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Black Life in the Sacramento Valley (1919-1934) (36 pages)
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Page: of 36
Black Life in the Sacramento Valley Page 26 of 37
came in. Apparently they had been drinking and were very noisy.
When they passed by, one of them snarled, "There's another one of them black boys." I recognized him
as the banjo player who was in the band that night.
I gave him a hot retort. He said, "What did you say?" and I swore at him again. He rushed at me. I
jumped off the stool and faced him with the steak knife. He stopped his movement then, and told me
about all he was going to do to me.
I was five feet 7 and weighed about 135 pounds. My opponent was about six feet tall, maybe 180
pounds, and several years older than me.
Many eyes were focused on the tableau, and I could feel the tension in the room, as the black out-oftowners sat eating a late supper.
Al French, one of the spokesmen for Chico blacks, happened to be making his nightly rounds of turning
out lights in businesses and making sure the doors were locked. Passing by the cafe, he overheard the
argument. He quickly walked inside, grabbed me by the arm and said, "Thomas, Thomas! We don't want
no race riot starting while this convention is here. You come along and go home."
I was very riled by now, and somewhat surprised by his actions, so I said, "I ordered a steak and I'm
going to stay here and eat it." French walked away shaking his head.
At that moment, a bootblack who was called "Buffalo," a husky 200-pound black man, walked in to eat.
Seeing what was happening, Buffalo stepped in front of me and confronted the young male adult,
challenging him to fight. The bully seemed to sober up quite fast. He told my rescuer that he had no beef
with him.
Who knows whether a race riot would have started? I didn't know how many of those rednecks were
living in Chico, but I was surprised at this guy, because I used to see him in town all the time.
Buffalo sat with me at the table, and the bully walked out with his companions. As he was leaving, he
growled, "I'll be waiting outside." I snarled back that I would be ready for him, although my knees felt
so weak that I almost fell down.
Buffalo and I stayed in there and ate, and when we came out together, the bully and his friends were
gone.
When I was about 15, I got a chance to visit another area of California for the first time. The minister of
the black church in Chico persuaded me to drive with him to a church convention in Santa Barbara, 500
miles south, in his sputtering old Model T Ford coupe.
I found that Santa Barbara, a winter colony for wealthy white Easterners, had quite a sizable black
community in comparison to anything I had seen since leaving Florida. Most of the blacks worked as
cooks, chauffeurs, maids and other servants in the huge mansions. They received good pay, and most
were homeowners themselves—some having homes as good as those owned by the upper-class whites in
Chico. One enterprising black owned a thriving grocery store in Santa Barbara.
http://www.cmonline.com/boson/freebies/blackhistory/fleming2.html 12/28/04