Margaret Walker reading of prose and poetry at the University of Iowa, November 1, 1977

Speaker 1: This reading of prose and poetry was given November 1, 1977 as part of the Black Kaleidoscope Lecture Series. It was given by Margaret Walker Alexander, author of the prize-winning novel Jubilee. Dr. Alexander is introduced by Dr. Darwin Turner, chairman of the Afro-American Studies Department at the University of Iowa. Dr. Darwin Turn...: Ladies and gentlemen, it's my pleasure to present our featured speaker for this evening in another program of Black Kaleidoscope, the yearlong cultural series presented by the Afro-American Studies Program of the University of Iowa, through a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Dr. Darwin Turn...: For most people in this room, I need not introduce Margaret Walker Alexander, but for those of you who may not know the details of her life, her productivity, let me recount them very briefly so that she will have the majority of the time this evening. She's an educator, an author, a housewife and a personable woman. She was born in Birmingham, Alabama, received a Bachelor of Arts from Northwestern University, received a Master of Arts from the University of Iowa in 1940. Dr. Darwin Turn...: At that time, she gained recognition from black scholars and from white critics of poetry for the publication of a volume, the production of a volume entitled For My People. A volume which won her the Yale award for Younger Poets in 1942 and a volume which was published. Dr. Darwin Turn...: Following the Master of Arts degree, she served as a professor of English in Livingstone College in North Carolina, served for two years as a professor of English at Virginia State College in Institute, West Virginia, then returned to Livingstone, and in 1949, she became professor of English at Jackson State College in Jackson, Mississippi, a position which she holds to the present. She has added the position of director of the Institute for the Study of the History, Life and Culture of Black People. Dr. Darwin Turn...: In 1965, she received a PhD from the English Department of the University of Iowa. Her dissertation, a creative product, was the novel Jubilee, subsequently published and subsequently a bestseller. Dr. Darwin Turn...: It's my understanding that Margaret Walker Alexander is the only individual in the history of the University of Iowa, at least, since Paul Engle joined the faculty around 1937, who received not only two degrees based on creative thesis, but who produced two award-winning, bestselling creative thesis. Dr. Margaret Wa...: In two different forms as well. Dr. Darwin Turn...: In two different forms. Margaret Walker Alexander is also the recipient of a Rosenwald Fellowship for creative writing. She's a Ford Fellow from Yale University. She won the Houghton Mifflin Literary Fellowship in 1966. She holds honorary doctorates from such places as Denison, Northwestern, Rust, Morgan. Her publications include numerous poems to various publications such as Poetry to which she contributed at the time in which Poetry was the leading journal of poetry in this country. Dr. Darwin Turn...: She's the author of For My People, of Jubilee the novel, of Prophets for a New Day, a collection of poems, of How I Wrote Jubilee, October Journey, and Poetic Equation: Conversations with Nikki Giovanni. It gives me great pleasure to introduce to you tonight, to read from her fiction and her poetry, Dr. Margaret Walker Alexander. Dr. Margaret Wa...: Thank you, Dr. Turner. I think that he's told me in the very last words how to begin this thing, and I believe I'll read the prose first and then the poetry. I couldn't imagine how I can get the Jubilee things out and where they would fit in the program of reading poetry, but since some expect me to read from Jubilee, I'm going to read from the first chapter. Death is a mystery that only the squinch owl knows, only a section which is known as Brother Zeke's Prayer. Then, I want to read from the third section, Ku Klux Klan don't like no Koons, and from the last chapter, Howdy and goodbye honey-boy. Dr. Margaret Wa...: Brother Ezekiel held the child down close to her mother's face and said soothingly, "It's your mama, Vyry, say hello to your maw." The child spoke, "Mama," and then she whimpered. Hetta fell back on her pillows and Ezekiel handed the child to Mammy Sukey, who quickly took her outside into the night air. After a moment, Brother Ezekiel spoke again to the dying and exhausted woman. "Sis Hetta, I'm here, Brother Zeke, it's me. Can I do something for you?" "Pray," she rasped, "pray." Dr. Margaret Wa...: He fell on his knees beside the bed and took her hand in his. The night was growing darker. Despite the full moon outside, spilling light through the great oak and magnolia trees, inside Granny Ticey had lighted a large tallow candle. It flared up suddenly, and eerie shadows searched the corners and crowded the room. Brother Ezekiel began to pray. Dr. Margaret Wa...: "Lord, God-a-mighty, you done told us in your Word to seek and we shall find, knock and the door be open, ask, and it shall be given when your love come twinklin down. And Lord, tonight we is a-seekin. Way down here in this here rain-washed world, kneelin here by this bed of affliction pain, your humble servant is a-knockin, and askin for your lovin mercy, and your tender love." Dr. Margaret Wa...: "This here sister is tired a-sufferin, Lord, and she wants to come on home. We ask you to roll down that sweet chariot right here by her bed, just like you done for Lishy, so she can step in kinda easy like and ride on home to glory. Gather her in your bosom like you done Father Abraham and give her rest. She weak, Lord, and she weary, but her eyes is a-fixin for to light on them golden streets of glory and them pearly gates of God." Dr. Margaret Wa...: "She beggin for to set at your welcome table and feast on milk and honey. She wants to put on them angel wings and wear that crown and them pretty little golden slippers. She done been broke like a straw in the wind and she ain't got no strength, but she got the faith, Lord, and she got the promise of