Pride

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  In Greek, the two adverbs which we have translated in many parts and in many ways are single words, polumerōs and polutropōs. Polu- in such a combination means many, and it was a habit of the great Greek orators, like Demosthenes, the greatest of them all, to weave such sonorous words into the first paragraph of a speech. The writer to the Hebrews felt that, since this letter was to speak of the supreme revelation of God, the ideas must be clothed in the noblest language that it was possible to find. There is something of interest even here. The person who wrote this letter must have been trained in Greek oratory. When he became a Christian, he did not throw his training away. He used the talent he had in the service of Jesus Christ . The lovely legend of the acrobatic tumbler who became a monk is familiar to many. He felt that he had so little to offer. One day, someone saw him go into the chapel and stand before the statue of the Virgin Mary. He hesitated for a moment and then began to go through his acrobatic routine. When he had completed his tumbling, he knelt in adoration; and then, says the legend, the statue of the Virgin Mary came to life, stepped down from her pedestal and gently wiped the sweat from the brow of the acrobat who had offered all he had to give. When people become Christians, they are not asked to abandon all the talents they once had; they are asked to use them in the service of Jesus Christ and of his Church. The basic idea of this letter is that Jesus Christ alone brings to men and women the full revelation of God and that he alone enables them to enter into the very presence of God. The writer begins by contrasting Jesus with the prophets who had gone before. He talks about him coming in the end of these days . The Jews divided all time into two ages – the present age and the age to come. In between, they set the day of the Lord. The present age was wholly bad; the age to come was to be the golden age of God. The day of the Lord was to be like the birth-pangs of the new age. So, the writer to the Hebrews says: ‘The old time is passing away; the age of incompleteness is gone; the time of guessing and feeling our way is at an end; the new age, the age of God, has dawned in Christ.’ He sees the world and human thought enter, as it were, into a new beginning with Christ. In Jesus, God has entered humanity, eternity has invaded time, and things can never be the same again. He contrasts Jesus with the prophets, for they were always believed to be the confidants of God.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  According to the old chronicler, the disciples who gathered around him in Oxford were many and, clad in long russet gowns of one pattern, they went on foot, ventilating their master’s errors among the people and publicly setting them forth in sermons.562 They had the distinction of being arraigned by no less a personage than Bishop Courtenay "as itinerant, unauthorized preachers who teach erroneous, yea, heretical assertions publicly, not only in churches but also in public squares and other profane places, and who do this under the guise of great holiness, but without having obtained any episcopal or papal authorization." It was in 1381, the year before Courtenay said his memorable words, that Walden reports that Wyclif "began to determine matters upon the sacrament of the altar."563 To attempt an innovation at this crucial point required courage of the highest order. In 12 theses he declared the Church’s doctrine unscriptural and misleading. For the first time since the promulgation of the dogma of transubstantiation by the Fourth Lateran was it seriously called in question by a theological expert. It was a case of Athanasius standing alone. The mendicants waxed violent. Oxford authorities, at the instance of the archbishop and bishops, instituted a trial, the court consisting of Chancellor Berton and 12 doctors. Without mentioning Wyclif by name, the judges condemned as pestiferous the assertions that the bread and wine remain after consecration, and that Christ’s body is present only figuratively or tropically

