The Return of Simple Quotes

“Just what is a liberal?" asked Simple.

"Well, as nearly as I can tell, a liberal is a nice man who acts decently toward people, talks democratically, and often is democratic in his personal life, but does not stand up very well in action when some real social issue like Jim Crow comes up.”
― Langston Hughes, The Return of Simple

“Next week is Negro History Week," said Simple. "And how much Negro history do you know?"

"Why should I know Negro history?" I replied. "I am an American."

"But you are also a black man," said Simple, "and you did not come over on the Mayflower—at least, not the same Mayflower as the rest."

"What rest?" I asked.

"The rest who make up the most," said Simple, "then write the history books and leave us out, or else put in the books nothing but prize fighters and ballplayers. Some folks think Negro history begins and ends with Jackie Robinson."

"Not quite," I said.

"Not quite is right," said Simple. "Before Jackie there was Du Bois and before him there was Booker T. Washington, and before him was Frederick Douglass and before Douglass the original Freedom Walker, Harriet Tubman, who were a lady. Before her was them great Freedom Fighters who started rebellions in the South long before the Civil War. By name they was Gabriel and Nat Turner and Denmark Vesey."

"When, how, and where did you get all that information at once?" I asked.

"From my wife, Joyce," said Simple. "Joyce is a fiend for history. She belongs to the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History. Also Joyce went to school down South. There colored teachers teach children about our history. It is not like up North where almost no teachers teach children anything about themselves and who they is and where they come from out of our great black past which were Africa in the old days.”
― Langston Hughes, The Return of Simple

“The black women of America have as much right to all rights as white women have, without putting on any foreign robes to get them. I love Africa, but I was born in Florida, U.S.A., America. Of my African blood I am proud, but I want American rights. Of my black face I have no shame, therefore I have the right to want the right to show my face anyplace in America any other folks show their face.”
― Langston Hughes, The Return of Simple

“Don't you believe in nonviolence?' I asked.

"'Yes,' said Miss Minnie, 'when the other parties are nonviolent, too. But when I have just come out of a funeral parlor from looking at a little small black boy shot three times by a full-grown cop, I think it is about time I raised my pocketbook and strike at least one blow for freedom.”
― Langston Hughes, The Return of Simple

“There were four white cops in the polling place where I went to vote. Right in the middle of Harlem, four white cops. Everybody else there were colored, voters all colored, officials all colored registering the books, only the cops white--to remind me of which color is the law. I went inside that voting booth and shut the door and stood there all by myself and put the biggest black mark I could make in front of every black name on the ballot. At least up North I can vote black. If enough of us votes black in Harlem, maybe someday we can change the color of the law.”
― Langston Hughes, The Return of Simple

“Maybe you'll be better treated next time."

"Not as long as I am black," said Simple.

"You look at everything, I regret to say, in terms of black and white."

"So does the Law," said Simple.”
― Langston Hughes, The Return of Simple

“Some people do not have no scars on their faces," said Simple, "but they has scars on their hearts. Some people have never been beat up, teeth knocked out, nose broke, shot, cut, not even so much as scratched in the face. But they have had their hearts broke, brains disturbed, their minds torn up, and the behinds of their souls kicked by the ones they love. It is not always your wife, husband, sweetheart, boy friend or girl friend, common-law mate—no, it might be your mother that kicks your soul around like a football. It might be your best friend that squeezes your heart dry like a lemon. It might be some ungrateful child you have looked forward to making something out of when it got grown, but who goes to the dogs and bites you on the way there. Oh, friend, your heart can be scarred in so many different ways it is not funny," said Simple.”
― Langston Hughes, The Return of Simple

“Bigotry disturbs me, too," I said, "but prejudice and segregation alone do not constitute the root of all evil. There are many nonracial elements common to humanity as a whole that create problems from the cradle to the grave regardless of race, creed, color, or previous condition of servitude."

"But when you add a black face to all that," said Simple, "you have problem's mammy. White folks may be unemployed in this American country, but they get the first chance at the first jobs that open up. Besides, they get seniority. Maybe some white folks cannot read or write, but if they want to go to Ole Miss to learn to read or write, they can go without the President calling up the United States Army to protect them. Sure, white folks gets sick, but they don't have to creep in the back door of the hospital down South for treatment like we does. And when they get old, white folks have got more well-off sons and daughters to take care of them than colored folks have. Most old white folks when they get sick can suffer in comfort, and when they die they can get buried without going in debt. Colored folks, most in generally, do not have it so easy. I know because I am one.”
― Langston Hughes, The Return of Simple

“They could not understand that there is some few people in the world who do good without being asked. It were a hot day, I were a little boy, and ice-cream cones are always good. And that man just looked at me and thought I would like one--which I did. That is one reason why I do not hate all white folks today because some white folks will do good without being asked or hauled up before the Supreme Court to have a law promulgated against them.”
― Langston Hughes, The Return of Simple

“When a woman wants to get ahead, she cannot tie a millstone to her feet. Most men is millstones.”
― Langston Hughes, The Return of Simple

“But the way you talk, fun is first and foremost. You imply that there is no fun to be had around white folks."

