The Roving Tree. Elsie Augustave
Soul Train. I was eager to practice them at a real party, instead of at home in front of the television. The song, “Play That Funky Music” was blasting. No one was dancing. A handful of people sat or stood in the corners of the room under neon lights. When Felicia waved, I walked over to her. She was talking to a guy who was about six feet tall. A huge Afro crowned his head, and he wore an African-print dashiki over faded jeans and a silver bracelet.
“This is Jamal, the BSL president.”
“How you doing, sistah?”
“Fine,” I said. He had a nice smile.
“I’ll catch up with you later,” he said. “I got to get this party started.”
The room soon filled up, and it seemed that people had arrived all at once. The Ohio Players’ new hit “Fire” blared through the speakers. Everyone moved to the center of the room as if under a spell of urgency.
Two hours later, the energy died out and most people left. On my way out Jamal came up to me and asked if I’d had a good time.
“Better than I expected.”
A girl with a pierced nose and a gypsy skirt crept up behind him, wrapped her arm around his waist, and whispered, “Ready to go, baby?”
* * *
Weeks later, after a committee meeting for the upcoming Black Parents Weekend, Jamal said to me, “Sistah, I can’t wait to see you dance. I know it’s going to be good.”
“How do you know that?” I replied, staring at the raised black fist on his white T-shirt that read, Power to the People.
“I just have a feeling!”
That evening, I thought about Mom and Dad coming to the Black Parents Weekend and called home, hoping to find a way to ask them to send Latham instead.
“How are things?” greeted Mom.
“I’m fine.”
“Keeping up with your classes?”
“Of course.”
“I’m glad. Did Cynthia call you?”
“Not today. I just got back to my room.”
“She was admitted to Johns Hopkins medical school.”
“That’s great. I’ll call her later.”
“Your dad and I received our invitation to Parents Weekend.”
“Actually, it’s Black Parents Weekend.”
“I see. Anyway, your dad and I will be there.”
Silence.
“You do want us to come, don’t you?”
“Sure,” I lied.
“I love you.”
“I love you too.”
As I placed the phone back in its cradle, it occurred to me that I shouldn’t care what the black students and their black parents thought about my white parents.
* * *
I was getting out of my leotard and tights while chatting with the other dancers after the piece I had choreographed when Wanda, Jamal’s girlfriend, stormed into the dressing room. She stood arms akimbo, demanding to know what those white people were doing in our lounge.
“You must be talking about my parents,” I said in a calm voice.
An uncomfortable silence fell over the room, and I walked toward Mom and Dad, holding my head high, ignoring the stares and indiscreet whispers.
That night when darkness and silence covered my room, I thought of Jamal’s militancy, his leadership, and his artistic talent. Hours ago, listening to him read his poem about black solidarity and the greatness of men like Marcus Garvey, Toussaint Louverture, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., Shaka Zulu, Kwame Nkrumah, and Frederick Douglass was inspiring and uplifting. His soft-spoken voice had the cadence of a conch shell that had gathered the lamented voices of Haitian revolutionary slaves. The poem ended with a plea to our generation to carry on the dreams of Pan-Africanism and to valorize the greatness of our race.
I thought about it hard and long, and decided if I were a poet, I would write a poem about my adopted parents. The incident with Wanda prompted me to realize they had always accepted me for who I was and never had an issue with my race. I considered myself lucky to have had them in my life and concluded that my love for them would not have been any different if they, too, were black.
* * *
During late hours the library was a desolate place. It was just minutes before closing, and I was trying to finish a paper that was due the next morning. In spite of the numerous promises I had made to myself not to wait until the last minute to complete my assignments, the old habit lived on. As I wrote the last sentence I let out a deep sigh of relief. While I was gathering my books, someone tapped my shoulder.
“Jamal!”
“Burning the midnight oil?”
“I just finished a paper and have to go to my room to type it,” I said, glancing at the titles of the books he was holding.
“I’m doing research on postcolonial Africa,” he told me. “I hope to make it to the motherland someday.”
“Felicia is planning on going there after graduation. Every once in a while I have a feeling it is where I belong,” I responded, thinking about the fight in the cafeteria all those years ago.
“As children of the African diaspora,” he said, “our salvation is our African roots and our cultural heritage.”
I stared at the colorful dashiki and the red, black, and green cap he wore, and began to understand the sentimentality and reverence that he had for the ancestral homeland.
* * *
Late during a cold, windy winter night, Felicia knocked on my door. Immediately I knew that there had to be an important reason for her to be there, because hours earlier we’d had dinner together and I had not expected to see her until the next day.
“What’s up?” I asked, watching her hang her jacket on the back of a chair.
She sat down on the antique rocking chair Latham had given to me the day I graduated from high school. “Have you heard what Wanda’s up to?”
I sat on the edge of my bed and gazed at her. “I haven’t heard a thing. What’s happening?”
“Wanda and her friends are saying you have no business running for chairperson of cultural affairs because you grew up white.”
“Meaning what?”
Felicia shrugged. “I guess they don’t think you’re black enough.”
“What makes them think they know more about being black than I do?”
For about a week, I had tried to write my electoral statement but couldn’t decide what to talk about. Wanda’s comments motivated me. As soon as Felicia left, I sat at my desk to write before the ideas escaped me.
The day of the election, I walked up to the lectern, ready to deliver my statement. I cast a glance at Felicia, who smiled and nodded.
“I was born in the first black republic of the world,” I began, “a place where slaves defeated Napoleon’s undefeated army. Raised in the true spirit of white liberals who, in good conscience, believed in Martin Luther King’s dream, I grew up in a home that advocated the utmost respect for cultures from around the world. Being a dance and anthropology major is a clear indication of my interest in culture.” Even though Wanda sat next to him, Jamal smiled at me, encouraging me to go on. “As the cultural chairperson of the Black Students League, my goal would be to share our common African heritage with the college community so