Invisible man

            "For this purpose," he said, nodding toward me, "our brother has been appointed district spokesman. You are to give him your loyal support and regard him as the new instrument of the committee's authority . . ."

            I heard the slight applause splatter up -- only to halt with the opening of the door, and I looked down past the rows of chairs to where a hatless young man about my own age was coming into the hall. He wore a heavy sweater and slacks, and as the others looked up I heard the quick intake of a woman's pleasurable sigh. Then the young man was moving with an easy Negro stride out of the shadow into the light, and I saw that he was very black and very handsome, and as he advanced mid-distance into the room, that he possessed the chiseled, black-marble features sometimes found on statues in northern museums and alive in southern towns in which the white offspring of house children and the black offspring of yard children bear names, features and character traits as identical as the rifling of bullets fired from a common barrel. And now close up, leaning tall and relaxed, his arms outstretched stiffly upon the table, I saw the broad, taut span of his knuckles upon the dark grain of the wood, the muscular, sweatered arms, the curving line of the chest rising to the easy pulsing of his throat, to the square, smooth chin, and saw a small X-shaped patch of adhesive upon the subtly blended, velvet-over-stone, granite-over-bone, Afro-Anglo-Saxon contour of his cheek.

            He leaned there, looking at us all with a remote aloofness in which I sensed an unstated questioning beneath a friendly charm. Sensing a possible rival, I watched him warily, wondering who he was.

            "Ah so, Brother Tod Clifton is late," Brother Jack said. "Our leader of the youth is late. Why is this?"

            The young man pointed to his cheek and smiled. "I had to see the doctor," he said.

            "What is this?" Brother Jack said, looking at the cross of adhesive on the black skin.

            "Just a little encounter with the nationalists. With Ras the Exhorter's boys," Brother Clifton said. And I heard a gasp from one of the women who gazed at him with shining, compassionate eyes.

            Brother Jack gave me a quick look. "Brother, you have heard of Ras? He is the wild man who calls himself a black nationalist."

            "I don't recall so," I said.

            "You'll hear of him soon enough. Sit down, Brother Clifton; sit down. You must be careful. You are valuable to the organization, you must not take chances."

            "This was unavoidable," the young man said.

            "Just the same," Brother Jack said, returning to the discussion with a call for ideas.

            "Brother, are we still to fight against evictions?" I said.

            "It has become a leading issue, thanks to you."

            "Then why not step up the fight?"

            He studied my face. "What do you suggest?"

            "Well, since it has attracted so much attention, why not try to reach the whole community with the issue?"

            "And how would you suggest we go about it?"

            "I suggest we get the community leaders on record in support of us."

            "There are certain difficulties in face of this," Brother Jack said. "Most of the leaders are against us."

            "But I think he's got something there," Brother Clifton said. "What if we got them to support the issue whether they like us or not? The issue is a community issue, it's non-partisan."

            "Sure," I said, "that's how it looks to me. With all the excitement over evictions they can't afford to come out against us, not without appearing to be against the best interests of the community . . ."

            "So we have them across a barrel," Clifton said.

            "That is perceptive enough," Brother Jack said.

            The others agreed.

            "You see," Brother Jack said with a grin, "we've always avoided these leaders, but the moment we start to advance on a broad front, sectarianism becomes a burden to be cast off. Any other suggestions?" He looked around.

            "Brother," I said, remembering now, "when I first came to Harlem one of the first things that impressed me was a man making a speech from a ladder. He spoke very violently and with an accent, but he had an enthusiastic audience . . . Why can't we carry our program to the street in the same way?"

            "So you have met him," he said, suddenly grinning. "Well, Ras the Exhorter has had a monopoly in Harlem. But now that we are larger we might give it a try. What the committee wants is results!"

            So that was Ras the Exhorter, I thought.

            "We'll have trouble with the Extortor -- I mean the Exhorter," a big woman said. "His hoodlums would attack and denounce the white meat of a roasted chicken."

            We laughed.

            "He goes wild when he sees black people and white people together," she said to me.

            "We'll take care of that," Brother Clifton said, touching his cheek.

            "Very well, but no violence," Brother Jack said. "The Brotherhood is against violence and terror and provocation of any kind -- aggressive, that is. Understand, Brother Clifton?"

            "I understand," he said.