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Shorty Sang

…One day he needed twenty-five cents to buy his lunch.

“Just watch me get a quarter from the first white man I see,” he told me as I stood in the elevator that morning.

  A white man who worked in the building stepped into the elevator and waited to be lifted to his floor.  Shorty sang in a low mumble, smiling, rolling his eyes, looking at the white man roguishly.

   “I’m hungry, Mister White Man.  I need a quarter for lunch.”

  The white man ignored him. Shorty, his hands on the controls of the elevator, sang again:

   “I ain’t gonna move this damned old elevator till I get a quarter, Mister White Man.”

   “The hell with you, Shorty,” the white man said, ignoring him and chewing on his black cigar.

   “I’m hungry, Mister White Man.  I’m dying for a quarter,” Shorty sang, drooling, drawling, humming his words.

   “If you don’t take me to my floor, you will die,” the white man said, smiling a little for the first time.

   “But this black sonofabitch sure needs a quarter,” Shorty sang, grimacing, clowning, ignoring the white man’s threat.

   “Come on, you black bastard, I got to work,” the white man said, intrigued by the element of sadism involved, enjoying it.

   “It’ll cost you twenty-five cents, Mister White Man; just a quarter, just two bits,” Shorty moaned.

   There was silence.  Shorty threw the lever and the elevator went up and stopped about five feet shy of the floor upon which the white man worked.

   “Can’t go no more, Mister White Man, unless I get my quarter,” he said in a tone that sounded like crying.

   “what would you do for a quarter?” the white man asked, still gazing off.

   “I’ll do anything for a quarter,” Shorty sang.

   “What, for example?” the white man asked.

   Shorty giggled, swung around, bent over and poked out his broad, fleshy ass.

   “You can kick me for a quarter,” he sang, looking impishly at the white man out of the corners of his eyes.

   The white man laughed softly, jingled some coins in his pocket, took out one and thumped it to the floor.  Shorty stooped to pick it up and white man barred his teeth and swung his foot into Shorty’s rump with all the strength of his body.  Shorty let out a howling laugh that echoed up and down the elevator shaft.

   “Now, open this door, you goddamn black sonofabitch,” the white man said, smiling with tight lips.

   “Yeeeess, siiiiir,” Shorty sang; but first he picked up the quarter and put it into his mouth.  “This monkey’s got the peanuts,” he chortled.

He opened the door and the white man stepped out and looked back at Shorty as he went toward his office.

   “You’re all right, Shorty, you sonofabitch,” he said.

   “I know it!” Shorty screamed, then let his voice trail off in a gale of wild laughter.

   I witnessed this scene or its variant at least a score of times and I felt no anger or hatrd, only disgust and loathing.  Once I asked him:

   “How in God’s name can you do that?”

   “I needed a quarter and I got it,” he said soberly, proudly.

   “But a quarter can’t pay you for what he did to  you,” I said.

   “Listen, nigger,” he said to me, “my ass is tough and quarters is scarce.”

   I never discussed the subject with him after that.

~Richard Wright, Black Boy

A 1ne 2wo, A 1one 2wo.

"...tryna find our spot up on that light
light up in that spot
knowin' that we can rock
doin the hole-in-the-wall spot 
this shit here- must stop
like freeze,
we makin' the crowd move
but we not makin' no Gs

and that's a no-no."

~Andre

I'm A Don.

"...in ma own zone 
       in ma own dome 
           in ma mind 
                            iMMA DON."

~it's ME.  Makavelli.

Pits & Mires

"...mind is a pit of different information
microphone is on so i cause communication
bogle at the the party then you got the bogle-ation..."


"...we have no time to wallow in the mire."
(smile).
~Tribe

LAST TOURS OF THE YEAR - Hidden History of Black Boston Tours

WHO IS THIS SISTER? What fight did black Bostonians support her in (1897)?






















This Saturday: 10am or 2pm.
This Sunday: 10am or 2pm.
Last tours of the year (smile).
We leave from the corner of Warren St. / Walnut Ave.
Come join the discussion & liberation education.

Have you seen the Slave Quarters? What connects the Ikem or 'shield' dance to the lives that the African captives experienced there?


Where in Boston?  We will see this court house building on the tour that was surrounded by enormous chains to keep our Boston RACE MEN from breaking out a captured 'fugitive slave' (a brother) in 1851.
Where in Boston?



We will visit this "Negro Town" that was re-moved (2nd black community removal) to the South End. More, we will discuss modern versions of 'planned' removals.


COME FIND OUT ON THE TOUR.

What are the symbols on this jar?  What is in the Jar?  What does that have to do with African people and their experience in BEANTOWN?
Come.  Find out on the Hidden History of Black Boston Tours THIS WEEKEND. 

Where in Boston?  What and why are these Black Folks protesting?  Hint: Hollywood's first block buster was an epic in racist propaganda.
Come find out what is going on in OURSTORY.   THIS WEEKEND.

Who is this?  And Where in Boston?  Hint: she was named after the slaver she was transported on from the Gambia which landed in Boston nearabouts today's paifang (red arch) at the entrance to china town. Learn more with us Come.  Find out on the Hidden History of Black Boston Tours THIS WEEKEND.

Old Phyllis

"Old Phyllis, the slave 
Was of African birth, 
And she died long ago, long ago, 
And her last sad request, 
As she passed to her rest, 
Was lay me at old Massa's feet."



(uh huh.)