Winter 2021 Issue

February 23rd, 1895

I scan the shelves that line my father’s library, the warm scent of aged paper and cracked leather seeping from every pore of the room. The library is my favorite room because it is my safe space to crack open a book and fall into another world. But most importantly, I get to be with my father. He and I share a special bond unlike any other, including the bonds I have with my older siblings. He was the one to teach me how to understand the scrawling symbols — letters, that is what they are called, and the one that guided my hand as I wrote my first ones. My father is strict and firm, but he is a strong and just man. He is my role model, my Zeus, my Julius Caesar, and I vow to be just like him one day.

  My fingers trail over the worn spines of the books in front of me and linger on the one with the green cover with embossed gold letters that curled around the spine. Taking the book in both hands, I pull it out of the shelf.

“This one,” I proclaim, swiveling around to face my father. “Let’s read this one.” 

I carry the book over to the heavy palm desk that sits in the middle of the library and set the book down gently, blowing off the layer of dust that sits like light snow on the cover. “African Empires”, the cover reads in the same golden letters that cover the spine of the book. Delicately opening the cover, I see my father’s name on the bottom left-hand corner of the end page. “Marcus Garvey Sr.'', it reads in faded black ink.

“Ah,” my father leans over the desk, examining the book. “Good choice. This book holds the story of our history. It tells the tales of our people, our culture, and our home. Come along now, pick a chapter and read it please.” 

Nodding, I flip past the first few pages and start reading the top of the page out loud. I read about the Mossi Kingdoms, a group of African kingdoms that began sometime between the eleventh and fifteenth century. The kingdoms began when the son of a princess and a hunter, Ouedraogo, defeated his grandfather, the king. The Mossi peoples’ religion was closely interconnected with nature and the Supreme Being. Two groups of people existed in the Mossi kingdoms: the nakombse, the Mossi royal ruling elites, and the tengbiise, the common people living in the kingdom. But what surprises me is that the nakombse and the tengbiise held equal amounts of power.

“How could they have been equal?” I ask my dad nonchalantly as my head fills with fantasies about princesses and hunters, people praying out on the vast plateaus, and a godly figure looking over it all. 

“A great deal of the land in the Mossi Kingdoms was assimilated,” my father leans back on his wooden chair, crossing his muscular arms in front of his chest. “So many of the tengbiise were not Mossi originally as they were native to the land taken by the Mossi. Because the Mossi’s religion was closely tied with nature, they recognized the tengbiises’ ties with their land. Therefore, only the tengbiise were allowed to authorize the command of the nakombse, so without their spiritual blessing, the nakombse’s rule would be seen as illegitimate and wrong”.

I nod my head slowly as I gradually wrap my head around the unusual system. “So they were truly equal?”

“The nakombse recognized that the tengbiise were human beings, just like them, and were just as connected to the land by history just as the nakombse were connected by blood.” My father suddenly sighs, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand. “But no one is truly equal; friction always happens between different groups in every single society. Fighting for true equality is a fool’s game." 

July 2nd, 1921

The crowd churns like the sea, the black heads roiling like an obsidian wave. I stand at the head of the crowd, a single human in front of a mass brimming with power and purpose. I have to admit, it scares me to speak in front of so many. Gazing out at the swarm of people that I call my brothers and sisters, sweat trickles down my back and my cheeks turn a furious crimson in the oppressive heat. My heart races in an unsteady cadence as I shuffle uneasily at the podium, plastering a smile on my face. It feels more like a grimace.

I look down at the slips of paper in my hands. Everything I want to say is there, and reading the familiar words brings me some comfort. Words are a funny thing, my father had once said. He had just come home from a day of lugging stone blocks and sat near the fireplace, his feet propped up on a small stone stool. They hold our dreams and our visions. He looked into the flames flickering in the hearth. They paint our past, our present, and our future. Our words are our soul, and our soul is our words. Don’t you ever forget that.

 I smile a small, bittersweet smile, remembering my father’s gentle, rich voice. Swallowing the lump in my throat, I look at the crowd in front of me, the passion inside of me burning hotter than the Harlem sun. A hush spreads like a wildfire through the crowd, and thousands of pairs of eyes turn to look expectantly towards me. The silence, only punctuated by the light fluttering of my heart, reminds me of the moment of stillness before a whirlwind hits.