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  THERE had been a time when those to whom this letter was written had experienced fierce opposition to their beliefs. When they had first become Christians, they had known persecution and plundering of their goods; and they had learned what it was to become involved with those who were under suspicion and unpopular. They had met that situation with gallantry and with honour; and now, when they were in danger of drifting away, the writer to the Hebrews reminds them of their former loyalty. It is a truth of life that, in many ways, it is easier to stand adversity than to stand prosperity. Comfort has ruined far more people than trouble ever did. The classic example is what happened to the armies of Hannibal. Hannibal of Carthage was the one general who had routed the Roman legions. But winter came, and the campaign had to be put on hold. Hannibal wintered his troops in Capua which he had captured, a city of luxury. And one winter in Capua did what the Roman legions had not succeeded in doing. The luxury so sapped the morale of the Carthaginian troops that, when the spring came and the campaign was resumed, they were unable to stand up to the Romans. Comfort had ruined them when struggle had only toughened them. That is often true of Christian life. It is often the case that people are able to meet the great hour of testing and of trial with honour; and yet they allow the times of plain sailing to sap their strength and weaken their faith. The appeal of the writer to the Hebrews is one that could be made to us all. In effect, he says: ‘Be what you were at your best.’ If only we were always at our best, life would be very different. Christianity does not demand the impossible; but, if we were always as honest, as kind, as courageous and as courteous as we can be, life would be transformed. To be like that, we need certain things. (1) We need always to keep our hope in sight. Athletes will make a great effort because the goal beckons. They will submit to the discipline of training because of the end in view. If life is only a day-to-day matter of routine things, we may well sink into a policy of drifting; but, if we are on the way to heaven’s crown, our efforts must always be the very best we can offer. (2) We need fortitude. Perseverance is one of the great unromantic virtues. Most people can start well, and almost everyone can keep going intermittently. To everyone at some time or other, strength and inspiration come so that we rise above things as if we had wings; in the moment of the great effort, everyone can run and not be weary; but the greatest gift of all is to walk on steadily and not to faint.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Come here and let me have a look at your feet.’ Then she laughed as though something amused her. Stephen was longing to rub her big toe, but she thought better of it, enduring in silence. ‘Children!’ called Mrs. Antrim, ‘Here’s Stephen, I’m sure she’s as hungry as a hunter!’ Violet was wearing a pale blue silk frock; even at seven she was vain of her appearance. She had cried until she had got permission to wear that particular pale blue frock, which was usually reserved for parties. Her brown hair was curled into careful ringlets, and tied with a very large bow of blue ribbon. Mrs. Antrim glanced quickly from Stephen to Violet with a look of maternal pride. Roger was bulging inside his Etons; his round cheeks were puffed, very pink and aggressive. He eyed Stephen coldly from above a white collar that was obviously fresh from the laundry. On their way upstairs he pinched Stephen’s leg, and Stephen kicked backwards, swiftly and neatly. ‘I suppose you think you can kick!’ grunted Roger, who was suffering acutely at that moment from his shin, ‘You’ve not got the strength of a flea; I don’t feel it!’ At Violet’s request they were left alone for tea; she liked playing the hostess, and her mother spoilt her. A special small teapot had had to be unearthed, in order that Violet could lift it. ‘Sugar?’ she inquired with tongs poised in mid air, ‘And milk?’ she added, imitating her mother. Mrs. Antrim always said: ‘And milk,’ in that tone—it made you feel that you must be rather greedy. ‘Oh, chuck it!’ growled Roger, whose shin was still aching, ‘You know I want milk and four lumps of sugar.’ Violet’s underlip began to tremble, but she held her ground with unexpected firmness. ‘May I give you a little more milk, Stephen dear? Or would you prefer no milk, only lemon?’ ‘There isn’t any lemon and you know it!’ bawled Roger. ‘Here, give me my tea or I’ll spoil your hair ribbon.’ He grabbed at his cup and nearly upset it. ‘Oh, oh!’ shrilled Violet, ‘My dress!’ They settled down to the meal at last, but Stephen observed that Roger was watching; every mouthful she ate she could feel him watching, so that she grew self-conscious.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  As for himself, Wyclif said, he was ready to follow its teachings, even unto martyrdom, if necessary.611 For hundreds of years no eminent teacher had emphasized the right of the laity to the Word of God. It was regarded as a book for the clergy, and the interpretation of its meaning was assumed to rest largely with the decretists and the pope. The Council of Toulouse, 1229, had forbidden the use of the Bible to laymen. The condemned sects of the 12th and 13th centuries, especially the Waldenses, had adopted another rule, but their assailants, such as Alanus ab Insulis, had shown how dangerous their principle was. Wyclif stood forth as the champion of an open Bible. It was a book to be studied by all Christians, for "it is the whole truth." Because it was given to the Church, its teachings are free to every one, even as is Christ himself.612 To withhold the Scriptures from the laity is a fundamental sin. To make them known in the mother-tongue is the first duty of the priest. For this reason priests ought always to be familiar with the language of the people. Wyclif held up the friars for declaring it heresy to translate God’s law into English and make it known to laymen. He argued against their position by referring to the gift of tongues at Pentecost and to Jerome’s translation, to the practice of Christ and the Apostles who taught peoples in their native languages and to the existence in his own day of a French translation made in spite of all hindrances. Why, he exclaims, "should not Englishmen do the same, for as the lords of England have the Bible in French, it would not be against reason if they had the same material in English." Through an English Bible Englishmen would be enabled best "to follow Christ and come to heaven."613 What could be more positive than the following words? Christen men and women, olde and young, shulden study fast in the New Testament, and no simple man of wit shulde be aferde unmeasurably to study in the text of holy Writ. Pride and covetise of clerks is cause of their blyndness and heresie and priveth them fro verie understonding of holy Writ. The New Testament is of ful autorite and open to understonding of simple men, as to the pynts that ben most needful to salvation. Wyclif was the first to give the Bible to his people in their own tongue. He knew no Hebrew and probably no Greek. His version, which was made from the Latin Vulgate, was the outgrowth of his burning desire to make his English countrymen more religious and more Christian. The paraphrastic translation of books which proceeded from the pen of Richard Rolle and perhaps a verse of the New Testament of Kentish origin and apparently made for a nunnery,614 must be considered as in no wise in conflict with the claim of priority made for the English Reformer.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  The lustre of the University of Paris filled all Western Europe as early as the first years of the thirteenth century. It continued to be the chief seat of theological and general learning till the Reformation. In 1231 Gregory IX. called Paris "the parent of the sciences, another Kerieth Sepher, a city of letters, in which, as in a factory of wisdom, the precious stones and gold of wisdom are wrought and polished for the Church of Christ."1281 In the same strain Alexander IV., 1256, eulogized the university1282 as "that most excellent state of letters, a famous city of the arts, a notable school of erudition, the highest factory of wisdom,—officina sapientiae — and the most efficient gymnasium of study. There, a clear spring of the sciences breaks forth at which the peoples of all nations drink." Three hundred years later, in 1518, Luther, in his protest to Cajetan, expressed his willingness to have his case go before the University of Paris to which he referred, "as the parent of studies and from antiquity ever the most Christian University and that in which theology has been particularly cultivated." The old tradition, which traced the origin of the university back to Charlemagne, the pride of the French has been slow to abandon. Du Boulay devoted an entire volume to its assumed history before the year 1000. Not even was Abaelard its founder. The most that can be said is, that that brilliant teacher prepared the way for the new institution,1283 whose beginnings belong to the period 1150–1170. From its earliest era of development, the university received the recognition of royalty and the favor of popes who were quick to discern its future importance. In the year 1200 Philip Augustus, king of France, conferred upon it a valuable privilege, granting the students and teaching body independent rights over against the municipal government. Among its venerable documents are communications from Innocent III., his legate, Robert of Courçon, Honorius III. and Gregory IX., 1231. From that time on, the archives abound in papal letters and communications addressed to the pope by the university authorities. In Paris, as has already been said, the masters were the controlling body. The first use of the expression "university of masters and scholars" occurs in 1221.1284 The earliest example of statutes is found in a bull of Innocent III., written about 1209.1285 Later, Innocent recognized the corporate rights of the body when he permitted it to have a representative at Rome and ordered an expelled master to be readmitted. The statutes of Robert of Courçon, 1215, prescribed text-books and other regulations. A university seal was used as early as 1221.1286 Disputes between the university and the chancellor of the cathedral and other church authorities of Paris date back as far as 1213.

