Never had a situation felt so absurd, surreal and ridiculous. And I had spent my life as a slave. There we were, twelve of us, marching down the main street that separated the free side of town from the slave side, ten white men in blackface, one black man passing for white and painted black, and me, a light-brown black man painted black in such a way as to appear like a white man trying to pass for black. The storefronts, a bank and a store and such, all looked flat and without depth, like I could just kick them over. It occurred to me that there was no telling which side was free and which was slave. Then I understood that it really didn’t matter. We marched in step, then fell into a cakewalk stagger. Emmett belted out a song line and the rest of us repeated it.
Lawdy, Lawdy, slap dat mule, slap dat mule.
Lawdy, Lawdy, slap dat mule.
Massa keep his corn in a old brown keg.
Massa keep dat corn in a old brown keg.
Massa’s chilluns run to school, act the fool.
Massa’s chilluns run to school.
Ole Miss chase ’em with her wood’n leg.
Ole Miss chase ’em with her wood’n leg.
White people came out and lined the street, smiling and laughing and clapping. I made eye contact with a couple of people in the crowd and the way they looked at me was different from any contact I had ever had with white people. They were open to me, but what I saw, looking into them, was hardly impressive. They sought to share this moment of mocking me, mocking darkies, laughing at the poor slaves, with joyful, spirited clapping and stomping. I looked at one woman who might have been intrigued by me or taken with me, the entertainer. I saw the surface of her, merely the outer shell, and realized that she was mere surface all the way to her core.
The auditorium was a part of the town hall. In fact, it appeared very much like a courtroom. I had been in one once, as I had been sent to deliver a lunch to Judge Thatcher. We marched and sang our way onto the stage and belted the songs. As Emmett, Cassidy and even Norman had stated, I learned the songs quite quickly, as least enough to sing with them on the choruses. It was actually painful to watch those white faces laughing at me, laughing at us, but, again, I was fooling them.
Come listen, all you gals and boys, Ise from Tuckahoe,
Ima gone sing you a little song. My name is Jim Crow.
Wheel ’bout and toin ’bout and do jis so,
Ev’ry time I toin ’bout, jump Jim Crow!