your Almighty Word. Lead her through this wilderness of sin and tribulation. Give her grace to stand by the river of Jordan and cross her over to hear Gabe blow that horn. Take her home, Lord God, take her home." Dr. Margaret Wa...: The next piece is called Ku Klux Klan don't like no Koons. Dr. Margaret Wa...: "I sit upon a hornet's nest. I dance upon my head. I tie a viper round my neck. And den I go to bed. I kneel to the buzzard. And I bow to de crow. And eb’ry time I wheel erbout, I jump jis so. Wheel about and turn about and do jis so, every time I wheel about I jump Jim Crow." Dr. Margaret Wa...: The first morning Randall Ware worked in his shop after the expulsion of Negroes from the Georgia Legislature, he had a caller. Ed Grimes appeared in the open space where Randall Ware was shoeing a horse and said, "Nigger, do you own this land?" Startled, Randall Ware looked up and caught his breath before answering. "Mister, you are standing on my property, and if you doubt it you can find the deed recorded in the courthouse." Dr. Margaret Wa...: "I didn't ask you for any of your impertinence. I've seen the records. Looks like you own nearly all the good land around here." "I own a fair share of the land around Dawson. I happened to come by it honestly." "Well, you got a piece I want to buy." "Where is it?" Grimes went to the grist mill adjacent to the blacksmithy and he pointed diagonally across the railroad tracks to the land he had in mind. "I'm sorry," said Randall Ware, "but it's not for sale." Dr. Margaret Wa...: "Nigger, are you telling me no?" "I'm saying I don't want to sell." "Well, we'll just see if we can't find some way to make you change your mind." And with that, he turned on his heels and left the place. Randall Ware thought no more about the incident as the days passed and he was busy working in his shop. He learned from Henry Turner that the Negroes were going to appeal to Congress and beg to have Georgia removed again from the Union, but Randall Ware said he would have to stay near home for a while. His journeyman was afraid to stay on the property alone. Dr. Margaret Wa...: It was late October and great masses of the Georgia people were more distracted than ever, for with the approaching presidential elections there was high feeling between the local whites and the black Republicans. Negroes everywhere were being urged to vote the Grant-Colfax ticket for the Republicans while the Conservative Democrats were stumping every section of the state for the Seymour-Blair ticket. Dr. Margaret Wa...: Randall Ware kept busy at his trade, but on the eve of the election, at Turner's insistence, he began attending more Loyal League meetings and working to encourage local Negroes to hold fast to the Republican ticket. Sporadic spurts of violence were erupting around him, but since there had been no incidents in his immediate vicinity, Randall Ware was caught unaware one night on returning from a political meeting. He heard a crowd of horsemen riding up to his shop. Dr. Margaret Wa...: He turned to face them, the white-sheeted callers with their faces covered, and saw them throw at his feet the body of a man. It was Jasper, his journeyman. Pinned across his bloody chest was a piece of foolscap also stained with his blood and with the crudely printed words dead, damned, and delivered. Dr. Margaret Wa...: Jasper had been shot in his right temple, but evidently before they killed him, he had been brutally beaten with sticks for his flesh was cut and bleeding and his shirt was bloody and in shreds. Randall Ware was alone. He needed someone to help him with the body of poor Jasper. He first made a cry in the streets for help, but nobody came. Then he made a light in his house, and went out again to find help. Dr. Margaret Wa...: He had to walk about three-quarters of a mile to a Negro community, but when he returned with two men to help him, he found Jasper's body was gone, and his shop and the back-room serving as his living quarters were in shambles. He thanked the two colored men, who were wide-eyed with terror, and he told them he guessed he could manage alone. He would try to put his place to rights. Dr. Margaret Wa...: At four o'clock in the morning, the riders came back again. He was again unprepared for violence and he made no attempt to run or try to escape. They grabbed him. Ware was a powerful man and he struggled until he felt himself hit on the head with a blow that felt like iron. He lost consciousness and when he came to himself, they had him in the woods. When he opened his eyes, he saw three men standing over him as he was lying on the ground. Dr. Margaret Wa...: They came at him with blows about the head and face and although they were disguised, he thought he recognized the voice of one who kept pounding and yelling, "Nigger, who do you think you are? You think you good as a white man, don't you? Going to the State House and dressing up like a white man and owning all our good land. Don't you know you ain't nothing but a nigger? We know just what to do with a big, black, ugly baboon like you when you get so uppity you too big for your nigger britches." Dr. Margaret Wa...: Randall Ware wondered why they did not shoot him and kill him and get it over with. Why were they merely beating him? Did they mean to cut him to death and shoot him afterwards? Then he heard one whisper, "Why don't we kill him now?" "Naw. I say naw. He got all them papers in the courthouse, ain't he? How are we gonna git that land if we kill him? Beat him an inch of his goddamned life, but don't kill him." Dr. Margaret Wa...: It was broad daylight when they rode away on their horses. For a long while, Randall Ware lay on the ground, half conscious, bleeding, and so sore he could scarcely move. His lip was cut, and he knew there was a bad cut over both eyes, and his face was swollen twice its size. He also had a large, painful lump on his head, and about his back and shoulders, they had beaten him with what felt like wooden clubs, but were actually stripped branches from the trees. He got to his knees but when he tried to open his eyes the blood ran down his face. He tried to stand and