Read Online The Turner House by Angela Flournoy - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Angela Flournoy
Ads: Link
gone.
Reverend Matthews,
I trust that you will be able to assist Francis Turner, of my flock, with securing housing and a good word at one of the fabled places of industry in your city. He is open to any work available. He and I will both be much obliged.
With Faith in Our Lord,
    Reverend Charles Williams Tufts
    Spring of Faith Missionary Baptist Church, Arkansas
Francis had opened the letter as the train thundered through Kansas. It was early morning, and the sky out the window stretched wide and black and endless. That phrase, âof my flock,â was impersonal, as if he and Reverend Tufts had not lived under the same roof, as if they were casual acquaintances. He deserved more warmth than that, a few words to lift him from the ranks of ordinary congregation member to favored almost-son. The reverend could have called his friend ahead of time; he had a phone line in his house, and Francis was sure the other man had one too. Putting the letter in Francisâs hand ensured that he would have to look the man up, humble himself before a stranger, and beg his case. He couldnât bring himself to use such a letter, especially not one so impersonal. He kept it in his pocket for the duration of the train ride. This was how it had been done since Henry Ford first took a paternal interest in Negro employment and the cheap labor it provided: manufacturers depended on Up North ministers to supply them with reliable workers, and those ministers reached out to their southern colleagues for help filling the positions. But that was before the war. Who needed a note of introduction in a city on the forefront of the war effort? Francis had read that there were more jobs available in Detroit than in the entire state of Arkansas.
Pride had always played a prominent role in the Turner psyche. Its source went back further than Cha-Cha and Lelahâs generation, past Francisâs too. Officially, Francis Turner Sr. died in 1930 from a rusty-nail puncture to the bottom of his left foot, but it was pride that did him in. He stepped on the nail walking back from the fields he sharecropped, and the soles of his shoes were so worn that nothing prevented the corroded metal from piercing him nearly to bone. He hobbled home to his wife and six-year-old son and let his wife dress the wound. Francis Sr. ignored Cynthia Turnerâs pleas to go see a doctor for monetary reasons but also out of pride. There were no doctors in their town, and Francis Sr. could not imagine sending for a white Pine Bluff doctor over a cut on his foot. He doubted the doctor would be willing to even step inside his house, and he would not let any doctor tend to him in the yard as if he were an animal. His was not an arbitrary, selfish sort of pride; for Francis Sr., losing the little dignity heâd held on to as a black man in the South seemed a more concrete defeat than death. Two weeks later Cynthia was a widow, and the debt Francis Sr. left her led to eviction. She and her son moved into a one-room shack that was one bad storm away from being no more than a lean-to. After two years of scraping by, Cynthia found a live-in maid job in Little Rock. She entrusted young Francis to Reverend Tufts, a widower himself, and sent money when she could.
If Francis hadnât inherited enough pride from his father, Reverend Tufts supplemented what he lacked. The man had a congregation of fewer than three hundred poor people, but he indulged in frequent haircuts, a two-story house, and a new car every five or so years, even while paying tuition for his only daughter at Tougaloo College. His brand of prideâheavier on self-regard than Francis Turnerâs, but still rooted in the same desire to feel a man when the world told you otherwiseâextended to his pulpit. The reverend had three deacons and he would have preferred none, but these three were so old and respected, there before he even moved to town, that he couldnât rid
Reverend Matthews,
I trust that you will be able to assist Francis Turner, of my flock, with securing housing and a good word at one of the fabled places of industry in your city. He is open to any work available. He and I will both be much obliged.
With Faith in Our Lord,
    Reverend Charles Williams Tufts
    Spring of Faith Missionary Baptist Church, Arkansas
Francis had opened the letter as the train thundered through Kansas. It was early morning, and the sky out the window stretched wide and black and endless. That phrase, âof my flock,â was impersonal, as if he and Reverend Tufts had not lived under the same roof, as if they were casual acquaintances. He deserved more warmth than that, a few words to lift him from the ranks of ordinary congregation member to favored almost-son. The reverend could have called his friend ahead of time; he had a phone line in his house, and Francis was sure the other man had one too. Putting the letter in Francisâs hand ensured that he would have to look the man up, humble himself before a stranger, and beg his case. He couldnât bring himself to use such a letter, especially not one so impersonal. He kept it in his pocket for the duration of the train ride. This was how it had been done since Henry Ford first took a paternal interest in Negro employment and the cheap labor it provided: manufacturers depended on Up North ministers to supply them with reliable workers, and those ministers reached out to their southern colleagues for help filling the positions. But that was before the war. Who needed a note of introduction in a city on the forefront of the war effort? Francis had read that there were more jobs available in Detroit than in the entire state of Arkansas.
Pride had always played a prominent role in the Turner psyche. Its source went back further than Cha-Cha and Lelahâs generation, past Francisâs too. Officially, Francis Turner Sr. died in 1930 from a rusty-nail puncture to the bottom of his left foot, but it was pride that did him in. He stepped on the nail walking back from the fields he sharecropped, and the soles of his shoes were so worn that nothing prevented the corroded metal from piercing him nearly to bone. He hobbled home to his wife and six-year-old son and let his wife dress the wound. Francis Sr. ignored Cynthia Turnerâs pleas to go see a doctor for monetary reasons but also out of pride. There were no doctors in their town, and Francis Sr. could not imagine sending for a white Pine Bluff doctor over a cut on his foot. He doubted the doctor would be willing to even step inside his house, and he would not let any doctor tend to him in the yard as if he were an animal. His was not an arbitrary, selfish sort of pride; for Francis Sr., losing the little dignity heâd held on to as a black man in the South seemed a more concrete defeat than death. Two weeks later Cynthia was a widow, and the debt Francis Sr. left her led to eviction. She and her son moved into a one-room shack that was one bad storm away from being no more than a lean-to. After two years of scraping by, Cynthia found a live-in maid job in Little Rock. She entrusted young Francis to Reverend Tufts, a widower himself, and sent money when she could.
If Francis hadnât inherited enough pride from his father, Reverend Tufts supplemented what he lacked. The man had a congregation of fewer than three hundred poor people, but he indulged in frequent haircuts, a two-story house, and a new car every five or so years, even while paying tuition for his only daughter at Tougaloo College. His brand of prideâheavier on self-regard than Francis Turnerâs, but still rooted in the same desire to feel a man when the world told you otherwiseâextended to his pulpit. The reverend had three deacons and he would have preferred none, but these three were so old and respected, there before he even moved to town, that he couldnât rid
Similar Books
