Native Son Part 50

"I object!" Buckley shouted. "I object to the counsel for the defendant speaking of this defendant before this Court by any name other than that written in the indictment. Such names as 'Bigger' and 'this poor boy' are used to arouse sympathy...."

"Sustained," the judge said. "In the future, the defendant should be designated by the name under which the indictment was drawn. Mr. Max, I think you should allow the State's Attorney to continue."

"There's nothing further I have to say, Your Honor," Buckley said. "If it pleases the Court, I am ready to call my witnesses."

"How many witnesses have you?" Max asked.

"Sixty," Buckley said.

"Your Honor," Max said. "Bigger Thomas has entered a plea of guilty. It seems to me that sixty witnesses are not needed."

"I intend to prove that this defendant is sane, that he was and is responsible for these frightful crimes," Buckley said.

"The Court will hear them," the judge said.

"Your Honor," Max said. "Let me clear this thing up. As you know, the time granted me to prepare a defense for Bigger Thomas is pitifully brief, so brief as to be without example. This hearing was rushed to the top of the calendar so that this boy might be tried while the temper of the people is white-hot.

"A change of venue is of no value now. The same condition of hysteria exists all over this state. These circ.u.mstances have placed me in a position of not doing what I think wisest, but of doing what I must. If anybody but a Negro boy were charged with murder, the State's Attorney would not have rushed this case to trial and demanded the death penalty.

"The State has sought to create the impression that I am going to say that this boy is insane. That is not not true. I shall put no witnesses upon the stand. true. I shall put no witnesses upon the stand. I I shall witness for Bigger Thomas. I shall present argument to show that his extreme youth, his mental and emotional life, and the reason why he has pleaded guilty, should and must mitigate his punishment. shall witness for Bigger Thomas. I shall present argument to show that his extreme youth, his mental and emotional life, and the reason why he has pleaded guilty, should and must mitigate his punishment.

"The State's Attorney has sought to create the belief that I'm trying to spring some surprise upon this Court by having my client enter a plea of guilty; he has sought to foster the notion that some legal trick is involved in the offering of evidence to mitigate this boy's punishment. But we have had many, many such cases to come before the courts of Illinois. The Loeb and Leopold case, for example. This is a regular procedure provided for by the enlightened and progressive laws of our state. Shall we deny this boy, because he is poor and black, the same protection, the same chance to be heard and understood that we have so readily granted to others?

"Your Honor, I am not a coward, but I could not ask that this boy be freed and given a chance at life while that mob howls beyond that window. I ask what I must must. I ask, over the shrill cries of the mob, that you spare his life!

"The law of Illinois, regarding a plea of guilty to murder before a court, is as follows: the Court may impose the death penalty, imprison the defendant for life, or for a term of not less than fourteen years. Under this law the Court is able to hear evidence as to the aggravation or mitigation of the offense. The object of this law is to caution the Court to seek to find out why why a man killed and to allow that a man killed and to allow that why why to be the measure of the mitigation of the punishment. to be the measure of the mitigation of the punishment.

"I noticed that the State's Attorney did not dwell upon why Bigger Thomas killed those two women. There is a mob waiting, he says, so let us kill. His only plea is that if we do not kill, then the mob will kill.

"He did not discuss the motive for Bigger Thomas' crime because he could could not. It is to his advantage to act quickly, before men have had time to think, before the full facts are known. For he knows that if the full facts were known, if men had time to reflect, he could not stand there and shout for death! not. It is to his advantage to act quickly, before men have had time to think, before the full facts are known. For he knows that if the full facts were known, if men had time to reflect, he could not stand there and shout for death!

"What motive actuated Bigger Thomas? There was no motive as motive is understood under our laws today, Your Honor. I shall go deeper into this when I sum up. It is because of the almost instinctive nature of these crimes that I say that the mental and emotional life of this boy is important in deciding his punishment. But, as the State whets the appet.i.te of the mob by needlessly parading witness after witness before this Court, as the State inflames the public mind further with the ghastly details of this boy's crimes, I shall listen for the State's Attorney to tell this Court why why Bigger Thomas killed. Bigger Thomas killed.

