A Black Man’s Life in America During the Twentieth Century

I am a man of few words and must say from the start that words do not come easily to me.  Which makes the fact I am saying anything, especially about myself, quite unusual.  I think of myself as a man of action more than deep reflection.  And although I do think about some things as much (or as little) as the next man, I am not an especially introspective person.  Nor do I dwell upon the complexities of life. Nor am I terribly well read, although a few books have had an immense impact on my life.  The fact is, as I think about it, that I have gained my way into this my eighty fifth year on the planet, mostly by persistence, desire, brawn, by my sheer physical strength, and my immense stubborn will.  By my deeds, I say … deeds and few words.  The fact I am saying any of this at all actually makes very little sense, but I’m trying.

The fact is I don’t talk about myself and I don’t philosophize.  Never have.  Never found it all that interesting frankly.

This particular project actually began because of my grandson Robert.  A strange young man, I tease him, who comes over to my apartment on One Hundred and Seventeenth St. one fine day and informs me he is taking an oral history class at City University and that he wants me to tell him the history of my life.  Gives me this little tape recorder and these tapes.  Says to me, “Grandpa, please just tell me the story of your life,” as if it was a story I actually knew, when truth is I have hardly looked at myself for one minute of one day, except in the mirror when I dress or shave, or walking past the window of some darkened storefront on the avenues.  “What do I have to say, young fool,” I ask him.  And he says, “Come on, gramps, be real, you know your life is an interesting story, please, just talk into the tape recorder as if you were talking to me and telling me one of your tales.”

Now honestly, there is nothing inherently more interesting in my story than in the next fellow’s story if you ask me.  I didn’t fight in a war overseas.  I didn’t win a gold medal at the Olympics.  I haven’t written any books.  And it’s damned sure I haven’t amassed a great fortune.  And I wasn’t even the first Negro fire fighter in the history of the New York City Fire Department.  But I was the first Negro fire chief in the history of the New York City and surely I was the first Black Battalion Chief in New York City Fire Department history, maybe unto now for all I know.  And I suppose that’s what Robert thinks about when he asks me to tell him my story.

I have lived in these so-called United States of America all my life.  What can I tell you?  I’ve actually lived in New York City all my life.  Fact is, I’d just as soon not leave the Bronx or Manhattan if I had my druthers.  As an adult I was certainly free to leave and I clearly and definitively did not, notwithstanding the pain of the everyday and of our history.  I am an American, after all, and I am proud of that fact as a Black man.

This whole project, of me recording into this tape recorder thing, actually started out because my grandson Robert, a strange young man I tell him, came over to my apartment on One Hundred and Seventeenth Street one day, and told me he was taking an oral history class at City University.  Asked me to tell him the story of my life.  Gave me a little tape recorder and these tapes and said with that straight and earnest face Robert has, “Grandpa, please, just tell me the story of your life and I‘ll have the tape running,” as if the story of my life was a story I actually knew.  Strange young man, that Robert.  Always into books.  And oh my how earnest he is.  Truth is I have hardly looked at myself for one minute of one day, except in the mirror when I dress, or shave, or walk past some of the big windows of some of the storefronts on the avenues. 

Oh I know well that some people regard me with a admiration and respect, at least these days they do, but that has to do with my deeds, my rank, my status, my accomplishments and not with the inner man, although I’m sure the inner man is a reflection of the outer public man, and vice versa.  I just really never looked at it and I don’t think anyone ever actually asked me to.

“What do I have to say about anything, young fool,” I asked him. 

And he said, “oh just please, grandpops, please, just talk into the tape recorder as if you were standing at the pearly gates reviewing your life with god.

“Now you know I don’t believe in that foolishness, Robert, you know that,” I said.

“Well then just talk into the tape recorder as if you were telling your mother what happened to you after she died.  Tell grandma what happened to you.  Tell her.”

“You are a pushy bookish young man, Robert.  You know that?” I said, and I knew I was smiling as I said it.

I have lived in these so-called United States of America all my life.  What can I tell you?  I’ve actually lived in New York City all my life.  Fact is I’d just as soon not leave New York City at any time if I had my druthers.  The Bronx and Manhattan, that’s where I live, and have lived, and chose to live.  Lived in Jersey for a short while with Frances but didn’t really like it.  Who needs all those trees I say, just give me blacktop, brick, bright lights, and sidewalks.  Throw in a siren. There is no freer place on earth for me than walking down the streets of New York City.  Yes, son, New York, that’s my home.

As an adult I was certainly free to leave New York City and I clearly and definitively did not, notwithstanding the pain of the everyday and of our history.  I am a New Yorker, an American, and I tell any African who visits these shores that I am as proud of that fact as I am proud to be a Black man.

I was born in the summer of 1897, well before what these white people call World War One.  Funny how language, and those who shape the language, also shape and influence a people’s perception of reality.  I mean, thirty five to sixty million Africans were ripped from their homes and families and forced to live in the most horrific and degrading conditions for centuries, treated worst than dogs, owned and unfree, and that is called a “peculiar institution,” while fifty to sixty thousand young American white men die in foreign lands between 1914 and 1917 and it is called “the war to end all wars.”  I ask you.

