And that is a part of the being, if there was
no rain, then those dancers came out and
they danced certain dances in such a way that
even the rain would fall.
The people coming in, the people dancing and
things like that,
with the surge of countries becoming
independent, they wanted to make that statement.
Therefore, I was asked to go and to apply
so-called techniques of the stage,
that is the professional stage, to the arts and people.
It was a very interesting project because it
was made in many countries that I had already
been to
and this is where a little bit of questioning
came because it was a corporation,
a state-of-the-art corporation that financed
this whole trip.
And the people who were part of my family, I
mean it's an extended family, said,
but you don't have to come to the United States.
In other words, you're not a politician, you
can't accept that.
You come, you are part of our family.
We don't want to be beholden to any government.
This was the story.
You'd like to know if it was easier in the
beginning, in those first days, or even now?
No, no, it wasn't easier.
I would say today it would be...
I wouldn't find it difficult, I never found it difficult.
It's hard to say this, but today I say to the
Afro-American people, I say,
try and learn, understand, whatever can be
understood on this side
of the various countries that you're going to.
I say this even to our diplomats.
I'm saying you don't go with your ethnocentric thoughts
that whatever you eat is the right thing to eat.
The way you dress is the only way to dress.
Because you want something, it is correct.
Anybody going cross, this doesn't only apply to Afro-Americans,
anyone going anywhere should understand the
people among whom they want to live.
And there is much information disseminated now.
And if they're going to do any kind of research
or anything,
and they have an idea of where they're going,
with whom they're going to live,
you know, as human beings, Ruth Benedict, the
anthropologist, American anthropologist,
Dean Welch taught me that you are the measure
of what you learn.
You go to a place, you're going to learn only
what you allow yourself to learn.
If you go with your eyes so turned in that you
are an American,
this is the way to do things, everything out
there is wrong.
I've always talked to bands.
I've got a flurry of interesting things.
Once a Columbia graduate student, we were
supposed to give seminars.
And our own graduate students were supposed to
give seminars.
And our own colleagues were supposed to judge
us for our grades.
And I, of course, gave my seminars, of course,
and my grade was very low.
But the professor said, if we tied our hands
behind her back,
would her grade be the same?
I'd like to just mention that, as to what we
were talking about before,
that Paul Robeson was one of my mentors.
Now Paul Robeson was, firstly, at first I would
say I was a counselor at a camp.
Wide-eyed was the first time and the last time
I went camping.
And they put me in charge of senior boys.
These boys, some of them not only big and
taller than I am,
but certainly some of them were older.
And as I said, I knew nothing about camping.
They decided they were going to starve me,
tease me, do anything.
And so, you know, you sit around a table and as
their counselor,
you have to pass all this food around.
They made sure that when this one received his food,
this one was still asking for a sandwich so
that I was not supposed to be there.
They frenched the beds, they messed up, they
did everything.
They put me in the poison ivy patch.
I woke up one morning and found myself in this patch.
Couldn't even get out of it because it would
have been nothing but poison.
In this bunk was none other than what we call
Young Pointy, Paul Robeson's son.
Of course, I didn't know it and it wouldn't
have made any difference
because I became very upset with all of them.
They decided anyway that I had to teach them something.
I taught them the Lindy High.
And they learned it and it was wonderful.
I lost track of the whole class.
And I remember that I went to Cafe Society with
my records.
I had done a concert and some man, I was
working as a switchboard operator
at the National Map Tribune.
The man passed by and said,
Say kid, aren't you the one that danced on
Sunday at the Rye?
I said, yes.
He said, well what?
You know, are you doing something here?
I said, who what?
He said, look, why don't you go to Cafe
Society, you know, Barney,
and see if you can get a job there.
Kid, you belong, you know, on the top.
I don't know.
So I said, well, what's Cafe Society?
I mean, let's make a long story short.
Cafe Society was the nightclub at the time.
The nightclub at the time.
I went down there and Barney, the manager said,
looked at me, greed is grass.
And he said, well, what can I do for you?
And I said, well, I've come down to audition
for you.
And he said, really?
I said, yes, I have to do my best.
He said, oh, it's too bad.
It's too bad.
It's too sad.
You'll have to come back another day.
And I said, well, that ends that because I'm working.
I can't take time off.
And he said, I said, did you want to see any,
you know, these papers?
There were just two little clippings on me.
And he said, you can't be this guy.
I said, I am.
He said, OK, let me see if I can fix it anyway.
And in no time, Flattie came down with it
because, you know, it wasn't broken.
So he said, I will give you a job here if you
can prove to us that you are a performer.
And boy, I had only had one job.
