and you still can't say the word right.

It was a it. Seems he's quite a specialist on the subject. You know says Well shut my hard luck mouse OK. Yes sorry Bob. He told a ball as overt Baen's Bar in town that he was all for mixing the races together. You don't say you don't we from here. Oh cap says now said white children and Dockett children all go to the same schoolhouse together. He'll say look tell me tis true. OK got himself so worked up some of them had to cool him down with a Coca-Cola bottle. Good look tell me the truth again. Thomas says no that wasn't what I said. OK you calling me a liar. Thomas has no cite but I just said that since it was the law of the land that is not the law of the land no such a thing. Thomases I didn't think it would do any harm if they went to school together. That's all OK I'm sure that's all. That's a no. Taught Us a lot.

They do it up north. OK happens a lot. This is down south and down here they all go to school together. Me and get lone dead body. Right get you get you the balls balls I. Solly. China still pressing the liberal point of view and he says. But this is the law of the land. Now Cap'n decided to take a new tack never mind LOL boy and look him. You like oh good look you trusted you all we did didn't tell us is yes ok and good will here. Why he would cut off his right arm for you if you was to ask him. Wouldn't you get a good says you to both boats. Now. Get low. Get low a nothing if you.

Negro it's a get to 300 percent I calculate. Now if you really want to know what the nigger thinks about this integration and all the lack of that don't wax the supreme code. Lol. Go here. Thanks him. But Charlie knows where this is going to lead so he says I don't need to ask him you know him so then I'll ask him. The right hand get. Good raises as you said in this letter tell him to go to the next but so if you got your losses I been OK to get low just as God is your judge and make you believe in your heart that God intended white folks in the ritual to go to school together. It was and also I do not OK to do you so help you God think that white folks and black should mix and so shade in street cars buses and railway station in any way shape form or fashion. Good law says absolutely not. And OK and it isn't not talk considered opinion. God strike you dead if you lie. Oh my negros are happy with things in the

south land just the way they are. Good Lord says Indeed I do. Oh Tappan says Do you think the area saying the doctor on my place would ever think of changing a single thing about the health and tell tell the supreme coach as God you'll tell John make up good laws as God is my judge and maker and you my boss I do not now. All cabin turns and signs the challah and says the voice of the negro himself. What Mo proof do you won't boy. Child is still valid He says I don't care whose voice it is it's still the law of the land and I intend to obey it. Well this is more than all cotton can take he said get out of my face boy get out of my face before I kick you out. Should be out. And he's so carried away that he has been an apoplectic apoplectic fit and get

low. Who seizes source of economic security about to vanish you know becomes easy easy easy easy easy easy. OK I'm gives out a groan and get low takes them and sets them in the rocking chair and goes to the shelf and picks up a few little bottles. He says some aspirants are so massive faded thick and well-kept just get low Get Low Get Low says yes OK get Lowes here right here. Well Kansas quick quick old friend a hug is Maha quick. A few passes if you please call that old spiritual and get low begins to sing most tenderly. When Andy and old Captain begin to sing with him and it begins to ease him in he says. I can't tell you Get Low how much it eases the pain.

Then he remembers the source of his trouble. Why can't he see what they do into the Southland get low. Why can't he see like even me. If there's one responsibility you've got. Boy above all of his I said to him is these negroes your negroes boy good and those hardworking cotton choppers if you keep after them. Get lower still sing in a says. Yes lo. Gavin says something between you and them boy. No Supreme Court in the world can understand. And one for me they'd starve to death. I was going to become one of them boy. After I'm gone and get low looks to heaven I said. That's a good question LOL. You ask. OK who says they belong to you. Boy do you ever

want to. My how Confederate far. Told me on his death bed feed the negroes first after the horses and cattle. And I've done it ever time I get low sayings. And finally as old cap'n as being sued back into the state of spiritual grace he says I get low. Old friend is something absolutely sacred about that spiritual. I live for the day. You'll sing that thing over my grave and get low says me to Old Cap'n to Nevada. THANK YOU THANK YOU

THANK YOU. I have tried in that scene as a writer to sketch what I knew to be the psychological and personal truth of the lives of several people against what I knew was the economic and social foundations against which those lives had necessarily to be lived. Each act each human being you know this is caught up in a role in a stereotype and he behaves in accord with that stereotype. Now I have tried to put in the stereotype what I know to be the truth of the situation out of which the stereotype grew in the first place. And I am happy to say that I think I have succeeded. But these were not stereotypes I created they were created a long time ago on the plantation and then taken by a white faced minstrels and emptied out of their ammunition and protest and bite and made into something altogether different. I merely tried to bring them back where they belong now.