found he could not, so he began to crawl on his hands and knees out of the woods. Dr. Margaret Wa...: It was late afternoon when he finally made it into his shop, and then he was so exhausted he fell on his bed to sleep. In the darkness, he awakened and lighted a lamp. He began to care for the cuts and bruises on his face and head, when he heard such a loud commotion in the streets. He looked out and saw riders coming again. This time he would not wait. He quickly put out the lamp and ran into his grist mill. There he made his way to the great wheel that pulled the mill by water power and lowering himself quickly he dropped down into the water while holding to the rim of the half-submerged mill wheel. Dr. Margaret Wa...: He was not a minute too soon. He heard their voices and knew they were in his shop and house again. They ransacked the place again and began yelling and cursing and calling his name. "I told you we oughta killed that black bastard." "We got to teach him a permanent lesson." "How long can we waste time here looking for him?" "He ain't going nowhere. We can come back and git him later on." And they left. But Randall Ware, now deathly afraid, waited another full hour before he came out of his grist mill after hiding under the water and holding on to the great wheel that ran the mill. Dr. Margaret Wa...: Early the next morning, he had another caller. This time he would not answer, and he peeped out stealthily to see who it was. It was old Doc and he was banging on the door. "Let me in. It's only me, Doc. Let me in, Ware. I know you are in there." Randall Ware let the doctor in. At first, the black man glared at the white doctor, his swollen face and lip and half-closed eyes making him look like some half-mutilated animal. The blood was still on his head and face, and his body ached from the terrible beating. Dr. Margaret Wa...: "Look like you had an accident." "Yeah, I reckon so. Accident strictly on purpose." "Well, you better let me take a look at you. You need a doctor." "Is that why you came here? To offer me your doctoring services?" "Why not? I'm a doctor, am I not? And I don't think there's another one for miles around." "Are you sure you weren't sent?" "Well, what difference would that make? You still need the doctor, don't you?" Dr. Margaret Wa...: Randall Ware grudgingly admitted that he did. The doctor went to work on his face and his head and he flinched under the probing of the sore and cut places. At first, old Doc was strictly professional. "Hmm, that's a bad one. You took a mighty bad beating." "Didn't I though? Wonder why they didn't kill me?" "Oh, you know that answer as well as I do." "On account of the land?" "Yes. Are you willing to sell, now?" "Do you think I've got any choice?" "Not if you want to live and continue working here." "And if I don't sell?" "I'd advise you to leave, but you would be a fool to leave everything you've got just because of a little piece of land. Sell the land. You'll get a fair price." Dr. Margaret Wa...: Randall Ware snorted with a bitter sounding grunt. The doctor worked a while longer in silence. "And when I sell this piece, they'll want another and a bigger piece and that will keep on till I don't have any left." "Oh, I don't know about that. There's a limit to most people's greed." "For money or for land, for votes or for power?" "Well, now, you might as well give up the idea of power and voting. You are going to get yourself absolutely killed if you don't quit all political activity." Dr. Margaret Wa...: "I thought you came to bring me a message." "I can carry your answer back if you desire." "And if my answer is not what they like?" "Well, I couldn't say what might happen. You might have night visitors again, and this time you might end up like your journeyman, Jasper. It's not necessary to go that far unless you don't value your life and property." "More than my liberty?" "More than your liberty." "Well, I guess I had forgotten your role on the Dutton plantation. You are a real humanitarian doctor." Dr. Margaret Wa...: "At your service anytime. Shall I tell them you will sell?" "I need some time to think about it." "They won't be giving you much time." "Yes. Damn them, yes. Tell them I'll sell. Tell them I'll leave. Tell them I'll leave off politicking. Tell them to save my miserable neck I'll cease resisting and desisting. Tell the hellish rebels I say yes." And he burst into a fit of oaths. He put his head down in his hands and when his shoulders had ceased shaking, he looked up and found the doctor was gone. Dr. Margaret Wa...: And the last piece from Jubilee is only a section of howdy and goodbye. Dr. Margaret Wa...: "Vyry, oh, come and go with me, to my father's house, to my father's house, to my father's house. Oh, come and go with me to my father's house. There is joy, joy, joy." Dr. Margaret Wa...: Vyry was moving around quietly in Jim's room hoping not to disturb him, but then she felt his eyes on her and saw he was awake. "Maw?" "Yes, Jim." "I sho hates to leave you, but I sho is glad to go to school." "I knows, and I'm glad for you. I been praying for a way to send you to school. It wasn't gonna be easy to send you to town to school this winter and your Paw needing you here on the farm." "I knows. And he was saying he wasn't gonna spend the money." "Yeah, but he's gonna miss you just the same. Much as he grumble, it's gonna be worser when he ain't got nobody to help him." Dr. Margaret Wa...: "Yes'm." "I want you to promise me you is gonna study hard and make us proud. Your daddy say he gonna make a teacher out of you. That's gonna make me proud." "I know, Maw, and I'm gonna study real hard. I'll miss Minna and Harry too, and I don't know when I'm gonna see all y'all again." "If it's the Lord's will, it won't seem long before you is home again." Yes'm." Dr. Margaret Wa...: "And Jim, I want you to be good and try to git along. Mind your manners and make friends with peoples. Friends and good manners will carry you where money won't go. You is born lucky, and it's better to be born lucky than born rich, because if you is lucky you can git rich, but if you is born rich and you ain't lucky, you is