CZM Book Club: Jesus Christ in Texas, by W.E.B. DuBois

0:01 Cool Zone Media. Hello and welcome to Cool Zone Media book Club. The only book club where you don't have to do the reading is I do it for you. I'm your host, Margaret Kiljoy and today this week we are continuing our loose Black August theme. We like to be loose with themes because it gives us a little bit more freedom Black August as if you want to hear me and Prince Shakur talk about it more at length, go back a couple episodes to the beginning of August twenty twenty six and you can hear us talk about it.

0:35 But in general black liberation. Prisoners should be liberated as part of black liberation. And our theme is loose this week because, to be honest, we had a bunch of leads out for stories that we still have out. But it actually it takes a while to track down authors and get all the permissions and do everything right, and so sometimes we end up doing old stories. And if I'm telling you the truth, when we started off doing old stories, it was because I didn't have anything else.

1:09 I was like, oh crap, what can I do without getting permission in time? And the answer is old stories. The answer is the public domain. But the thing is, I read history all the time. I do it for a living, and I actually really enjoy getting the chance to read old fiction because it helps me understand the history that I read. I think that fiction and literature are just such an important thing to understand about periods that we want to understand better, not just because fiction doesn't just tell you how people acted in the time period that it's being written, but it also tells you about the author and what an author, like an actual real person, was thinking about and wanted to express in a given time. And actually it tells us so much.

2:02 So I'm actually really excited about this story. I'm excited to read you another story from W. E. B. Du Bois, And we did a story of his called The Comet earlier this year. You might remember it. It was about two people who have survived what seemed like the end of the world in New York City, a black man and a white woman, and they're trying to figure that out.

2:24 And I was really excited to read du bois stories because I run across to boys in my history work all of the time. He is one of the most important black theorists from the turn of the century a foundational thinker that so many people's work is based on, and also kind of most specifically to me, the thing that he really changed my understanding about the world with is his conception of the general strike that happened during the American Civil War and how what won the American Civil War war was black enslaved people withholding their labor from the South and turning their entire agricultural economy to dust.

3:11 And that's how you win wars. Is Battlefield victories are great and they're important, but removing your opponent's ability to feed itself and create weapons is the actual way that most wars get won. And so instead of this version of the American Civil War where like good white people came and saved the people the enslaved people of the South, an actual narrative is that the enslaved people freed themselves with incredible help from northerners, white and black. But it's just a really important way of thinking about things, and that's what du Bois has done for us. So I'm excited to read his fiction. Dubois was one of the founders of the NAACP was the longtime editor of its newspaper, The Crisis which is a fantastic name for a paper.

4:07 And the story we're going to read today is more on the intent side. Like its name suggests, this story is about Jesus Christ in Texas, but it's also about the chain gangs and the prison system and the post bellum South and the turn of the century South. It's also about lynching, and it's about some of the more mundane racism and exclusion that black folk can racialize folks deal with in contemporary du Bois's time. So you know, again, content warning for that kind of stuff. And of course when the editor bleeps out the N word, I'm not actually saying the word. Just want to clear that up for everybody. Like the story of the comment, this story is full of religious imagery, and it's worth noting that

4:48 Dubois himself was not particularly religious, but instead as pulling from the broader tropes around salvation, goodness, sacrifice, and transcendence that would have been available to him at this time. And of course the long and complicated history of the Black church and black liberation, which looks very different than white leftism. It just looks different. It's not entirely different, but it just looks very different, right, and so when you're listening, just note that this is less evangelicizing and listen more for the meaning behind how Dubois is describing Jesus and using him for a literary shorthand. And this story does u's language that would have been familiar to du Bois in his community, but feel stated today. The

