When Race Becomes Real: Black and White Writers Confront Their Personal Histories

One Summer Evening

© John Henry Ignatiev 291 One Summer Evening Noel Ignatiev One summer evening just after high school, I was walking in downtown Philadelphia when I saw a man spread-eagled against a wall, being searched by a policeman. The man was black, the policeman white. When the policeman finished patting the man down, he bade him turn around, and when the man did so, slugged him in the gut. I ran over and said excitedly, “You can’t do that. You’re not supposed to hit that man.” The policeman grabbed me and threw me into a police car. I spent the night in a cell in the local station house. I was allowed to call home and the next morning my dad showed up in court. When my case was called I tried to tell what I had seen, but before I could get out more than a few words, the judge interrupted me, yelling that I had interfered with an officer. He declared me guilty of something and fined me twenty-five dollars. My dad paid the fine, and as we were leaving the court an elderly black lady walked by me and said, “God bless you.” 292 N o e l I g n at i e v Over forty years have passed, and I have felt blessed ever since. If I am ever called to justify the food and water I consumed on earth, I will cite that incident in my defense, and hope that it makes up for many stupid, selfish, and cowardly acts. To be arrested for interfering with a cop beating a black man was an honor in my family. My father’s job was delivering the Philadelphia Inquirer in the morning. His route covered a black area of West Philadelphia. From the time I turned eleven I helped him several mornings a week, and got to know many of the people we served. They frequently told me what a fine man my father was; he used to say proudly that there wasn’t another white man in the city who could have served that route. I remember only two occasions when he hit me: once for bullying my younger brother, and once for referring to someone as a “nigger.” “I don’t ever want to hear you say that word again,” he said, as he whacked me across the back of the head. I remember a short time later squatting in a circle of kids in the schoolyard reciting, “Eeeny, meeny, miny, mo . . . ” to determine who would go first in a children’s game. Before I could complete the rhyme, Tommy Knox, a black kid, said, “If you finish that I’m gonna bust you in the face.” The only versions of that jingle I had heard had a tiger or a doggie as the principal character, but in a flash it struck me that there was another version and what that was. I don’t know which was the better teacher, Tommy Knox or my father, who could not have loved me so much had he not loved honor more, but I am grateful to both of them. Another time Tommy Knox and I got into a schoolyard quarrel, and I challenged him to come up to the local Y to put on the gloves and fight it out. “You know I can’t go to the Y,” said Tommy. I had not known, but I remember, as clearly as if it were yesterday, my anger against him immediately dissolving, to be replaced by rage at the administrators at the Y who prevented us from fighting in a ring with gloves. I must have been about ten. At that time, in order to exclude black people, Philadelphia swimming pools called themselves private clubs and sold one-dollar “memberships ” to whites only. My parents refused to patronize them, and we shared the black experience of sweltering on the streets in the summers , except for the rare occasions when we managed to open a fire O n e S u m m e r E v e n i n g 293 hydrant. When the firemen—all white—came to shut off the valve, we would taunt them from a safe distance while our parents observed from the stoops, smiling. When the City opened its first truly public swimming pool, our family attended regularly, often the only nonblack people present. My mother...