"This boy is young, not only in years, but in his att.i.tude toward life. He is not old enough to vote. Living in a Black Belt district, he is younger than most boys of his age, for he has not come in contact with the wide variety and depths of life. He has had but two outlets for his emotions: work and s.e.x-and he knew these in their most vicious and degrading forms.

"I shall ask this Court to spare this boy's life and I have faith enough in this Court to believe that it will consent."

Max sat down. The court room was filled with murmurs.

"The Court will adjourn for one hour and reconvene at one o'clock," the judge said.

Flanked by policemen, Bigger was led back into the crowded hall. Again he pa.s.sed a window and he saw a sprawling mob held at bay by troops. He was taken to a room where a tray of food rested on a table. Max was there, waiting for him.

"Come on and sit down, Bigger. Eat something."

"I don't want nothing."

"Come on. You've got to hold up."

"I ain't hungry."

"Here; take a smoke."

"Naw."

"You want a drink of water?"

"Naw."

Bigger sat in a chair, leaned forward, rested his arms on the table and buried his face in the crooks of his elbows. He was tired. Now that he was out of the court room, he felt the awful strain under which he had been while the men had argued about his life. All of the vague thoughts and excitement about finding a way to live and die were far from him now. Fear and dread were the only possible feelings he could have in that court room. When the hour was up, he was led back into court. He rose with the rest when the judge came, and then sat again.

"The State may call its witnesses," the judge said.

"Yes, Your Honor," Buckley said.

The first witness was an old woman whom Bigger had not seen before. During the questioning, he heard Buckley call her Mrs. Rawlson. Then he heard the old woman say that she was the mother of Mrs. Dalton. Bigger saw Buckley give her the earring he had seen at the inquest, and the old woman told of how the pair of earrings had been handed down through the years from mother to daughter. When Mrs. Rawlson was through, Max said that he had no desire to examine her or any of the State's witnesses. Mrs. Dalton was led to the stand and she told the same story she had told at the inquest. Mr. Dalton told again why he had hired Bigger and pointed him out as "the Negro boy who came to my home to work." Peggy also pointed him out, saying through her sobs, "Yes; he's the boy." All of them said that he had acted like a very quiet and sane boy.

Britten told how he had suspected that Bigger knew something of the disappearance of Mary; and said that "that black boy is as sane as I am." A newspaperman told of how the smoke in the furnace had caused the discovery of Mary's bones. Bigger heard Max rise when the newspaperman had finished.

"Your Honor," Max said. "I'd like to know how many more newspapermen are to testify?"

"I have just fourteen more," Buckley said.

"Your Honor," Max said. "This is totally unnecessary. There is a plea of guilty here...."

"I'm going to prove that that killer is sane!" Buckley shouted.

"The Court will hear them," the judge said. "Proceed, Mr. Buckley."

Fourteen more newspapermen told about the smoke and the bones and said that Bigger acted "just like all other colored boys." At five o'clock the court recessed and a tray of food was placed before Bigger in a small room, with six policemen standing guard. The nerves of his stomach were so taut that he could only drink the coffee. Six o'clock found him back in court. The room grew dark and the lights were turned on. The parade of witnesses ceased to be real to Bigger. Five white men came to the stand and said that the handwriting on the kidnap note was his; that it was the same writing which they had found on his "homework papers taken from the files of the school he used to attend." Another white man said that the fingerprints of Bigger Thomas were found on the door of "Miss Dalton's room." Then six doctors said Bessie had been raped. Four colored waitresses from Ernie's Kitchen Shack pointed him out as the "colored boy who was at the table that night with the white man and the white woman." And they said he had acted "quiet and sane." Next came two white women, school teachers, who said that Bigger was "a dull boy, but thoroughly sane." One witness melted into another. Bigger ceased to care. He stared listlessly. At times he could hear the faint sound of the winter wind blowing outdoors. He was too tired to be glad when the session ended. Before they took him back to his cell, he asked Max, "How long will it last?"

"I don't know, Bigger. You'll have to be brave and hold up."