liables to lose all you got. But you gotta use mother-wit long with education else you won't be nothing but a fool. Get up in the morning early and say your prayers." Dr. Margaret Wa...: "Early bird catches the worm. And don't you be mean and ugly in your heart toward nobody. Remember, sweet ways is just like sugar candy, and they catches more flies than vinegar. I'm praying for you to be somebody. I want you to be good and make a real man out of yourself. You is got a great big chance, now, don't mess it up. I'm sorry you ain't got no more fitten clothes, but your daddy say he gonna buy you some more in Montgomery on the way to, what you call that place?" Dr. Margaret Wa...: "Selma." "I ain't never heard tell of it before, but we is been trying to git to Montgomery ever since we left Georgia. I reckon this morning you is gonna be there." Dr. Margaret Wa...: I never know when I stand up to read what I'm going to read, what's coming first, but I think I want to start with an Epitaph For My Father. I wrote this poem here in Iowa City one Sunday afternoon in 1963. I wrote it on the [inaudible]. When I got through, I had done the entire poem. I think it was about 10 typewritten pages. I haven't done much revision or much changing of it. Maybe I would have to here and there. Dr. Margaret Wa...: "Jamaica is an island full of Bays. Like jeweled tourmaline set in the sea. The Caribbean coasts are washed with dazzling sand so blinding white the sunlight flashes fire, and trade winds lash against the palm strewn shore. Born near Buff Bay my father loved to play among the inlets, shouting over waves and wading through the sands, would wish to go out where the winds would often part the sea, and as a Hebrew child of long ago, he crossed dry land while waters rose congealed, till afternoon when once again the winds would bring the walls together meltingly, and send the naked children screaming home from playing or catch the luckless souls upon the open sea." Dr. Margaret Wa...: "Those bluest sparkling waters of the bays, Montego, Orange, Buff, where many times at play he watched the ships sail into port of call, and laden with their cargo, their fruit and golden haul, banana, plantain, palm, palmetto, hemp. Would go again to sea beyond the distances where only God knew where, but carefree boys would stop their play and longingly gaze far out where the ships would disappear from sight, and as the setting sun would light the sky with flaming rays descending on the sea, as twilight traveled from the thin horizon's line, casting its light to where the mountains stood like giants in the night, dark, high, and still, so homeward they would drag their listless feet, still thinking of the ships that sailed to foreign shores." Dr. Margaret Wa...: "He longed to know the lot of those adventuring, who join the ocean's fleet and sail into the dusk. He must have been a very thoughtful lad. Loving his aging mother at her handiwork, artful with needle and breathing piety, so full of dreams and ideals for her youngest son. His father, quite the other sort, could mix his tavern-keeping with his Lord's day's task at church, and read the lesson as a layman should." Dr. Margaret Wa...: "All his household loved their books, his brother's full of gibberish and foreign words fit for his work, Her Majesty's interpreter of all who came from far off India or Germany and France and Spain, and even England's farthest empired land. And thus this little boy, the last of seven, would dream of going where the languages his brother Ben interpreted were known. But most of all he longed to go to school in England and at Cambridge, and there to be a man of learning till once again at home where all who knew and loved him would be proud." Dr. Margaret Wa...: "Especially his mother, fond and growing old, but then she died. And he, bereft of all her love, disconsolate with grief, considered more and more the soonest he could go out where the ships plowed through a stormy sea. My father came to this new land instead, his dreams of Cambridge roughly put aside where opportunity and expediency a round-about long journey carried him before he touched the soil at Mobile Bay." Dr. Margaret Wa...: "But still he hoped to study, then return to make his mark at home, his papers drawn allowed him only rights of visitors', a visa stated when he hoped to finish here. He never left. When all the scholar's honors he could heap into a pile were won, he saw my mother's face, and turned aside briefly to gaze upon the aura, charm and grace in which she spoke and smiled and played, her fingers dancing over ivoried keys." Dr. Margaret Wa...: "So they were wed, his child-bride all too young from Pensacola’s Bay dashed starry-eyed away with this strange son come from a foreign land. An older sadder soul, ambitious, proud and quite removed from life's realities and practicalities. A dreamer, quiet, seriously withdrawn from enmities and hates, yet hurt by them, and startled by the strange ironic turn of epithets. You, monkey-chaser, you, nigger, you, I mean. And thus they came to live in Birmingham." Dr. Margaret Wa...: "When I was very young and still quite small, my father used to take me on his knee, and say to me, my little one, I wish that you could see the land where I was born, so beautiful. With fruit so sweet and land so rich, where black men, too, are free. Star apples grow and breadfruit trees, the mangoes and the coconuts, date palms and yams and green banana trees, cassava, pumpkin, okra too." Dr. Margaret Wa...: "Just like the okra here and alligator pear, and flowers, oh, the blossoms there that grow so wild and so profuse, and every color of the rainbow only brighter and bolder and richer in their hue. More blue, more red, more orange than the rind of melons that we grow. And black men, too, live side by side with yellow, white, and brown. And they have not this craziness of Jim-crow and race prejudice. I never thought this place could be so full of bitterness." Dr. Margaret Wa...: "And yet he never went back home again. He took his papers out to be a citizen, yet all his life he talked about his home, and going to that island in the