"I never had none," said Simple.”
― Langston Hughes, The Return of Simple

“Life is hard for a colored boy in the manhood stage to learn from white folks. If F.D. does learn it around white folks, he is going to learn it the hard way. That might make him mad, or else sad. If he gets mad, he is going to be bad. If he's sad, he is going to just give up and not get nowheres. No, I will tell F.D. tonight not to go to no white school and be snubbed when he asks a girl for a dance, and barred out of all the hotels where his football team stays. That would hurt that boy to his heart. Facts is, I cares more about F.D.'s heart, anyhow, than I do his head.”
― Langston Hughes, The Return of Simple

“...Don't tell me ofays don't own the world."

"That doesn't necessarily mean they are going to keep it forever," I said, competing with the music on the juke box and the noise at the bar. "The colonial system is bound to come to an end."

"When?" asked Simple.

"Before long. The British Empire is on its last legs. The Dutch haven't got much left."

"But the crackers still have Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama, and Washington, D.C.," said Simple.

"I admit that, but when we start voting in greater numbers down South, and using the ballot as we ought to up North, they won't be as strong as they might have been.”
― Langston Hughes, The Return of Simple

“Well, I was looking for Justice," said Simple. "I was tired."

"Tired of what?"

"Of hearing the radio talking about the Four Freedoms all day long during the war and me living in Harlem where nary one of them freedoms worked--nor the ceiling prices either.”
― Langston Hughes, The Return of Simple

“That is no way to get Justice."

"That is the way the Allies got it--breaking up Germany, breaking up Hiroshima, and everything in sight. But these white folks are more scared of Negroes in the U.S.A. than they ever was of Hitler....”
― Langston Hughes, The Return of Simple

“As for reading books, even far-out books, even beatnik books, fine. Only there are not enough books for me down South, which is one reason I came to New York.”
― Langston Hughes, The Return of Simple

“Gentle ladies in the days of antiquity never had to face the problems Minnie has to face. In fact, the whole conventional concept of the word 'lady' is tied up with wealth, high standing, and a sheltered life for women. Minnie has to face the world every day, in fact do battle with it."

"True," said Simple, "to remain a lady, Minnie often has to fight. It is not always easy for a colored lady to keep her ladyhood."

"You are bringing up race again," I said. "But this time I think you put your finger on the crux of the argument.”
― Langston Hughes, The Return of Simple

“Bartender, tell this man to vacate my person.”
― Langston Hughes, The Return of Simple

“Once, when I were a child, I were kicked by a small mule. Neither the mule nor I had any sense. I were trying to make the mule go one way, but the mule was trying to make me go another. I were for hitching the mule onto a plow. The mule were for nibbling grass. So, after that kicking, I learned right then and there to respect animals and peoples when they are not of the same mind as you are.”
― Langston Hughes, The Return of Simple

“Adventure is a great thing," said Simple, "which should be in everybody's life. According to 'The Late Late Show' on TV, in the old days when Americans headed West in covered wagons, they was almost sure to run into adventure--at the very least a battle with the Red Skins. Nowadays, if you want to run into adventure, go to Alabama or Mississippi, where you can battle with the White Skins.”
― Langston Hughes, The Return of Simple

“What I mean is, you should not have to have a business in a Jewish neighborhood to be interested in Jewish problems, or own a spaghetti stand to be interested in Italians, or a bar to care about the Irish. In a democracy, everybody's problems are related, and it's up to all of us to help solve them."

"If I did not have a business reason to be interested in their business," said Simple, "then what business would I have being interested in their business?"

"Just a human reason," I said. "It's all human business."

"Maybe that is why they don't join the N.A.A.C.P.," said Simple. "Because they do not think a Negro is human.”
― Langston Hughes, The Return of Simple

“You see this, don't you?" said Simple, showing me his N. A. A.C.P. card. "I have just joined the National Organization for the Association of Colored Folks and it is fine."

"You mean the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People," I said.

"Um-hum!" said Simple, "but they tell me it has white people in it, too."

"That's right, it does."

"I did not see none at the meeting where me and Joyce went this evening," said Simple.

"No?"

"No! There should have been some present because that fine colored speaker was getting white folks told—except that there was no white folks there to be told."

"They just do not come to Negro neighborhoods to meetings," I said, "although they may belong.

"Then we ought to hold some meetings downtown so that they can learn what this Negro problem is all about," said Simple. "It does not make sense to be always talking to ourselves....”
― Langston Hughes, The Return of Simple

“Friend, I am thinking about money--which goes beyond race. If all the Negroes in the world had money, the color problem would be solved in the morning.”
― Langston Hughes, The Return of Simple

“Since I saw them pictures a while back on the front page of The New York Times of that police dog in Birmingham biting a young black student in the stomach, I have ceased to like white folks," said Simple.