5:29 original text also contains racial slurs for effect, and these have been bleeped out. Here we go Jesus Christ in Texas by W. E. B. Du Bois. It was in Waco, Texas. The convict guard laughed. I don't know, he said, I hadn't thought of that. He hesitated and looked at the stranger curiously in the solemn twilight. He got an impression of unusual height and soft, dark eye. Curious sort of acquaintance for the colonel, he thought. And then he continued aloud, but that there is bad, a born thief, and ought to be sent up for life. Got ten years. Last time. Here, the voice of the promoter talking within broke in. He was bending over his figures, sitting by the colonel. He was slight, with a sharp nose. The convicts, he said,

6:23 would cost us ninety six dollars a year, and bored. Well, we can squeeze this so that it won't be over one hundred and twenty five dollars apiece. Now, if these fellows are driven, they can build this line within twelve months. It will be running by next April. Freights will fall fifty percent. Why, man, you'll be a millionaire in less than ten years, the colonel started. He was a thick, short man, with a clean shaven face and a certain air of breeding about the lines of his countenance. The word millionaire sounded well to his ears, he thought a great deal. He almost heard the puff of the fearfully costly automobile that was coming up the road, and he said, I suppose we might as well hire them. Of course,

7:10 answered the promoter. The voice of the tall stranger in the corner broke in here. It will be a good thing for them, he said, half in question. The colonel moved. The guard makes strange friends. He thought to himself, what's this man doing here? Anyway? He looked at him, or rather looked at his eyes, and then somehow he felt a warming toward him. He said, well, at least it can't harm them, they're beyond that. It will do them good. Then, said the stranger. Again. The promoter shrugged his shoulders. It will do us good, he said, But the colonel shook his head impatiently. He felt a desire to justify himself before those eyes, and he answered, yes, it will do them good, or at any rate, it won't make them

7:59 anyway worse than they are. Then he started to say something else, but here, sure enough, the sound of the automobile breathing at the gate stopped him, and they all arose. It's settled, then, said the promoter. Yes, said the colonel, turning toward the stranger again. Are you going into town, he asked, with the southern courtesy of white men to white men in a country town. The stranger said he was. Then, come along in my machine. I want to talk with you about this. They went out to the car. The stranger as he went turned around to look back at the convict. He was a tall, powerfully built black fellow.

8:39 His face was sullen, with a low forehead, thick hanging lips, and bitter eyes. There was revolt written about his mouth despite the hang dog expression. He stood bending over his pile of stones, pounding listlessly. Beside him stood a boy of twelve yellow with a hunted look. The convict raised his eyes and they met the eyes of the stranger.

9:05 The hammer fell from his hands. The stranger turned slowly toward the automobile, and the colonel introduced him. He had not exactly caught his name, but he mumbled something as he presented him to his wife and the little girl, who were waiting. As they whirled away, the colonel started to talk, but the stranger had taken the little girl into his lap, and together they conversed in low tones all the way home. In some way they did not know exactly how, they got the impression that the man was a teacher, and of course he must be a foreigner.

9:37 The long cloaklike coat told this. They rode in the twilight through the lighted town, and at last drew up before the colonel's mansion with its ghost like pillars. The lady in the back seat was thinking of the guests she had invited to dinner, and was wondering if she ought not ask this man to stay. He seemed cultured, and she supposed he was some acquaintance of the colonel.

10:00 It would be rather interesting to have him there with the judge's wife and daughter, and the rector. She spoke almost before she thought, you will enter and rest Awhile the colonel and the little girl insisted for a moment, the stranger seemed about to refuse. He said he had some business for his father about town. Then, for the child's sake, he consented. Up the steps they went and into the dark parlor, where they sat and talked a long time. It was a curious conversation. Afterwards they did not remember exactly what was said, and yet they all remembered a certain strange satisfaction in that long, low talk. Finally, the nurse came for the reluctant child, and the hostess bethought herself, we will have a cup of tea. You

10:49 will be dry and tired. She rang and switched on a blaze of light with one accord. They all looked at the stranger, for they had hardly seen him well in the looming twilight. The woman started in amazement, and the colonel half rose in anger. Why the man was a mulatto. Surely, even if he did not own the Negro blood, their practiced eyes knew it. He was tall and straight, and the coat looked like a Jewish garbadine.

