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.