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  On the other hand, the words of Patrick Henry had made such an impression on me that I had been able to stretch myself tall and trembling and say, “I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death.” And now I heard, really for the first time: “We have come over a way that with tears has been watered, We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered.” While echoes of the song shivered in the air, Henry Reed bowed his head, said “Thank you,” and returned to his place in the line. The tears that slipped down many faces were not wiped away in shame. We were on top again. As always, again. We survived. The depths had been icy and dark, but now a bright sun spoke to our souls. I was no longer simply a member of the proud graduating class of 1940; I was a proud member of the wonderful, beautiful Negro race. Oh, Black known and unknown poets, how often have your auctioned pains sustained us? Who will compute the lonely nights made less lonely by your songs, or by the empty pots made less tragic by your tales? If we were a people much given to revealing secrets, we might raise monuments and sacrifice to the memories of our poets, but slavery cured us of that weakness. It may be enough, however, to have it said that we survive in exact relationship to the dedication of our poets (include preachers, musicians and blues singers). * “Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing”—words by James Weldon Johnson and music by J. Rosamond Johnson. Copyright by Edward B. Marks Music Corporation. Used by permission.

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  “Anyhow, I played scary at first but Just Black told me that this was one white man that our people could trust. I said I did not trust no white man because all they wanted was to get a chance to kill a Black man legally and get his wife in the bed. (I'm sorry, Clidell.) The mark assured me that he was the only white man who did not feel like that. Some of his best friends were colored people. In fact, if I didn't know it, the woman who raised him was a colored woman and he still sees her to this day. I let myself be convinced and then the mark began to drag the Northern whites. He told me that they made Negroes sleep in the street in the North and that they had to clean out toilets with their hands in the North and even things worse than that. I was shocked and said, ‘Then I don't want to sell my land to that white man who offered seventy-five thousand dollars for it.’ Just Black said, ‘I wouldn't know what to do with that kind of money’ and I said that all I wanted was to have enough money to buy a home for my old mom, to buy a business and to make one trip to Harlem. The mark asked how much would that cost and I said I reckoned I could do it on fifty thousand dollars. “The mark told me no Negro was safe with that kind of money. That whitefolks would take it from him. I said I knew it but I had to have at least forty thousand dollars. He agreed. We shook hands. I said it would do my heart good to see the mean Yankee go down on some of ‘our land.’ We met the next morning and I signed the deed in his car and he gave me the cash. “Black and I had kept most of our things in a hotel over in Hot Springs, Arkansas. When the deal was closed we walked to our car, drove across the state line and on to Hot Springs. “That's all there was to it.” When he finished, more triumphant stories rainbowed around the room riding the shoulders of laughter. By all accounts those storytellers, born Black and male before the turn of the twentieth century, should have been ground into useless dust. Instead they used their intelligence to pry open the door of rejection and not only became wealthy but got some revenge in the bargain. It wasn't possible for me to regard them as criminals or be anything but proud of their achievements.

