Emotionally deadened by the incident, he returned to the Grand Hôtel du Bac, where the landlady greeted him with an ultimatum—the money for his bill in an hour or he was to leave. In his room he tied one of the original dirty sheets to a water pipe, stood on a chair, tied the loose end of the sheet around his neck, and jumped. The only thing that gave way was the water pipe. The hanging had been a desperate act of solidarity with all of those literally and metaphorically imprisoned “blacks” of all races who must bear the agony of not being recognized as human beings. By means of it, the
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