"I wish it was over."

"This is your life, Bigger. You got to fight."

"I don't care what they do to me. I wish it was over."

The next morning they woke him, fed him, and took him back to court. Jan came to the stand and said what he had said at the inquest. Buckley made no attempt to link Jan with the murder of Mary. G.H. and Gus and Jack told of how they used to steal from stores and newsstands, of the fight they had had the morning they planned to rob Blum's. Doc told of how Bigger had cut the cloth of his pool table and said that Bigger was "mean and bad, but sane." Sixteen policemen pointed him out as "the man we captured, Bigger Thomas." They said that a man who could elude the law as skilfully as Bigger had was "sane and responsible." A man whom Bigger recognized as the manager of the Regal Theatre told how Bigger and boys like him m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.ed in the theatre, and of how he had been afraid to speak to them about it, for fear that they might start a fight and cut him. A man from the juvenile court said that Bigger had served three months in a reform school for stealing auto tires.

There was a recess and in the afternoon five doctors said that they thought Bigger was "sane, but sullen and contrary." Buckley brought forth the knife and purse Bigger had hidden in the garbage pail and informed the Court that the city's dump had been combed for four days to find them. The brick he had used to strike Bessie with was shown; then came the flashlight, the Communist pamphlets, the gun, the blackened earring, the hatchet blade, the signed confession, the kidnap note, Bessie's b.l.o.o.d.y clothes, the stained pillows and quilts, the trunk, and the empty rum bottle which had been found in the snow near a curb. Mary's bones were brought in and women in the court room began to sob. Then a group of twelve workmen brought in the furnace, piece by piece, from the Dalton bas.e.m.e.nt and mounted it upon a giant wooden platform. People in the room stood to look and the judge ordered them to sit down.

Buckley had a white girl, the size of Mary, crawl inside of the furnace "to prove beyond doubt that it could and did hold and burn the ravished body of innocent Mary Dalton; and to show that the poor girl's head could not go in and the s.a.d.i.s.tic Negro cut it off." Using an iron shovel from the Dalton bas.e.m.e.nt, Buckley showed how the bones had been raked out; explained how Bigger had "craftily crept up the stairs during the excitement and taken flight." Mopping sweat from his face, Buckley said, "The State rests, Your Honor!"

"Mr. Max," the judge said. "You may proceed to call your witnesses."

"The defense does not contest the evidence introduced here," Max said. "I therefore waive the right to call witnesses. As I stated before, at the proper time I shall present a plea in Bigger Thomas' behalf."

The judge informed Buckley that he could sum up. For an hour Buckley commented upon the testimony of the State's witnesses and interpreted the evidence, concluding with the words, "The intellectual and moral faculties of mankind may as well be declared impotent, if the evidence and testimony submitted by the State are not enough to compel this Court to impose the death sentence upon Bigger Thomas, this despoiler of women!"

"Mr. Max, will you be prepared to present your plea tomorrow?" the judge asked.

"I will, Your Honor."

Back in his cell, Bigger tumbled lifelessly onto his cot. Soon it'll all be over, he thought. Tomorrow might be the last day; he hoped so. His sense of time was gone; night and day were merged now.

The next morning he was awake in his cell when Max came. On his way to court he wondered what Max would say about him. Could Max really save his life? In the act of thinking the thought, he thrust it from him. If he kept hope from his mind, then whatever happened would seem natural. As he was led down the hall, past windows, he saw that the mob and the troops still surrounded the court house. The building was still jammed with muttering people. Policemen had to make an aisle for him in the crowd.

A pang of fear shot through him when he saw that he had been the first to get to the table. Max was somewhere behind him, lost in the crowd. It was then that he felt more deeply than ever what Max had grown to mean to him. He was defenseless now. What was there to prevent those people from coming across those railings and dragging him into the street, now that Max was not here? He sat, not daring to look round, conscious that every eye was upon him. Max's presence during the trial had made him feel that somewhere in that crowd that stared at him so steadily and resentfully was something he could cling to, if only he could get at it. There smoldered in him the hope that Max had made him feel in the first long talk they had had. But he did not want to risk trying to make it flare into flame now, not with this trial and the words of hate from Buckley. But neither did he snuff it out; he nursed it, kept it as his last refuge.