11:17 His hair hung in close curls far down the sides of his face, and his face was olive, even yellow. A peremptory order rose to the colonel's lips and froze there as he caught the stranger's eyes. Those eyes, Where had he seen those eyes before? He remembered them long years ago, the soft, tear filled eyes of a brown girl.

11:42 He remembered many things, and his face grew drawn and white. Those eyes kept burning into him, even when they were turned half away toward the staircase, where the white figure of the child hovered with her nurse and waved good night. The lady sank into her chair and thought, what will the judge's wife say? How did the colonel come to invite this man here? How shall we be rid of him?

12:07 She looked at the Colonel in reproachful consternation. Just then the door opened and the old butler came in. He was an ancient black man with tufted white hair, and he held before him a large silver tray filled with a china tea service. The stranger rose slowly and stretched forth his hands as if to bless the viands. The old man paused in bewilderment. Tottered, and then, with a sudden gladness in his eyes, dropped to his knees, and the tray crashed to the floor. My Lord and my God, he whispered. And unrelated to things like that, dear listener, unrelated to things that rule over us in the heavens are the advertisers, the advertisers that support the show. Here they are hand We're back, my Lord and my God,

13:15 he whispered. But the woman screamed, mother's china. The doorbell rang. Heavens, here's the dinner party, exclaimed the lady. She turned toward the door, but there in the hall, clad in her night clothes, was the little girl. She had stolen down the stairs to see the stranger again, and the nurse above was calling in vain. The woman felt hysterical and scolded at the nurse. But the stranger had stretched out his arms, and with a glad cry, the child nestled in them. They had caught some words about the Kingdom of heaven as he slowly mounted the stairs with his little white burden. The mother was glad of anything to get rid of the interloper, even for a moment. The bell rang again, she hastened toward the door, which the

14:02 loitering black maid was just opening. She did not notice the shadow of the stranger as he came slowly down the stairs and paused by the nwel post. Dark and silent, the judge's wife came in. She was an old woman, frilled and powdered into a semblance of youth, and gorgeously gowned. She came forward, smiling with extended hands. But when she was opposite the stranger, somewhere a chill seemed to strike her, and she shuddered and cried, what a draft. As she drew a silken shawl about her and shook hands cordially, she forgot to ask who the stranger was. The judge strode in unsea, thinking of a puzzling case of theft.

14:44 Huh what? Oh? Or yes, good evening, he said, good evening. Behind them came a young woman in the glory of youth and daintily silked, beautiful and face and form, with diamonds around her fair neck. She came in lightly, but stopped with a little gasp. Then she laughed gaily and said, why I beg your pardon? Was it not curious? I thought I saw there behind your man she hesitated. But he must be a servant, she argued, the shadow of great white wings it was, but the light on the drapery.

15:19 What a turn it gave me, she smiled again. With her came a tall, handsome young naval officer here and his lady referred to the servant. He hardly looked at him, but held his gilded cap carelessly toward him, and the stranger placed it carefully on the rock. Last came the rector, a man of forty and well clothed. He started to pass.

15:40 The stranger stopped and looked at him inquiringly. I beg your pardon, he said, I beg your pardon. I think I have met you. The stranger made no answer, and the hostess nervously hurried the guest's song. But the rector lingered and looked perplexed. Surely I know you. I have met you somewhere, he said, putting his hand vaguely to his head. You you remember me, do you not. The stranger quietly swept his cloak aside, and, to the hostess's unspeakable relief, passed out of the door. I never knew you, he said, in low tones as he went. The lady murmured some vain excuse about intruders, but the rector stood with annoyance written on his face. I beg a thousand pardons, he said to the hostess absently. It is a great

16:33 pleasure to be here. Somehow I thought I knew that man. I am sure I knew him. Once the stranger had passed down the steps, and as he passed, the nurse, lingering at the top of the staircase flew down after him, caught his cloak, trembled, hesitated, and then kneeled in the dust. He touched her lightly with his hand and said, go and sin no more. With a glad cry. The maid left the house with its open door and turned north running.