Thank you. But now what. What is my larger intent. Is it merely to show you that we can laugh so that we look at the situations of life with more than angry eyes. I know I have a specific reason for writing a play like pearly Victorias in the manner in which it was written. To me my intent was to have a handbook of consolation information and struggle which my people and their friends could use to understand explain the situation in which they found themselves and point the way toward a possible solution. This particular situation as we saw happens in the south where the negro is in economic servitude on a plantation. Now another kind and other plate needs to be written about the Negro and Harlem who is in a different kind of servitude but nonetheless real and nonetheless disturbing. And about which something must be done. It could be done with humor and they could point the

same kind of moral and make the same kind of lesson and the same kind of way. It is equally ridiculous that people live in slums in this day and age of automation. When we have in our power all it takes to create better housing at the. Flip of a finger. It's ridiculous in addition to whatever else it is that people are required to live in these kinds of houses. But let's get back a moment if you'll indulge me to some of the other things I try to do with pearly Victorias the one of the things that always intrigued me was the relationship between the I am big pentameter verse form that came down to us through the King James Version of the Bible and from Shakespeare. And there's one of England's greatest accomplishments and the use of it consciously and unconsciously by the negro ministers who would know and I am the pentameter you know from a hole in the ground. And yet he has adopted this particular structure to his use and it seems to me that part of my literary job is to make consciously to make conscious use of this technique. Listen to this.

In which pearly Victorias our young minister is talking about. LUBELL gusset Mae Jenkins now Perny victorious is a minister. Who ordained himself he is a stereotype of the negro minister. If you ask him what time it is he has to intone the answer he can't give you a straight answer without intoning Lubell decimate Jenkins is the updated version of Topsy a little negro girl who has never learned to value herself as a person and therefore wanders around willy nilly wanting to be loved but not knowing exactly how to demand it so she doesn't think that she's worthy of anybody's love specially of the white folks. But pearly sees and he sees something altogether different. And listen as he expresses his approbation of her to his sister missy. He says how wondrous are the daughters of my people. Yet no it's not the glories of themselves. What do you suppose I found to Missy this prize this Zulu Pearl this long

lost limb the of the Blackman dingo Kikuyu made beneath whose brown embrace. Hot sons of Africa are burning still. Where a drudge a serving wench a few fetch pot a common scullion in the white man's kitchen drowned is her youth and thankless so them dish pans her beauty spill for Dixiecrat pigs. This brown skin great. This was a man of Negro vintage Missy who has no tolerance for the I am a contaminant says. I know all that personally but what's her name. And Lucy Belle looking at Missy says I don't think he likes my name so much. It's Louis Bell ma'am. Lady Bill Gussie Mae

Jenkins. And missus says gushing with motherly assured Lou the maid saying it's ma that's nice and pretty says Nice. It's an insult to the negro people. Mister says please behave yourself and produces a previous condition of servitude. A badge of inferiority and I refused to have it in my organization. Change it misses it you want me to box your mouth for you. Printed his newly baled glossy may Jenkins. What does it mean in Swahili. Cheap labor. And. Pretty says she says Swahili and he says one of the thirteen silver tongues of Africa Swahili Bush English and they begun to hear your Roomba Baumberger Ampang with Swahili a language of moons and velvet drums hot days of river Reds blast and birdsong

bright black fingers and rice white at sunset red. Ten thousand queens of Sheba Missie of course has to interrupt all of this I am a contaminant is that just where did pearly find you honey. And Lute about says it was and both in Alabama last Sunday Mrs. Wright in the junior choir misses the Zune you cry. My my my. The print is carried away. He sees more than the junior choir he says. Behold I said. This doc and holy vessel and who should burn that golden up browned joy which negro womanhood was meant to be ten thousand Queens ten thousand queens of Sheba Ethiopia herself and all her beauty as one to come to restore the anxious thrones of kush. Now this is I am ticking time and I attest to that if nothing else.

But what. What is what am I trying to do. I am trying to correct a distorted image of Negro womanhood that has persisted in our culture down to this very day. Now I could do this clinically by describing in ones and twos and yes and no. What I think happened but I chose to do it in a poetic form because it's more concise and it allows me to express what I actually feel and know since by my senses and by my emotions to be true because that is beautiful which has somewhere excited love and this is the definition of beauty. And if a woman does love she is beautiful and I must tell my women that they are beautiful. First because I find them to be so. And second because they need it as an extension of my manhood and my confidence in myself. I can say to them you are beautiful.