When Max came Bigger saw that his face was pale and drawn. There were dark rings beneath the eyes. Max laid a hand on Bigger's knee and whispered, "I'm going to do all I can, son."

Court opened and the judge said, "Are you ready to proceed, Mr. Max?"

"Yes, Your Honor."

Max rose, ran his hand through his white hair and went to the front of the room. He turned and half-faced the judge and Buckley, looking out over Bigger's head to the crowd. He cleared his throat.

"Your Honor, never in my life have I risen in court to make a plea with a firmer conviction in my heart. I know that what I have to say here today touches the destiny of an entire nation. My plea is for more than one man and one people. Perhaps it is in a manner fortunate that the defendant has committed one of the darkest crimes in our memory; for if we can encompa.s.s the life of this man and find out what has happened to him, if we can understand how subtly and yet strongly his life and fate are linked to ours-if we can do this, perhaps we shall find the key to our future, that rare vantage point upon which every man and woman in this nation can stand and view how inextricably our hopes and fears of today create the exultation and doom of tomorrow.

"Your Honor, I have no desire to be disrespectful to this Court, but I must be honest. A man's life is at stake. And not only is this man a criminal, but he is a black criminal. And as such, he comes into this court under a handicap, notwithstanding our pretensions that all are equal before the law.

"This man is different different, even though his crime differs from similar crimes only in degree. The complex forces of society have isolated here for us a symbol, a test symbol. The prejudices of men have stained this symbol, like a germ stained for examination under the microscope. The unremitting hate of men has given us a psychological distance that will enable us to see this tiny social symbol in relation to our whole sick social organism.

"I say, Your Honor, that the mere act of understanding Bigger Thomas will be a thawing out of icebound impulses, a dragging of the sprawling forms of dread out of the night of fear into the light of reason, an unveiling of the unconscious ritual of death in which we, like sleep-walkers, have partic.i.p.ated so dreamlike and thoughtlessly.

"But I make no excessive claims, Your Honor. I do not deal in magic. I do not say that if we understand this man's life we shall solve all our problems, or that when we have all the facts at our disposal we shall automatically know how to act. Life is not that simple. But I do say that, if, after I have finished, you feel that death is necessary, then you are making an open choice. What I want to do is inject into the consciousness of this Court, through the discussion of evidence, the two possible courses of action open to us and the inevitable consequences flowing from each. And then, if we say death, let us mean it; and if we say life, let us mean that too; but whatever we say, let us know upon what ground we are putting our feet, what the consequences are for us and those whom we judge.

"Your Honor, I would have you believe that I am not insensible to the deep burden of responsibility I am throwing upon your shoulders by the manner in which I have insisted upon conducting the defense of this boy's life, and in my resolve to place before you the entire degree of his guilt for judgment. But, under the circ.u.mstances, what else could I have done? Night after night, I have lain without sleep, trying to think of a way to picture to you and to the world the causes and reasons why this Negro boy sits here a self-confessed murderer. But every time I thought I had discovered a vital piece of evidence bearing upon his fate, I could hear in my mind's ear the low, angry muttering of that mob which the state troops are holding at bay beyond that window.

"How can I, I asked myself, make my voice heard with effect above the hungry yelping of hounds on the hunt? How can I, I asked myself, make the picture of what has happened to this boy show plain and powerful upon a screen of sober reason, when a thousand newspaper and magazine artists have already drawn it in lurid ink upon a million sheets of public print? Dare I, deeply mindful of this boy's background and race, put his fate in the hands of a jury (not of his peers, but of an alien and hostile race!) whose minds are already conditioned by the press of the nation; a press which has already reached a decision as to his guilt, and in countless editorials suggested the measure of his punishment?

