The Nigger Factory (19 page)

Friday

30

Final Word

Mrs Gloria Calhoun, the former Gloria Vernon of Saginaw, Michigan, sat quietly in the upstairs bedroom waiting for the ten o'clock news report. The door had slammed downstairs only minutes before and she had been expecting her husband to come into the bedroom, but now supposed that he was watching the news on the television set in the den.

She felt rather foolish watching television for information about her husband when he sat just one floor beneath her, but she was somewhat afraid of what the news would be. She hadn't been able to help overhearing the tense phone call that had come from Captain Jones at just past eight o'clock. She hadn't been able to ignore the fact that for some reason Earl Thomas, the Student Government president, had cut into the phone call. As a matter of fact it had seemed as though the usually soft-spoken young Thomas was screaming, his words audible from her seat across the room. A disturbance had taken place and had doubtlessly involved the Sutton police. She hadn't wanted her husband to ask them for any assistance. The Sutton students hadn't demonstrated any need to be contained by armed bullies. She crossed her fingers and prayed that none of the students had been hurt. She hoped that a student's injury had not been the reason that her husband had not come up the stairs to face her.

When Ogden Calhoun completed his doctorate in 1946 he went straight to Saginaw to marry the woman he had met during his undergraduate studies at Howard University. Calhoun had been one of the youngest black Ph.D.’s in psychology in America. There had been times when neither of the two thought that he would make it. The war, the money, the pressure on Blacks in the higher realms of the educational
system had all been against the young couple, but somehow Calhoun's determination had paid off and brought a ray of hope to friends and relatives who saw an almost fairy-tale ending placed on the Calhoun story when the couple married in the Vernon family church.

Unfortunately that was
not
the end of the story, but rather the beginning of a new phase. The second phase included Calhoun's appointment as the head of the Psychology Department at Small's College in West Virginia, radical contributions on the causes of Black psychological problems to national psychology journals that lost him his appointment, the loss of their only child, Margaret, from polio at the age of two, and a subsequent wall of frustration built between them by Calhoun's long, exhausting work schedule and his wife's boredom.

The appointment of Calhoun as president of Sutton had been a second beginning of the second phase. Neither of them had really expected the appointment because in the fifties there was an open fear of Blacks who spoke out so openly against racism and Black oppression. It had been felt that Calhoun's articles of the fifties would be held against him even ten years later by the white corporations that supplied much of the financing for private Black institutions.

The first year at Sutton had been like a breath of fresh air for the couple. Each became involved with new duties. Mrs Calhoun was a frequent speaker for Women's Day programs at churches in the Black community. Her picture often appeared in the local paper when she was endorsing another one of her many charities.

As a still-life photo of Ogden Calhoun appeared on the television screen, Mrs Calhoun began to regret the very involvement that she had once been so happy to discover. Her community responsibilities had practically severed her ties with her husband. The two of them had lost touch with one another. Their ability to communicate had faded. Their interest in one another had become impersonal. Their sex life had disappeared.

‘Sutton University in Sutton, Virginia, was closed today by University President Ogden Calhoun who reacted to a student strike due to nonimplementation of twelve demands with these words: “I have decided to close Sutton University until such time as the university can undergo a readmission program that will insure the community an ability to function at one hundred per cent efficiency.” Sources have intimated that the Admissions Office will not be considering new applications received from Student Government officials or members of a new radical student faction call MJUMBE. These student leaders touched off two near-riots today when first they seized the stage at a meeting where Calhoun announced plans to close the school, and tonight when students destroyed an estimated eight thousand dollars’ worth of furniture and dormitory equipment. During the interruption of this afternoon's meeting the Sutton students were urged by a MJUMBE leader named Ralph Baker to defy Calhoun and remain on campus. The Sutton police were called in to patrol the grounds, but were asked to leave by Calhoun after the vandalism began. The eighty-seven-year-old institution has been ordered cleared by six o'clock tomorrow evening, but many students have vowed to stay.’

