The Strivers' Row Spy by Jason Overstreet Page B

had already headed over to 145th and Seventh where Paul Smith had showed me an available office space. It was perfect, so I’d signed the papers on the spot and contacted the Bureau, informing them of its location.
    I had spent the past days tipping and sending a hotel janitor on daily errands, mainly to get me soup and any colored newspapers he could find. The more I read, the more I got a sense of why so many Negroes had been moving north.
    The war had depleted cities of their industrial manpower, as millions of men went off to fight. Also, fewer folks from overseas had moved to America during the war, opening up good-paying industrial jobs in the North. And Northern life had to seem much more peaceful than the Jim Crow South.
    Because of the race riots that were taking place all over the country, the summer of 1919 was being called Red Summer. Editorials about coloreds demanding their equality were cropping up all over the place. The anger over so many shootings and lynchings was on the rise.
    As I had achingly rested in bed, I clipped a poem called “If We Must Die” from a Jamaican-born poet named Claude McKay that summed up this new, pervasive defiance amongst many coloreds. It began with, “If we must die, let it not be like hogs — hunted and penned in an inglorious spot.” I was moved by his words.
    I had never heard of this McKay, but he was obviously talented. I found his poem gripping and wondered who he aligned himself with politically—Garvey, Du Bois, or someone else. There were other bold remarks being made. One of the New York papers had reprinted an editorial that was originally written in a Kansas City paper—the Call. It read, “The New Negro, unlike the old time Negro, does not fear the face of day. The time for cringing is over.”
    As the driver continued down Madison and made a right on East Fifty-ninth Street, I thought about how Harlem was quickly becoming the epicenter for colored politics—perhaps throughout the world. Many American Negroes were expressing a willingness to embrace militancy in order to secure their rights. But that approach had been tried before.
    Even back when John Brown led a group of slaves in an attempt to take back their freedom violently, it ended with his being hanged. Most of the slaves had no intentions of rising up and using violence as a means to break the chains of slavery. They knew they’d meet certain death. Most coloreds in the summer of 1919 probably felt the same way. They wanted to stay alive first, and if that meant continuing to make progress slowly, so be it.
    We turned left on Seventh Avenue and approached Carnegie Hall. Brothers and sisters were lining the street. I wasn’t sure whether I could even get in, but I at least wanted to soak up the mood. I opened the taxi door and stepped into a parade of energy. A teenager bumped up against me and shoved a leaflet into my chest, aggravating the muscles around my wounded rib.
    â€œTake it, brother—take it!” he yelled. “Marcus Garvey is putting the fear of God in the white man! He’s our new king!”
    Taking the leaflet, I was bumped again from behind, then again from the side, jostled around in the thick, loud crowd, unable to step a foot in any direction. I did manage to hold the leaflet very close to my face as I let the movement of the mob carry me forward like an ocean wave.
    The headline of the leaflet read, GRAND REUNION OF THE NEGRO PEOPLES OF THE WORLD OF AMERICA, AFRICA, WEST INDIES, CANADA, CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICA AT THE FAMOUS CARNEGIE HALL—A RALLY FOR THE BLACK STAR LINE STEAMSHIP CORPORATION . The subtitle read, “Stocks will be on sale at this big meeting. The stocks in the Black Star Line are sold at $5.00 each and you can buy as many as you want and make money. Admission Free.”
    I found it interesting that Garvey was selling stock for a steamship corporation but still didn’t officially own a ship.