sea. When I was five his father died, and there was no one left to take him back. The final tie was gone. I saw the letter and his unshed tears. The earliest memories I have are seeing all my father's hours spent in toil from teaching daily, preaching Sundays, tailoring at night to give us bread." Dr. Margaret Wa...: "In summer, wintertime and fall, his days were all the same. No time in fun. Relaxing by the fire, he fell asleep and snored, and mama cried annoyed, 'Get up and go to bed', and in the night how often could I hear both whispering of future plans for us. For buying shoes and clothes and sending us to school, always to keep a roof above our heads." Dr. Margaret Wa...: "And sometimes I would hear my father say, 'Let's buy a car.' And mama said, 'We can't afford it now.' Or else he'd want a bigger house with stairs, and mama horrified would cry, 'Not now.' But he would buy her pretty dresses and say, 'Surprise,' and she would say, 'I have to hold your father down. He thinks that all his family should dress in golden wings.' I liked it when my father went to town and bought our clothes. No hand-me-down made-over things. He bought the best and struggled hard to pay, and tried to keep in check his great desire for books." Dr. Margaret Wa...: "Two times we moved from Birmingham. The first to Haven in Meridian and back again. And then to New Orleans. At first my mother was a wraith, a frail and walking ghost with babies in her arms, and many nights I dreamed that she would die, and dying passed beside my bed. I screamed to wake her, went to touch her arm, sometimes not sure, would crawl beside her, feeling safer there." Dr. Margaret Wa...: "But time relentlessly moved on the years, and from that twilight time when first I saw her bending down above her dying sister's bed, and daddy writing, 'Please come home again. Everything here is going to Fillymanew.' And on the train that carried us away from home and friends till past the blue dim past of years in New Orleans, and Mardi Gras with nights of bitter cold, when Daddy took us out to see parades, my father's summers off at summer school, and figs and biscuits and water were all we had to eat, until my graduation days." Dr. Margaret Wa...: "Then off at college hearing ominous reports, depression and no salary checks at home, and letters from my mother, 'Don't do this or that. Wear your green dress. Don't sit up late. Stay off Chicago streets at night.' My father seemed so far away, his letters seldom, yet when I read the few lines many times, I thought with pride, how well he writes, but conversations late at night with him were best, for now he ventured out, and said what reading I should do for depth." Dr. Margaret Wa...: "His favorites were mine, the Greeks and Romans, and from the Bible all the words of Paul, the Sage of Konigzberg, the gentle Spinoza, Fichte, and Schopenhauer, Whitehead, the English classics, poetry and mystics and the wine of all the ancient East, Buddha, Confucius, Laotse, The Gita, then Gandhi's way. And when he said, 'I wish your verse were more religious.' I said, 'It can't be what I'm not.' And wished I'd cut my tongue out, only then my lips were always in a pout rebelliously." Dr. Margaret Wa...: "If I had been a man, I might have followed in his every step, had preached from pulpits, found my life as his, and wandered too, as he, an alien on the earth, but female and feline I could not stand alone through love and hate and truth, and still remain my own. He was himself, his own man all his life. And I belong to all the people I have met, am part of them, am molded by the throng, caught in the tide of compromise, and grown chameleon for camouflage." Dr. Margaret Wa...: "Yet I have known a noble prince-like man for all my life, for he was humble in his dignity. Composed and calm in every storm of life, harsh poverty could not debase, demean his deep integrity. He rose above the fray. And when at last my children came, his joy was indescribable. 'I only wish they had not come so late in life for me.' Now traveling everywhere about this land, the golden years descended on his head, and with my mother he saw the promised land of California, Boston, and New York, Nebraska, Philadelphia, and then when suddenly the shades of night began to fall, the ship at sea was tossed and buffeted." Dr. Margaret Wa...: "He stood and watched the light that beckons every pilot to his harbor's home. In resignation to the will and fate of Providence, the destiny of men. In dreams, I stood beside him, heard him say, 'I came to tell you I'm about to go away. I'm going to a church meeting, very great. My name is on the program, I want to look my best,' and pointed to the undertaker's suit. I begged him not to go, but then he smiled, 'Child, don't you understand? I'm going to be promoted.' And sadly waved at me." Dr. Margaret Wa...: "That day I sat as in a dream and heard the preacher echoing familiar words. 'We spend our years as a tale that is told. The days of our years are three-scores years and ten.' I glanced through windows, saw the sun peep from the clouds in one bright blaze of gold. Lighting the casket where he lay so cold and then I knew that he would never die, not on the earth or in the sky or sea." Dr. Margaret Wa...: "He did not leave a fortune made with gold nor lands and wealth of human hands but all the deep recesses of our minds and hearts were filled with plunder from the ages old. The way to greet a stranger and a guest. The love to bear a friend and how to pray in deep compassion for an enemy, the courage and the faith to face all life, the willingness to learn new lessons every day. Humility and truth and deep integrity. This is the epitaph that I would write for him." Dr. Darwin Turn...: [inaudible]. Dr. Margaret Wa...: When I first came out to Iowa, I carried on a running dialogue, feud, fuss, argument, anything you want to call it with Paul Engle. We fussed and fought every day. He said, "All that stuff you have written is so bitter and so solemn and no funny anything. Why don't you write something funny?" I didn't like what he wanted me to write something funny about, but I told him, "I would