17:03 The stranger turned eastward into the night. As they parted, a long, low howl rose tremulously and reverberated through the night. The colonel's wife within shuddered the blood hounds, she said. The rector answered carelessly, another one of those convicts escaped. I suppose really they need severer measures. Then he stopped.

17:26 He was trying to remember the stranger's name. The judge's wife looked about for the draft and arranged her shawl. The girl glanced at the white drapery in the hall, but the young officer was bending over her, and the fires of life burned in her veins. Howel after howell rose, and the night swelled and died away. The stranger strode rapidly along the highway and out into the deep forest.

17:51 There he paused and stood waiting, tall and still. A mile up the road behind a man was running, tall and powerful and black, with crime stained face and convicts stripes upon him and shackles on his legs. He ran and jumped in little short steps, and his chains rang. He fell and rose again, while the howl of the hounds rang louder behind him. Into the forest, he leapt and crept and jumped and ran, streaming with sweat. Seeing the tall form rise before him, he stopped, suddenly, dropped his hands in sullen impotence, and sank, panting to the earth.

18:31 A greyhound shot out of the woods behind him, howled, whined, and fawned before the stranger's feet. Hound after hound bayed, leapt and lay there. Then silently, one by one, with bowed heads, they crept backward toward the town. The stranger made a cup of his hands and gave the man water to drink, bathed his hot head, and gently took the chains and irons from his feet. By and by, the convict stood up. Day was dawning above the tree tops.

19:03 He looked into the stranger's face, and for a moment a gladness swept over the stains of his face. Why you are a negro too, he said. Then, the convict seemed anxious to justify himself. I never had no chance, he said furtively. Thou shalt not steal, said the stranger. The man bridled, But how about them? Can they steal?

19:26 Didn't they steal a whole year's work? And then when I stole to keep from starving? He glanced at the stranger. No, I didn't steal just to keep from starving. I stole to be stealing. I can't seem to keep from stealing. Seems like when I see things I just might. But yes, I'll try. The convict looked down at his striped clothes, but the stranger had taken off his long coat. He had put it around him, and the stripes disappeared. Much like dear listeners, I am about to disappear or the I'd break ah products and services and we're back. In the opening morning, the black man started toward the low log farmhouse in the distance, while the stranger stood watching him.

20:27 There was a new glory in the day. The black man's face cleared up, and the farmer was glad to get him. All day, the black man worked as hard as he had never worked before. The farmer gave him some cold food. You could sleep in the barn, he said, and turned away. How much do I get a day, asked the black man. The farmer scowled. Now see here, said he. If you'll sign a contract for the season, I'll give you ten dollars a month. I won't sign no contract, said the black man, doggedly. Yes you will, said the farmer threateningly, or I'll call the convict guard.

21:05 He grinned. The convict shrank and slouched to the barn. As night fell, he looked out and saw the farmer leave the place slowly. He crept out and sneaked toward the house. He looked through the kitchen door. No one was there, but the supper was spread as if the mistress had laid it and gone out. He ate ravenously.

21:25 Then he looked into the front room and listened. He could hear low voices on the porch. On the table lay a gold watch. He gazed at it, and in a moment he was beside it, his hands were on it. Quickly he slipped out of the house and slouched toward the field. He saw his employer coming along the highway.

21:45 He fled back in terror and around the front of the house, when suddenly he stopped. He felt the great dark eyes of the stranger and saw the same dark cloak like coat where the stranger sat on the doorstep, talking with the mistress of the house. Slowly, guiltily, he turned back, entered the kitchen and laid the watch stealthily where he had found it. Then he rushed wildly back toward the stranger with arms outstretched. The woman had laid supper for her husband, and going down from the house, had walked out toward a neighbor's. She was gone but a little while, and when she came back she started to see a dark figure on the doorsteps under the tall red oak. She thought it was the new Negro until he said, in a soft voice, will you give

