PRESERVATION PHOTOCOPY: ORIGINAL MATERIAL RESTRICTED

Langston Hughes
Column

Simple: Give MLK's Nobel
Prize to Brave Selma Woman

By Langston Hughes

"I wish I had the money to go to Alabama on Easter," said Simple.

"I wish I had the nerve," I said.

"What's the matter?" asked Simple.

"I do not wish to get my head beaten," I said, "because I am not a follower of non-violence, so I would go down there without love in my heart."

"I would not only go without love in my heart," said Simple, "but I would go with a brickbat in my hand."

"Then neither one of us would do the non-violent movement any good, so we had better stay right here in

Harlem. I have great respect for Dr. Martin Luther King, so I see no good purpose in you going to Alabama with a brickbat and maybe upsetting his apple cart. Besides, who could you do with a brickbat against the armed might of the state, the Citizens Council of the Klan, and the hoodlums?

"I could throw my brick, said Simple. "I used to be right good pitcher when

played baseball, and my air is good. If I hit one of them Selmaites, that would be home run."

"You'd better run," I said.

"I would," said Simple.

"But if you hit a white racist with a brickbat in Selma or Montgomery or Birmingham, do you think that would do any good?"

"I do," said Simple. "If enough Negroes in Alabama hit enough white racists with enough brickbats, all at the same time and fast enough and hard enough, that would be enough."

"Enough for what?"

"For the President to send troops to Alabama to protect somebody," said Simple.

"I hope you don't think to protect you," I said.

"I would not want no protection," declared Simple. "By that time I would have had my satisfaction. I believe in an eye for an eye, myself, and a tooth for a tooth. There would be by then quite a few Confederate teeth scattered on the pavement, and, maybe an eye in the bushes."

"And you would be dead," I said.

"I have but one life to give for my Statue of Liberty," said Simple, "who I hope someday will turn around and look at Harlem."

"So you would be willing to give your life for the freedom cause then, like Rev. King?" I asked.

"I would not exactly give it," said Simple. "Was I to go to Alabama, I would say, 'Come and get it.' If they wanted my life, they would have to take it. But when my soul went to the other world, I would try to have company, white company, to help the cause of integration. Picture me and one of them Alabama crackers on the way to heaven together! I imagine we would fight all the way up to the Golden Gate. Anyhow, is not fighting the American way? If not, what are white folks doing in Vietnam, playing ping pong?"

"The Marines in Vietnam are not all white. They are integrated," I said. "I saw a picture of a colored Marine in the first task force landing with gun in hand."

"That black Marine better not be non-violent and turn the other cheek to them guerillas," said Simple. "What would happen if the Marines was non-violent?"

"Marines are trained as fighting men, so non-violence is hardly in their tradition."

"Not in mine, neither," said Simple. "I got Indian blood in my veins. And the Indians always go down fighting, even to the last reel of the last Hollywood western on the Late-Late Show."

"So you wish to take violence to Alabama as a part of the Civil Rights struggle," I said. "Is that why you want to go down there at Easter?"

Langston Hughes

"Not anti-slavery," said Selma. "I have no such a thing."