The Vulture & the Nigger Factory by Gil Scott-Heron

Author:Gil Scott-Heron
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General Fiction
Publisher: Canongate Books
Published: 2010-08-23T00:00:00+00:00

2

MJUMBE

Mjumbe is the Swahili word meaning messenger. On the campus of Sutton University, Sutton, Virginia, it was also the identifying name for the Members of Justice United for Meaningful Black Education. MJUMBE.

The name was chosen by Ralph Baker, a six-foot two-hundred-pound football player who had organized the group and served as its spokesman. Baker sat in the third-floor meeting room of the Omega Psi Phi fraternity house waiting for the results of Ben King’s phone call to Earl Thomas. He was also reliving the day.

The day had really started for Baker at four o’clock that afternoon. He had left a note in the frat house lounge after breakfast notifying the four other MJUMBE chieftains of a four o’clock meeting. When he came into the lounge at four the others were waiting.

‘Brothers,’ he had said, ‘the time has come.’

‘Right on!’ Ben King had said, sitting up.

Baker placed a stack of one thousand mimeographed sheets on the battered card table. Each man took one.

‘We been layin’ an’ bullshittin’ too long,’ Baker commented as the men read the paper.

‘Fo’ hundred years,’ Speedy Cotton mumbled.

‘Thomas said when he was elected that by the enda September he wuz gonna have everything laid out like a train set … I don’ need ta tell nobody that iz October eighth an’ we ain’ heard from the nigger yet. He ain’ nowhere near organized an’…’

‘He a damn Tom!’ King said. ‘I tol’ yawl he wuz a Tom!’

The members of MJUMBE all nodded. Baker glared down at them as though they were to blame. Ben King and Speedy Cotton sat on the same side of the table as usual, a set of diagrammed football formations in front of them. Fred Jones, Jonesy, tapped a deck of cards on the side of the table. Abul Menka, the only MJUMBE member who was not a football player, sat in the corner of the room with his feet propped on the window ledge.

‘So na’,’ Baker went on, ‘it’s pretty clear t’me that if anything gon’ get done, we gon’ do it!’

‘Right on!’

‘I wanna know what yawl think ’bout the stuff,’ Baker said gesturing to the paper. ‘We gotta have it t’gether ’cuz we gon’ be meetin’ wit’ ev’y man, woman, an’ chile on this campus in ’bout fifteen minnits.’

‘That wuz the meetin’ we heard bein’ announced?’ Speedy Cotton asked.

‘That wuz it!’

‘Then this las’ deman’ means Calhoun gon’ get these deman’s t’night?’

Baker smiled. ‘I think you catchin’ on.’ Baker, King, and Cotton shared a loud laugh.

‘What ’bout practice?’ Jonesy interrupted. ‘We s’pose t’be at practice at fo’ thutty.’

‘No practice today.’ King snorted. ‘We gon’ be bizzy.’ He laughed.

‘Why today?’ Jonesy asked. All four men knew that Jonesy was the worrier. He was never comfortable until he was on a football field where all he had to do was knock hell out of anything that moved.

Baker ran a big black hand over his bald-shaved head. ‘I figger we got a surprize fo’ Calhoun. He been in Norfolk for two days an’ he ain’ gittin’ back ’til ’bout six t’night.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.