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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 8 of 37
students did not appreciate their humor and would attack them physically, calling them "dirty Jews" and
"kikes" in a tone that upset me, even at 11 years old.
I had seen how the Jews lived in New York; the ones in East Harlem were just as poor as the blacks. I'd
heard people calling them names there, and it had stayed with me. Whenever I heard it, I realized that
the name-caller felt the same negative way about me, because of my color.
Neither of the twins was handy with his fists, nor was I, but I would wade into the fight. Whenever they
started getting embroiled, they would run towards me. I finally announced that anyone who hit
"Korny"—that was what I called them—would have to hit me.
I met Henry Herriford, another young black boy, my first day in Chico. Mom brought me to the house of
Granny Powers, who had invited a number of people over to meet the new arrival to the tiny black
community. Henry and . struck it off right away, and were together every day from then on.
Henry was a natural outdoorsman. He didn't care anything about school—he dropped out after fourth or
fifth grade—but he was a superb student of nature. He knew plant and animal life better than anyone I
had ever met, and we formed a tight friendship that lasted until we both left Chico.
He began to teach me things like fishing, hunting and going to the creeks to watch tadpoles develop. He
taught me about blue gills—an excellent pan fish—plus carp, suckers and catfish. When it became warm,
Henry and I would go swimming, along with some other youths, mostly white. I could not swim at all,
but Henry furnished me some water wings, and I lost my fear of the water. When I saw him dive in, I
dove in right behind him, using the dog paddle style at first, then doing the overhand stroke, as he did.
Henry and I used to fish in a backwater of the Sacramento River that was named after Sam Childers, a
black man who had lived in the area years before. People called it Big Nigger Sam's Slough.
He showed me a lot of tricks he had learned from the Indian village outside Chico, When he wanted to
cook some fish, he would cover them with mud, dig a little pit and make a good fire, and put the fish on
the live coals. The steam from the mud would poach the fish. We always brought a loaf of bread to eat
with the fish.
Henry had a way to guarantee that whenever he went out fishing, he would not come home emptyhanded. The first time I witnessed his emergency fishing strategy was a day after three hours of trying,
when none of our gang had attracted even a nibble. Henry took a metal can—the kind used for Crisco
vegetable oil or Karo syrup—and wrapped bailing wire tightly around it, then attached a piece of heavy
metal, like the lead sinker on a fishing line.
Inside the can, Henry placed some carbide, a white powder chemical used in the headlamps of
automobiles. He sprinkled a small amount of water on the carbide; it started fizzing, and a mist began to
rise. He quickly replaced the top, then dropped the can into the slough. In about five minutes, when the
gas had built up, the can exploded under water. Large numbers of stunned fish floated to the surface, so
we rowed out to the middle of the slough, picked them up and put them into a gunny sack.
We all got enough—in fact, more than our families could use—so we took the rest to Chinatown and sold
them.
Many of the things we did were illegal, but fishing and hunting licenses were unknown to us, and we
never saw a game warden. We all looked at hunting and fishing as a means of supplying food for the
http://www.cmonline.com/boson/freebies/blackhistory/fleming2.html 12/28/04