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  The guard, the father and one or two small children began the herculean job of waking Dad. I watched coolly as the remaining people paraded, making figure eights around me and their badly bruised automobile. The two men shook and tugged and pulled while the children jumped up and down on my father's chest. I credit the children's action for the success of the effort. Bailey Johnson, Sr., woke up in Spanish. “Qué tiene? Qué pasa? Qué quiere?” Anyone else would have asked, “Where am I?” Obviously, this was a common Mexican experience. When I saw he was fairly lucid I went to the car, calmly pushed the people away, and said from the haughty level of one who has successfully brought to heel a marauding car and negotiated a sneaky mountain, “Dad, there's been an accident.” He recognized me by degrees and became my pre-Mexican-fiesta father. “An accident, huh? Er, who was at fault? You, Marguerite? Errer was it you?” It would have been futile to tell him of my mastering his car and driving it nearly fifty miles. I didn't expect or even need, now, his approbation. “Yes, Dad, I ran into a car.” He still hadn't sat up completely, so he couldn't know where we were. But from the floor where he rested, as if that was the logical place to be, he said, “In the glove compartment. The insurance papers. Get them and er give them to the police, and then come back.” The guard stuck his head in the other door before I could form a scathing but polite response. He asked Dad to get out of the car. Never at a loss, my father reached in the glove compartment, and took out the folded papers and the half bottle of liquor he had left there earlier. He gave the guard one of his pinch-backed laughs, and descended, by joints, from the car. Once on the ground he towered over the angry people. He took a quick reading of his location and the situation, and then put his arm around the other driver's shoulder. He kindly, not in the least condescendingly, bent to speak to the guard, and the three men walked into the hut. Within easy minutes, laughter burst from the shack and the crisis was over, but so was the enjoyment.

• From How to Read the Bible and Still Be a Christian (2015)

  In terms of those singled out for special comment, five are women (Mary, Tryphaena, Tryphosa, Persis, and an unnamed mother) and six are men (Epaenetus, Ampliatus, Urbanus, Stachys, Apelles, and Rufus). But only four, all women—Mary, Tryphaena, Tryphosa, and Persis (16:6, 12)—get the special accolade of having “worked hard” (kopiaō ) for Christ, elsewhere expressed by Paul only of himself (Gal. 4:11; 1 Cor. 15:10). One name in this final greeting created a problem that would be funny if it were not ridiculous, and comic if it were not tragic. Junia, who apparently was in prison with Paul, is a female name, so we know that this is a woman who was “prominent among the apostles” (Rom. 16:7). But to obviate that unorthodoxy, for the past thousand years Junia has been declared to be short for the masculine name Junianus. Needless to say, no such masculine abbreviation existed in antiquity. Paul takes it for granted that a woman could be an apostle, that is, a person sent (from the Greek apostellein, “to send”) by God or Christ to found a new Christian community. If you do not like that, Paul would have said, get over it, or take it up with God. Slavery: “There Is No Longer Slave or Free”WHAT WAS PAUL ’S VIEW on slavery and the slave economy of the Roman Empire? Did he agree with the fourth-century BCE Greek philosopher Aristotle that slavery was natural because “some men are by nature free, and others slaves” (Poetics 1.5)? Or with the first-century CE Jewish philosopher Philo that slavery was unnatural because “nature has created all men free, but the injustice and covetousness of some men who prefer inequality, that cause of all evil, having subdued some, has given to the more powerful authority over those who are weaker” (On the Contemplative Life 9.70)? The best and clearest answer comes rather incidentally from a very specific case in Paul’s letter to Philemon. You previously caught a glimpse of this letter as an “exploratory probe” in Chapter 2, but I explore it here again in greater detail. Paul, as you recall, was imprisoned, chained nightly to a guard in the barracks, when he wrote that personal letter to Philemon and also the communal letter to the Philippians. The location was, most likely, the governor’s jail at Ephesus (1 Cor. 15:32; 2 Cor. 1:8–9). Philemon’s slave Onesimus, in serious trouble with his owner (punishment? death?), fled, as was acceptable under Roman law, to his owner’s superior friend Paul to seek intercession and obtain forgiveness. We know, for example, that Pollio’s slave “fled to Caesar [Augustus’s] feet” to avoid death (Seneca, On Anger 3.40) and that Pliny the Younger interceded with his friend Sabinianus when “your freedman . . . threw himself at my feet” (Letters 9).

