TRANSCRIPT
♪♪ -Next, on "Great Performances"... -Purlie!
-Missy!
-Well...well...well!
-Tony Award winner Leslie Odom Jr. returns to Broadway in a satirical story of the segregated South.
-"Great White Father of the Year"!
-Whoo!
-Whoo!
-Something about Purlie always did irritate the white folks.
-This is down South.
Down here, they go to school together over me and Gitlow's dead body!
Right, Git?
-You're the boss, boss.
-Join us for the critically acclaimed revival of Ossie Davis' groundbreaking play.
-Tonight, my friends, I find in being black a thing of beauty.
[ Applause ] -Being colored can be lot of fun when ain't nobody looking.
-Husband Harris... -Horace!
-...Horace was already dead from heart troubles.
-Gunshot wound!
-His heart stopped beating, didn't it?!
-"Purlie Victorious" starts right now.
♪♪ Major funding for "Great Performances" is provided by... ...and by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.
Thank you.
-Hello, hello, hello.
Welcome to the Music Box.
I'm Kenny Leon, and I am the director of the show that you're about to see.
[ Cheers and applause ] This play was first performed in 1961, and there's not been another commercial production for 62 years.
This play started out as a drama and turned into this outrageous comedy, somewhere between rage and hope.
If you lean forward just a little bit, if you lean into it, you're gonna get everything.
You're gonna laugh.
You're gonna think.
You're gonna cry.
You're gonna get all of that.
So, just lean into it.
And right now, while I'm thinking about it, take out your cellphones and turn them off.
You won't need it.
I promise you.
At the end of the show, if you love it, if you like what you see, if you've had a great time in the theater, then text or TikTok or FaceTime.
And if you didn't have a good time, keep it to yourself.
[ Laughter ] And now, Ossie Davis' "Purlie Victorious"!
[ Cheers and applause ] [ Country music plays ] ♪♪ [ Cheers and applause ] ♪♪ [ Insects chirping ] ♪♪ ♪♪ [ Animal snorts in distance ] ♪♪ [ Camera shutter clicks ] [ Cheers and applause ] ♪♪ [ Dog barks in distance ] ♪♪ -Missy!
Gitlow!
-It's me, Purlie Victorious!
Yeah.
Yeah.
[ Animals hooting, barking in distance ] Nobody home, it seems.
[ Insects chirping ] Hey, come on -- come on in!
[ Both laugh ] -Nobody home, it seems.
-Cotton-picking time in Georgia.
It's against the law to be home.
Come in.
Unload yourself.
Set your suitcase down.
-What?!
-It's making you lopsided.
-It is?
I didn't even notice.
-You tired?
-Not stepping high as I am!
-Hungry?
-No, sir.
But there's still some of my lunch left -- -No, thank you.
Two ham-hock sandwiches in one day is my limit.
Sorry I had to walk you so far so fast.
-Oh, I didn't mind, sir.
Walking's good for you.
Miz Emmylou says -- -Miz Emmylou can afford to say that.
Miz Emmylou got a car, while all the transportation we got in the world is tied up in secondhand shoe leather.
But never mind, my sister, never you mind!
And toll the bell, Big Bethel.
toll that big, black, fat, and sassy liberty bell!
Tell freedom the bridegroom cometh.
The day of her deliverance is now at hand!
Oh, there she is.
Missy!
Oh, Missy!
-Ye-e-e-s?
-It's me, Purlie!
-Purlie Victorious?
-Yeah.
Put that battling stick down and come on in here!
-[ Laughing ] All right!
-Aha!
That's Missy, my sister-in-law I was telling you about.
-So, this is the house where you was born and bred at.
-Yep.
Better than being born outdoors.
-What a lovely background for your home life.
-I wouldn't give it to my dog to raise fleas in!
-So clean and nice and warm-hearted.
-First chance I get I'ma burn the damn thing down!
-Reb'n Purlie, it's yours, and that's what counts.
Like Miz Emmylou says -- -Come here!
You see that big white house perched on top of that hill with them two windows looking right down at us like two eyeballs?
-Uh-huh.
-That's where Ol' Cap'n lives.
-Ol' Cap'n?
-"Stonewall" Jackson Cotchipee.
He owns this dump, not me.
-Oh!
-And that ain't all -- hill and dale, field and farm, truck and tractor, horse and mule, bird and bee and bush and tree and cotton.
Cotton by the boll and by the bale -- every bit of cotton you see in this county!
Everything and everybody he owns!
-Everybody?
You mean he owns people?
-Well, look!
Ain't a man, woman, or child working in this valley that ain't in debt to that ol' bastard!
Bustard!
A buzzard.
And that includes Gitlow and Missy -- everybody except me.
-But folks can't own people no more, Reb'n Purlie.
Miz Emmylou says -- -You ain't working for Miz Emmylou no more.
You're working for me, Purlie Victorious.
Freedom is my business, and I say that old man runs this plantation on debt.
The longer you work for Ol' Cap'n Cotchipee, the more you owe at the commissary.
And if you don't pay up, you can't leave.
And I don't give a damn what Miz Emmylou nor nobody else says.
That's slavery.
-I'm sorry, Reb'n Purlie.
-Don't apologize.
Wait!
Just wait.
Wail till I get my church.
Ha ha!
You wait till I buy Big Bethel back.
Wait till I stand once again in the pulpit of Grandpa Kincaid and call upon my people and talk to my people about Ol' Cap'n, that miserable son-of-a- -Wait!
-Wait, I say!
And we'll see who's gonna dominize this valley!
Him or me!
[ Dog barking ] Missy.
-Purlie!
-Missy!
-Well...well...well!
-For God's sake, Missy, don't choke her to death!
-All my life, I been praying for me a daughter just like you.
My prayers has been answered at last.
Welcome to our home, whoever you is!
-Thank you, ma'am.
-"Ma'am"?
Ma'am?!
Listen to the child, Purlie.
Everybody down here calls me Aunt Missy, and I'd be much obliged if you would, too.
-It would make me very glad to do so, Aunt Missy.
-Mm-hmm!
Pretty as a pan of buttermilk biscuits.
Where on earth did you find her, Purlie?
Let me take your things.
Now, you just make yourself at home.
Are you hungry?
-No, ma'am, but cheap as water is, I sure ain't got no business being this thirsty.
-I'll get some for you.
-There's the dipper.
