was done with Virginia and West Virginia. I thank God you were preserved entire for the United States.”
“We praise Him every day,” Washington Towler said. “Without His help, we should still be slaves ourselves.” Henry Bass pulled up in front of the Planter’s Hotel. Towler pointed to the entrance. “They bought and sold us, Mr. Douglass, right there, even in the days after the war, till emancipation finally became de law of de land.”
The Planter’s Hotel had a Southern look to it even now. Its arches were of a style old-fashioned in the USA, incised into the façade rather than raised in relief from it. Some of the men going in and out wore the white linen suiting common in the warm, muggy South, too, and spoke with drawls: traders up from New Orleans and Memphis, Douglass supposed. They stared at his companions and him as if a nightmare had come to life before their eyes—and so, Douglass hoped, one had.
He took his bags and went into the hotel. As he had on the steamboat, he carried them himself. Maybe the white porters assumed that, despite his clothes, he was a servant. Or maybe, and more likely, they just refused to lower themselves, as they saw it, by serving one of the Negroes who had served their kind for so many long, sorrowful years.
“I am Frederick Douglass,” he said when he reached the front desk. “A room has been reserved in my name.”
He waited for the clerk to shuffle through papers. The fellow lifted up his eyes now and again to stare at Douglass’ dark countenance. What followed was as inevitable as night following day. “I’m sorry, s—” The clerk could not bring himself to say
sir
to a Negro. He started again: “I’m sorry, but I don’t find that reservation.”
“Young man,” Douglass said coldly, “if you do not find it by the time I count ten, I promise you this hotel will be a stench in the nostrils of the entire United States by a week from Tuesday, when my next newspaper column goes out over the wires. Your superiors will not thank you for that. I commence: one, two, three …”
How the clerk stared! And how quickly the missing reservation appeared, as if by magic. Thoroughly cowed, the clerk even browbeat a white bellboy into taking Douglass’ carpetbags from him and carrying them to the room. It was one of the smaller, darker rooms in the hotel, but Douglass had expected nothing better than that. Daniel Younger and his friends had probably been able to book no better.
After supper—which he ate at a table surrounded by empty ones—Henry Bass came by to take him to the Merchants’ Exchange, where he would speak. St. Louis was a handsome city of gray limestone and a sandstone almost as red as brick, though soot dimmed its color on many buildings. The Merchants’ Exchange proved to take up the whole block between Chestnut and Pine on Third Street. “We’ve got plenty of room for a good house, Mr. Douglass,” Bass said. “President Tilden was nominated in the Grand Hall back in ‘76, he was.”
But, when Douglass went into the hall, he was sadly disappointed. Plainly, every Negro in and around St. Louis who could afford a ticket was there. Somber-suited black men and their wives in fancy dresses filled to overflowing the seats allotted to them. Douglass had long prided himself, though, on his reputation for being able to speak to whites as well as blacks. Tonight, it failed him. The bright gaslights shone down on great empty rows of chairs, with here and there a clump of people.
He went ahead with his address; as a professional, he had no other choice. He sounded his familiar themes: tolerance, education, enlightenment, progress, the appropriateness of giving all their due for what they could do, not for the color of their skins. He drew rapturous applause from the Negroes in the hall, and got a polite hearing from the whites.
It could have been worse. He knew that. He’d started riots with his speeches now and again, sometimes meaning to,
“We praise Him every day,” Washington Towler said. “Without His help, we should still be slaves ourselves.” Henry Bass pulled up in front of the Planter’s Hotel. Towler pointed to the entrance. “They bought and sold us, Mr. Douglass, right there, even in the days after the war, till emancipation finally became de law of de land.”
The Planter’s Hotel had a Southern look to it even now. Its arches were of a style old-fashioned in the USA, incised into the façade rather than raised in relief from it. Some of the men going in and out wore the white linen suiting common in the warm, muggy South, too, and spoke with drawls: traders up from New Orleans and Memphis, Douglass supposed. They stared at his companions and him as if a nightmare had come to life before their eyes—and so, Douglass hoped, one had.
He took his bags and went into the hotel. As he had on the steamboat, he carried them himself. Maybe the white porters assumed that, despite his clothes, he was a servant. Or maybe, and more likely, they just refused to lower themselves, as they saw it, by serving one of the Negroes who had served their kind for so many long, sorrowful years.
“I am Frederick Douglass,” he said when he reached the front desk. “A room has been reserved in my name.”
He waited for the clerk to shuffle through papers. The fellow lifted up his eyes now and again to stare at Douglass’ dark countenance. What followed was as inevitable as night following day. “I’m sorry, s—” The clerk could not bring himself to say
sir
to a Negro. He started again: “I’m sorry, but I don’t find that reservation.”
“Young man,” Douglass said coldly, “if you do not find it by the time I count ten, I promise you this hotel will be a stench in the nostrils of the entire United States by a week from Tuesday, when my next newspaper column goes out over the wires. Your superiors will not thank you for that. I commence: one, two, three …”
How the clerk stared! And how quickly the missing reservation appeared, as if by magic. Thoroughly cowed, the clerk even browbeat a white bellboy into taking Douglass’ carpetbags from him and carrying them to the room. It was one of the smaller, darker rooms in the hotel, but Douglass had expected nothing better than that. Daniel Younger and his friends had probably been able to book no better.
After supper—which he ate at a table surrounded by empty ones—Henry Bass came by to take him to the Merchants’ Exchange, where he would speak. St. Louis was a handsome city of gray limestone and a sandstone almost as red as brick, though soot dimmed its color on many buildings. The Merchants’ Exchange proved to take up the whole block between Chestnut and Pine on Third Street. “We’ve got plenty of room for a good house, Mr. Douglass,” Bass said. “President Tilden was nominated in the Grand Hall back in ‘76, he was.”
But, when Douglass went into the hall, he was sadly disappointed. Plainly, every Negro in and around St. Louis who could afford a ticket was there. Somber-suited black men and their wives in fancy dresses filled to overflowing the seats allotted to them. Douglass had long prided himself, though, on his reputation for being able to speak to whites as well as blacks. Tonight, it failed him. The bright gaslights shone down on great empty rows of chairs, with here and there a clump of people.
He went ahead with his address; as a professional, he had no other choice. He sounded his familiar themes: tolerance, education, enlightenment, progress, the appropriateness of giving all their due for what they could do, not for the color of their skins. He drew rapturous applause from the Negroes in the hall, and got a polite hearing from the whites.
It could have been worse. He knew that. He’d started riots with his speeches now and again, sometimes meaning to,
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