"No! I could not! It would be better if we had no courts of law, than that justice should be administered under such conditions! An outright lynching would be more honest than a "mock trial"! Rather that courts be abolished and each man buy arms and proceed to protect himself or make war for what he thinks is rightfully his own, than that a man should be tried by men who have already made up their minds that he is guilty. I could not have placed at the disposal of a jury the evidence, so general and yet so confoundingly specific, so impalpable and yet so disastrous in its terrible consequences-consequences which have affected my client and account for his being here today before the bar of judgment with his life at stake-I could not have done that and have been honest with myself or with this boy.

"So today I come to face this Court, rejecting a trial by jury, willingly entering a plea of guilty, asking in the light of the laws of this state that this boy's life be spared for reasons which I believe affect the foundations of our civilization.

"The most habitual thing for this Court to do is to take the line of least resistance and follow the suggestion of the State's Attorney and say, 'Death!' And that would be the end of this case. But that would not be the end of this crime! That is why this Court must do otherwise.

"There are times, Your Honor, when reality bears features of such an impellingly moral complexion that it is impossible to follow the hewn path of expediency. There are times when life's ends are so raveled that reason and sense cry out that we stop and gather them together again before we can proceed.

"What atmosphere surrounds this trial? Are the citizens soberly intent upon seeing that the law is executed? That retribution is dealt out in measure with the offense? That the guilty and only the guilty is caught and punished?

"No! Every conceivable prejudice has been dragged into this case. The authorities of the city and state deliberately inflamed the public mind to the point where they could not keep the peace without martial law. Responsible to nothing but their own corrupt conscience, the newspapers and the prosecution launched the ridiculous claim that the Communist Party was in some way linked to these two murders. Only here in court yesterday morning did the State's Attorney cease implying that Bigger Thomas was guilty of other crimes, crimes which he could not prove. And, because I, a Jew, dared defend this Negro boy, for days my mail has been flooded with threats against my life. The manner in which Bigger Thomas was captured, the hundreds of innocent Negro homes invaded, the scores of Negroes a.s.saulted upon the streets, the dozens who were thrown out of their jobs, the barrage of lies poured out from every source against a defenseless people-all of this was something unheard of in democratic lands.

"The hunt for Bigger Thomas served as an excuse to terrorize the entire Negro population, to arrest hundreds of Communists, to raid labor union headquarters and workers' organizations. Indeed, the tone of the press, the silence of the church, the att.i.tude of the prosecution and the stimulated temper of the people are of such a nature as to indicate that more more than revenge is being sought upon a man who has committed a crime. than revenge is being sought upon a man who has committed a crime.

"What is the cause of all this high feeling and excitement? Is it the crime of Bigger Thomas? Were Negroes liked yesterday and hated today because of what he has done? Were labor unions and workers' halls raided solely because a Negro committed a crime? Did those white bones lying on that table evoke the gasp of horror that went up from the nation? Did the feeling against the Jews in the city rise only because a Jewish lawyer is defending a black boy?

"Your Honor, you know that this is not not the case! All of the factors in the present hysteria existed before Bigger Thomas was ever heard of. Negroes, workers, and labor unions were hated as much yesterday as they are today. the case! All of the factors in the present hysteria existed before Bigger Thomas was ever heard of. Negroes, workers, and labor unions were hated as much yesterday as they are today.

"Crimes of even greater brutality and horror have been committed in this city. Gangsters have killed and have gone free to kill again. But none of that brought forth an indignation to equal this.

"Your Honor, that mob did not come here of its own accord! It was incited incited! Until a week ago those people lived their lives as quietly as always.

"Who, then, fanned this latent hate into fury? Whose interest is that thoughtless and misguided mob serving? Why did every agency of communication in the city suddenly spew forth lies, telling our citizens that they had to protect what they owned against Bigger Thomas and men like him? Who provoked this hysteria so that they might profit by it?

"The State's Attorney knows, for he promised the Loop bankers that if he were re-elected demonstrations for relief would be stopped! The Governor of the state knows, for he has pledged the Manufacturers' a.s.sociation that he would use troops against workers who went out on strike! The Mayor knows, for he told the merchants of the city that the budget would be cut down, that no new taxes would be imposed to satisfy the clamor of the ma.s.ses of the needy!