write some ballads." He said, "Just like that you're going to write ballads?" I said, "Just like that, I'm going to write ballads." Dr. Margaret Wa...: He said, "Write one with a refrain." He had a twinkle in his eye when he said it as if to say, "Let's see if you can really do that thing they say is the hardest ballad to write. A ballad with a refrain." This is the first ballad I wrote called Molly Means, and you see it has a refrain, Mr. Paul Engle. Dr. Margaret Wa...: "Old Molly means was a hag and a witch, chile of the devil, the dark, and sitch. Her heavy hair hung thick in ropes, and her blazing eyes was black as picch. Imp at three and wench at 'leben, she counted her husbands to the number seben." Dr. Margaret Wa...: "O Molly, Molly, Molly Means. There goes the ghost of Molly Means." Dr. Margaret Wa...: "Some say she was born with a veil on her face, so she could look through unnatural space. Through the future and through the past, and charm a body or an evil place. And every man could well despise, the evil look in her coal black eyes." Dr. Margaret Wa...: "Old Molly, Molly, Molly Means. Dark is the ghost of Molly Means." Dr. Margaret Wa...: "And when the tale begun to spread of evil and of holy dread, her black-hand arts and her evil powers, how she cast her spells and called the dead. The younguns was afraid at night, and the farmers feared their crops would blight." Dr. Margaret Wa...: "Old Molly, Molly, Molly Means. Cold is the ghost of Molly Means." Dr. Margaret Wa...: "Then one dark day she put a spell on a young gal-bride just come to dwell in the lane right down from Molly's shack. And when her husband come riding back, his wife was barking like a dog, and on all fours like a common hog." Dr. Margaret Wa...: "O Molly, Molly, Molly Means. Where is the ghost of Molly Means?" Dr. Margaret Wa...: "The neighbors come and they went away, and said she'd die before break of day, but her husband held her in his arms, and swore he'd break the wicked charms. He'd search all up and down the land, and turn the spell on Molly's hand." Dr. Margaret Wa...: "O Molly, Molly, Molly Means. Sharp is the ghost of Molly Means." Dr. Margaret Wa...: "So he rode all day and he rode all night, and at the dawn he come in sight of a man who said he could move the spell, and cause the awful thing to dwell on Molly Means, to bark and bleed till she died at the hands of her evil deed." Dr. Margaret Wa...: "Old Molly, Molly, Molly Means. This is the ghost of Molly Means." Dr. Margaret Wa...: "Sometimes at night through the shadowy trees, she rides along on a winter breeze. You could hear her holler and whine and cry. Her voice is thin and her moan is high, and her cackling laugh or her barking cold bring terror to the young and old." Dr. Margaret Wa...: "O Molly, Molly, Molly Means. Lean is the ghost of Molly Means." Female: Yes. Dr. Margaret Wa...: "Toughest gal I ever did see was a gal by the name of Kissie Lee. The toughest gal God ever made, and she drew a dirty, wicked blade. Now this here gal warn't always tough, nobody dreamed she'd turn out rough. But her Grammaw Mamie had the name of being the town's sin and shame." Dr. Margaret Wa...: "When Kissie Lee was young and good, didn't nobody treeat her like they should. Allus gettin' beat by a no-good shine, an' allus quick to cry and whine. Till her Grammaw said, 'Now listen to me. I'm tiahed of yoah whinin', Kissie Lee. People don't never treat you right, an' you allus scrappin' or in a fight.'" Dr. Margaret Wa...: "'Whin I was a gal, wasn't no soul could do me wrong an' still stay whole. Ah got me a razor to talk for me, an' aftah that they let me be.' Well Kissie Lee took her advice, and after that she didn't speak twice. Because when she learned to stab and run, she got herself a little gun." Dr. Margaret Wa...: "And from that time that gal was mean, meanest mama you ever seen. She could hold her likker and hold her man, and she went thoo life jus' raisin' san'. One night she walked in Jim's salloon, and seen a guy what spoke too soon. He done her dirt long time ago, when she was good and feeling low." Dr. Margaret Wa...: "Kissie bought her drink and she paid her dime, watchin' this guy what beat her time. And he was making for the outside door when Kissie shot him to the floor. Not a word she spoke but she switched her blade, and flashing that lil ole baby paid. Evvy livin' guy got out of her way, because Kissie Lee was drawin' her pay." Dr. Margaret Wa...: "She could shoot glass doors offa the hinges. She could take herself on the wildest binges. And she died with her boots on switching blades on Talladega Mountain in the likker raids." Dr. Margaret Wa...: During the 1960s ... I'm going to read one more of those poems, probably the latest. This is really African ju-ju here. This is not just street talking, salted stuff. Salted, salted dogs stuff. This is ... If you don't understand, I didn't understand all of it myself. There's an article written by Paula Giddings called A Shoulder Hunched Against The Shop Concerned in which she explains the Nigerian background which you can also find in Frazer's Golden Bough, and f you know anything about African ju-ju, you may perhaps understand. Dr. Margaret Wa...: This poem is called Ballad Of The Hoppy-toad. I started in 1943 and I finished it in 1963. I found it one day, a little, old, yellow piece of paper that I had thrown away. I decided it might make a poem after all. Dr. Margaret Wa...: "Ain't been on Market Street for nothing, with my regular washing load. When the Saturday crowd went stomping down the Johnny-jumping road. Seen Sally Jones come running with a razor at her throat. Seen Deacon's daughter lurching like a drunken alley goat." Dr. Margaret Wa...: "But the biggest for my money, and the saddest for my throw was the night I seen the goopher man throw dust around my door. Come sneaking round my doorway in a stovepipe hat and coat. Come sneaking round my doorway to drop the evil note." Dr. Margaret Wa...: "I run down to Sis Avery's, and told her what I seen. 