I’ve thought about that time a lot since then. No physical move in my life has been more pivotal or profound in its repercussions. If I had stayed on in Michigan, I would probably have married one of those Negro girls I knew and liked in Lansing. I might have become one of those state capitol building shoeshine boys, or a Lansing Country Club waiter, or gotten one of the other menial jobs which, in those days, among Lansing Negroes, would have been considered “successful”—or even become a carpenter. Whatever I have done since then, I have driven myself to become a success at it.