• From How to Read the Bible and Still Be a Christian (2015)

  In direct and deliberate contrast, this is how the prophet Zechariah described the Messiah entering the gates of Jerusalem: Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war-horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall command peace to the nations; his dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth. (9:9–10) You will notice the explicit contrast between the peace donkey and the warhorse. Furthermore, the Messiah’s donkey is described very carefully as a full-bred donkey and not that half-horse, half-donkey known as a mule, making it clear that the animal he was riding was nothing like a (war)horse. When Jesus enters Jerusalem during that Palm Sunday demonstration in fulfillment of Zechariah, Mark simply mentions the single peace donkey. (Imagine Jesus coming into Jerusalem on a donkey from Bethany in the east and Pilate coming in on a warhorse from Caesarea in the west.) Matthew, however, intensifies the demonstration—and the lampoon—by having Jesus ride a nursing female donkey, a jenny, with her little colt trotting along beside her: “Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, ‘Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me.’ . . . they brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them” (21:1–2, 7). That is the assertion of the historical Jesus on the biblical peace donkey. But we have already seen its subversion in the book of Revelation. Remember Christ as the rider on the white horse from Chapter 1 and recall that great feast he prepared for the vultures from the bodies of those “killed by the sword of the rider on the horse, the sword that came from his mouth; and all the birds were gorged with their flesh” (19:21). In summary: Radicality of God: Historical Jesus on the nonviolent peace donkey (Matt. 21:1–11) Normalcy of Civilization: Apocalyptic Christ on the violent warhorse (Rev. 19:11–21) This biblical patterning of yes-and-no justifies my choice of the nonviolent Jesus of the Incarnation over the violent Jesus of the Apocalypse as the true Jesus. Put simply, the nonviolent Jesus is the Christian Bible’s assertion, acceptance, and affirmation of the radicality of God while the violent Jesus is its corresponding subversion, rejection, and negation in favor of the normalcy of civilization. The interest and value, the honesty and integrity, of the Christian Bible resides triumphantly in the dialectic of yes and no, assertion and subversion. This dialectic means that both Judaism and Christianity took the radical challenges of God seriously.

• From Bastard Out of Carolina (1992)

  She stretched her neck to look over without getting up. “I don’t think those jars are setting deep enough in that pot.” Aunt Raylene poured mama some more ice tea. “Oh Anney. Bone’s doing a good job. When she grows up, she’s gonna know all she’ll need about canning and cooking and gossiping in the kitchen.” Mama spooned a little more sugar into her tea. “Raylene, you’re spoiling her. You should have had some of your own, and then you’d watch them all a little more sharply.” “Well, for not birthing any, it sure feels like I’ve raised a crowd. Seems like I’ve had somebody’s kids under my feet for years now. An’t nobody in this family ever been selfish with their children. Why, I’ve got up many a morning to find a porch full of young’uns somebody’s dropped off in the night.” “Most often Alma’s.” “Oh, don’t go on about Alma. She’s got a good heart, for all that temper of hers, and maybe because of it. And damn, but she’s had a hard time, especially with her girls. It don’t surprise me that this sick baby of hers is a girl. She’s had no luck with her girls. Ever since Temple left home she’s gone as sour as bad whiskey.” “Everybody says Temple takes after Alma, but I can’t see it,” Mama said. “I’d swear the girl was never easy in her body. Never gave a hoot about nobody or nothing, except her pride.” Aunt Raylene started giggling over the lip of her tea glass. “You know, she was standing in the yard that time the sheriff came and all the yelling started. Stood out there and tried to pretend wasn’t nothing going on, wasn’t no sheriffs in the yard with a warrant, no beating on the door, nobody throwing clothes out the window. The girl’s purely amazing.” “What’d she do, offer him a glass of water?” “Hell no, she tried to get Alma out of the house so she could give up the furniture quietly. She didn’t care what happened, didn’t care that the furniture-store man really was trying to rob her mama, just didn’t want the neighbors to think they couldn’t keep up the payments.” “As if everybody didn’t know it already. You can’t keep secrets like that.” “Well, you and I don’t even try. And certainly Alma don’t. She knows who she is. But it’s different for the kids. Seems like they’re all the time wanting just what they can’t have, and they’ve got such a funny dose of pride.” “No pride at all or too much, I can’t tell sometimes.” “Different from us is all, maybe.” Aunt Raylene’s face went slack and her voice dropped. “Look at your girls too, Anney. I’ve seen it in them. Not like Temple. No.