Mrs Calhoun used the remote control to turn off the television when the announcer turned his attention to other news-making events. She was relieved that no one had been hurt, but there was clear frustration and tension etched into the corners of her mouth and around her eyes, frowns penciling crooked furrows across her forehead. She reached for her coffee cup, but finding it empty returned it to the night table beside her bed. She was tempted to switch off the light and avoid the confrontation that would occur when her husband came up for bed, but she did nothing of the sort. Instead, she allowed her mind to wander, floating across the days, weeks, months, and years of which her marriage consisted. She was so lost in thought that her husband startled her when he opened the door.

‘How are you?’ she tried tentatively.

‘Tired,’ Calhoun spat out, puffing his pipe.

‘Is everything all right on campus?’

‘For now,’ Calhoun shrugged, sitting on the edge of the bed. ‘I went over and did what I could.’

‘Was anyone hurt?’

‘Of course not. I don't think there was any real reason for the entire incident. Probably started by MJUMBE.’

‘You think so?’

‘Glo, if you had seen them this afternoon you would have no doubt at all. Savage! Ripped the microphone right out of my hands this afternoon. Tore the wires out of the control panel and threw it on the floor . . . student leaders . . .’

‘You couldn't talk to them at all?’

‘That's why I'm closing,’ Calhoun snapped. ‘I had them in my office and tried to talk them into negotiating the demands. Damn if they'd have anything to do with anything I suggested.’

‘What did they say?’ Mrs Calhoun asked, sitting up.

‘Said they'd bring me some things we could bargain with after I'd done what
had
to be done. Ain't that rich?’ Calhoun stood and removed his coat, shirt, and tie. He dropped all three articles into a plastic laundry bag that hung from the closet door. ‘Tell Arnie that I'll need these things Saturday at the latest when he comes by . . . do I have any shirts down at the laundry?’

‘Yes. He said he'd bring them by when he picked up tomorrow. In the meantime you have plenty of shirts in the bottom drawer.’

‘Good,’ Calhoun replied. He took a fresh pair of pajamas out of the middle dresser drawer and proceeded into the bathroom.

Mrs Calhoun stared blankly at her husband and in her mind's eye she could see the years of her life turning to water and swirling down an hourglass-shaped drain. What had happened to them and to their lives? she wondered.
Where had
her
Ogden Calhoun gone? How long had he been gone? Where was Gloria Calhoun, the woman who had saved herself for this one man?

Her musing was interrupted by a clap of thunder followed quickly by a jagged snake of lightning that blazed across the darkened sky, as drops of silver-paint rain appeared on her windows. She got up and closed the huge windows that looked out over the back of the yards, her carefully tended gardens, and down perhaps a quarter of a mile where a thousand lights still shone bright inside the dormitories on Sutton's campus.

The lightning flashed again causing the lights in the Calhoun bedroom to blink. The wind was picking up. Once again the vision of the young Calhoun, the young Black radical, the advancer of new psychological theories based on the experiences of Black people, danced through Gloria Calhoun's mind.

‘It's so sad,’ she was thinking, ‘to think of what has become of my knight in shining armor . . . my knight in rusty armor.’

31

Faculty Only

Ogden Calhoun enjoyed the luxury of an extra hour's sleep on Friday morning. He had ignored the seven-thirty alarm that generally started his day and informed his wife to wake him at eight thirty instead. He was expecting a long and trying day on the campus once he got there, a day crammed with meetings, conferences, phone calls, and unexpected problems. Upon arriving on campus shortly before ten o'clock, however, he was happy that he hadn't elected to report to work any later. Fenton Mercer, the portly second-in-command at Sutton, was sitting in his office fidgeting with a damp handkerchief.

‘Mercer!’ Calhoun exclaimed with his best everything-is-roses greeting. ‘So early in the day and you're here already. What's up?’

‘There's a meeting I think you should know about,’ Mercer said nervously. ‘I recalled when I heard about it what you had said about my not informing you about the last impromptu meeting that was called and . . .’

‘My God, man!’ Calhoun snapped, placing his attaché case down on the desk. ‘What in hell is it?’

‘There's been a Faculty Only meeting called in the Dunbar Library,’ Mercer managed. ‘I went over there, but they didn't admit me.’

‘Who?’ Calhoun asked. He had greeted his vice-president with a bit of sarcastic comradery, but now he was all business. ‘Who wouldn't admit you?’

‘Well, they didn't exactly bar me,’ Mercer admitted, ‘but they told me that I wasn't welcome.’