And right out yonder by the fence, just this side of that great, big, live oak tree you'll find the well, sweetest water in Cotchipee County.
-Thank you, Reb'n Purlie.
I'm very much obliged.
-Reb'n who?
-Perfection -- absolute Ethiopian perfect.
Huh, Missy?
-Oh, I don't know about that.
-What do you mean you don't know?
This girl looks more like Cousin Bee than Cousin Bee ever did.
-No resemblance to me.
-Don't be ridiculous.
She's the spitting image.
-No resemblance whatsoever!
-I ought to know how my own cousin looked.
-But I was the last one to see her alive.
-Twins, if not closer.
-Are you crazy?
Bee was more lean, loose, and leggy.
-Maybe so, but this girl makes it up -- -With no chin to speak of.
Her eyes sort of fickle, one to another.
-I know, but even so -- -And look at her head.
It ain't nearly as built like a rutabaga as Bee's own was.
-What's the difference?!
White folks can't tell one of us from another by the head!
[ Laughter ] -Twenty years ago it was, Purlie.
Ol' Cap'n laid bullwhip to your natural behind.
-Twenty years ago I swore I'd see his soul in hell.
-And I don't think you come full back to your senses yet.
That old man ain't no fool!
-That makes it one "no fool" against another.
-He's dangerous, Purlie.
We could get killed if that old man was to find out what we was trying to do to get that church back.
-How he gonna find out, Missy?
How many times must I tell you?
If it's one thing I am foolproof in it's white-folk psychology.
-That's exactly what I'm afraid of.
-Freedom, Missy, that's what Big Bethel means -- for you, me, and Gitlow.
And we can buy it back for $500, Missy.
Freedom!
You want it, or don't you?
-Of course I want it, but -- after all, Purlie, that rich, old lady didn't exactly leave that $500 to us!
-She left it to Aunt Henrietta.
-Aunt Henrietta is dead.
-Exactly!
-And Henrietta's daughter, Cousin Bee, is dead, too.
-Which makes us next in line to inherit the money by law!
-All right, then, why don't we just go on up that hill man-to-man and tell Ol' Cap'n we want our money?
-Missy, you have been black as long as I have.
-Hell, boy, we could make him give it to us.
-Make him how?
He a white man, Missy.
What do you plan to do, sue him?
-After all, it is our money, and it was our church.
-And can you think of a better way to get it back than with that girl out there?
-But you think it'll work, Purlie?
You really think she can fool Ol' Cap'n?
-He'll never know what hit him!
-Maybe, but there's still the question of Gitlow.
-What about Gitlow?
-Gitlow has changed his mind.
-Well, you'll have to change it back.
-Missy!
[ Dogs barking ] Help!
Missy!
Missy, help!
Oh, help, Missy!
Help, Missy!
Oh!
-What the devil's the matter this time?!
-There I was, Missy, picking in the high cotton, twice as fast as the human eye could see.
All of a sudden I missed a boll, and it fell.
It fell on the ground, Missy.
I stooped as fast as I could to pick it up and ripped the seat of my britches.
There I was, Missy, exposed from stem to stern.
-What's so awful about that?
It's only cotton.
-Oh, but cotton is white, Missy.
We must maintain respect.
Bring me my Sunday-school britches.
-What?!
-Ol' Cap'n is coming down into the cotton patch today, and I know you want your Gitlow to look his level best.
Now come on.
Go get my pants!
You better... -Gitlow, have I got the girl!
-Is that so?
What girl?
-See?
Look.
There she is!
-Well?
-Well, what?
-Well, what do you think?
-No, she'll never do.
-What do you mean she'll never do?
-My advice to you is to take that girl back to Florida as fast as you can!
-I can't take that girl back to Florida.
-Why can't you take her back to Florida?
-'Cause she comes from Alabama!
Gitlow, look at her.
She's just the type, just the size, just the style!
-And just the girl to get us all in jail.
The answer is no.
Missy?!
Girl or no girl, I ain't getting mixed up in no more of your nightmares.
I got my own.
Damn it, Missy, I said let's go!
-You want me to take my bat to you again?
-No, Missy, control yourself.
It's just that every second Gitlow's off the firing lineup, seven pounds of Ol' Cap'n's cotton don't get gotten.
-Gitlow, wait a minute.
Wait!
Missy, stop him.
-He ain't as easy to stop as he used to be, especially now Ol' Cap'n's made him Deputy for the Colored.
-Deputy for the Colored?
What the devil is that?
-Who knows?
All I know is Gitlow's changed his mind.
-But Gitlow can't change his mind!
-Oh, it's easy enough when you ain't got much to start with.
I warned you.
You don't know how shifty ol' Git can get.
He's the hardest man to convince and keep convinced I ever seen in my life.
-Missy, you've got to make him go up that hill.
He's got to identify this girl.
Ol' Cap'n won't believe nobody else.
-I know.
-He's got to swear before Ol' Cap'n that this girl is the real Cousin Bee.
-I know!
-Missy, you're the only person in this world ol' Git'll really listen to.
-I know.
-And what if you do have to hit him a time or two, Missy?
It's for his own good.
-I know!
-He'll recover from it, Missy.
He always does.
-I know!
-Freedom, Missy -- Big Bethel -- for you, me, and Gitlow.
-Freedom -- and a little something left over -- that's all I ever wanted all my life.
She do look a little somewhat like Cousin Bee... about the feet!
-Of course she does.
-I won't guarantee nothing, Purlie, but I'll try.
-Every time I see you, Missy, you get prettier by the pound!
Come here, girl!
[ Both laugh ] -Whoo!
No!
Stop it, Purlie!
Stop it!
Stop it!
Quit cutting the fool in front of company!
-Whoo!
How wondrous are the daughters of my people yet knoweth not the glories of themselves!
Where do you suppose I found her, Missy, this Ibo prize, this Zulu Pearl, this long-lost lily of the black Mandingo, Kikuyu maid, beneath whose brown embrace hot suns of Africa are burning still?
Where, where?
A drudge, a serving wench, a feudal fetch-pot, a common scullion in the white man's kitchen drowned is her youth in thankless Southern dishpans.
Her beauty spilt for Dixiecratic pigs!
This brown-skinned grape, this wine of Negro vintage -- -I know all that, Purlie, but what's her name?
-I don't think he likes my name so much.
It's Lutiebelle, ma'am.