You are not scrubbing the floors. That is not you. You are a queen. Ten thousand queens of Sheba scrubbing floors on your knees get up walk talk be what you are my queen my woman whom I will fight and defend to the death. And this is what I try to say in a comedy in a Fosse minute. True womanhood. Thank you. Was Thank you. Thank you begin to get some reason why I choose an outlandish form because unfortunately I cannot express those same sentiments in realistic prose. Now this is not to have anything against realistic prose. It is merely that what I have to say creates for me a need of expression and a nother form. And I think that the reconstruction of the beauty of Negro womanhood will be the beginning of the emancipation of Negro manhood. And this is the way I approach that particular

problem. Thank you. Now I would like to end this by going toward the end of the play where Pearlie has at last confronted his arch enemy and. Pearly has gone up the hill and he's gotten the old man's whip and he's gotten the money from the old man not by a direct confrontation but when he came down the hill. His desire to impress his beloved got the better of him so he preaches a tremendous sermon of hellfire and damnation and which he puts all kept him on trial and eventually consigned him to whip lashes. But this is all a sermon. It's all an extension of his need as a man to express himself even violently. But it's done in a sermon. Now Old Cap'n of course comes in the sermonizing and there is purdy talking to the man that he just got through bearing

as a result of his tremendous power. Well now. When ok comes in. His son also is brought in Charlie now to keep him from getting confused just let me read this particular thing. The deputy into the scene dragging Charlie old captain's son who is the guilty culprit and old Charlie a captain thinks Pearlie has done the stealing. But it's Charlie his own son. The sheriff says Southern justice strikes again. And China says Okay Charlie Oh no I don't have time to my baby. OK release him you idiots release him at once. What have they done to you my boy I don't know what have they done to you. And Charlie when he's free from his God says Hello Paul Idella Pearlie ok i'm says I'll have your thick stupid next for this and he's talking to the servant tours of law and order. Schiff said it was you who give the orders. OK this is not my son you idiot. Deputy said it was him broke into the commissary. OK he says what chere says it was him stole

the $500 he confessed. OK I'm serious do you pee. So that is biologically impossible. He turns to his son as a child my boy. Tell them the truth. Tell them who stole the money. It was Pearl it was in the book. Now Cap makes the assumption which is automatic in his circumstances Purley had to steal because it was a negro and solace as well as a matter of fact Paul it's mostly me that broke in and took the money. I'd say it in fact it was me. OK answers no. Charlie says it was the only thing I could do to save your life Paul. OK I'm to save my life. Abdellah he is delirious. Charlie explains is that one person to come up here after you last night. I seen him and look at you I did the look he had on his face against you was not a Christian thing to behold. It was terrible I had to get him into that commissary right then and then open that safe and pay him his inheritance. Even then I had to beg her to spare your life.

Oh Captain surprises you spare my life boy. How dare you. And he says Charlie my son I know you never recovered from the shock of losing your mother. Almost before you were bone. But don't you worry. It was Bernie who stole that money and I'm going to prove it. Good low mile friend Orest this boy get low as deputy for the colored I'll order you to arrest this boy for stealing. OK. Takes out his pistol and puts proly under arrest. But get low. In the mean time has changed his mind I won't tell you how but instead of helping old captain get low snatches the pistol out of his hand and sort of casually pointed in his direction and he sings once again his old song go along on the dais which by now has a brand new meaning. Ole Cappy is amazed. He says of a lot of Steven Pressley says well I'm going to really give you something to arrest me for.

And Perlis snatches the whip from the captain's hand and he's getting ready to wreak justice with a bull whip. For all the years of suffering. OK I'm to have a kid boy. I'm still a white man but pretty very gracious Is it congratulations. You're not 20 years ago or Cap'n. I told you this bullshit was going to change hands one of these days. Missy says wait and proto turns to and says stay out of my struggle for power and. Then Missy says. But Missy gives him this answer she says you can't do wrong just because it's right. She picked it up from Martin Luther King. And. At the end you get low Get Low is a gentleman and he says never kick a man when he's down except in self defense. And Little Bill looks at her and says no matter what you are no matter what you always are and always will be the hero of the hill and premise is am I.