‘They who?’

‘Arnold McNeil . . . I heard about the meeting when I first got here this morning, but when I tried to call you your line
was busy and Miss Felch had told me that you weren't expected to be late so I waited. I called again ‘bout ten minutes ago, but the line was still busy.’

‘Gloria was probably talking to somebody,’ Calhoun muttered. ‘What time was the meeting scheduled for?’

‘Ten.’

‘It's a little after,’ Calhoun said checking his watch.

‘I went over at ten, but they hadn't started.’

‘Who called the meeting?’ the president asked.

‘I didn't find that out,’ Mercer admitted. ‘Nancy said there were notes placed in all faculty members’ mail boxes.’

‘Probably Thomas or MJUMBE,’ Calhoun said, placing his case on the floor and searching through the papers on his desk until he came up with a pipe cleaner. ‘Let's go.’

The meeting hadn't started on time because the assembled faculty members were waiting for Earl Thomas, the man who had called the meeting. Arnold McNeil and Edmund Mallory stood at the entrance to the library talking quietly. Both were hoping that Earl would appear, and neither of the men felt that the Student Government leader would come late.

They were wrong. Just as McNeil was about to take matters into his own hands Earl came through the library door with Lawman and Odds at his side. He smiled vaguely at the two tense faculty members and then slid inside where the rest of the professors sat talking among themselves and smoking.

Earl wasted little time. He went directly to the small table that was in front of the audience and put his notes and papers down. Odds and Lawman sat in the seats where the secretary and presiding officer of a meeting generally sat. Earl never sat down when he was speaking, and did not do so now. The SGA chief waited until everyone present had been seated. McNeil and Mallory were in the last row waiting. Earl lit a cigarette.

‘Good morning,’ Earl began. ‘I had given serious thought to not attendin’ this meetin’ at all even though I called for it. When the thought of a meetin’ with the faculty first occurred
to me several things had not taken place that have become overwhelming factors in the student stance during the current crisis. First of all, when the meetin’ was called school was still open. That has a great deal to do with our stance.’ Earl smiled a bit, realizing that he had stated an over-obvious fact. ‘But more important, when I called for this meetin’ I wasn’ aware of the lengths that our president would go to, to make sure that Sutton University stands still.

‘Granted that perhaps President Calhoun considered himself under attack when presented with our “proposals”, I still deny emphatically the fact that these issues had never been broached by students at Sutton. I will remind you all of the proposal last year presented by then SGA president Peabody that Sutton go on the meal-ticket system to cope with the inadequacies of the food served up by the Pride of Virginia Food Services. In brief, this was a system where students would buy a monthly meal ticket with a certain amount of holes that could be punched out when a student attended a meal. At the end of the month the tickets would be turned over to the central SGA office and another ticket would be issued. At the end of the semester all holes not punched would be refunded from the initial fee paid by boarding students.

‘This is an example of the type of thoughtful proposal that President Ogden Calhoun says he is in favor of. Yet this proposal was rejected and the students were never informed in detail as to why. The only explanation given was that it might be difficult to keep track of food tickets; that some might be lost or stolen and that other students who were not paying might be eating on a friend's meal ticket. I agree that in case of a lost or stolen ticket the university might suffer, but only if the lost tickets were unnumbered and the hole puncher in the cafeteria was not given a list of tickets that had been reported lost and were no longer valid. In other words, all of the objections to the tickets were things that could've been easily worked out. The real reason that the idea was rejected, I suggest, is that the Pride of Virginia Food Services is aware of the quality of
their meals and knew that no one would eat in the cafeteria if they had an option.’

Earl paused to light a cigarette. ‘Perhaps that's enough about the food. Issues two, three, and four called for the resignation of Gaines Harper, Professors Royce, and Beaker. I suppose that everyone here has read the newsletter published yesterday by members of MJUMBE, but for those of you who haven't, it simply states that Gaines Harper is not presentin’ the image that students need to see in order to confide very personal information. I'm sure that some of you will remember your college careers an’ a lack of finances that made some of the goin’ extremely rough. I'm sure that you didn’ relish the idea of discussin’ your family circumstances with
anyone
, but I assure you that you would find it doubly difficult to discuss these matters with Gaines Harper . . . As for the two professors referred to, I will take this opportunity to assure them that it is not a personal condemnation. What the students seek is a way to be better prepared for what awaits them after graduation . . . I have here a petition signed by ninety per cent of the majoring students in both the Language Department and the Chemistry Department who feel that new department heads are needed for progress.’