Lutiebelle Gussie Mae Jenkins!
-Lutiebelle Gussie Mae Jenkins!
My, that's nice.
-Nice!
It's an insult to the Negro people!
-Purlie, behave yourself!
-A previous condition of servitude, a badge of inferiority, and I refuse to have it in my organization!
Change it!
-You want me to box your mouth for you!
-Lutiebelle Gussie Mae Jenkins?
What does it mean in Swahili?
Cheap labor!
-In Swahili?
-One of the thirteen silver tongues of Africa -- Swahili, Bushongo, Ashanti, Baganda, Herero, Yoruba, Bambara, Mpongwe.
Swahili, a language of moons, velvet drums, hot days of rivers, red-splashed, and bird-song bright, black fingers in rice white at sunset red, ten thousand Queens of Sheba.
-Just where did Purlie find you, honey?
-It was in Dothan, Alabama, last Sunday, Aunt Missy, right in the junior choir.
-The junior choir -- my, my, my!
-Behold!
I said, "This dark and holy vessel, in whom should burn that golden-nut-brown joy, which Negro womanhood was meant to be, ten thousand queens, ten thousand Queens of Sheba, Ethiopia herself in all her beauteous wonder, come to restore the ancient thrones of Cush!
-Great God Almighty, Purlie, I can't hear myself think!
-That's just what I said last Sunday, Aunt Missy, when Reb'n Purlie started preaching that thing in the pulpit.
-Preaching it?!
-Lord, Aunt Missy, I shouted clear down to the mourners' bench.
-But last time you was a professor of Negro Philosophy.
-I told you, Missy, my intention is to buy Big Bethel back, to reclaim the ancient pulpit of Grandpa Kincaid, and preach freedom in the cotton patch.
I told you!
-Maybe you did, Purlie, maybe you did.
You got yourself a license?
-No!
-Purlie Victorious Judson -- self-made minister of the gospel-claw-hammer coattail, shoestring tie and all.
-How else can you lead the Negro people?
-Is that what you got in your mind, leading the Negro people?
-Who else is they got?
-God help the race.
-It was a sermon, I mean, Aunt Missy, the likes of which has never been heard before.
-Oh, I bet that!
Tell me about it, son.
What did you preach?
-I preached the New Baptism of Freedom for all mankind, according to the Declaration of Independence, taking as my text the Constitution of the United States of America, Amendments First through Fifteenth, which readeth as follows... "Congress shall make no law --" -Enough!
That's enough, son.
I'm converted!
-[ Laughs ] -But it is confusing, all the changes you keep going through.
Honey, every time I see Purlie, he's somebody else.
-Not anymore, Missy.
If I'm lying, may the good Lord put me down in the book of bad names.
Purlie is put forever.
-Yes.
But will he stay put forever?
-There is in every man a finger of iron that points him what he must and must not do.
-And your finger points up the hill to that $500 with which you'll buy Big Bethel back, preach freedom in the cotton patch, and live happily ever after.
-The soul-consuming passion of my life.
Now it's 2:15, Missy.
Gitlow's waiting, Missy.
I suggest you get a move on.
-I already got a move on.
Had it since 4:00 this morning.
-Time, Missy -- exactly what the colored man in this country ain't got, and you're wasting it.
-Purlie, would you mind stepping out into the cotton patch and telling your brother Gitlow I'd like a few words with him?
Unh-unh-unh!
[ Laughs ] Do like I tell you.
Now go!
-[ Laughs ] -Besides, it wouldn't be hospitable not to set and visit a spell with our distinguished guest over from Dothan, Alabama.
-Thank you, ma'am.
-Now, let's you and me just set back and enjoy a piece of my potato pie.
You like potato pie, don't you?
-Oh, yes, ma'am.
I like it very much.
-And get real acquainted.
-I'm ever so obliged.
My, this looks nice!
Mm-mm-mm!
-You know, ever since that old man took after Purlie so unmerciful with that bullwhip 20 years ago, he fidgets, always on the go, rattling around from place to place all over the country, one step ahead of the white folks.
Something about Purlie always did irritate the white folks.
-Is that the truth!
-Oh, my, yes.
Finally wound up being locked up a time or two for safekeeping.
-Hmm!
-Always kept up with his schooling, though.
In fact, that boy's got one of the best secondhand educations in this country.
-Is that a fact?
-Used to read everything he could get his hands on.
-He did?
Ain't that wonderful?
-Till one day he finally got tired and throwed all his books to the hogs.
Not enough "Negro" in them, he said.
After that, he puttered around with first one thing, then another.
Remember the big bus boycott they had in Montgomery?
Well, we don't travel by bus in the cotton patch, so Purlie boycotted mules!
-You don't say so?
-Another time he invented a secret language that Negroes could understand but white folks couldn't.
-Oh, my goodness gracious!
-He sent it C.O.D.
to the NAACP, but they never answered his letter.
-Oh, they will, Aunt Missy.
You can just bet your life, they will.
-I don't mind it so much.
Great leaders are bound to pop up from time to time amongst our people.
In fact, we sort of look forward to it.
But Purlie's in such a hurry, I'm afraid he'll lose his mind.
-Lose his mind?
No!
Oh, no!
-That is unless you and me can do something about it.
-You and me?
Do -- do what, Aunt Missy?
You tell me.
I'll do anything!
-Well, now, ain't nothing ever all that peculiar about a man, a good wife, and a family and some steady home cooking won't cure.
Don't you think so?
-Oh, yes, Aunt Missy, yes.
You'd be surprised how many tall, good-looking, great, big, ol' handsome-looking mens, just like Reb'n Purlie, walking around, starving theyselves to death!
Oh, I just wish I had one to aim my pot at!
-Well, Purlie Judson is the uncrowned appetite of the age.
-He is?
What's his favorite?
-Anything!
Anything a fine-looking, strong, and healthy girl like you could put on the table.
-Like me?
Like me?!
Oh, Aunt Missy!
-Honey, I mind once at the Sunday-school picnic, Purlie had a whole sack of pullets!
-Oh, I just knowed there was something!
Something just reeks about that man.
He puts me in the mind of all the good things I ever had in my life -- picnics, fish fries, corn-shuckings, and love-feasts, and Gospel-singing, picking huckleberries, roasting ground peas, quilting-bee parties, and -- mm!
-- barbecues, that certain kind of...welcome you can't get nowhere else in all this world.
