“You Can’t Fight All of Them”

Background: The African American novelist, photographer, and filmmaker Gordon Parks served as a reporter-writer assigned to an all-Black air force unit during the war. He recalls a small but telling racial incident that occurred in Virginia.

Our plane took off in a blinding rainstorm—and it landed in another one at Norfolk, Virginia. A taxi took me to the ferry landing where I would cross over into Newport News. I sat there in the waiting room for an hour on top of my battle gear among a boisterous group of white enlisted men. Four Negro soldiers were huddled in a nearby corner. Two of them were propped against each other, sleeping. . . .

We filed out when the ferry whistled. It was still raining and we stood near the edge of the dock watching the boat fasten into the slip. Through the wetness I noticed a sign reading COLORED PASSENGERS and another one reading WHITES ONLY. The four black soldiers moved automatically to the colored side, and so did I. How ironic, I thought; such nonsense would not stop until we were in enemy territory.

After all the outgoing passengers were off and the trucks and cars had rumbled past, we started forward. Then I saw a Negro girl step from the ferry. She . . . was in the direct line of the white enlisted men, who stampeded to the boat screaming at the tops of their voices. I saw the girl fall beneath them into the mud and water. The four Negro soldiers also saw her go down. The five of us rushed to her rescue. She was knocked down several times before we could get to her and pull her out of the scrambling mob.

“You lousy white bastards!” one of the Negro soldiers yelled. “If I only had a gun!” Tears were in his eyes, hysteria in his voice. A long knife was glistening in his hand.

“Soldier!” I shouted above the noise, letting him get a look at my officer’s cap. “Put that knife away!”

He glared at me fiercely for a second. “But you saw what they did!”

“Yes, I saw, but we’re outnumbered ten to one! You can’t fight all of them. Get on the boat!” He looked at me sullenly for another moment, then moved off. We cleaned the mud from the girl’s coat and she walked away without a word. Only proud anger glistened on her black face. Then the four of us joined the soldier I had ordered away. He was standing still tense beneath the sign reading COLORED PASSENGERS.

“Sorry soldier,” I said. “We wouldn’t have had a chance against a mob like that. You realize that, don’t you?”

“If I gotta die, I’d just as soon do it where I got real cause to.” His tone was resolute. I had to answer. I was tempted to hand him the bit about the future and all that, but the future was too uncertain. The yelling was even louder now on the other side of the boat. “Sons-of-bitches,” he muttered under his breath.

Source: Gordon Parks, A Choice of Weapons (St. Paul, MN: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2010).