'Root-worker's out to git me. What you reckon that there mean?' Sis Avery she done told me, 'Now honey go on back. I knows just what will hex him, and that old goopher sack.'" Dr. Margaret Wa...: "Now I done burned the candles, till I seen the face of Jim. And I done been to Church and pray, but can't git rid of him. Don't want to burn his picture. Don't want to dig his grave. Just want to have my peace of mind, and make that dog behave." Dr. Margaret Wa...: "Was running through the fields one day. Sis Avery's chopping corn. Big horse come stomping after me. I knowed then I was gone. Sis Avery grabbed that horses' mane, and not one minute late, because trembling down behind her, I seen my ugly fate." Dr. Margaret Wa...: "She hollered to that horse to 'Whoa. I gotcha hoppy-toad. And yonder come the goopher man, a-running down the road. She hollered to that horse to 'Whoa'. And what you wanta think? Great-God-a-mighty, that there horse begun to sweat and shrink." Dr. Margaret Wa...: "He shrunk up to a teeny horse. He shrunk up to a toad, and yonder come the goopher man, still running down the road. She hollered to that horse to 'Whoa'. She said, 'I'm killing him. Now you just watch this hoppy-toad, and you'll be rid of Jim.'" Dr. Margaret Wa...: "The goopher man was hollering. 'Don't kill that hoppy-toad.' Sis Avery she said, 'Honey, you bout to lose your load.' That hoppy-toad was dying, right there in the road. And goopher man was screaming, 'Don't kill that hoppy-toad.' The hoppy-toad shook one more time, and then he up and died. Old goopher man fell dying, too. 'O hoppy-toad,' he cried." Dr. Margaret Wa...: During the '60s, I wrote a lot of poems that we'll call my civil rights poems. I think I wrote about everything I can that I thought was important in the period. I got the idea that the civil rights leaders could be equated to the profits of the 8th century before Christ. Obviously, Martin Luther King was Amos whom he quoted all the time. Medgar Evers was Micah. Benny Mays was Jeremiah. Roy Wilkins was Isaiah. James Farmer was Hosea. John Lewis was Joel. Dr. Margaret Wa...: I'd like to read that set of poems. I don't know. Am I running over the time? There's a prologue to it called Prophets for a New Day. These are my modern day prophets. The first poem is a kind of prologue and then I will read the prophets. As I read them, you will recall which civil rights leader I have named, an Old Testament prophet. Dr. Margaret Wa...: "As the Word came to prophets of old, as the burning bush spoke to Moses, and the fiery coals cleansed the lips of Isaiah, as the wheeling cloud in the sky clothed the message of Ezekiel, so the Word of fire burns today. On the lips of our prophets in an evil age, our soothsayers and doom-tellers and doers of the Word." Dr. Margaret Wa...: "So the Word of the Lord stirs again, these passionate people toward deliverance. As Amos, Shepherd of Tekoa, spoke to the captive children, preaching to the dispossessed and the poor. So today in the pulpits and the jails, on the highways and in the byways, a fearless shepherd speaks at last to his suffering weary sheep." Dr. Margaret Wa...: "So kneeling by the river bank, comes the vision to a valley of believers. So in flaming flags of stars in the sky and in the breaking dawn of a blinding sun, the lamp of truth is lighted in the temple, and the oil of devotion is burning at midnight. So the glittering censer in the temple, trembles in the presence of the priest. And the pillars of the door-posts move, and the incense rises in smoke, and the dark faces of the sufferers gleam in the new morning. The complaining voices and faces glow, and the winds of freedom begin to blow while the word descends on the waiting world below." Dr. Margaret Wa...: "A beast is among us. His mark is on our land. His horns and his hands and his lips are gory with our blood. He is war and famine and pestilence. He is death and destruction and trouble, and he walks in our houses at noonday, and devours our defenders at midnight. He is the demon who drives us with whips of fear, and in his cowardice, he cries out against liberty. He cries out against humanity, against all dignity of green valleys and high hills, against clean winds blowing through our living, against the broken bodies of our brothers. He has crushed them with a stone. He drinks our tears for water, and he drinks our blood for wine. He eats our flesh like a ravenous lion, and he drives us out of the city to be stabbed on a lonely hill." Dr. Margaret Wa...: "Jeremiah, prophet of Jerusalem, is now a man whose name is Benjamin. Brooding over a city called Atlanta, preaching the doom of a curse upon this land, his native land of Georgia. Preaching the downfall of an accursed system, preaching to the righteous of all creeds and colors, and his words are wonderfully wrought like the powerful prophets of old, 'Yet I say unto you, verily, not one of these stones shall remain. Not one rock of this rock of hatred shall remain. This city destroyed by fire a hundred years ago. Rising like a phoenix bird from ashes to build a mountain of materialism to Mammon. This city must pay and pay and pay. For the horsemen of this city shall be our God's. My God we are still here. We are still down here Lord, working for a kingdom of thy love. We weep for this city and for this land. We weep for all the doomed people of this land. We weep for Judah and beloved Jerusalem. O Georgia, where shall you stand in the Judgment?'" Dr. Margaret Wa...: "Isaiah was a man of the court who lived in the city and walked with kings. Isaiah was a cup-bearer for the king. He was a royal man and he went in and out among the people, speaking his mind to the great. For the fiery coal on his lips was a word of fire from the Lord. In the oldest black man's court, with its lawyers and judges and money and men, sits our northern Isaiah in the city of New York. There the sorrow of the prophet marks his word and his action and his thought. Sorrow sits upon his saddened face and declares his destiny." Dr. Margaret Wa...: "In all our seeking after justice from the law and in the courts, Isaiah is our leader and our man. And the words of this city man, this black leader of black people, his words go forth into the world, carrying to the ends of the earth over waves of light and sound, the message of our messenger. Condemning the guilty and the violent, threatening the complacent, criticizing the kings seated on thrones, and promising deliverance to a remnant of his people. Isaiah is a city man with a quiet word, a word of the Lord that demands to be heard." Dr. Margaret Wa...: "Amos is a shepherd of suffering sheep, a pastor preaching in the depths of Alabama, preaching social justice to the Southland, preaching to the poor a new gospel of love, with the words of a god and the dreams of a man. Amos is our loving shepherd of the sheep, crying out to the stricken land. 