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  “Black told him about his friend who was half Indian and half colored and how some Northern white estate agent had found out that he was the sole owner of a piece of valuable land and the Northerner wanted to buy it. At first the man acted like he smelled a rat, but from the way he gobbled up the proposition, turns out what he thought he smelled was some nigger money on his top lip. “He asked the whereabouts of the land but Black put him off. He told his cracker that he just wanted to make sure that he would be interested. The mark allowed how he was being interested, so Black said he would tell his friend and they'd get in touch with him. Black met the mark for about three weeks in cars and in alleys and kept putting him off until the white man was almost crazy with anxiety and greed and then accidentally it seemed Black let drop the name of the Northern real estate agent who wanted the property. From that moment on we knew we had the big fish on the line and all we had to do was to pull him in. “We expected him to try to contact our store, which he did. That cracker went to our setup and counted on his whiteness to ally him with Spots, our white boy, but Spots refused to talk about the deal except to say the land had been thoroughly investigated by the biggest real estate concern in the South and that if our mark did not go around raising dust he would make sure that there would be a nice piece of money in it for him. Any obvious inquiries as to the rightful ownership of the land could alert the state and they would surely push through a law prohibiting the sale. Spots told the mark he would keep in touch with him. The mark went back to the store three or four times but to no avail, then just before we knew he would crack, Black brought me to see him. That fool was as happy as a sissy in a C.C.C. camp. You would have thought my neck was in a noose and he was about to light the fire under my feet. I never enjoyed taking anybody so much.

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  “And now it looks like Joe is mad. He's caught Carnera with a left hook to the head and a right to the head. It's a left jab to the body and another left to the head. There's a left cross and a right to the head. The contender's right eye is bleeding and he can't seem to keep his block up. Louis is penetrating every block. The referee is moving in, but Louis sends a left to the body and it's the uppercut to the chin and the contender is dropping. He's on the canvas, ladies and gentlemen.” Babies slid to the floor as women stood up and men leaned toward the radio. “Here's the referee. He's counting. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven … Is the contender trying to get up again?” All the men in the store shouted, “NO.” “—eight, nine, ten.” There were a few sounds from the audience, but they seemed to be holding themselves in against tremendous pressure. “The fight is all over, ladies and gentlemen. Let's get the microphone over to the referee … Here he is. He's got the Brown Bomber's hand, he's holding it up … Here he is …” Then the voice, husky and familiar, came to wash over us—“The winnah, and still heavyweight champeen of the world … Joe Louis.” Champion of the world. A Black boy. Some Black mother's son. He was the strongest man in the world. People drank Coca-Colas like ambrosia and ate candy bars like Christmas. Some of the men went behind the Store and poured white lightning in their soft-drink bottles, and a few of the bigger boys followed them. Those who were not chased away came back blowing their breath in front of themselves like proud smokers. It would take an hour or more before the people would leave the Store and head for home. Those who lived too far had made arrangements to stay in town. It wouldn't do for a Black man and his family to be caught on a lonely country road on a night when Joe Louis had proved that we were the strongest people in the world. 20“Acka Backa, Sody Cracka Acka Backa, Boo Acka Backa, Sody Cracka I'm in love with you.”

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  I let myself be convinced and then the mark began to drag the Northern whites. He told me that they made Negroes sleep in the street in the North and that they had to clean out toilets with their hands in the North and even things worse than that. I was shocked and said, ‘Then I don't want to sell my land to that white man who offered seventy-five thousand dollars for it.’ Just Black said, ‘I wouldn't know what to do with that kind of money’ and I said that all I wanted was to have enough money to buy a home for my old mom, to buy a business and to make one trip to Harlem. The mark asked how much would that cost and I said I reckoned I could do it on fifty thousand dollars. “The mark told me no Negro was safe with that kind of money. That whitefolks would take it from him. I said I knew it but I had to have at least forty thousand dollars. He agreed. We shook hands. I said it would do my heart good to see the mean Yankee go down on some of ‘our land.’ We met the next morning and I signed the deed in his car and he gave me the cash. “Black and I had kept most of our things in a hotel over in Hot Springs, Arkansas. When the deal was closed we walked to our car, drove across the state line and on to Hot Springs. “That's all there was to it.” When he finished, more triumphant stories rainbowed around the room riding the shoulders of laughter. By all accounts those storytellers, born Black and male before the turn of the twentieth century, should have been ground into useless dust. Instead they used their intelligence to pry open the door of rejection and not only became wealthy but got some revenge in the bargain. It wasn't possible for me to regard them as criminals or be anything but proud of their achievements. The needs of a society determine its ethics, and in the Black American ghettos the hero is that man who is offered only the crumbs from his country's table but by ingenuity and courage is able to take for himself a Lucullan feast. Hence the janitor who lives in one room but sports a robin's-egg-blue Cadillac is not laughed at but admired, and the domestic who buys forty-dollar shoes is not criticized but is appreciated. We know that they have put to use their full mental and physical powers. Each single gain feeds into the gains of the body collective. Stories of law violations are weighed on a different set of scales in the Black mind than in the white. Petty crimes embarrass the community and many people wistfully wonder why Negroes don't rob more banks, embezzle more funds and employ graft in the unions. “We are the victims of the world's most comprehensive robbery. Life demands a balance.

