The Fire in the Flint quotes

It wasn’t easy for them to do it, either, for it meant ostracism and all its attendant unpleasantnesses to teach coloured children in Georgia anything other than industrial courses. And they were so different from the white folks he knew in Central City.

Here he had always been made to feel that because he was a “nigger” he was predestined to inferiority.

But there at Atlanta they had treated him like a human being. He was glad he had gone to Atlanta University. It had made him realize that all white folks weren’t bad—that there were decent ones, after all.

He was the natural rebel, revolt was a part of his creed.

Kenneth was the natural pacifist⁠—he never bothered trouble until trouble bothered him.

Even then, if he could avoid it, he always did.

Especially had this been true since the death of her father. Often her face overclouded as she thought of them.

She, like Bob, felt always as though they were living on top of a volcano⁠—and never knew when it might erupt.

…

In the morning they attended to the many details of housekeeping; in the afternoon and early evening they sat on their front porches or visited neighbours or went for a ride.

Placid, uneventful, stupid lives they led with no other interests than the petty affairs of a small and unprogressive town.

The young girls of Central City usually in the afternoon dressed in all their small-town finery and strolled down to Odell’s Drug Store where the young men congregated.

Many of them, consciously or subconsciously, had a spirit which might have been expressed like this:

“Yes, we’ll fight for democracy in France, but when that’s over with we’re going to expect and we’re going to get some of that same democracy for ourselves right here in America.”

It was because of this spirit and determination that they submitted to the rigid army discipline to which was often added all the contumely that race prejudice could heap upon them.

His idea of complimenting a hostess was ostentatiously to loosen his belt along about the middle of dinner.

Once he had been introduced as the “black William Jennings Bryan,” believed it thereafter, and thought it praise of a high order.

He was one of those who say on every possible occasion: “I am kept so terribly busy I never have a minute to myself.” Like nine out of ten who say it, Dr.

Kenneth remembered Mrs. Bradley well indeed. The most talkative woman in Central City. It was she who had come to his mother with a long face and dolorous manner when he as a youngster had misbehaved in church. He had learned instinctively to connect

Mrs. Bradley’s visits with excursions to the little back room accompanied by his mother and a switch cut from the peach tree in the back yard⁠—a sort of natural cause and effect.

Visions of those days rose in his mind and he imagined he could feel the sting of those switches on his legs now.

Dr. Williams seemed to enjoy thoroughly his little moment of triumph. He delayed speaking in order that it might be prolonged as much as possible. The silence was broken by Jim Bradley.

“Doc, won’t you please he’p?” he pleaded. “She’s all I got!”

Kenneth could remain silent no longer. He longed to punch that fat face and erase from it the supercilious smirk that adorned it.

An unlooked-for intermission in the ceremonies followed as a score of the figures, holding the skirts of their robes aloft like old maids frightened at the appearance of a mouse, stamped out the fire, circling and yelling like a band of whirling deryishes.

Stodgy, phlegmatic, stupid citizens by day, these by night went through the discomforts of so unprepared a meeting-place

, and through the absurdities of the rites imposed upon them by clever rogues who extracted from them fees and donations for the privilege of being made to appear more silly than is usually apparent.

They opposed every move for better educational facilities for their children, for improvement of their health or economic status or welfare in general, if such improvement meant better advantages for Negroes.

Creatures of the fear they sought to inspire in others, their lives are lived in constant dread of the things of evil and terror they preached.

It is a system based on stark, abject fear—fear that he whom they termed inferior might, with opportunity, prove himself not inferior.

He could see a lifting of the clouds of ignorance which hung over all the South, an awakening of the best in all the people of the South.

Thus has youth dreamed since the beginning of time. Thus will youth ever dream.

And in those dreams rests the hope of the world, for without them this world with all its defects would sink into the black abyss of despair, never to rise again.

In a freer atmosphere Kenneth would have been a direct, straightforward character, swift to decision and quick of action.

One cannot, however, compromise principle constantly and consciously without bearing the marks of such conflicts.

His compromises were not all conscious ones, though. He believed honestly it was wisest that he observe some sort of halfway ground between rank cowardice and uncompromising opposition to the conditions which existed. In doing so, he had no sense of physical or moral timidity.

… walked home, he reflected on the anomalous position the judge and men like him occupied, hemmed in, oppressed, afraid to call their souls their own, creatures of the Frankenstein monster their own people had created which seemed about to rise up and destroy its creators.