"As bad as Birmingham is," I said, "surely you do not blame white people in New York or Detroit or San Francisco for that Alabama dog."

"I do," said Simple, "because white folks is in the majority every-where. They control the government in Washington, and if they let such doings go on in this American country, such as has been going on in Alabama and Mississippi, I blame them all. If white folks was bit by police dogs and prodded with electric rods, you can bet your bottom dollar something would be done about it—and quick—before you could say Jackie Robinson."

"You are no doubt right," I said, "but as long as they themselves are not bitten by dogs and prodded by electric rods and denied the right to march or to vote, most white folks in the North will do very little to help Southern Negroes."

"And I will do very little toward loving them," said Simple.”
― Langston Hughes, The Return of Simple

“I am a Negro and I know, being dark, I have been due in the past to see dark days, but them days is passing. All the fiery crosses in the world is not going to scare me back into where I were before the Harlem riots, Martin Luther King, Adam Powell, and Malcolm X. Also, I might include that lady, Annie Lee Cooper, who hit Sheriff Clark in the eye in Alabama. When a Southern colored woman hits a Southern white sheriff in the eye in a public place like Selma, a new day has come.”
― Langston Hughes, The Return of Simple

“I feels evil myself when I sees a white cop talking smart to a colored woman, like I did the other day. A middle-aged brownskin lady had run through a red light on Lenox Avenue by accident, and this cop were glaring at her as if she had committed some kind of major crime. He was asking her what did she think the streets was for, to use for a speedway--as if twenty miles an hour were speeding. So I says to the cop, 'Would you talk that way to your mama?'

"He ignored me. And as good luck would have it, he did not know I had put him in the dozens. Bu that time quite a crowd had gathered around. When he saw all them black faces, he lowered his voice, in fact shut up altogether, and just wrote that old lady a ticket, since he did not see any colored cops nearby to call to protect him.”
― Langston Hughes, The Return of Simple

“I definitely do not like the Law," said Simple, using the word with a capital letter to mean police and courts combined.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because the Law beats my head. Also because the Law will give a white man One Year and give me Ten."

"But if it wasn't for the Law," I said, "you would not have any protection."

"Protection?" yelled Simple. "The Law always protects a white man. But if I holler for the Law, the Law says, 'What do you want, Negro?' Only most white polices do not say 'Negro.' "

"Oh, I see. You are talking about the police, not the Law in general."

"Yes, I am talking about the polices."

"You have a bad opinion of the Law," I said.

"The Law has a bad opinion of me," said Simple. "The Law thinks all Negroes are in the criminal class. The Law'll stop me on the streets and shake me down—me, a workingman—as quick as they will any old weed-headed hustler or two-bit rounder. I do not like polices."

"You must be talking about the way-down-home-in-Dixie Law," I said, "not up North."

"I am talking about the Law all over America," said Simple, "North or South. Insofar as I am concerned, a police is no good. It was the Law that started the Harlem riots by shooting that soldier-boy. Take a cracker down South or an ofay up North—as soon as he puts on a badge he wants to try out his billy club on some Negro's head. I tell you police are no good! If they was, they wouldn't be polices.”
― Langston Hughes, The Return of Simple

“...Me, I do not want to go to no suburbans not even Brooklyn. But Joyce wants to integrate. She says America has got two cultures, which should not he divided as they now is, so let's leave Harlem."

"Don't you agree that Joyce is right?"

"White is right," said Simple, "so I have always heard. But I never did believe it. White folks do so much wrong! Not only do they mistreat me, but they mistreats themselves. Right now, all they got their minds on is shooting off rockets and sending up atom bombs and poisoning the air and fighting wars and Jim Crowing the universe."

"Why do you say 'Jim Crowing the universe'?" "Because I have not heard tell of no Negro astronaughts nowhere in space yet. This is serious, because if one of them white Southerners gets to the moon first, COLORED NOT ADMITTED signs will go up all over heaven as sure as God made little green apples, and Dixiecrats will be asking the man in the moon, 'Do you want your daughter to marry a Nigra?' Meanwhile, the N.A.A.C.P. will have to go to the Supreme Court, as usual, to get an edict for Negroes to even set foot on the moon. By that time, Roy Wilkins will be too old to make the trip, and me, too."

"But perhaps the Freedom Riders will go into orbit on their own," I said. "Or Harlem might vote Adam Powell into the Moon Congress.''

"One thing I know," said Simple, "is that Martin Luther King will pray himself up there. The moon must be a halfway stop on the way to Glory, and King will probably be arrested. I wonder if them Southerners will take police dogs to the moon?”
― Langston Hughes, The Return of Simple

“My boss is white," said Simple.

"Most bosses are," I said.”
― Langston Hughes, The Return of Simple