The Nigger Factory by Gil Scott Heron

had spoken confidently about the bind in which MJUMBE had put the Sutton administration. Now, alone, he wasn’t quite as sure. There were too many loose ends; things that he needed to know and had no way of finding out. Signs would have certainly been in Calhoun’s eyes, even if he played it cagey and diplomatically. Baker felt like a blind man, lost without knowing those signs; like a blind man who would stumble, either into the light or out onto the highway with a bus ticket clenched in his huge hand.
    But Calhoun was not the only problem. Just when he hadn’t needed anything else to upset him, his relationship with Sheila had disintegrated. He didn’t know exactly what had gone wrong. As a matter of fact he had never really intended for anything to happen between them.
    He had known Sheila for almost six years. They had metwhen he was an All-State candidate from their high school in Shelton Township, Virginia. Sheila was a cheerleader with a crush on him, but he had been going steady with another girl and hardly had time for the short, baby-faced freshman who followed him halfway home every day after practice. He had laughed at the thought of her and at one of the victory dances even made a joke of her crush on him. That had seemed to cool things down. During his senior year Sheila was no longer a cheerleader and Baker rarely saw her. Then he had won a scholarship to play football at Sutton.
    The next time he saw Sheila was when she arrived on Sutton’s campus as a freshman. He had been cordial as he would have been to any new student from his home town. But they moved in different social spheres. He was a fraternity man and a football player. She was just one of the many coeds on the predominantly female campus.
    Baker had met Sheila at a party given by a mutual friend. They chatted about school and Greek organizations and football. She expressed an interest in Delta Sigma Theta, the sister organization of Omega Psi Phi, Baker’s fraternity. He found himself not only interested in the conversation, but in Sheila. They began dating off and on. The young woman who had once been so much a part of Baker’s life had gotten married during his freshman year and already had a child.
    Upon their return to school in the fall Baker had been surprised to learn that Sheila was working as Earl Thomas’s secretary. She had told him that she was going to try to get a job, but even when she landed the secretarial post Baker paid it little attention. Football had started again. The fraternity had another line of pledgees to indoctrinate. Plans for MJUMBE were only vague shadows forming in the back of his mind. The organization had been formed by Baker as a safeguard against another year of political apathy. Baker had been willing to admit that Earl Thomas was a fast talker and a man who could think politically while on his feet, but he had never felt that Earl’s administration stood for radical change, which waswhat he felt that Sutton needed. He felt that between Earl and ‘Lawman’ Dean a few small problems might be alleviated, but it was a question of timing. If the students were allowed to slip into the middle of another non-productive year it would be difficult to shake them up and ignite a fire under them once they settled into a pattern or an attitude of acceptance.
    But Earl had waited too long. Virginia institutions of higher education come up for their accreditation markings during the third week of October. Baker knew that the ideal time to hit the school with a list of demands would be just as the accreditation service began looking into the mechanisms of the school. This move by students would bring about more pressure on the administrators to force a quick halt to the disturbances. With these things in mind Baker moved.
    He found himself seeing more and more of Sheila. Talk about her work and the SGA let Baker know what Thomas was doing and exactly what information was on hand in the SGA office. He wanted very