No, he said to himself, he would much rather be a Negro with all his problems than be made a moral coward as the race problem had made the white people of the South.

The judge stood at the window, dim with the dust of many months, and gazed at Kenneth’s broad back as he swung down Lee Street.

She knew, and in that knowledge was content, that most of the work of the churches and societies and other organizations which had done so much towards welding the Negro into a racial unit had been done by women.

It was amusing to see men, vain creatures that they are, preen themselves on what they had done.

It was not so amusing when they, in their pride, sought to belittle what the women had done and take all the credit to themselves. Oh, well, what did it matter? The end was the all-important thing—not the means.

It seemed Jane had never looked more charming clad in her bungalow apron, dustcloth in hand. He was glad she had made no silly, conventional excuses because of her dress. The usual girl would have tried to rush indoors and change her dress.

Most women, he reflected, looked like angels at night, but in the harsh glare of morning looked terrible.

Jane seemed to him to be even prettier without powder or the soft light of evening. He felt a thrill of pleasure as he saw her dusting furniture in their home.

Thus they walked through the soft spring air, she wishing he would do that which he in his ignorance felt would be the unwisest thing he could attempt.

Thus is life made up of paradoxical situations where a word, a look, an otherwise insignificant gesture, would clear away at one fell swoop mountainous clouds of doubt and misunderstanding.

Jane stood, one foot on the ground, the other on the step, her hand resting on the opened door of the car. A faintly provocative smile flitted over her face.

Why didn’t he talk about something else besides his old cooperative societies and the Ku Klux Klan and his old hospital and what that old Judge Stevenson had said to him that day?

Life is such a funny thing.

But Kenneth went along his way, not even suspecting what was going on in Jane’s mind. He was like the majority of men—wise in their own minds but amazingly naive and ignorant when they left the beaten paths of everyday affairs.

She yearned for love and as steadfastly put it from her.

There are thousands of tragedies⁠—for tragedy it is⁠—like Mamie’s in the South, and the world knows it not.

When Kenneth or Bob teased her about marrying, she answered him with a brave and all-concealing smile-all-concealing, that is, to masculine eyes. Only her mother and Jane knew her secret, and their lips were sealed in the bond which women seldom, if ever, break. …

“How long have you known?” he asked her.

Men are such idiots⁠—they are never satisfied to take what comes to them⁠—they must ask silly and nonsensical questions.

She told him. Of her long struggle, of her decision, of her annoyance at his blindness. They talked eagerly until long past the hour of ten. He heard Mr.

No, that would never do! He’d see Parker and talk it over with him right away! He put the whip to his horse and drove rapidly into town.

Mustn’t let the damn niggers organize, that would be hell!

…

And then he thought of Roy Ewing and the operation of the night before. Must have been a mighty terrible ordeal for them to have to call a Negro in to operate on their daughter.

Race prejudice is a funny thing!

A white man will eat food prepared by black hands, have it served by black hands, have his children nursed by a black nurse who most of the time was more a mother to them than their own mother, let his clothes be taken into …

“

Patience can be a vice as well as a virtue.

” It was David Gordon who spoke.

“We’re always hearing about this liberal white opinion,” rejoined Kenneth, nettled by the unctuous suavity of the words, “but we so seldom see any signs of it—almost never in places like Central City.

Sometimes I think it’s like trying to put your finger on mercury⁠—when your finger is about to touch it, it rolls away⁠—it’s somewhere else.

Meanwhile lynching goes on.”

He reflected on the unusual conversation he had had the night before with Dr. Scott, John Anthony, and Gordon. It was good to know there were some white men who were thinking seriously on the race problem. And trying to be fair.

Most white Southerners were modern Pontius Pilates.

Figuratively and literally, mentally and morally, they washed their hands of all personal responsibility for the increasing complexities of the race question. He wondered how many more men there were in the South like those three. Broadminded but afraid to speak out.

A fierce, unrelenting, ungovernable hatred blazed in his eyes. He had passed through the most bitter five minutes of his life. Denuded of all the superficial trappings of civilization, he stood there the primal man—the wild beast, cornered, wounded, determined to fight—fight—fight!

The fire that lay concealed in the flint until struck, now leaped up in a devastating flame at the blows it had received!

All the art of the casuist with which he had carefully built his faith and a code of conduct was cast aside and forgotten!