"There is guilt in the rage that demands that this man's life be snuffed out quickly! There is fear in the hate and impatience which impels the action of the mob congregated upon the streets beyond that window! Each of them-the mob and the mob-masters; the wire-pullers and the frightened; the leaders and their pet va.s.sals-know and feel that their lives are built upon a historical deed of wrong against many people, people from whose lives they have bled their leisure and their luxury! Their feeling of guilt is as deep as that of the boy who sits here on trial today. Fear and hate and guilt are the keynotes of this drama!

"Your Honor, for the sake of this boy and myself, I wish I could bring to this Court evidence of a morally worthier nature. I wish I could say that love, ambition, jealousy, the quest for adventure, or any of the more romantic feelings were back of these two murders. If I could honestly invest the hapless actor in this fateful drama with feelings of a loftier cast, my task would be easier and I would feel confident of the outcome. The odds would be with me, for I would be appealing to men bound by common ideals to judge with pity and understanding one of their brothers who erred and fell in struggle. But I have no choice in this matter. Life has cut this cloth; not I.

"We must deal here with the raw stuff of life, emotions and impulses and att.i.tudes as yet unconditioned by the strivings of science and civilization. We must deal here with a first wrong which, when committed by us, was understandable and inevitable; and then we must deal with the long trailing black sense of guilt stemming from that wrong, a sense of guilt which self-interest and fear would not let us atone. And we must deal here with the hot blasts of hate engendered in others by that first wrong, and then the monstrous and horrible crimes flowing from that hate, a hate which has seeped down into the hearts and molded the deepest and most delicate sensibilities of mult.i.tudes.

"We must deal here with a dislocation of life involving millions of people, a dislocation so vast as to stagger the imagination; so fraught with tragic consequences as to make us rather not want to look at it or think of it; so old that we would rather try to view it as an order of nature and strive with uneasy conscience and false moral fervor to keep it so.

"We must deal here, on both sides of the fence, among whites as well as blacks, among workers as well as employers, with men and women in whose minds there loom good and bad of such height and weight that they a.s.sume proportions of abnormal aspect and construction. When situations like this arise, instead of men feeling that they are facing other men, they feel that they are facing mountains, floods, seas: forces of nature whose size and strength focus the minds and emotions to a degree of tension unusual in the quiet routine of urban life. Yet this tension exists within the limits of urban life, undermining it and supporting it in the same gesture of being.

"Allow me, Your Honor, before I proceed to cast blame and ask for mercy, to state emphatically that I do not not claim that this boy is a victim of injustice, nor do I ask that this Court be sympathetic with him. That is not my object in embracing his character and his cause. It is not to tell you only of suffering that I stand here today, even though there are frequent lynchings and floggings of Negroes throughout the country. If you react only to that part of what I say, then you, too, are caught as much as he in the mire of blind emotion, and this vicious game will roll on, like a b.l.o.o.d.y river to a bloodier sea. Let us banish from our minds the thought that this is an unfortunate victim of injustice. The very concept of injustice rests upon a premise of equal claims, and this boy here today makes no claim upon you. If you think or feel that he does, then you, too, are blinded by a feeling as terrible as that which you condemn in him, and without as much justification. The feeling of guilt which has caused all of the mob-fear and mob-hysteria is the counterpart of his own hate. claim that this boy is a victim of injustice, nor do I ask that this Court be sympathetic with him. That is not my object in embracing his character and his cause. It is not to tell you only of suffering that I stand here today, even though there are frequent lynchings and floggings of Negroes throughout the country. If you react only to that part of what I say, then you, too, are caught as much as he in the mire of blind emotion, and this vicious game will roll on, like a b.l.o.o.d.y river to a bloodier sea. Let us banish from our minds the thought that this is an unfortunate victim of injustice. The very concept of injustice rests upon a premise of equal claims, and this boy here today makes no claim upon you. If you think or feel that he does, then you, too, are blinded by a feeling as terrible as that which you condemn in him, and without as much justification. The feeling of guilt which has caused all of the mob-fear and mob-hysteria is the counterpart of his own hate.

