Negroland: A Memoir by Margo Jefferson Page A

we’re leaving tomorrow.”
    Denise speaks up for both of us:
    “We just got here. We didn’t get to stay long at the beach. Why can’t we eat in the hotel dining room?”
    We resent the bad mood that has come over our parents. We want the beach and we want the boardwalk we’ve been promised since the trip began.
    Mother pauses, then addresses herself and us. “This is a prejudiced place. What kind of service would we get in that restaurant? Look at these shabby rooms. Pretending they couldn’t find the reservation. We’re leaving tomorrow. And your father will tell them why.”
    Our father has not smiled since the four of us walked into the lobby and stood at the desk as the clerk turned us into Mr. and Mrs. Negro Nobody with their Negro children from somewhere in Niggerland.
    The next morning we are told to sit on the lobby couch while our parents check out; we don’t hear what our father says, or if he says anything.
    We drive back to Chicago, an American family returning home from the kind of vacation successful American families have. We’d stayed at the Statler Hilton in New York and eaten in their restaurant. We’d pummeled and pounced on the bolsters of the Château Frontenac in Quebec. When Daddy asked strangers in Montreal for directions, their answers were always accurate and polite. Only Atlantic City went wrong. In the car our parents reproach themselves for not doing more research, consulting friends on the East Coast before taking the risk.
    —
    Such treatment encouraged privileged Negroes to see our privilege as more than justified: It was hard-won and politically righteous, a boon to the race, a source of compensatory pride, an example of what might be achieved. In the privacy of an all-Negro world, Negro privilege could lounge and saunter too, show off its accoutrements and lay down the law. Regularly denounce Caucasians, whose behavior toward us, and all dark-skinned people, proved they did not morally deserve their privilege. We had the moral advantage; they had the assault weapons of “great civilization” and “triumphant history.” Ceaselessly, we chronicled our people’s achievements. Ceaselessly, we denounced our people’s failures.
    Too many of us just aren’t trying. No ambition. No interest in education. You don’t have to turn your neighborhood into a slum just because you’re poor . Negroes like that made it hard for the rest of us. They held us back. We got punished for their bad behavior.
    1956, a Month After Our Trip
    Professionals and small businessmen live on one end of our block. At the other end of the block is Betty Ann, somebody’s daughter, we don’t know whose. She has lots of short braids on her head, fastened with red, yellow, and green plastic barrettes. She wears red nail polish and keeps it on till it’s nothing but tiny chips. I beg to be allowed to wear red nail polish outside, and not just when I dress up in Mother’s old clothes. No, comes the answer; red nail polish on children is cheap.
    In the summer Betty Ann saunters up and down the block letting the backs of her shoes flap against her heels. When she finds something ridiculous she folds her arms and goes Oooo-oooo-OOOo, Uh-un-UNNNh . When she laughs she bends over at the waist and shuffles her feet. Denise and I start to do this at home. “Where did you pick that up?” our mother asks. “Don’t collapse all over yourself when you laugh.”
    One afternoon we see Betty Ann playing double Dutch with two girls we’ve never met. They laugh a lot and say “Girrlll…” Then they start to turn the ropes.
    Betty Ann’s the jumper. She leans in, arms bent, fists balled, gauging her point of entry. Turn slap turn slap turn slap and there she goes. Her knees pump, her feet quick-slap the ground, parrying the ropes till, fleet of foot and neat, she jumps out. Rapt and envious, we watch them take turns. Now Betty Ann doesn’t come down to play jacks with us or borrow Denise’s bike. She and her