My People Are Rising. Aaron Dixon
time I reached for a dream, either suddenly or gradually it disappeared from my grasp, leaving me empty and unfulfilled.
Slowly, I began to go into a deep retreat. I spent many lonely days walking the beaches of Lake Washington, sometimes in the rain, feeling empty and purposeless, yet sensing there was something in the distance, on the horizon, waiting to fill up my life. But I could not find any answers or guidance. Searching within, I only ran into my inner anger, my inner rage that also seemed directionless.
Joanne got married to a cat named Curtis Harris, who used to hang out at the Madrona basketball courts—he had a hell of an outside shot. In the meantime, Joanne moved out and Mommy and Poppy let me move into her room, which I appreciated, as I was finding that I needed more time to be alone.
Some days I just lay on the bed, thinking, contemplating, sometimes gazing out the window at the cold, light-blue mountains of the Cascades. Slowly I began to write down my thoughts. The thoughts turned into poems, and the poems began to fill up pages. Mommy and Poppy bought a new hi-fi and gave me the old one, and I started listening to a song I had heard Poppy play, “My Favorite Things” as recorded by John Coltrane. The rhythmic sounds of McCoy Tyner on piano and the melodic play of Coltrane on soprano sax seemed to touch a deep, inner part of my self. I borrowed more records from Mommy and Poppy, and even bought my own jazz records, listening to more Miles Davis and more Coltrane. The sweet, haunting sound of Miles in Sketches of Spain seemed to hold a hidden message, a profound piece of information that I somehow had to transcribe, translate, in order to move on with my life. I spent my days writing and listening, listening and writing, coupled with lonely walks, trying to decode the confusion, trying to understand the world and the endless, confounding contradictions in our society.
At times I seemed to be sinking into an abyss, a bottomless pit of despair and sadness, sometimes crying for no evident reason. The idea of death became a close companion, and I began writing about it, wondering about it, about the other side, wondering if that was where I belonged. Maybe there, in eternity, I could make the connection, decode the signals, find myself, find out who in the hell Aaron was and what he was doing here on earth.
That summer I signed up for a part-time job with a theater group presenting skits that dealt with stereotypes. The theater group was one of the poverty programs initiated by President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty. I worked with actors around my age, putting on improv skits with characters we created such as slaves, watermelon-eating coons, white racists, uppity Negroes, and Uncle Toms. Calling ourselves The Walking Stereotypes, we performed all over town at community centers and for other poverty programs. I enjoyed doing those improv skits immensely. After they ended I started hanging out with Aaron Dumas, a playwright and one of the actors from the group. He was three or four years older than me and had written several plays. A smallish, round-shouldered brother with bug eyes and a goatee, Dumas looked like a young version of the playwright LeRoi Jones.
Dumas’ first play, General’s Coup, was about a Black revolt led by a mad Black Nationalist general, who stormed the White House with his troops, and his son, who was also his lieutenant. Dumas played the role of the general and I played his son. The lieutenant son was the voice of reason trying to convince the mad general that it was not necessary to kill all the whites, particularly a young white girl befriended by the lieutenant. Toward the end of the play the general is near insanity, while the son tries to control his father’s rage. On our own, we performed this play all over Seattle, on university campuses, in coffeehouses, and at community events. Sometimes Dumas got carried away performing the fight scenes. At times he jumped off the stage and pretended to attack whites in the audience, yelling, “Kill all the honkies!” as I tried to hold him back.
Dumas and I became good friends, spending our free time listening to Eric Dolphy, Gene Ammons, Alice Coltrane, and Yusef Lateef, often discussing the musicians and their personal histories. Dumas knew a lot about jazz and the musicians who played it. Jazz seemed to contain so much within its chords. Listening closely I could make out words and hear stories of lost loves, hopes and dreams.
After we finished with General’s Coup, we presented another play by Dumas, this one about an interracial affair, a topic extremely rare in 1960s theater. This time, we recruited other actors for the production. Our group was the forerunner of Black Arts/West, Seattle’s first Black theater company (formed later, in 1969). Through my work with Dumas, I also got a part in the play Tom Jones with a small professional theater company in town, run by a white woman who lived in a Victorian house. I found that I enjoyed performing onstage. Even more, I enjoyed writing, and decided that someday I would go off to New York and become a famous playwright like LeRoi Jones—later known as Amiri Baraka—whose plays and books I had seen and read.
That September, three of my high school friends—Chester, Tony, and Courtney—and I were recruited for a new program, sponsored by the Urban League, designed to help Black students get into the University of Washington. They provided full scholarships, part-time employment, and tutors. A Jewish woman, Mrs. Richman, whose daughter had graduated from Garfield in my class, ran the program. This opportunity came along right after I had received a rejection letter from Tennessee State, where Poppy’s sister Aunt Doris had graduated. I had thought I would go there, but my GPA was not high enough. Everyone I knew who went to college had gone away to Black colleges and universities; I had always thought I would get my higher education on an all-Black campus, like Tennessee State. Although I was disappointed, it seemed it was not meant to be.
When we started in September 1967 at the University of Washington, there were only thirty Black students. And it wasn’t long before my three buddies dropped out. Sometimes, as I walked through the campus that fall, I was on cloud nine. I could hardly believe I was there. It was picturesque, with the leaves changing colors and all the big, drooping trees. When I walked into my English class, I was surprised to see Mrs. Hundley from Garfield. I was really glad to see her because, with the exception of Mrs. Green, my fourth-grade teacher, Mrs. Hundley was the only teacher who had truly believed in my abilities. Finally, everything was working out. Mommy and Poppy were very supportive and loving. College actually seemed easier than high school. My GPA was higher than it had ever been in high school, and I met a girl, Brenda Dunge, who became my first real love. Originally from Ohio, Brenda was a senior at Franklin High School, and sometimes she came to the UW campus to surprise me.
I continued writing poetry, improving with each new poem. Soon I was participating in poetry readings around town and won second place, including a $500 scholarship, in a Links Arts program. When the Watts Writers Workshop, a group of extremely gifted writers, came up from Los Angeles to do readings and workshops, I was the only local poet they asked to read with them. Slowly I began to fill up some of the emptiness inside—writing had become my lifeline. Gradually I began to see my possibilities, my hopes and dreams, coming to fruition.
For my sociology class I had to write a term paper. With the help of my tutor and advisor, Dr. Bodemer, I decided to write a paper on Malcolm X. I spent many days with Dr. Bodemer, a short, stocky, gregarious white doctor who taught at the UW Medical School. He taught me the fine art of research, compiling information and organizing that information in a structured manner in order to create a finished product. I met with him at his home in Madrona, becoming good friends with his wife and young kids, and developing a friendship with this easygoing doctor.
For the first time I learned about Malcolm X in depth—his difficulties while growing up, his transformation from thug to righteous militant, and his powerful speeches on the racism of white America. I read about his further transformation upon traveling in the Middle East and how he returned with a broader perspective on the world as whole, rather than only Black America. I was enthralled with Malcolm and his dedication to making the uneven even.
Writing that paper on Malcolm X created a desire in me to know more about the plight of Black people. In junior high and high school I had learned absolutely nothing about Blacks, other than that we had been slaves. I remember how embarrassed I felt every time a history textbook opened up and there was a picture of a slave in tattered clothing, looking lost and disheveled, helpless and hopeless. These images did not correspond to the strength and confidence I experienced in my family and the Black community. I couldn’t believe these few images of slaves represented the sum total of the historical Black experience in America. I would