Cotton Comes To Harlem

Uncle Bud takes the bale of cotton to sell at a junkyard. On the way he is stopped by white police, who hassle him and ask if he has the $87,000. Bud tells them if he did, he’d be on his way back to Africa, “Where wouldn’t any white mother-rapers like you be flicking with me all the time” (45). At the junkyard, Bud haggles with the Jewish owner, Mr. Goodman, over the bale of cotton, eventually agreeing on $25. Two black workers watch on as this takes place, silently rooting for Bud. At the Back-to-the-Southland headquarters, Colonel Calhoun orders an elaborate Southern breakfast and eats it by the window while the black protestors watch on and feel nostalgic for home. Bill Davis, one of the recruiters for Deke’s Back-to-Africa movement, tells Calhoun he should get out of Harlem. The protestors outside cheer Bill on for speaking up to the white man: “He had stood right up to that ol’ white man and tol’ him something to his teeth. They respected him” (47). One of the black junkyard workers,