22:31 me some bread? Reassured at the voice of a white man, she answered quickly in her soft southern tones. Why, certainly she was a little woman, and once had been pretty, but now her face was drawn with work and care. She was nervous and always thinking, wishing, wanting for something. She went in and got him some cornbread and a glass of cool, rich buttermilk. Then she came out and sat down beside him. She began, quite unconscious, to tell him about herself, the things she had done and had not done, and the things she had wished for. She told him of her husband and this new farm they were trying to buy. She said it was hard to get to work. She said, they ought to all be in the chain gang, and made to work. Even then

23:18 some ran away. Only yesterday one had escaped, and another the day before. At last, she gossiped of her neighbors, how good they were and how bad? And do you like them? All? Asked the stranger. She hesitated most of them, she said, and then, looking up into his face, and putting her hand into his as though he were her father, she said, there are none a hate, no none at all.

23:44 He looked away, holding her hand in his, and said, dreamily, you love your neighbor as yourself. She hesitated a try she began, then looked the way. He was looking down under the hill where lay a little half ruined cabin. They are, she said briefly. He looked at her. Suddenly a confusion came over her, and she insisted she knew not why, but they are. With a sudden impulse, she arose and hurriedly lighted the lamp that stood just within the door, and held it above her head. She saw his dark face and curly hair. She shrieked in angry terror and rushed down the path. And just as she rushed down, the black convict came running up with hands outstretched.

24:30 They met in mid path, and before he could stop, he had run against her, and she fell heavily to the earth and lay white and still. Her husband came rushing around the house with a cry and an oath. Ah knew it, he said, it's that runaway. He held the black man struggling to the earth, and raised his voice to a yell. Down the highway came the convict guard with hound and mob and gun. They paused across the fields. Armor motioned them. He attacked my wife, he gasped.

25:06 The mob snarled and worked silently right to the limb of the red oak. They hoisted the struggling, writhing black man, while others lifted the dazed woman right and left. As she tottered to the house, she searched for the stranger with a yearning. But the stranger was gone, and she told none of her guests, no, I want nothing, she insisted, until they left her as they thought asleep. For a time, she lay still, listening to the departure of the mob.

25:36 Then she rose. She shuddered as she heard the creaking of the limb where the body hung, but resolutely she crawled to the window and peered out into the moonlight. She saw the dead man wrive. He stretched his arms out like a cross, looking upward. She gasped and clung to the window sill. Behind the swaying body, and down were the little half cabin lay A single flame flashed up amid the far off shout and cry of the mob.

26:06 A fierce joy sobbed up through the terror in her soul, and then sank abashed as she watched the flame rise, suddenly whirling into one great crimson column. It shot to the top of the sky and threw great arms athwart the gloom, until above the world and behind the roped and swaying form below, hung quivering and burning a great crimson cross. She hid her dizzying, aching head in an agony of tears, and dared not look for she knew.

26:38 Her dry lips moved, despised and rejected of men she knew, and the very horror of it lifted her dull and shrinking eyelids. There heaven, tall, earth wide, hung the stranger on the crimson cross, riven and blood stained, with thorn crowned head and pierced hands. She stretched her arms and shrieked. He did not hear, he did not see. His calm, dark eyes, all sorrowful were fastened on the writing twisting body of the thief, and a voice came out of the winds of the night, saying, this day, thou shalt be with me in Paradise. The end. I honestly love this story. I like it even more than the comment, and I really like the comment. The comment seems like it'd be more at my alley. Right. It's like a genre story for those who haven't listened. It's, you know,

27:34 like the post apocalyptic story that talks about race, and this one is a religious parable comparison thing metaphor whatever that's very direct and even kind of almost melodramatic. And I think it's amazing just the like bluntness of this story, especially when it came out as this political message, like the rector being like don't I know you? I think I used to know you and Jesus and like I do not know you is just so direct. And also this idea of like, you know, when I first read this story, I was like, ah, here it comes telling the guy shouldn't steal despite all the shit that gets stolen from him, and like I don't care if that guy steals a watch from a rich, fucking white asshole like whatever, right, but like the guy who's like trying

28:24 to entrap him in some horrible you know, like oh you gotta sign this contract thing like that doesn't bother my morals at all, right, but my morals don't exactly line up with most interpretations of Christianity. But this idea of like, well, what you do with a person who's like a thief, isn't you put him on a chain gang and ruin his life? You forgive him and maybe chastise him and are like all right, and then take away his fucking you know chains, right. I think all the time about that that clip from Little Bird, the John Brown story, where it's like, you know, you worship the God of chains and I worship the God the Liberator.

