Race Quotes

"Bigger, honey. I—I don’t know," she said plaintively.

"You wanted me to tell you."

"I’m scared."

"Don’t you trust me?"

"But we ain’t never done nothing like this before. They’ll look everywhere for us for something like this. It ain’t like coming to where I work at night when the white folks is gone out of town stealing something. It ain’t. . . ."

"It’s up to you."

"I’m scared, Bigger."

"Who on earth’ll think we did it?"

"I don’t know. You really think they don’t know where the girl is?"

"I know they don’t."

"You know?"

"Naw."

"She’ll turn up."

"She won’t. And, anyhow, she’s a crazy girl. They might even think she’s in it herself, just to get money from her family. They might think the Reds is doing it. They won’t think we did. They don’t think we got enough guts to do it. They think n*****s is too scared..." (2.784-797)

Again the men turned to Bigger. He felt this time he had to say something more to them. Jan was saying that he was lying and he had to wipe out doubt in their minds. They would think that he knew more than he was telling if he did not talk. After all, their attitude toward him so far made him feel that they did not consider him as being mixed up in the kidnapping. He was just another black ignorant N***o to them. The main thing was to keep their minds turned in another direction, Jan’s direction, or that of Jan’s friends.

"Say," one of the men asked, coming close to him and placing a foot upon the edge of the trunk. "Did this Erlone fellow talk to you about Communism?"

"Yessuh."

"Oh!" Britten exclaimed.

"What?"

"I forgot! Let me show you fellows the stuff he gave the boy to read."

Britten stood up, his face flushed with eagerness. He ran his hand into his pocket and pulled forth the batch of pamphlets that Jan had given Bigger and held them up for all to see. The men again go their bulbs and flashed their lightning to take pictures of the pamphlets. Bigger could hear their hard breathing; he knew that they were excited. When they finished, they turned to him again.

"Say, boy, was this guy drunk?"

"Yessuh."

"And the girl, too?"

"Yessuh."

"He took the girl upstairs when they got here?"

"Yessuh."

"Say, boy, what do you think of public ownership? Do you think the government ought to build houses for people to live in?"

Bigger blinked.

"Suh?"

"Well, what do you think of private property?"

"I don’t own any property. Nawsuh," Bigger said.

"Aw, he’s a dumb cluck. He doesn’t know anything," one of the men whispered in a voice loud enough for Bigger to hear.

There was a silence. Bigger leaned against the wall, hoping that this would satisfy them for a time, at least. The draft could not be heard in the furnace now at all. The door opened again and Peggy came into view carrying a pot of coffee in one hand and a folding card table in the other. One of the men went up the steps and met her, took the table, opened it, and placed it for her. She set the pot upon it. Bigger saw a thin spout of steam jutting from the pot and smelt the good scent of coffee. He wanted some, but he knew that he should not ask with the white men waiting to drink.

"Thank you, sirs," Peggy mumbled, looking humbly round at the strange faces of the men. "I’ll get the sugar and cream and some cups."

"Say, boy," Britten said. "Tell the men how Jan made you eat with ‘im."

"Yeah; tell us about it."

"Is it true?"

"Yessuh."

"You didn’t want to eat with ‘im, did you?

"Nawsuh."

"Did you ever eat with white people before?"

"Nawsuh."

"Did this guy Erlone say anything to you about white women?"

"Oh, nawsuh."

"How did you feel, eating with him and Miss Dalton?"

"I don’t know, suh. It was my job."

"You didn’t feel just right, did you?"

"Well, suh. They told me to eat and I ate. It was my job."

"In other words, you felt you had to eat or lose your job?"

"Yessuh," said Bigger, feeling that this ought to place him in the light of a helpless, bewildered man.

"Good God!" said one of them men. "What a story! Don’t you see it? These N***oes want to be left alone and these Reds are forcing ‘em to live with ‘em, see? Every wire in the country’ll carry it!"

"This is better than Loeb and Leopold," said one.

"Say, I’m slanting this to the primitive N***o who doesn’t want to be disturbed by white civilization." (2.1850-1889)

Police are not yet satisfied with the account Erlone has given of himself and are of the conviction that he may be linked to the N***o as an accomplice; they feel that the plan of the murder and kidnapping was too elaborate to be the work of a N***o mind. (2.2150)