"Rather, I plead with you to see a mode of life life in our midst, a mode of life stunted and distorted, but possessing its own laws and claims, an existence of men growing out of the soil prepared by the collective but blind will of a hundred million people. I beg you to recognize human life draped in a form and guise alien to ours, but springing from a soil plowed and sown by all our hands. I ask you to recognize the laws and processes flowing from such a condition, understand them, seek to change them. If we do none of these, then we should not pretend horror or surprise when thwarted life expresses itself in fear and hate and crime. in our midst, a mode of life stunted and distorted, but possessing its own laws and claims, an existence of men growing out of the soil prepared by the collective but blind will of a hundred million people. I beg you to recognize human life draped in a form and guise alien to ours, but springing from a soil plowed and sown by all our hands. I ask you to recognize the laws and processes flowing from such a condition, understand them, seek to change them. If we do none of these, then we should not pretend horror or surprise when thwarted life expresses itself in fear and hate and crime.

"This is life, new and strange; strange, because we fear it; new, because we have kept our eyes turned from it. This is life lived in cramped limits and expressing itself not in terms of our good and bad, but in terms of its own fulfilment. Men are men and life is life, and we must deal with them as they are; and if we want to change them, we must deal with them in the form in which they exist and have their being.

"Your Honor, I must still speak in general terms, for the background of this boy must be shown, a background which has acted powerfully and importantly upon his conduct. Our forefathers came to these sh.o.r.es and faced a harsh and wild country. They came here with a stifled dream in their hearts, from lands where their personalities had been denied, as even we have denied the personality of this boy. They came from cities of the old world where the means to sustain life were hard to get or own. They were colonists and they were faced with a difficult choice: they had either to subdue this wild land or be subdued by it. We need but turn our eyes upon the imposing sweep of streets and factories and buildings to see how completely they have conquered. But in conquering they used used others, used their lives. Like a miner using a pick or a carpenter using a saw, they bent the will of others to their own. Lives to them were tools and weapons to be wielded against a hostile land and climate. others, used their lives. Like a miner using a pick or a carpenter using a saw, they bent the will of others to their own. Lives to them were tools and weapons to be wielded against a hostile land and climate.

"I do not say this in terms of moral condemnation. I do not say it to rouse pity in you for the black men who were slaves for two and one-half centuries. It would be foolish now to look back upon that in the light of injustice. Let us not be naive: men do what they must, even when they feel that they are being driven by G.o.d, even when they feel they are fulfilling the will of G.o.d. Those men were engaged in a struggle for life and their choice in the matter was small indeed. It was the imperial dream of a feudal age that made men enslave others. Exalted by the will to rule, they could not have built nations on so vast a scale had they not shut their eyes to the humanity of other men, men whose lives were necessary for their building. But the invention and widespread use of machines made the further direct enslavement of men economically impossible, and so slavery ended.

"Let me, Your Honor, dwell a moment longer upon the danger of looking upon this boy in the light of injustice. If I should say that he is a victim of injustice, then I would be asking by implication for sympathy; and if one insists upon looking at this boy as a victim of injustice, he will be swamped by a feeling of guilt so strong as to be indistinguishable from hate.

"Of all things, men do not like to feel that they are guilty of wrong, and if you make them feel guilt, they will try desperately to justify it on any grounds; but, failing that, and seeing no immediate solution that will set things right without too much cost to their lives and property, they will kill that which evoked in them the condemning sense of guilt.

"And this is true of all men, whether they be white or black; it is a peculiar and powerful, but common, need. Your Honor, let me give you an example. When this poor black boy, Bigger Thomas, was trying to cast the blame for his crime upon one of the witnesses, Jan Erlone, a Communist, who faced this Court yesterday-and this boy thought he would be able to blame his crime upon the Communists with impunity, because the newspapers had convinced him that Communists were criminals-an example of such fear-guilt occurred. Jan Erlone confronted Bigger Thomas upon a street corner and sought to have it out with him, demanding to know why Bigger was trying to blame the crime upon him. Jan Erlone told me that Bigger Thomas acted as hysterically as those people are acting at this moment in that mob outdoors. Bigger Thomas drew a gun and commanded Jan Erlone to leave him. Bigger Thomas was almost a stranger to Jan Erlone and Jan Erlone was almost a stranger to him; yet they hated each other.

