A History of the African-American People (Proposed) by Strom Thurmond (13 page)

Item
—an 1869 Convention of New York Negroes listed the following grievances:

“[The Negroes of this state] are taxed without being represented; they are subject to trials by juries which are not their peers; they are murdered without having redress; they are taxed to support common schools while their children are denied the privilege of attending those in their respective wards; they are called upon for military service of their country without receiving proper protection from the country, and without any incentives whatever of being commissioned officers.
“
These grievances belie the Declaration of Independence
by which the American people profess to be governed” [italics theirs].

Item
—an 1870 memorial from colored physicians, all graduates from medical school and with experience as surgeons in the Union army, addresses the American Congress with clear evidence of the refusal of the District of Columbia to admit to membership in the medical society any colored physicians and even white physicians who favored the fair treatment of colored physicians. As membership in the Society was necessary for licensing, and licensing for practicing medicine, all these fine colored doctors were denied the right to pursue their profession
simply on the basis of the color of their skin
[italics Senator Thurmond’s].

You will find nothing of this sort happening in the South and particularly in South Carolina, where black physicians were treating black patients with full sanction of the medical board. Only in the North were such systematic monstrosities recorded.

I will be sending more materials in a few days.

If you have already finished some of the work and sent it, why that is fine. It may be that your reply is winging its way to me as mine is gliding to you. Some would say such crossings in the mail could be confusing. I prefer to regard them as aviarially poetic, and I feel certain you do as well, both of you.

While we are at it, perhaps it would be as well if you gave me some means of distinguishing you. I know that Everett is a writer and James is a researcher, but I think you’ll agree that doesn’t tell me much. Tell me more. For instance, are you both black or only one of you? How exactly black? Do you enjoy Sidney Poitier movies? What is it that draws you together and shoves you apart, emotion-wise? That sort of thing.

Sincerely yours,
Blaine

O
FFICE OF
S
ENATOR
S
TROM
T
HURMOND
217 R
USSELL
S
ENATE
B
UILDING
W
ASHINGTON
, D.C. 20515

October 20, 2002

Dear Repinuj,

You now move to imagining the masturbatory coupling of your mother and sister, as if that particular spectacle left you uninvolved. I have nothing against intense voyeurism, but I don’t accept for one moment the notion that it keeps you out of things, that one perversion displaces another, that you can only have one kink at a time. After all, it is you stage-managing all this, directing the scene, orchestrating the oohs and oh-Jesuses and yeses and that’s-the-places and don’t-stops.

You ask for more of the playing doctor. OK. I was just trying to be modest. It seems I was always the patient, carefully undressed and probed by a large hospital staff of neighborhood and visiting girls, and boys too. From the time I was maybe 8 until well into my teens I played this part. The attending physicians ranged in age from 4 to 16 at least, and several times Mr. Tolliver (my little friend Julie’s father) participated. He was ever so old. I can recall all this pretty clearly and can remember only being happy to give others so much pleasure. I don’t think I am lying when I say no sexual joyance came to me in all this. I felt, deeply but purely, the glow, call it altruistic if you must, that comes from being of use. I remember being very careful to present myself in a variety of comely ways, seeking out nice undergarments and, every now and then, perfumes.

I am not saying I am still available for this role. Don’t get me wrong. I have graduated to other dramas.

Wilmington? DELAWARE? Have you ever left your Simon & Schuster cardboard cubicle there, McCloudiness? Certainly not Wilmington, Delaware. I have no objections to an assignation. But let’s choose something with character. Veer east a little on your map and you find——? Let’s make it a game. Look and tell me.

Notnalb

p.s. I cannot imagine why you are so peevish about your name. Roba has about it a distinguished air. True, it doesn’t seem a name belonging in our time and place, does it? Ringing of the names invented for grunting cavemen in films like “Barbarella” or “Cro Magnon!” or for androids in the future, it seems to bring with it, Roba does, hints of melodies lost in the breezes of yesterday or not yet played. Unhearable, unknowable, untouchable.

Memo: McCloud to Snell

October 23, 2002

Dear Martin,

Look at this from Wilkes. What am I to do?

If ever you felt kindly toward me, please help.

Desperately,
Juniper

Memo: Snell to McCloud

October 24, 2002

Dearest Juniper,

I don’t exactly know what you’re asking for.

You do seem upset. Remember our party is but a week away. If you need calming before then, I’m afraid I can’t help you.

That’s rather interesting, that doctor game Wilkes outlined. Wonder if he has a little brother. I don’t see anything kinky or out of line in his letter. Probably you are just timid, McCloud, sexually repressed. I’m not saying you should offer yourself to him or he to you. Nor should either of you find a third party, male or female. It’s not a question of gender; that’s obvious enough. Besides, you affirm that you are straight, though I don’t recall giving you any cause to inform me of this “fact” so often or so insistently. You are barking up the wrong shrub in the garden of gender.

What’s your concern—that he will plead to give you an enema?

Martin

I see you’ve redacted the copy of the letter you sent me, the part that deals with the mystery of the “R.”

F
ROM THE
D
ESK OF
P
ERCIVAL
E
VERETT

October 25, 2002

Jim:

Well, now I’m with you. What in the name of the KKK are we dealing with here?

Barton now sends us “clarification” that is about as clear as yo mama’s reputation.

I can make nothing out of this, not one damn thing.

You want to cut and run?

P

Interoffice Memo

October 27, 2002

Percival:

You put me in the unaccustomed position, yes you do, of telling you to take it easy. Usually it’s you telling me to take it easy but now it’s me telling you. So, just take it easy and leave this to me.

It’s not like you, an ex-rodeo champeen and all, to quit just because the challenges mount. I do not lay the claims to athletic accomplishment that you devise, but I do remember my days on the intramural basketball team. I played both guard and forward, even, when Jimmy Canton didn’t show up once, center. We called our team “The Klondykers,” because we all, apart from one guy, came from a part of town called Klondyke. I really enjoyed all that, you know. I’d give anything to be back there right now, though just between you and me, it’d be better to go through high school again a whole lot better looking. It wouldn’t hurt to be a cool guy too. I wasn’t cool back then, were you? I mean, I wasn’t the worst geek or that sort of thing, but not really cool. I can say that now. Why is it we don’t have a chance to just fold time over like a sheet or a piece of legal pad paper and live it all over, only good looking and cool? I’d give anything. You ever think of that?

Don’t you get some feel from this latest material? I get some feel from it. Look again and tell me.

You’re a good friend.

Jim

F
ROM THE
D
ESK OF
P
ERCIVAL
E
VERETT

October 29, 2002

Jim:

You OK?

Percival