“It is for me to inform you that the Universal Negro Improvement Association is an organization that seeks to unite into one solid body the four hundred million Negroes in the world.” I proclaim, almost starting at the volume and powerfulness of my voice. “We want to unite the Negro race in this country. We want every Negro to work for one common object, that of building a nation of his own on the great continent of Africa. That all Negroes all over the world are working for the establishment of a government in Africa, means that it will be realized in another few years. We want the moral and financial support of every Negro to make this dream a possibility.” 

I know what my critics say about me. They declare with disgust that I am against equality, that I am accepting of the discrimination of African Americans, that I am one of the very roots of societal sin. Oh, those fools! I wish for equality too. I wish that one day, a white hand could be clasping a black hand at the park and no one would bat an eye. I wish that a black woman could go to get a drink at the library and there would no longer be two separate water fountains. I wish that a white man would not look at his black neighbor with disgust and malice in his eyes but with genuine love. I wish for a perfect world, but this is not a perfect world. I cannot simply wish for equality and make the racial prejudices a white holds against me disappear. Our white counterparts will never see us as true equals standing eye-to-eye and shoulder-to-shoulder to them. So we must face reality and look to ourselves, relying only on ourselves and become proud of our heritage by reaching back into our roots and returning to the waiting embrace of our motherland. Because a fight for true equality between blacks and whites is a fool’s game.

Looking into their eyes, I see my audiences’ longing for their family, their belonging, and their home. My voice soars like the swells of the ocean, stoking the fires that burn in the bellies of every single African American in the square. “If you believe that the Negro has a soul, if you believe that the Negro is a man, if you believe the Negro was endowed with the senses commonly given to other men by the Creator, then you must acknowledge that what other men have done, Negroes can do.”

June 8th, 1940

The cool evening air touches my face as I sit alone on the rusted park bench. I remain still, a fit of coughing occasionally interrupting the silence, shaking my entire body. Though I remain unfazed, I know my end is near. I am content with my life, and although I will never be able to enjoy the fruit of my work, I am at peace with that as long as my future kin will be able to. Maybe not Marcus of Julius, but maybe their children. But for now, the sounds of London — the bustling of children playing in the grass, the rumble of automobiles as husbands return to their wives after a long day of work, and the faint notes of a distant saxophone player  — put me at peace. 

A few yards in front of me, two middle-aged men stare intently at a small wooden chessboard. I can almost see the gears turning in their head as they ponder their next move that would topple the opposing color. The black side is at a significant disadvantage as the white side has a rook, two bishops, and a queen more than the black side. Mildly interested, I contemplate the outcome as I watch the slow series of fighting, capturing, and retreating. One by one, pieces are knocked off the board, and the pile of pieces by the side of the board grows. Finally, the white king captures the only remaining black knight, and the black and white kings stand facing each other in the middle of the board. It is a draw.

The men shake hands with respect glimmering in their eyes. They pick up their pieces and reset the board, preparing for another long game.

What if the game for true equality is similar to chess? I muse, the new chess match suddenly far from my mind. Chess is continuous, almost like the cycle of the seasons. No matter who wins or ties, black or white, the pieces are reset and another game begins. Maybe like chess, the game for true equality is never-ending. Of course, there are victories, defeats, and ties; but in the grand scheme, the game keeps going on. In some ways, Africans resemble both sides: the nakombse and the tengbiise, because we are connected to Africa, our motherland, and we are the champions and rulers of ourselves. So maybe our fight for equality is not a distinct chess match between the blacks and the whites, but a series of simultaneous matches. Ranging in size, from human against human to humanity against evil, we are all playing the same game. Maybe we have not been fighting, capturing, and retreating against the same enemy because our opponent changes their face after every match. We continue to play, to fight for equality because that is as natural as breathing or blinking. Because that is the nature of humans. Every human being is in a perpetual state of clashing with other humans, races, gods, and evils for some leverage of freedom and equality. Maybe we are playing the same game for equality. Maybe we are all fools.