Oh, Aunt Missy, life is so good to us -- sometimes!
-Oh, child, being colored can be a lotta fun when ain't nobody looking.
-Ain't it the truth?!
I always said I'd never pass for white, no matter how much they offered me, unless the things I love could pass, too.
-Ain't it the beautiful truth?
-Missy, Gitlow said if you want him, come and get him!
-Lord, that man do take his cotton picking seriously.
Did you get enough to eat, honey?
-Indeed, I did.
And, Aunt Missy, I haven't had potato pie like that since the senior choir -- -That's where I met Gitlow, you know?
On the senior choir.
-Aunt Missy, I didn't know you could sing!
-Like a brown-skin nightingale.
It was a Sunday afternoon.
Big Bethel had just been -- -Damn it, Missy!
The white man is 500 years ahead of us in this country, and we're never gonna catch up to him sitting around on our non-Caucasian rumps talking about the senior choir.
-Right this way, honey, where Cousin Bee used to sleep at.
-Yes, ma'am.
-Wait a minute!
Don't forget about your clothes.
-It ain't much.
The roof leaks, and you can get as much September inside as you can outside any time, but I try to keep it clean.
-Cousin Bee was known for her clothes!
-Stop nagging, Purlie.
There's plenty to eat in the kitchen.
-Thank you, Aunt Missy!
-And hurry!
We want to leave as soon as Missy gets Gitlow in from the cotton patch.
-Mr.
Preacher?
-Mm?
-If we do pull this thing off, what do you plan to do with her after that?
Send her back where she came from?
-Dothan, Alabama?
Never, Missy.
There a million things I can do with a girl like that, right here in Big Bethel.
-Yeah!
Just make sure they're all legitimate.
Anyway, marriage is still cheap, and we could always use another cook in the family.
-Aunt Missy?
-Yes, honey?
-Whose picture is this on the dresser?
-Why, that's Cousin Bee.
-Cousin Bee?
-Yes, poor thing.
She's the one the whole thing is all about.
-Cousin Bee -- oh, my goodness!
My goodness gracious!
-What's the matter?
-But she's pretty She's so pretty!
-Yes, she's pretty.
I guess they took this shortly before she died.
-And you mean you want me to look like her?
-That's the idea.
Now go and get into your clothes.
-They sent it down to us from the college.
Don't she look smart?
I'll bet she was a good student when she was living.
-Good student?!
-Yes.
One more year and she'd have finished.
-Oh, my gracious Lord, have mercy upon my poor soul!
-Awake, awake!
Put on thy strength, O, Zion.
Put on thy beautiful garments.
And hurry!
Missy, now Big Bethel and Gitlow is waiting.
Grandpa Kincaid gave his life.
It is a far greater thing you do now than you've ever done before.
And Gitlow ain't never had his head knocked off in a better cause.
[ Laughter ] [ Dog barking ] Mm-hmm.
[ Barking continues ] [ Cow moos ] [ Insects chirping ] [ Laughter ] Where do you think you're going?!
-Did you see that, Reb'n Purlie?
Did you see all them beautiful clothes -- slips, hats, shoes, stockings?
I mean, nylon stockings, like Miz Emmylou wears, and a dress like even Miz Emmylou don't wear.
Did you see what was in that big box?
-Of course I saw what was in that big box.
I bought it, all of it, for you.
-For me?!
-Of course!
I told you after we finish, you can have it!
-Reb'n Purlie, I'm a good girl.
I ain't never done nothing in all this world, white, colored or otherwise, to hurt nobody!
-I know that.
-I work hard.
I mop.
I scrub.
I iron.
I'm clean and polite, and I know how to get along with white folks' children better than they do.
I pay my church dues every second and fourth Sunday the Lord sends, and I can cook catfish and hush puppies.
You like hush puppies, don't you, Reb'n Purlie?
-I love hush puppies!
-Hush puppies and corn dodgers.
I can cook you a corn dodger, give you swimming in the head!
-I'm sure you can.
-But I ain't never been in a mess like this in all my life.
-Mess?
What mess?
-You mean go up on that hill, in all them pretty clothes, and pretend, in front of white folks, that I'm your Cousin Bee -- somebody I ain't never seen or heard of before in my whole life.
-Why not?
Some of the best pretending in the world is done in front of white folks.
-But, Reb'n Purlie, I didn't know your Cousin Bee was a student at the college.
I thought she worked there!
-But I told you on the train!
-Don't do no good to tell me nothing, Reb'n Purlie.
I never listen.
[ Laughter ] Just ask Miz Emmylou and 'em.
They'll tell you I never listen.
I didn't know it was a college lady you wanted me to make like.
I thought it was for a sleep-in like me.
I thought all that stuff you bought in them boxes was stuff for maids and cooks and -- why, I ain't never even been near a college!
-So what?
College ain't so much where you been.
It's how you talk when you get back.
Anybody can do it.
Look at me.
-Naw, sir, I think you better look at me, like Miz Emmylou says.
-Just calm down.
Take it easy.
Calm down now.
Don't tell me, after all that big talking you done on the train about white folks you're scared.
-Talking big is easy from the proper distance.
-Well, don't you believe in yourself?
-Some.
-Don't you believe in your own race of people?
-Yes, sir, a little.
-Don't you believe the black man is coming in to power some day?
-Almost.
-Ten thousand Queens of Sheba -- what kind of Negro are you?
Where's your race pride?
-Oh, I'm a great one for race pride, sir, believe me.
It's just that I don't need it that much in my line of work.
Miz Emmylou says -- -Damn Miz Emmylou!
Does her blond hair and blue eyes make her any more of a woman in the sight of menfolk than your black hair and brown in mine?
-No, sir!
-Is her lily-white skin any more money under the mattress than your fine fair brown?
And if so, why does she spend half her life at the beach trying to get a suntan?
-I never thought of that.
-There's a whole lotta things about the Negro question you ain't never thought of.
The South is split like a fat man's underwear.
-[ Laughs ] -Somebody beside the Supreme Court has got to make a stand for the everlasting glory of our people.
-Yes, sir.
-Snatch freedom from the jaws of force filibuster!
-Amen to that!
-Put thunder in the Senate!
-Yes, Lord!
-And righteous indignation back in the halls of Congress!
-Help him, Lord.