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  9A year later our father came to Stamps without warning. It was awful for Bailey and me to encounter the reality one abrupt morning. We, or at any rate I, had built such elaborate fantasies about him and the illusory mother that seeing him in the flesh shredded my inventions like a hard yank on a paper chain. He arrived in front of the Store in a clean gray car (he must have stopped just outside of town to wipe it in preparation for the “grand entrance”). Bailey who knew such things, said it was a De Soto. His bigness shocked me. His shoulders were so wide I thought he'd have trouble getting in the door. He was taller than anyone I had seen, and if he wasn't fat, which I knew he wasn't, then he was fat-like. His clothes were too small too. They were tighter and woolier than was customary in Stamps. And he was blindingly handsome. Momma cried, “Bailey, my baby. Great God, Bailey.” And Uncle Willie stuttered, “Bu-Buh-Bailey.” My brother said, “Hot dog and damn. It's him. It's our daddy.” And my seven-year-old world humpty-dumptied, never to be put back together again. His voice rang like a metal dipper hitting a bucket and he spoke English. Proper English, like the school principal, and even better. Our father sprinkled ers and even errers in his sentences as liberally as he gave out his twisted-mouth smiles. His lips pulled not down, like Uncle Willie's, but to the side, and his head lay on one side or the other, but never straight on the end of his neck. He had the air of a man who did not believe what he heard or what he himself was saying. He was the first cynic I had met. “So er this is Daddy's er little man? Boy, anybody tell you errer that you er look like me?” He had Bailey in one arm and me in the other. “And Daddy's baby girl. You've errer been good children, er haven't you? Or er I guess I would have er heard about it er from Santa Claus.” I was so proud of him it was hard to wait for the gossip to get around that he was in town. Wouldn't the kids be surprised at how handsome our daddy was? And that he loved us enough to come down to Stamps to visit? Everyone could tell from the way he talked and from the car and clothes that he was rich and maybe had a castle out in California. (I later learned that he had been a doorman at Santa Monica's plush Breakers Hotel.) Then the possibility of being compared with him occurred to me, and I didn't want anyone to see him. Maybe he wasn't my real father. Bailey was his son, true enough, but I was an orphan that they picked up to provide Bailey with company.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  For, in a short time, a very short time, ‘He who is to come will come and he will not delay. And my just man shall live by faith; but, if he shrinks back, my soul will not find pleasure in him.’ We are not men to shrink back from things and so to come to disaster, but we are men of a faith which will enable us to possess our souls. T HERE had been a time when those to whom this letter was written had experienced fierce opposition to their beliefs. When they had first become Christians, they had known persecution and plundering of their goods; and they had learned what it was to become involved with those who were under suspicion and unpopular. They had met that situation with gallantry and with honour; and now, when they were in danger of drifting away, the writer to the Hebrews reminds them of their former loyalty. It is a truth of life that, in many ways, it is easier to stand adversity than to stand prosperity. Comfort has ruined far more people than trouble ever did. The classic example is what happened to the armies of Hannibal. Hannibal of Carthage was the one general who had routed the Roman legions. But winter came, and the campaign had to be put on hold. Hannibal wintered his troops in Capua which he had captured, a city of luxury. And one winter in Capua did what the Roman legions had not succeeded in doing. The luxury so sapped the morale of the Carthaginian troops that, when the spring came and the campaign was resumed, they were unable to stand up to the Romans. Comfort had ruined them when struggle had only toughened them. That is often true of Christian life. It is often the case that people are able to meet the great hour of testing and of trial with honour; and yet they allow the times of plain sailing to sap their strength and weaken their faith. The appeal of the writer to the Hebrews is one that could be made to us all. In effect, he says: ‘Be what you were at your best.’ If only we were always at our best, life would be very different. Christianity does not demand the impossible; but, if we were always as honest, as kind, as courageous and as courteous as we can be, life would be transformed. To be like that, we need certain things. (1) We need always to keep our hope in sight . Athletes will make a great effort because the goal beckons.

