Freedom’s Fight: Part II

Posted on Nov 20, 2009

Gary Phillips / Parker Publishing

By Gary Phillips

(Page 2)

It was that premature anti-fascist activity that had earned he and the others files compiled by that prancing queen J. Edgar Hoover and his FBI.  In particular, Hoover was adamant that the 100 negroes be hauled before Congress and charged with sedition.  He was virtually pathological, Snow had observed more than once, in his hatred of any black who dared raise his head above the rabble. 

From the man’s own comments and memos Snow had seen, Hoover intensely believed that a black messiah would rise up and portend the demise of white civilization as God and Walter P. Chrysler knew it.  That’s why Hoover had been so fervent in hounding Marcus Garvey and A. Philip Randolph, the union head.  But his mania produced copious entries, and thus when Snow was scouring around to fill this slot, he was pleased that ball licker Hoover was so thorough in the information he’d compiled on Clay. 

Almost, he covertly prided himself, as complete as the dossier Snow had amassed on Hoover, the Jew hating Henry Ford Eleanor Roosevelt and her lesbian dalliances, and many others.  It all came back to the plotting.

“You were saying, colonel?”

“You will depart at 0100 hours tomorrow by special troop transport from our hanger at National.  You will fly to RAF group headquarters in Uxbridge, outside of London, and from there change planes for Egypt.  Once there you will acquire your Senegalese passport and other papers establishing your new identity.  Then you will be placed aboard the freighter El Farouk with Algerian registry that will take you to Tunis. 

“Beside the pilots, am I the only one on that plane?”

“Yes, why?”

“Just wondering,” he said evenly.

Snow was troubled, was that an ironic comment?  Was he saying something about him being a negro and no whites would want to be with him in such close quarters? 

After two months of concentrated training and observing the man, he still could not get an accurate fix on the sergeant.  One of his strongest traits was the ability to read people, to get a sense of what they wanted.  For if you knew what they wanted, you knew how to control them.  But Clay, since the inception, had manifested neither surprise nor gratitude at being plucked out of the hell of Camp Van Dorn in Centerville, Mississippi.  The sergeant had already been in two serious dust ups with white soldiers, and Snow found him beaten and untreated in the brig.  He was silent but not sullen, like he was awaiting purpose.  As if he only lived from moment to moment.  That could make him dangerous to the enemy, and possibly to Snow if he survived this assignment. 

“And it’s clear how you report?”

“Yes, I’ve committed to memory where the short wave is located and I know how to use one.”

“And if the radio is found?”  Snow pressed.

Unwavering he responded.  “Then I better be on the run. Because that will mean the operation is compromised, and my identity has been exposed.”

“What would you do to survive?” a curious Snow asked.

“What ever was in my power,” Clay said.  His tranquil demeanor slipped momentarily and there was a glimpse of a will forged in the furnace of adversity.  Then it went away, the composed expression Clay presented to the world firmly back in place.

Snow appreciated the man’s candor.  So there was something he wanted after all.  “I can’t emphasize how important this mission is, Clay.  If you can glean the information we believe is to be available in the French embassy, you will have done a great service to your country.  Operation Torch has been successful in penetrating that part of Northern Africa, but the job is not complete.”

“Too bad my country will never be aware of my actions. It would do so much,” he added in what might have been a wistful tone.

“Yes, that is a shame.”  He closed the file folder, indicating the meeting was at an end.  “Anything else, sergeant?”

“No.”

“Your dismissed then.  Get some rest.”

Clay stood, saluted and left the room.  Snow interlaced his fingers.  He glowered at the door the other man had just gone through.  The colonel was as much worried about the success of the operation as he was figuring out what to do with Clay should he return.  Surely the negro didn’t expect a career in the intelligence bureaus?  Maybe J. Edgar could use him to spy on some of these loud mouths like Ranon Bowlden or this new fellow, Elijah Poole who was now calling himself Elijah Muhammad.  He was running around the east coast spouting some sort of crazy religion mixed in with race pride, calling the white man the blue-eyed devil and what not.  But Snow didn’t really believe that was the kind of work Clay would want to do.  No, he decided, Clay would have to be handled just like Yates was going to have to be dealt with if she persisted.  These new negroes were getting to be a handful, he reasoned.  Too many of them wanted too much too fast.  Everybody had to know their place, and the role they played.  Yes, he would make sure of that as far as Miss Yates and the self-possessed Madison Clay were concerned if he had to.

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