-Make civil rights of civil wrongs and bring that ol' Civil War to a fair and just conclusion.
-Ain't it the truth?
-Remind this white and wicked world there ain't been more than a dime's worth of difference 'twixt one man and another'n, irregardless of race, gender, creed, or color since God Himself Almighty set the first batch out to dry before the chimneys of Zion got hot!
The eyes and ears of the world is on Big Bethel!
-Amen and hallelujah!
-And whose side are you fighting on this evening, sister?
-Great God Almighty, Reb'n Purlie, on the Lord's side!
But Miss Emmylou says -- -This is outrageous.
This is a catastrophe!
You're a disgrace to the Negro profession!
-That's just what she said all right, her exactly words.
-Who's responsible for this?
Where's your Ma and Pa at?
-I reckon I ain't rightly got no Ma and Pa, wherever they at.
-What?
-And nobody else that I knows of.
You see, sir, I been on the go from one white folks' kitchen to another since before I can remember how I got there in the first place.
Whatever became of my Ma and Pa and my kinfolks, even what my real name is, nobody is ever rightly said.
-Oh.
A motherless child.
-That's what Miz Emmylou always says.
-Well, who cared for you like a mother?
Who brung you up?
Who raised you?
-Nobody in particular.
Just whoever happened to be in charge of the kitchen that day.
-Well, that explains the whole thing, no wonder.
You've missed the most important part of being somebody.
-I have?
Which part is that?
-Love, being appreciated and sought out and looked after, being fought for to the bitter end over, even.
-I have missed that, Reb'n Purlie.
I really have.
Take mens -- all my life they never looked at me the way other girls get looked at.
-That's not so.
Very first time I saw you up there in the choir, I give you that look.
-You did?!
-Mm-hmm.
-Oh, I thought so!
[ Laughter ] I prayed so!
All through your sermon, I thought I would faint from hoping so hard.
Oh, Reb'n Purlie, I think that's the finest look a person could ever give a person.
Oh, Reb'n Purlie!
-Now, Lutiebelle.
-Yes, Reb'n Purlie?
-There's something I want to ask you, something I never, in all my life, thought I'd be asking a woman.
Would you...?
-Oh, yes, Reb'n Purlie.
-I don't know exactly how to say it.
Would you...?
-Yes, Reb'n Purlie?
-Now, would you be my disciple?
-Yes!
Yes, Reb'n Purlie, yes!
-No, Missy, no!
Missy!
Missy, no!
Please?!
[ Whack ] Aah!
-Oh, my Lord, Reb'n Purlie, what happened?
-Gitlow has changed his mind.
Toll the bell, Big Bethel!
Toll that big, black, fancy liberty bell.
Tell freedom -- [ Softly ] Tell freedom... Tell freedom... [ Laughter ] Wow!
[ Cheers and applause ] ♪♪ ♪♪ -Ow, Idella, ow!
Ow!
-Hold still, boy!
-But it hurts, Idella.
-I know it hurts.
Whoever done this to you musta meant to knock your natural brains out.
-I already told you who done it -- ow!
-Charlie Cotchipee, if you don't hold still and let me put this hot poultice on your eye, you better!
First the milking, then the breakfast, then the dishes, then the washing, then the scrubbing, then the lunchtime, next the dishes, then the ironing, and now, just where the picking and plucking for supper ought to be -- you!
-You didn't tell Pa?
-Of course I didn't, but the sheriff did.
-The sheriff?!
-Him and the deputy come to the house less than an hour ago.
-Are they coming over here?
-Of course they are coming over here, sooner or later.
-But what will I do, Idella?
What will I say?
-"He that keepeth his mouth keepeth his life."
-Did they ask for me?
-Of course they asked for you.
-What did they say?
-I couldn't hear too well.
Your father took them into the study and locked the door behind them.
-Well, maybe it was about something else.
-Oh, no, it was about you.
That much I could hear.
Charlie, you want to get us both killed?
-I'm sorry, Idella, but -- -"But he that openeth wide his lips shall have destruction!"
-But it was you who said it was the law of the land.
-I know I did.
-It was you who said it's got to be obeyed.
-I know it was me, but -- -It was you who said everybody had to stand up and take a stand against -- -I know it was me, damn it!
But I didn't say take a stand in no barroom!
-Ben started it, not me.
And you always said never to take low from the likes of him!
-Not so loud.
They may be out there in the commissary.
Look, boy, everybody down here don't feel as friendly towards the Supreme Court as you and me do.
You big enough to know that!
And don't you ever go outta here and pull a fool trick like you done last night again and not let me know about it in advance.
You hear me?!
-I'm sorry.
-When you didn't come to breakfast this morning, I went upstairs looking for you, and you just sitting there, looking at me with those big eyes, and I seen that they had done hurt you -- my, my, my!
Whatever happens to you happens to me.
You're big enough to know that!
-I didn't mean to make trouble, Idella.
-I know that, son.
I know it.
Now, no matter what happens when they do come, I'm right behind you.
Keep your nerves calm... and your mouth shut.
Understand?
-Yes.
-And as soon as you get a free minute, come on over to the house and let me put another hot poultice on that eye.
-Thank you, I'm very much obliged to you.
Idella... -What is it, son?
-Well, sometimes I think I ought to run away from home.
-I know, but you already tried that, honey.
-Sometimes I think I ought to run away from home again!
-Why don't you, boy?!
Why don't you?!
You don't know, boy, what a strong stomach it takes to stomach you.
Just look at you, sitting there, all slopped over like something the horses dropped -- steam, stink, and all!
-Don't you dare talk like that to this child!
-When I think of his grandpa, God rest his Confederate soul, hero of the Battle of Chicamauga.
Get outta my sight!
Not you!
You.
Wait a minute!
You been closer to this boy than I have, even before his ma died.
Ain't a thought ever entered his head you didn't think about it first.
You got anything to do with what my boy's been thinking lately?
-I didn't know he had been thinking lately.
-Don't play with me, Idella.
You know what I mean.
Who's been putting these integrationary ideas in my boy's head?
Was it you?
I'm asking you a question, damn it!
Was it you?
-Why don't you ask him?
-Ask him?
Ask him?!
He ain't gonna say a word unless you tell him to, and you know it.
Now, I'm asking you again, Idella Landy, have you been talking integration to my boy?!
-I can't rightly answer you any more on that than he did.
-By God, you will answer me.