‘He's a diplomatic bastard, ain't he?’ Odds asked Lawman.

‘He has to be,’ Lawman said. ‘But he's sincere.’

Odds nodded and lit up a cigarette of his own. He was beginning to relax a bit. Earl's diplomacy and ability to articulate had surprised even him, and he had sworn that nothing Earl would do could surprise him after the upset SGA election victory. He took a drag on the cigarette and leaned back. The issues of the demanded resignations from Beaker and Royce had been the matters that had troubled him all night. He had wondered how Earl would enlist the faculty support while asking for the dismissal of two of their most respected colleagues. The whole meeting would be a snap from here.

The next snap Odds heard, however, was the snap the entire
assembly heard as the door to the auditorium had its lock sprung and Captain Eli Jones of the security guards ushered Ogden Calhoun and Fenton Mercer into the meeting. The only man in the room who responded was Arnold McNeil, who was instantly on his feet.

‘You were not invited to participate in this meeting,’ Calhoun was told by McNeil.

‘I'm well aware of that,’ Calhoun remarked openly. ‘But as the president of the university I am also the chairman of the faculty until such time as a replacement is found for me. Any meeting of this sort should definitely be of interest to the chair . . .’

‘Then I so move,’ McNeil said fuming.

‘Motion denied, I bet,’ Odds quipped behind his hand.

‘The purpose of this meetin’ was to inform faculty members of some things that the students consider important,’ Earl said, facing Calhoun at the top step of the elevated platform.

‘Let me tell you somethin’, Thomas,’ Calhoun said pointing a finger at the younger man's chest. ‘I hold you and Baker personally responsible for damages to this university that may yet total more than ten thousand dollars. Did he talk about that?’ Calhoun asked, turning to the assembly. ‘Did he bother to go into the actions taken against Sutton yesterday at our meeting?’

‘That's not the point!’ Arnold McNeil said, rising from the seat he had slumped into and coming toward the stage. ‘I, for one, am tired of being forced to see every issue from your point of view. I think that faculty members have as much stock in this community and in the particular situation that has come up as anyone else, and that our feelings and opinions to this point have been based primarily on hearsay and biased reports. I think,’ he said, turning to his colleagues, ‘that we need to hear the other side of the story.’

‘Could I ask a question?’ Mrs Pruitt singsonged above the hubbub of the gathering.

‘Please do,’ Calhoun said as though he were chairing the meeting.

‘Just what do you hope to accomplish, Mr Thomas, or should I say did you hope to accomplish by calling this meeting?’

Earl paused. Lawman nodded to him. All eyes were on him.

‘We had hoped to enlist the aid of the faculty,’ Thomas said.

‘I mean,’ Mrs Pruitt interrupted, ‘there had to be more to this than simply informing us about things . . .’

‘We wanted to suggest two possible alternatives,’ Earl said. ‘I will be glad to go into them if this meeting is returned to its former state. I mean faculty only.’

‘What have you got to say that I can't hear?’ Calhoun asked defiantly.

‘This is not a debate!’ Earl said facing Calhoun squarely. ‘The purpose was not for you an’ I to argue points here. You know my perspective an’ I know yours. You called a meetin’ yesterday morning an’ Captain Jones had his men on the door. That was not an open meeting! This is not an open meeting!’

‘I think we should hear Thomas out,’ McNeil suggested. ‘Doesn't anyone want to hear the students’ side of this?’

‘I do!’ Coach Mallory said speaking out for the first time.

Unfortunately the coach was the only faculty member who chose to speak out. Earl couldn't decide whether the others were speechless because of Calhoun's presence or because they simply had nothing to say.

‘I was goin’ to ask members of the faculty to go on strike with us,’ Earl said through the icy silence with a weak grin on his face, ‘or suggest that certain faculty members safeguard the readmission program in order to establish a buffer for the repression. But I don't suppose the questions I wanted to raise are relevant any more . . . how can you seek protection from a fellow victim?’