All You Have to Do: Chapters 1–2

I act casual, just in case. I could maybe pretend it was an accident.

Without Mom as a buffer between me and the faculty, it’s even harder to stay out of trouble.

You walked us from the faculty parking lot through the sprawling, impeccably landscaped grounds.

“Listen,” you said, your voice low, almost conspiratorial.

In his office, sunlight streams in through the old wooden window, highlighting his sparse hair, peeling sunburn, and the dust on his elbow-patched tweed jacket.

They offer topics they’re passionate about, going deep into niche subjects like social persuasion or Hamlet with juniors and seniors.

By the time I enter the classroom, I’m almost resentful. I can’t help it—whenever I sense that gratitude is expected and not deserved, I go hard in the opposite direction.

“I mean, when you say it’s exclusive, that’s kind of funny to me, because really, it’s American history that’s exclusive. Black people and Native Americans are like a footnote or a sidebar in most American history books. The fact that there’s a separate class for African American history kind of proves that the general curriculum focuses on white people. Everything that was skipped over gets squeezed into these special seminars that aren’t even required.”

The other Black kids stifle laughter. Lisa tries to hide it, but her dimples give her away.

I’d like you to focus on presenting your questions and your research in a way that is thought-provoking and engaging.

Sounds of surprise, interest, and trepidation break out around the room.

“Oh, word?” I feign shock. “Someone’s having a party and didn’t invite moi?”

Now they teach it as if everyone loved Dr. King and what he stood for. But it was quite divisive. Some people thought it was too much, too pushy.

The neighborhood protested to save the park from being taken over by Columbia. Almost everyone objects to the construction of the gym—militants to conservatives.

The administration says it will benefit Harlem residents, but only the bottom two floors of seven would be accessible to community members unaffiliated with Columbia—and they would use a separate entrance at the bottom of the hill. The racist, elitist design is how it earned the nickname Gym Crow.

The stakes are really very simple: if we fail to do this, we face continued subjection to a white society that has no intention of giving up willingly or easily its position of priority and authority.

So-called Black colleges are about preparing Negroes for the white man’s world. That’s where they train up the Black bourgeoisie.

When a Negro has finished his education in our schools, then, he has been equipped to begin the life of an Americanized or Europeanized white man, but before he steps from the threshold of his alma mater he is told by his teachers that he must go back to his own people from whom he has been estranged by a vision of ideals which in his disillusionment he will realize that he cannot attain.

When a Negro has finished his education in our schools, then, he has been equipped to begin the life of an Americanized or Europeanized white man, but before he steps from the threshold of his alma mater he is told by his teachers that he must go back to his own people from whom he has been estranged by a vision of ideals which in his disillusionment he will realize that he cannot attain.

When a Negro has finished his education in our schools, then, he has been equipped to begin the life of an Americanized or Europeanized white man, but before he steps from the threshold of his alma mater he is told by his teachers that he must go back to his own people from whom he has been estranged by a vision of ideals which in his disillusionment he will realize that he cannot attain.

Below the wreath on her head, stains run down the green patina on her face, giving her the look of a bleeding Jesus stuck with thorns.

It brings me calm, relieves my tension, as if I’m out there throwing things and screaming at the world too.
“You think the riots will reach campus?” Charles breaks me out of my reverie.

I imagine Columbia students fleeing a burning campus, facing the devastation of an oppressed people instead of tsking from afar.

Years of peaceful protests. Change is coming, but how slowly? How many lives have been lost chasing integration?

Like ambassadors or spokespeople, we are supposed to show them that Columbia, and the world, can and should be theirs too.

She knows about the student coalition. She supported it before.

Grits and gravy and fried eggs with buttered toast vie for my attention.

I unfold the newspaper and scan the lede lines and photographs.

The president, mayors, and other men with loud voices chastise the people who display their anger in the city streets. Dr. King lived and died for nonviolence, they say. Let us honor his memory and be peaceful in our grief.

They do not promise to heed his advice to eradicate these displays of grief by eradicating the causes of the anger, despair, and discontent.

I take a final sip of coffee, which I can no longer taste, and place the mug gingerly on the table.

Is a notice a warning? Does it mean eviction is imminent?

“Okay,” he says amicably.

“By the way,” he says, probably eager to change the subject before I can wax political again, “I saw Rich and Wesley at breakfast. They say we’re taking our grievances straight to the president today.”

“By the way,” he says, probably eager to change the subject before I can wax political again, “I saw Rich and Wesley at breakfast. They say we’re taking our grievances straight to the president today.”

He asked her about the art displayed throughout the house and listened, truly fascinated, as she told him about the cultures from which they hailed.

We sat looking at the house for a few moments, holding a collective breath, sensing, perhaps, that we were saying goodbye to Before and crossing a threshold into After.

Mom appraised our faces and hair and double-checked our clothes.

“This is a moment of reckoning,” Wesley says. “It’s a time to reassert our demands and priorities. We need to push this institution to change. It’s our duty and our obligation.”

It looks like I’ve missed a big change. The leaders now are more radical, and almost all the Black students are here today. From the nods and murmurs around the room, it sounds like everyone wants some action.