So I said, OK, I'll try.
I was very anxious.
A little bit of the space, Et Cetera, and I
practiced and practiced the records.
And then the musician, the head musician, was
supposed to put the record on.
Comes this night, Bonnie Josephson head.
All the stars.
I mean, Billie Holiday was leaning against the
bar, you know.
And Hazel Scott had come down and Paul Rosenkin
and Spencer.
I mean, they were all there.
And I was supposed to dance as well.
He put the needle on.
I was to count one, two, and on three.
I'm supposed to jump out because the music is
supposed to play.
I looked at him.
The audience is sitting there.
Can you imagine?
I mean, it was just jazz.
I looked around and I said, OK, put it on again.
So he put it on.
I went, OK, put it on again.
I counted one, two, and I jumped on. Nothing.
And I said, let's try it again.
He said, OK.
He put it on.
I counted one, two, and I jumped out.
But nothing happened.
I didn't even cry.
The tears jumped out.
They just jumped out of my eyes.
I mean, they just jumped out.
Well, I stood there in front of the audience,
just drenched.
I mean, this is the end of the world, you understand.
And this huge man emerged from out of the audience.
And he says, wait a minute, kid.
Aren't you that same kid that wrecked my home?
And I looked at him.
By that time, I was dissolved in tears.
I said, wrecked your home?
You know.
He said, yeah.
You taught my son to Linty Hop.
He said, he started breaking up things.
And I decided the only way to you can't beat
him, you got to join him.
He said, so we both broke up everything in the house.
He said, you wrecked my house.
He says, let's see if we can wreck this place.
Come on, he said to the orchestra leader, play.
And this big man took me and swung me and I
tossed me out.
I mean, this was the beginning of my career.
Because you know I love music.
Then, of course, he decided while he's dancing away,
he turns his back to the Orchestra and he's leading.
He's leading the orchestra.
And I said, Mr. Robeson, he's a dance kid.
And that was it.
That was it.
I just dashed.
And that was the beginning of this whole thing.
Then we sat hours, you know, with Ned Bailey
and Josh White.
Oh, we'd sit for hours discussing the cultural heritage.
We'd do various things.
It was just wonderful.
Billie Holiday would join us.
And, of course, one of my mentors was also very nice.
I think she gave me, how should I say it?
Billie was very bold.
Billie would not hesitate to use some rather
rough words.
And she would stand at the bar.
Not that she couldn't afford to sit in a seat.
She'd stand at the bar.
And she'd say, that's right, kid.
Dance for those so-and-so-and-so's that can pay
the money.
We back here don't count, naturally.
And this is how I learned projection, not only
forward projection,
but the projection that took it.
Because in those early days, the people who
could only afford 25 stands
were back there.
You see what I mean?
But Marian Anderson helped to develop a sense
of inner dignity inside.
And it was just really a beautiful, beautiful experience
to have these people.
I remember one time when the musician burned a
hole in my case.
The first case I had bought for myself, a
little makeup tube.
And I, of course, dissolved in tears because
that was it.
Everything was a matter of tears.
And I ran to where Paul Robson was performing.
I ran backstage, and he was just coming out
from the last scene
that I was dressing up.
And he looked at me and said, oh, I'm buggy.
So he said, all right, let me go in there and
kill this lady.
And he said, don't kill her, Robson.
You go in the dressing room and just wait.
Let me kill her without coming right into it.
And this was it.
How many times when the FBI surrounded his
house, I used to go visit.
Many people were afraid, but I went and visited.
And Paul would just play all the folk tunes of
the world on the keys.
It's an experience that you just can't even imagine.
It was just wonderful.
So when you say, do I consider myself one of
the thrill runners?
No, I do not.
Now, if you ask me, do I consider myself a
forerunner of black people
working in the telephone company?
I would tell you yes, because there were too
many times
when I stood on those picket lines in the snow
so that the soles of my shoes were frozen into
the ground.
You move that all Italian people.
Yes, we did stand there until we integrated them.
We did go to Washington, and in that big
cafeteria there,
there was a lot of people of color.
But as soon as one person, a white person, came
out, one of us went in.
It didn't matter what spas we had to go to or
not go to,
we sat until that person came out because there
was no more.
And this is the way.
I remember traveling to the Southland
and having in my contract that Burbidge
reserves the right
after the first trip, as the first number,
to see if the house was a segregated house.
And so she had the right to cancel a comment.
I remember those things.
And I also know that there were those before me
and before me
that I can't introduce myself.
They're hitting me, but I can say that I
certainly have not let down
the groups that went before me and those future people
that have now come along and are reaping the benefit
and must carry on.