And she looked at him and says ten thousand queens of Sheba and precious as I bow to the will of the Negro people he decides not to beat the cap you know because really it's not the Pearlie is angry at the old cabin. Another change has taken place. Listen to this he says but one thing will count as he decided not to beat him with a whip. I am released to view the entire Negro people is released of you know most shouting hallelujah. Every time you sneeze. No jumping jack ass every time you whistle Dixie. Now we're going to love you if you let us and led as we leave. If you don't we won't have a cut of the Constitution and we want it now and not with no TC folks throw it at us with a shovel. I am. Thank you

thank you. And we could go on all night like this forever but I have tried to sketch for you briefly what the contents of pearly Victorias was and why I chose to express my sentiments in just the style that I did. Satire Fosse slapstick but underneath it all. A true appreciation I should hope for everybody. And the last thing I want to read from the book is My Appolo due. The reason I wrote the book in the first place which reads as follows Our churches will say that segregation is immoral because it makes perfectly wonderful people white and black do immoral things. Our courts will say segregation is illegal because it makes perfectly wonderful people white and black. Do illegal things. And finally our theater will say segregation is ridiculous because it makes perfectly wonderful people white and black do ridiculous things. That was the point I had in writing the play. And

that's the point I hope to have gotten across now. But we're talking about the wonderful world of law and order. If you recall the scene between old cap and get low and Charlie captain was defending what was to him ordained of God the world of law and order. And it was this world this peaceful relationship between the two groups that he had such a sentimental attachment about. And anybody who attempted to change that was threatening the very foundations of civilization law and order. Because all Captain believed as quite a few of us believed white liberals and black liberals sometimes too much that law and order is the essence of civilization. But this is not necessarily true. Justice is the essence of civilization and where law and order is imposed upon a basically just situation sooner or later there is bound to be a clash between law and order no matter how respectably presented and preserved. And those forces who cry and need for justice makes them unable to accept any

more a real respect for law and order. I do not say this with any sense of pride in having been liberated from all respect for law and order. I realize what chaotic conditions could come about if the integument if the skeins of law and order were to be abandoned and we were to resort to settling out dispute and other means. I know what would happen. I really want law and order. But I realize that law and order presupposes justice in the first place. And when we speak of the young people in the streets of Harlem who have no respect for the policeman we begin by remembering that the policeman had no respect for those young people in the first place. When we speak of young negro hoodlums which is a word I hate to use I don't use that kind of word because it gives permission for a policeman to shoot a human being and to forget that he is a human being. But when we describe these young people as going out and looting breaking stores open and robbing jewelry and socks and underwear and garments and things

we deplore these things. But let us not forget that the looting that goes on silently and quietly even on the level where the policeman at a certain time every week goes to a certain bar and picks up a brown paper bag filled with money. If you want to judge who is the most successful of the losers those unfortunate young people who are in the streets on these hot August night or the policeman who has for years made it in a middle class society by looting everybody in the community by turning his back on dope by turning his back on gambling and prostitution by not insisting on the preservation of even the most basic rights for the members of those community communities I think you would know where the looting began in the first place. And if there is to be respect for law and order it must be based upon a mutual wrist understanding and respect the law must respect those who are under the law and order must be maintained for the benefit of all of those who are under the law. We face a great

crisis in our country today. We have been called upon by some of our leaders to refrain from demonstrations and protests because they might be construed as an attack against law and order and we are so concerned. That this attack on law and order might give ammunition to the white backlash and enable Senator Goldwater to come in as president. And there are those who think that this is the only and the greatest harm that could come to the cause of the Negro people. Now this is a debatable point. I personally would not like to see some of the Goldwater as president. But at the same time I'm forced to ask if there was a white backlash. What is it lashing back from. Where was it all the time. And I sure that those who are lashing back were not waiting for somebody to come along and give them an excuse to lash back. I'm not so certain. I feel greatly that the Negro people after mounting once again a magnificent struggle for their freedom as they have done so often in the past will be asked once again in the name of the larger

freedom in the name of the larger community in the name of law and order to halt their struggle. And once again we'll come out of the struggle as I personally came out of World War 2 to find that I had lost the war that I thought I had won. And I would hope that those of us who ask of us patience those of us those who ask of us waiting will meet us with a real program of action with real goods with real remit is so that we will have something to be patient about something to wait for something that we can understand and appreciate. And explained ourselves and our children why it is necessary to take this particular tactical step we take it now at the darkest hour of the night. But it in order to make it peaceable and to better prepare us for the action which will come at dawn. Thank you thank you or are actually

of of the.