"Today Bigger Thomas and that mob are strangers, yet they hate. They hate because they fear, and they fear because they feel that the deepest feelings of their lives are being a.s.saulted and outraged. And they do not know why; they are powerless p.a.w.ns in a blind play of social forces.

"This guilt-fear is the basic tone of the prosecution and of the people in this case. In their hearts they feel that a wrong has been done and when a Negro commits a crime against them, they fancy they see the ghastly evidence of that wrong. So the men of wealth and property, the victims of attack who are eager to protect their profits, say to their guilty hirelings, 'Stamp out this ghost!' Or, like Mr. Dalton, they say, 'Let's do something for this man so he won't feel that way.' But then it is too late.

"Do I say this to make you believe that this boy is blameless? No. Bigger Thomas' own feeling of hate feeds the feeling of guilt in others. Hemmed in, limited, circ.u.mscribed, he sees and feels no way of acting except to hate and kill that which he thinks is crushing him.

"Your Honor, I'm trying to wipe out this circle of blood, trying to cut down into this matter, beneath hate and fear and guilt and revenge and show what impulses are twisted.

"If only ten or twenty Negroes had been put into slavery, we could call it injustice, but there were hundreds of thousands of them throughout the country. If this state of affairs had lasted for two or three years, we could say that it was unjust; but it lasted for more than two hundred years. Injustice which lasts for three long centuries and which exists among millions of people over thousands of square miles of territory, is injustice no longer; it is an accomplished fact of life. Men adjust themselves to their land; they create their own laws of being; their notions of right and wrong. A common way of earning a living gives them a common att.i.tude toward life. Even their speech is colored and shaped by what they must undergo. Your Honor, injustice blots out one form of life, but another grows up in its place with its own rights, needs, and aspirations. What is happening here today is not injustice, but oppression oppression, an attempt to throttle or stamp out a new form of life. And it is this new form of life that has grown up here in our midst that puzzles us, that expresses itself, like a weed growing from under a stone, in terms we call crime. Unless we grasp this problem in the light of this new reality, we cannot do more than salve our feelings of guilt and rage with more murder when a man, living under such conditions, commits an act which we call a crime.

"This boy represents but a tiny aspect of a problem whose reality sprawls over a third of this nation. Kill him! Burn the life out of him! And still when the delicate and unconscious machinery of race relations slips, there will be murder again. How can law contradict the lives of millions of people and hope to be administered successfully? Do we believe in magic? Do you believe that by burning a cross you can frighten a mult.i.tude, paralyze their will and impulses? Do you think that the white daughters in the homes of America will be any safer if you kill this boy? No! I tell you in all solemnity that they won't! The surest way to make certain that there will be more such murders is to kill this boy. In your rage and guilt, make thousands of other black men and women feel that the barriers are tighter and higher! Kill him and swell the tide of pent-up lava that will some day break loose, not in a single, blundering, accidental, individual crime, but in a wild cataract of emotion that will brook no control. The all-important thing for this Court to remember in deciding this boy's fate is that, though his crime was accidental, the emotions that broke loose were already already there; the thing to remember is that this boy's way of life was a way of guilt; that his crime existed long before the murder of Mary Dalton; that the accidental nature of his crime took the guise of a sudden and violent rent in the veil behind which he lived, a rent which allowed his feelings of resentment and estrangement to leap forth and find objective and concrete form. there; the thing to remember is that this boy's way of life was a way of guilt; that his crime existed long before the murder of Mary Dalton; that the accidental nature of his crime took the guise of a sudden and violent rent in the veil behind which he lived, a rent which allowed his feelings of resentment and estrangement to leap forth and find objective and concrete form.

"Obsessed with guilt, we have sought to thrust a corpse from before our eyes. We have marked off a little plot of ground and buried it. We tell our souls in the deep of the black night that it is dead and that we have no reason for fear or uneasiness.