'You have sold the righteous for silver and the poor for a pair of shoes. My God is a mighty avenger, and He shall come with His rod in His hand.'" Dr. Margaret Wa...: "Preaching to the persecuted and the disinherited millions, preaching love and justice to the solid southern land. Amos is a prophet with a vision of brotherly love, with a vision and a dream of the red hills of Georgia. 'When justice shall roll down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream.' Amos is our shepherd standing in the shadow of our God. Tending his flocks all over the hills of Albany, and the seething streets of Selma and of bitter Birmingham." Dr. Margaret Wa...: "From Montgomery to Memphis, he marches. He stands on the threshold of tomorrow. He breaks the bars of iron and they remove the signs. He opens the gates of our prisons. He speaks to the captive hearts of America. He bares raw their conscience. He is a man of peace for the people. Amos is a prophet of the Lord. Amos speaks through eternity. The glorious word of the Lord." Dr. Margaret Wa...: "Micah was a young man of the people, who came up from the streets of Mississippi, and cried out his vision to his people, who stood fearless before the waiting throng like an astronaut shooting into space. Micah was a man who spoke against oppression. Crying, woe to you workers of iniquity. Crying, woe to you doers of violence. Crying, woe to you breakers of the peace. Crying, woe to you, my enemy. For when I fall I shall rise in deathless dedication." Dr. Margaret Wa...: "When I stagger under the wound of your paid assassins, I shall be whole again in deathless triumph. For your rich men are full of violence, and your mayors of your cities speak lies. They are full of deceit. We do not fear them. They shall not enter the city of good-will. We shall dwell under our own vine and fig tree in peace. And they shall not be remembered in the Book of Life. For Micah was a man." Dr. Darwin Turn...: Margaret Walker was counting the years more accurately than I care to remember this afternoon and indicating that we've known each for 20 years. Dr. Margaret Wa...: Or more. Dr. Darwin Turn...: Or more. This is the first evening that I've had an opportunity to hear Margaret Walker read poetry. I've known her as an educator, and I've known her through print. She's not heard me read poetry ever, but this evening she has paid me perhaps the greatest tribute that a poet can pay to another individual. She has agreed to let me read her signature poem and in tribute to Margaret Walker, I'd like to include the program with this. Dr. Darwin Turn...: "For my people everywhere singing their slave songs repeatedly, their dirges and their ditties and their blues and jubilees, praying their prayers nightly to an unknown god, bending their knees humbly to an unseen power. For my people lending their strength to the years, to the gone years and the now years and the maybe years, washing ironing cooking scrubbing sewing mending hoeing plowing digging planting pruning patching dragging along never gaining never reaping never knowing and never understanding." Dr. Darwin Turn...: "For my playmates in the clay and dust and sand of Alabama backyards playing baptizing and preaching and doctor and jail and soldier and school and mama and cooking and playhouse and concert and store and hair and Miss Choomby and company. For the cramped bewildered years we went to school to learn to know the reasons why and the answers to and the people who and the places where and the days when, in memory of the bitter hours when we discovered we were black and poor and small and different and nobody cared and nobody wondered and nobody understood." Dr. Darwin Turn...: "For the boys and girls who grew in spite of those things to be man and woman, to laugh and dance and sing and play and drink their wine and religion and success, to marry their playmates and bear children and then die of consumption and anemia and lynching. For my people thronging 47th Street in Chicago and Lenox Avenue in New York and Rampart Street in New Orleans, lost disinherited dispossessed and happy people filling the cabarets and taverns and other people's pockets needing bread and shoes and milk and land and money and something, something all our own." Dr. Darwin Turn...: "For my people walking blindly spreading joy, losing time being lazy, sleeping when hungry, shouting when burdened, drinking when hopeless, tied and shackled and tangled among ourselves by the unseen creatures who tower over us omnisciently and laugh." Dr. Darwin Turn...: "For my people standing staring trying to fashion a better way from confusion, from hypocrisy and misunderstanding, trying to fashion a world that will hold all the people, all the faces, all the Adams and Eves and their countless generations for my people. Let a new earth rise. Let another world be born. Let a bloody peace be written in the sky. Let a second generation full of courage issue forth, let a people loving freedom come to growth. Let a beauty full of healing and a strength of final clenching be the pulsing in our spirits and our blood. Let the martial songs be written, let the dirges disappear. Let a race of men now rise and take control." Dr. Darwin Turn...: Thank you [inaudible]. Dr. Margaret Wa...: I've been thinking about it [inaudible]. Dr. Darwin Turn...: Thank you for joining with us. We hoped that you would join us for the next Black Kaleidoscope Program. Thank you very much and thank you, Margaret. Dr. Margaret Wa...: Thank you.