I'll make you stand right there, right there all day and all night long, till you do answer me!
-Well, that's just fine.
-What's that?
What's that you say?
-I mean, I ain't got nothing else to do.
Supper's on the stove, rice is ready, okra's fried, turnip's simmered, biscuits baked, stew is stewed.
In fact, them lemon pies you wanted special for supper are in the oven right now, just getting ready to burn.
-Get outta here!
-Oh, no hurry, Ol' Cap'n.
-Get the hell out of here!
I'm warning the both of you, that little lick over the eye is a small skimption compared to what I'm gonna do.
I won't stop till I get to the bottom of this!
Now get outta here, Idella Landy, before I take my cane and... [ Softly ] and save me some buttermilk to go with them lemon pies.
You hear me?
The sheriff was here this morning.
-Yes, sir.
-Is that all you got to say to me?
[ Mockingly ] "Yes, sir"?
-Yes, sir.
-You are a disgrace to the Southland!
-Yes, sir.
-Shut up!
I...I could kill you, boy.
You understand that?
Kill you with my own two hands!
-Yes, sir.
-Shut up!
I could beat you to death with that bullwhip, put my pistol to your good-for-nothing head -- my own flesh and blood -- and blow your blasted brains all over this valley!
If you wasn't the last living drop of Cotchipee blood in Cotchipee County, I'd -- hmm -- I'd... -Yes, sir?
-Are you trying to get nonviolent with me, boy?
-I'm ready with the books, sir.
That is, whenever you're ready.
-Oh, thank you!
Thank you!
What with your Yankee propaganda, your barroom brawls, and all your other non-Confederate activities, I didn't think you had the time.
-"Cotton report -- 15 bales picked yesterday and sent to the cotton gin; bringing our total to 357 bales to date."
-357?!
Boy, that's some picking.
Who's ahead?
-Gitlow Judson, with 17 bales up to now.
-Gitlow Judson.
Well, I'll be damned!
Did you ever see a cotton-pickinger darky in your whole life?
-"Commissary report" -- -Did you ever look down in the valley, watch ol' Git a-picking his way through that cotton patch?
Holy Saint Mother's Day!
I'll bet you -- -"Commissary report!"
-All right!
Commissary report.
-Yes, sir.
Well, first, sir, there's been some complaints.
The flour is spoiled, the beans are rotten, and the meat is tainted.
-Cut the price on it.
-But it's also a little wormy.
-Well, then sell it to the Negras.
Is something wrong?
-No, sir.
I mean, sir...we... we can't go on doing that, sir.
-Why not?
It's traditional.
-Yes, sir, but times are changing.
All this debt...
According to this book, every family in the valley owes money they'll never be able to pay back.
-Of course!
It's the only way to keep 'em working.
Didn't they teach you nothin' at school?
-We're cheating them, and they know we're cheating them.
How long do you expect them to stand for it?
-As long as they're Negras.
-How long before they start a-rearing up on their hind legs, and saying, "Enough, white folks.
Now that's enough!
Either you start treating me like I'm somebody in this world, or I'll blow your brains out"?
-Stop it!
Stop it!
You are tampering with the economic foundation of the Southland!
Are you trying to ruin me?
One more word like that, and I'll -- I'll kill you.
I'll shoot -- shut up!
One more word and I'll fling myself on your ma's grave and die of apoplexy.
I'll -- Shut up.
You hear me?
Shut up!
Oh, now what the hell do you want?
-Oh, nothing sir, nothing!
That is, Missy, my ol' woman?
Well, sir, to get to the truth of the matter, I got a little business.
-Negras ain't got no business.
And you better get the hell back into that cotton patch, you better.
Get, I said!
Oh, no!
Don't go.
Uncle Gitlow -- whoa!
Good, old, faithful, old Gitlow.
Don't go.
Don't go!
-Well, you're the boss, boss.
-Just the other day, I was talking to the Senator about you.
What's that great, big knot on your head?
-Missy -- I mean, mosquito.
-Must have been wearin' brass knucks.
And he was telling me, the Senator was, how hard it is -- impossible, he said, to find the old-fashioned, solid, hard-earned, Uncle Tom-type Negra nowadays.
Well, I laughed in his face.
-Yes, sir!
By the grace of God, there's still a few of us left.
-I told him how you and me growed up together.
Had the same mammy.
My mammy was your mother.
-Yes, sir!
Bosom buddies!
-And how you used to sing that favorite ol' spiritual of mine, ♪ I'm a-coming ♪ ♪ I'm a-coming ♪ -♪ For my head is bending low ♪ -♪ I hear the gentle voices calling ♪ ♪ Ol' Black Joe ♪ -Look at you!
-Where you going?
-Maybe they need me in the front of the store.
-Come back here!
Turn around.
Show Gitlow that eye.
-Great God Almighty, somebody done coldcocked this child!
-Uh-huh.
-Who hit Mr. Charlie?
Tell Uncle Gitlow who hit you?!
-Would you believe it?
All of a sudden he can't say a word.
And just last night, the boys was telling me, this son of mine made hisself a full-fledged speech.
-You don't say!
-All about Negras -- Negroes he called 'em.
Four years of college, and he still can't say the word right.
Seems he's quite a specialist on the subject.
-Well, shut my hard-luck mouth!
-Yessiree, Bob!
Told the boys over at Ben's bar in town that he was all for mixing the races together.
-You go on way from here!
-Said white children and darky children ought to go to the same schoolhouse together!
-Tell me the truth, Ol' Cap'n.
-Got himself so worked up, some of 'em had to cool him down with a Co-Cola bottle!
-Tell me the truth again!
-That wasn't what I said!
-You calling me a liar, boy?
-No, sir, but I just said that since it was the law of the land -- -It is not the law of the land -- no sucha thing!
-I didn't think it would do any harm if they went to school together -- that's all.
-That's all?!
That's enough!
-They do it up North.
-This is down South.
And down here they'll go to school together over me and Gitlow's dead body.
Right, Git?!
-You're the boss, boss!
-But this is the law of the land.
-Never mind the law!
Boy, look, look, look!
You like Gitlow, hmm?
You trust him.
You always did, didn't you?
-Yes, sir.
-And Gitlow here would cut off his right arm for you if you was to ask him!
Wouldn't you, Git?
-You the boss, boss.
-Now, Gitlow ain't nothing if he ain't a Negra.
