Free The Ways of White Folks by Langston Hughes

with their times and themselves. Now, I want you all to be ladies and gentlemen (I know you are), to play with abandon, to give ’em all you got, but don’t treat this like a rough house, nor like the Moon Club either. We allow only champagne drinkers here, cultured ladies, nice gentlemen, the best, the very best. Park Avenue. You know what I mean.… Now this is the order of the day. In the morning at eleven, Mr. Lesche will lecture in the Palm Garden, glass-enclosed, on the Art ofMotion and Rhythm. You, Miss Tulane Lucas, and you two tap dancers there, will illustrate. You will show grace in modern movements, aliveness, the beat of Africa as expressed through the body. Mr. Lesche will illustrate, too. He’s one of Bill Robinson’s disciples, you know! You all know how tap-dancing has preserved Bill. A man of his age, past fifty! Well, we want to show our clients how it can preserve them. But don’t do no stunts now, just easy rhythm stuff. We got to start ’em off slow. Some of ’em is old. And I expect some is Christian Scientists.… Then in the late afternoon, we will have tea-dancing, just for pleasure. We want to give ’em plenty of exercise, so they won’t be bored. And so they will eat. We expect to make money on our table, and on massages, too. In the evening for one hour, put on the best show you got, singing and dancing—every week we gonna bring up new specialities—send ’em to bed feeling happy, before Mr. Lesche gives his goodnight and sweet dreams talk.… Now, you boys understand, you’ll be off early here, by ten or eleven. Not like at the Club. You got your own cottage here on the estate to live in, you got your cars. Don’t mind you driving to town, if you want to, but I want you back here for the eleven o’clock services in the morning. And I don’t want you sleepy, either. This house is dedicated to Joy, and all who work here have got to be bright and snappy. That’s what our people are paying for.… Lesche!Where is Lesche, Miss Boxall?”
    The secretary looked startled. “He was in the halls talking to the new French maids.”
    “Well, get him in here. Tell him to explain to these boys how he wants to fix up his routine for his lectures. Let’s get down to business now.”
    “What kind of clothes you want us to wear?” Happy Lane, the Negro leader, asked.
    “Red,” said Sol. “Red is the color of Joy.”
    “Lord!” said the blues singer, “I’m too dark to wear red!”
    “That’s what we want,” said Sol, “darkness and light! We want to show ’em how much light there is in darkness.”
    “Now, here!” said the blues singer to herself, “I don’t like no white folks talkin’ ’bout me being dark.”
    “Lesche,” Sol called to his partner strolling in through the door, “let’s get going.”
    “O. K.,” Lesche said. “Where’s my boy?” meaning the Yale man.
    “Right here, Gene.”
    “Now, how does that first lecture go?”
    “My Gawd!” said Sol.
    The Yale man referred to his notes.
“Joy,”
he read,
“Joy, springing from the dark rhythm of the primitive.…”
    “Oh, yes,” said Lesche, turning to the band. “Now for that, give me
Mood Indigo
, you know,soft and syncopated, moan it soft and low. Then you, Miss Lucas,” to the dancer, “you come gliding on. Give it plenty hip movement. I want ’em to learn to use their life-center. Then I’m gonna say … what’s that boy-friend?” to the Yale man.
    “See how the …”
    “Oh, yes … 
See how the Negroes live, dark as the earth, the primitive earth, swaying like trees, rooted in the deepest source of life
.… Then I’m gonna have ’em all rise and sway, like Miss Lucas here.… That ought to keep ’em from being bored until lunch time.”
    “Lawd,” said Miss Lucas, muttering to herself, “what is this, a dancing school or a Sunday school?” And louder, “All right, Mr. Lesche, sounds like it might be a good act.”
    “Act, nothing,” said Sol. “This is the art of