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  I approached the Time Step with the same determination to win that I had approached the time tables with. There was no Uncle Willie or sizzling pot-bellied stove, but there was Mother and her laughing friends, and they amounted to the same thing. We were applauded and given more soft drinks and more shrimp, but it was to be years later before I found the joy and freedom of dancing well. Mother's brothers, Uncles Tutti, Tom and Ira, were well-known young men about St. Louis. They all had city jobs, which I now understand to have been no mean feat for Negro men. Their jobs and their family set them apart, but they were best known for their unrelenting meanness. Grandfather had told them, “Bah Jesus, if you ever get in jail for stealing or some such foolishness, I'll let you rot. But if you're arrested for fighting, I'll sell the house, lock, stock and barrel, to get you out!” With that kind of encouragement, backed by explosive tempers, it was no wonder they became fearsome characters. Our youngest uncle, Billy, was not old enough to join in their didoes. One of their more flamboyant escapades has become a proud family legend. Pat Patterson, a big man, who was himself protected by the shield of a bad reputation, made the mistake of cursing my mother one night when she was out alone. She reported the incident to her brothers. They ordered one of their hangers-on to search the streets for Patterson, and when he was located, to telephone them. As they waited throughout the afternoon, the living room filled with smoke and the murmurs of plans. From time to time, Grandfather came in from the kitchen and said, “Don't kill him. Mind you, just don't kill him,” then went back to his coffee with Grandmother. They went to the saloon where Patterson sat drinking at a small table. Uncle Tommy stood by the door, Uncle Tutti stationed himself at the toilet door and Uncle Ira, who was the oldest and maybe everyone's ideal, walked over to Patterson. They were all obviously carrying guns. Uncle Ira said to my mother, “Here, Bibbi. Here's this nigger Patterson. Come over here and beat his ass.” She crashed the man's head with a policeman's billy enough to leave him just this side of death. There was no police investigation nor social reprobation. After all, didn't Grandfather champion their wild tempers, and wasn't Grandmother a near-white woman with police pull? I admit that I was thrilled by their meanness. They beat up whites and Blacks with the same abandon, and liked each other so much that they never needed to learn the art of making outside friends. My mother was the only warm, outgoing personality among her siblings. Grandfather became bedridden during our stay there, and his children spent their free time telling him jokes, gossiping with him and showing their love.

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  People drank Coca-Colas like ambrosia and ate candy bars like Christmas. Some of the men went behind the Store and poured white lightning in their soft-drink bottles, and a few of the bigger boys followed them. Those who were not chased away came back blowing their breath in front of themselves like proud smokers. It would take an hour or more before the people would leave the Store and head for home. Those who lived too far had made arrangements to stay in town. It wouldn't do for a Black man and his family to be caught on a lonely country road on a night when Joe Louis had proved that we were the strongest people in the world.

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  “Black told him about his friend who was half Indian and half colored and how some Northern white estate agent had found out that he was the sole owner of a piece of valuable land and the Northerner wanted to buy it. At first the man acted like he smelled a rat, but from the way he gobbled up the proposition, turns out what he thought he smelled was some nigger money on his top lip. “He asked the whereabouts of the land but Black put him off. He told his cracker that he just wanted to make sure that he would be interested. The mark allowed how he was being interested, so Black said he would tell his friend and they'd get in touch with him. Black met the mark for about three weeks in cars and in alleys and kept putting him off until the white man was almost crazy with anxiety and greed and then accidentally it seemed Black let drop the name of the Northern real estate agent who wanted the property. From that moment on we knew we had the big fish on the line and all we had to do was to pull him in. “We expected him to try to contact our store, which he did. That cracker went to our setup and counted on his whiteness to ally him with Spots, our white boy, but Spots refused to talk about the deal except to say the land had been thoroughly investigated by the biggest real estate concern in the South and that if our mark did not go around raising dust he would make sure that there would be a nice piece of money in it for him. Any obvious inquiries as to the rightful ownership of the land could alert the state and they would surely push through a law prohibiting the sale. Spots told the mark he would keep in touch with him. The mark went back to the store three or four times but to no avail, then just before we knew he would crack, Black brought me to see him. That fool was as happy as a sissy in a C.C.C. camp. You would have thought my neck was in a noose and he was about to light the fire under my feet. I never enjoyed taking anybody so much. “Anyhow, I played scary at first but Just Black told me that this was one white man that our people could trust. I said I did not trust no white man because all they wanted was to get a chance to kill a Black man legally and get his wife in the bed. (I'm sorry, Clidell.) The mark assured me that he was the only white man who did not feel like that. Some of his best friends were colored people. In fact, if I didn't know it, the woman who raised him was a colored woman and he still sees her to this day.