Booker T & Them: A Blues

13. 1909. An Arctic Episode in Which Is Related the Frigid Adventure of Matthew Henson When, in the Era of White Hopes, He Stands on Top of the World. & in Which Mr. Johnson Meets Mr. Burns under the Sharp Eye & Pen of Mr. London

( 139 ) 1909. An Arctic Episode in Which Is Related the Frigid Adventure of Matthew Henson When, in the Era of White Hopes, He Stands on Top of the World. & in Which Mr. Johnson Meets Mr. Burns under the Sharp Eye & Pen of Mr. London 13 In the meantime: 1st black band masters lead military bands. & Matthew Henson. Man. Colored. 1866– 1955. World traveled. All requisite skills. Is listed in expedition leader Peary’s— Robert E. (1856–1920) crew manifest as valet. 50dollars a month & keep. Is more. Much more. Called Kind Matthew by the 4 Inuits, Egingwah, Ookeah, Seegloo, & Oatah. Is brains & brawn. Tutor to the Commander. 01 Harris text.indd 139 12/13/11 11:25 AM ( 140 ) Is, with the Eskimos, & dogs, who mush & tug & end as stew, first at the Pole. Is 28 below. Henson, in kooletah, nanookes, & kamicks, near 90° as sextant, chronometer, & dead reckoning will amen, stands in endless vales of vapor & white. Wind & stars in whirring harmony overhead. With a shiver thinks: Walked at 12, an orphan, Baltimore to D.C. in search of . . . adventure, now am The Negro at the North Pole, the world’s top, all lines of longitude, meet at my feet, & with earth’s speed & rotation nearly nil, time stands still. Peary, who’d proclaimed “I must have fame,” sickly, lame, is sledgehauled there, 45 minutes late. Fearing shared glory, igs Henson’s role, when, back home via their ship the Roosevelt, & his story is told. Peary retires a Rear Admiral, Hero, Henson a Customs House clerk. & a few new moons later: Christmas Day. See, like a shadow on the threshold, Jack Johnson, the “Galveston Giant,” a shaved & shone Ethiopian Samson/Goliath. Inferior (naturally) because of race (naturally), yet, a contender, looming at the gate of their Golden City of the Heavyweight division. Its king is, in the eyes of all, what it is to be man. Mightiest of men. This Jack has come to defy & disdain them, & challenge their Tommy Burns, their champion & all they hold high & holy. & they tremble day & night at their mightiest fear that in his might this Jack (who dares call their Tommy white as the flag of surrender!), this black might smite their man & slay the pride of a 01 Harris text.indd 140 12/13/11 11:25 AM ( 141 ) million with him. & yea, with a right to their champion’s jawbone the black Philistine shakes posts & pillars & tumbles the temple down on all who dwelt therein, making nimble & quick sport of the lie they live & send “others” to die by. Jack London, he who coins “Great White Hope,” writes, “The Fight!—there was no fight!” Then more reflective says, “Personally I was with Burns all the way. He is a white man, and so am I. Naturally I wanted to see the white man win.” London, a.k.a. John Griffith London (1876– 1916), writes rugged adventure novels that rip & roar, The Call of the Wild is one. Bastard, partially raised by an ex-slave; pseudosocialist son of an off-kilter suicidal mother who channels a Native American spirit, he swears he will never do any unnecessary hard work. He has a character ask, “Will the Indian, the Negro, or the Mongol ever conquer the Teuton?” The character’s answer is, “Surely not!” He essays about whites, “Back of our own great race adventure, back of our robberies by sea and land, our lusts and violences and all the evil things we have done, there is a certain integrity, a sternness of conscience, a melancholy responsibility of life, a sympathy and comradeship and warm human feel, which is ours, indubitably ours . . .” Odds are Jack is a suicide at 40. John Arthur Johnson (1878– 1946), who when the occasion calls 01 Harris text.indd 141 12/13/11 11:25 AM ( 142 ) speaks properly, deliberately; reads, wears linen, Tattersall & Harris Tweed, gold rings with tiger’s eyes, patent leather shoes with satin bows, collars starched white & stiff as Jim Crow laws; apes & rapes the idea of Western civilization; sits, monstrous, a-squat the snow-white-gowned belly & breast of swooning American Womanhood. Stomachs begin to churn. Wheels begin to turn. The U.S. of A, the emerging world power powered by industrialism, capitalism, imperialism, is in the midst of forming & re-forming itself. It is not about to take Jack Johnson lying down. Johnson lives loud (“happy-go-lucky” London profiles him), lavish, fast, “easily amused,” says London, lacks civility, in the face & mind of white America, lacks propriety, or decorum. Struts, brags, backs it up. Is, for all...