29:04 There's just different religions. You know, they have the same name, but they are fundamentally different religions. And that's what the story is calling out in like a language that's incredibly familiar to all of its readers. And like all of these people who are like you know, the white people in it, who are like, oh, I think I'm supposed to be doing not this. You know, it's like even offering them a sort of forgiveness or like a chance at salvation directly themselves, and like just also like mixed race, Jesus is like such a good direct also probably true in that particular whatever, anyway, I just really like this story.

29:45 And I think that I tend to resonate with older stories more than modern stories, which makes me feel very weird. But maybe it's because I read history for a living and I'm like kind of living in the past a little bit. But I think that there's anne there, and I think that watching how people have dealt with problems over and over again in the past gives us a lot of lessons for the present. You know, when you study strategy, you study old battles, and whether you're talking about activism or war, you know which are often real blurry like in the case of the end of childele slavery in the United States. You know it suretok both of those things. And so I think that going back to study strategies and ways of thinking is really useful.

30:34 I don't know, I like it. Hazel, who helps behind the scenes, says about it quote. One thing that sticks out to me about the story is the use of tropes and how they develop. The stranger who is a god in disguise itself feels like such a biblical trope to me, as in, I feel like there's a bunch of Bible passages about this. Allah, I was a stranger and you welcomed me Matthew twenty five, thirty five. But I wonder if this is part of how it winds its way into the literary world. Part of what's cool to me about reading and running older stories is tracing back these patterns that we know so well to how they were originally used before the tropes get run through the washing Machine sixty thousand times. I think this story

31:17 also points to a similar pattern within anti racism and advocacy too. Obviously, the way that we talk about race and racism has changed a lot over time, and there's stuff in the story that have written today would turn some heads. But I think that's also why it's important to know where our conversations have come from, specifically because folks were still figuring stuff out. We need to know our stories, We need to remember our conversations because yeah, one hundred years, people are going to look back on us and say, yeah, look how far we've come. End quote.

31:49 And that's it for this week. We'll be back next week with another special audience participation episode like the one we did for Mayday. This is the one where you're going to have to do homework. You're gonna have to do homework, dear, dear listeners, but this time it's going to be watching Star Trek, so it'll be even easier.

32:08 We will be discussing an episode of Star Trek Deep Space nine called Far Beyond the Distant Stars, where the space station captain Cisco dreams that he and everyone else on the station are all working for a nineteen fifties sci fi pulp magazine, and if you want to give us your thoughts about it, you can head over to reddit.

32:27 I'm going to post right after I finish recording this, so it'll be there by the time you look. I think it's gonna be on the it could Happen Here subreddit, which is you know, because this runs and they could Happen Here feed, as well as his own feed, as well as the Cool People Did Cool Stuff feed, but that's the most active subreddit of the three. So I'm going to head over there. I'm going to post and you all can give me us your thoughts about the Star Trek Deep Space nine episode called Far Beyond the Distant Stars, and we'll read some of them and we can participate in the conversation altogether, and maybe we'll read your comments on air. It'll be fun, I promise, and we'll see you next week. I'm Margaret Kiljoy. You can

33:07 find me on the socials at Margaret Kiljoy until I get mad at all of them and delete them, which I get closer to every single day. In the meantime. Fuck ice Free Palestine, All power to the people. Don't cross picket lines. We will grind this empire into dust with the names of the slain fresh on our tongues. Bye.

33:31 It Could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website coolzonmedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources for it could Happen Here, listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.