Ain't you, Git?
-Oh, 200%, 300%, I calculate.
-Now, if you really want to know what the Negra thinks of this here integration and all lacka-that, don't ask the Supreme Court.
Ask Gitlow!
Go ahead.
Ask him!
-I don't need to ask him.
-Then I'll ask him.
Raise your right hand, Git.
You solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing else but, so help you God?
-I do.
-Gitlow Judson, as God is your judge and maker, do you believe in your heart that God intended white folks and Negra children to go to school together?
-No, sir, I do not!
-And do you, so help you God, think that white folks and black should mix and associate in streetcars, buses, and railroad stations, in any way, shape, form, or fashion?
-Absolutely not!
-And is it not your considered opinion, God strike you dead if you lie, that all my Negras are happy with things in the Southland just the way they are?
-Indeed I do!
-Do you think any single darky on my place would ever think of changing a single thing about the South, and to hell with the Supreme Court, as God is your judge and maker?
-As God is my judge and maker and you are my boss, I do not!
-The voice of the Negra himself!
What more proof do you want!
-I don't care whose voice it is.
It's still the law of the land, and I intend to obey it!
-Get outta my face, boy!
Get outta my face before I-I kill you!
I-I... -Easy, easy, easy, Ol' Cap'n.
Easy, sir, easy!
Some aspirin, some asafetida?
You want some asa-- not now, not now, later, later, later!
-What's that?
-Hey!
[ Laughter ] [ Applause ] -Oh, Gitlow!
-Yes, sir?
Gitlow is here, sir.
Gitlow right here!
-Quick, ol' friend -- my heart is quick!
A few passels, if you please, of that ol' spiritual.
-♪ Gone are the days ♪ -Oh!
-♪ When my heart was young and gay ♪ -Oh, I can't tell you, Gitlow, how much it eases the pain.
-♪ Gone are my friends from the cotton fields away ♪ -Why can't he see what they're doing to the Southland, Gitlow?
Why can't he see it like you and me?
"If there's one responsibility you got, boy, above all others," I said to him, "it's these Negras -- your Negras, boy."
Good, honest, hardworking cotton choppers, if you keep after 'em.
-Yes, Lord.
♪ Gone from this earth ♪ -Oh, thank you.
-♪ To a better land I know ♪ -Something between you and them, no Supreme Court in the world can understand.
And it wasn't for me, they'd starve to death.
What's gonna become of 'em, boy, after I'm gone?
-That's a good question.
Lord, you answer him!
[ Laughter and applause ] -They belong to you, boy -- to you, every one of 'em!
My ol' Confederate father told me on his deathbed.
"Feed the Negras first, after the horses and cattle."
And I've done it every time!
♪ I'm comin', I'm comin' ♪ ♪ For my head is bending low ♪ -Oh, Gitlow, ol' friend, something absolutely sacred about that spiritual.
I live for the day you'll sing that thing over my grave.
-Me, too, Ol' Cap'n!
[ Laughter ] [ Mouthing ] Me too!
[ Applause ] ♪ I hear the gentle voices callin' ♪ ♪ Ol' Black Joe ♪ ♪♪ [ Cheers and applause ] -What took you so long?
-Not so loud!
He's right out there in the commissary!
Ain't she gonna carry no schoolbooks?
-What are they doing out there?
-The watermelon books don't balance.
-What?
-One of our melons is in shortage!
-Did you tell him about Lutiebelle?
I mean, Cousin Bee?
-No, I didn't have time.
I wanted you to have one last chance to get out of here alive!
-What is the matter with you?!
Don't $500 of your own lawful money mean nothing to you?
Ain't you got no head for business?
-No!
The head I got is for safekeeping, and hey, hey, don't touch that thing, Purlie!
-Why not?
It touched me!
-Man, ain't nothing sacred to you?!
-Gitlow, come in here!
-Yeah, Cap'n, I'm coming!
♪ I'm comin' ♪ ♪ I'm comin' ♪ -Now, we are going to cross-examine these watermelons one more time.
-One watermelon.
-One watermelon!
-One watermelon!
-Two watermelons.
-Two watermelons!
-Two watermelons.
-Whatever you do, don't panic!
-Whatever you do, don't panic!
-Walk like I taught you to walk, talk like I taught you to talk.
-Talked like I walked you to talk.
-Lutiebelle!
-Yes, Reb'n Purlie?
-Wake up.
-Oh, my goodness, Reb'n Purlie, was I asleep?
-Alert!
-Alert!
-Wide awake!
-Wide awake!
-Up on your toes!
-Up on your toes!
-No, that's just a figure of speech.
Now you remember what I told you?
-No, sir.
Can't say I do, sir.
-Well, first, chitchat, small talk.
-Yes, sir.
How small?
-Pass the time of day.
You remember the first thing I taught you on the train?
-Oh!
On the train.
"Delighted to remake your acquaintance, I am sure."
-That's it.
That's it exactly!
Now supposed he was to say to you, "I bet you don't remember when you wasn't knee-high to a grasshopper.
Ol' Cap'n took you by the hand, and led you down your first trip to the cotton patch"?
-Just like you told me on the train.
-Yes!
-"I must confess that much of my past life is vague and hazy."
-"Doggone, my hide!
You're the cutest little piece of brown-skin sugar I ever did see!"
-Oh, thank you, Reb'n Purlie!
-I ain't exactly me, saying that.
It's Ol' Cap'n.
"And this is my land and my cotton patch and my commissary, and my bullwhip's still here, just like you left us.
And what might be your name be, little gal?"
-Beatrice Judson, sir.
-"What is your daddy's name, little gal?"
-Horace Judson, sir.
-"And what did they teach you up in that college, little gal?"
-It was my major education, Ol' Cap'n.
-You mean you majored in education.
"Well, nothing wrong with the Negras getting an education, I always say.
Then again, ain't nothing right with it, either.
Right, Cousin Bee?
You don't mind if I call you Cousin Bee, do you, honey?"
-Oh, sir, I'd be delighted!
-Don't!
Don't be delighted until he puts the money in your hands.
"And where did you say your ma worked at?"
-In North Carolina.
-"Where is your ma at now?"
-She at the cemetery.
She died.
-How much is the inheritance?
-$500 for the next of kin.
-Wonderful, just-just wonderful.
"Say, maybe you could teach a old dog like me some new tricks.