My father James worked as an attendant at Grand Central Station for half a century.  Worked as hard and steady as any man who ever lived.  Loved his work, and loved bringing home his paycheck and putting it on the kitchen table for all to see.  “Honest week’s work.  Honest week’s wages.  Land of the free, home of the brave,” he would say.

His father had been a slave.  Now there’s a story there worth telling.  And my mother herself had been born a slave, although as a young child she and her mother were freed and came up to New York City.  Slavery has defined me, has defined our people, and has defined our country from the beginning.  When I was a boy we lived in the Bronx in an apartment my father rented way over by Pelham Parkway.  You can’t quite imagine what the Bronx was like nearly one hundred years ago.  But there were farmhouses still.  And people kept cows and chickens.  And if you were Black you lived in      .  And there were no public schools for colored children.  And I was born at home in my mother’s kitchen, with a hot tub of water on the floor, and my mother’s mother Rachel and the neighborhood midwife standing by.  No drugs.  No doctors.  No medicines.  No alcohol in that house.  Just my mother screaming, “Damn you, James, see if I ever let’s you touch me again.  Ever.”  Screaming and laughing and panting hard you know, and swearing things she never meant but in her times of urgency and birth.

I was a skinny runt of a kid.  Not an ounce of weight on me, when Ramsey found me.  Now Ramsey, there was a man’s man.  Just lived in that neighborhood, a quiet, never no nonsense man.  Had a little gym in the garage next to his house with some weight lifting equipment.  Inherited that house free and clear somehow.  Hardly ever employed.  Lived just to work out and exercise.  Loved to bring every kid in the neighborhood if he could into his garage and show them how to lift weights, do push ups, jump rope.

The Funeral

The day broke sunny and hot. Even so, my father put on his fire department dress uniform with his badge on the jacket front and his formal stiff dress hat. His badge had a piece of black tape across the numbers. Mother set out my good shoes, a dress shirt and a clip-on tie. The sunlight came through the Venetian blinds into the bedroom as I dressed. Mother actually kissed me softly on the cheek as I walked out the front door of the apartment into the cool marble hallway and down the stairs into the street. “What a handsome young man you are,” she said

We got into my father’s old Plymouth with the soft upholstered beige seats and drove east along the residential streets and apartment houses that are the Bronx. In less than twenty minutes we parked the car somewhere near Pelham Bay Road and walked to a building with an awning in front where lots of other men in uniform were gathered. The building was very quiet, notwithstanding the many people milling about it. My father signed a book when we went inside to a set of rooms filled with lots of cut flowers and soft purple velvet curtains and velvet covered chairs. My father shook hands with many of the men.

“Hey Marty,” the firemen say as they shake his hand. Or “Hello, brother. Who’s your assistant?” Or “who’s the new fireman?”

“Good to see you,” my father answered. “This is my boy, Sam. Son shake hands with my friend,” my father would say and I would reach out and shake the hand of one fireman after another.

“What do we have here, Marty,” a man named Captain Bannerman asked. “Looks like a fullback, or maybe a tiller man,” he said with a wink to me.

I shake the captain’s hand too.

My father holds my hand and walks over to a sparkling velvet open box. A flag is draped over part of it. Inside is a handsome man lying on his back in a fireman’s uniform. His eyes are closed.

“Son, meet Eddie Farrelli,” my father says, looking down at the face of the man in the casket. “The bravest man I ever knew. Just fought one fire too many. Eddie, this is my boy,” my father said.

I looked down into the casket at the man named Eddie Farrelli. “I’m pleased to meet you, sir,” I said. My father squeezed my hand a little tighter. I looked up into his face. He was crying.

We walked over to a woman seated on a chair against a wall with two children on either side of her.

“I’m Marty T,” my father said, shaking the woman’s hand. “I knew Eddie well. He and I had some good times together. He was a brave man. He talked very highly of you and your children.”

“Thank you, Marty” says the woman, “Eddie told me all about you too. And thank you for coming to pay respects, son,” she says to me.

We walk outside the funeral home. The city air is delightful, the sky bright. A cluster of uniformed firemen stand outside on the sidewalk. Some smoke cigarettes. Others brush and scuff the top of the sidewalk with the soles of their shoes looking down at the pavement.

“Life sucks,” says a big man with an immense moustache.

“Life sucks,” echoes a couple of the men.

“See you at the funeral,” says my father.

“See you around,” say a couple of the guys.

“I’d rather feed him than clothe him he’s growing so fast,” says one of the men ruffling my hair.

“Be good,” say a couple of the men.

“Yeah. Take good care of yourselves,” says my father.

We walk back to the car. We get inside. My father sits at the wheel for a while saying nothing.

“Let’s not go home yet,” he says as he starts the engine. “Let’s take the rest of the day off. Okay? Let’s stop somewhere and get some ice cream,” he says. “What do you like? Vanilla?” He looks at me. He rolls down his window. He looks to his left, and pulls out into traffic.