By swickety, a gal like you could doggone well change a joker's luck if she had a mind to.
See what I mean?"
[ Laughs ] -What?!
What in the name of -- -My compliments, sir, are only exceeded by my humblest apologies.
Allow me, if you please, to present my Aunt Henrietta's daughter, whom you remember so well, Beatrice Judson or, as we call her, Cousin Bee.
-Well, I'll be switched!
-Come, Cousin Bee.
Say "howdo" to the man.
-How do to the man.
I mean, d-delighted to remake your acquaintance, I'm sure.
-What's that?
What's that she's saying?
-College, sir.
-College?
-That's all she ever talks.
-You mean Henrietta's little, ol' button-eyed pickaninny was in college?
Oh, bust my eyes wide open!
Just look at that!
[ Both laugh ] You remember me, honey?
I'm still the Ol' Cap'n around here.
-It would not be the same without you being the Ol' Cap'n around here.
-You don't say!
Say, I'll bet you don't remember a long time ago when -- -♪ When I wasn't but knee-high to a hoppergrass ♪ ♪ And you took me by the hand ♪ ♪ And led me on my very first trip to the cotton patch ♪ -You mean you remember that?!
-Alert, wide awake, and up on my toes, if you please, sir!
-Doggone my hide!
You're the cutest little ol' piece of brown sugar I ever did see.
-And this is your land and your cotton patch and your commissary and your bullwhip.
-What's that?
-Just a figure of speech or two.
-Well, Beatrice, you wouldn't mind if Ol' Cap'n was to call you Cousin Bee?
-Oh, positively not, not, since my mother's name was Henrietta Judson.
-Of course it was!
-And my father's name was Horace Judson.
-But most of all, I remember that little ol' dog of yours.
"Spicy," wasn't it?
-Oh, we wasn't much for eating dogs, sir.
[ Laughter ] -No, no!
Spicy was the name, wasn't it?
-You, er, really think we really called him "Spicy"?
Not him -- her!
-Oh, her, her, her, her, her!
I am most happy to recollect that I do.
-You do!
You don't say you do!
-I did, as I recall it, have a fond remembrance of you and Spicy, since you-all went so well together and at the same time.
-You do?
Well, hush my mouth, hey, Git?
-Hush your mouth indeed, sir.
-'Cause soon it is my sworn and true confession that I disremember so many things out of my early pastime that mostly you are haze and vaguey!
-Oh, am I now!
-Oh, yes, sir, indeed.
-Doggone my hide, eh, Git?
-Doggone your hide indeed, sir.
-You see of coursely I have spount -- -Spent.
-Spunt so much of my time among the college that hardly all of my ancient maidenhead... -Hood!
-...is a thing of the past!
-You don't say!
-Oh, yes, sir, precisely.
-Well, tell me, little Bee.
What did they teach you up at that college?
-Well... [ Laughs nervously ] They mostly taught me an education, but in between I learned a lot, too.
-Is that a fact?
-Mm-hmm.
Reading, writing, 'rithmetic -- oh, my Lord!
Sitting out on the rectangular every evening after 4:00 homework and get your regular headache.
-You know something?
I been after these Negras down here for years -- "Go to school," I'd say, "First chance you get, take a coupla courses in advanced cotton picking."
But you think they'd listen to me?
Nosiree, Bob.
By swickety!
A gal like you could doggone well change a joker's luck if she was a mind to.
See what I mean?
-Oh, yes, indo I deed.
-Look -- anything!
Ask me anything!
Whatever you want -- name it and it's yours!
-You mean, really, really, really?
-Ain't a man in Cotchipee County can beat my time when I see something I want.
Name it!
Some roasted peanuts, a bottle of soda water, a piece of peppermint candy?
-Ooh, thank you, sir, but if it's all the same to you I'd rather have my money.
Your what?!
-Now I'm gonna tell you like it was, Your Honor.
You see, Reb'n' Purlie and Uncle Gitlow had one aunty between them, name of Harrietta.
-Henrietta!
-Henrietta, who used to work for this rich ol' white lady up in North Carolina years ago.
Now, last year this old lady died, brain tumor.
-Bright's disease!
-Bright's disease, leaving $500 to every servant who had ever worked on her place, including Henrietta.
But Henrietta had already died, herself, largely from smallpox.
-No!
-Smally from large pox!
-Influenza!
-Influenza.
And since Henrietta's husband, Harris -- -Horace!
-Horace was already dead from heart trouble -- -Gunshot wounds!
-His heart stopped beating, didn't it?!
[ Laughter and applause ] -Yes, but -- -Precisely, Reb'n Purlie, precisely!
Since, therefore and where-in-as Cousin Bee, her daughter, was first in line for next of kinfolks the $500 left in your care and keep by Aunt Henrietta, and which you have been saving just for me all these lonesome years.
-I ain't been saving no damn such thing!
-Oh, come out from behind your modesty, sir.
-What?
-Your kindness, sir, your thoughtfulness, sir, your unflagging consideration for the welfare of your darkies, sir, have rung like the clean, clear call of the clarion from Maine to Mexico.
Why, your constant love for them is both the hallmark and high water to the true gentility of the dear old South.
-Gitlow, Gitlow, go get Charlie.
I want him to hear this.
Go on, boy.
Go on!
-Well, as for your faithful ol' darkies themselves, sir, why, down in the quarters, sir, your name in second only to God Himself Almighty.
-You don't mean to tell me!
-Therefore, as a humble token of their high esteem and deep and abiding affection, especially for saving that $500 inheritance for Cousin Bee, they have asked me to present to you this plaque, which bears the following citation to wit, and I quote, "Whereas Ol' Cap'n has kindly allowed us to remain on his land and pick his cotton and tend his cattle and drive his mules, and whereas Ol' Cap'n still lets us have our hominy grits and fatback on credit, and whereas Ol' Cap'n never resorts to bullwhip except as a blessing and a benediction, therefore be it resolved that Ol' Cap'n Cotchipee be cited as the best friend the Negro has ever had, and officially proclaimed Great White Father of the Year"!
-Whoo!
-Whoo!
[ Laughter ] -I can't believe it.
I can't believe it!
Charlie, boy, did you hear it?
Did you hear it, Charlie, my boy?
"Great White Father of the Year"!
-Let me be the first to congratulate you, sir.
-Oh, thank you, Purlie.
-And me!
-Thank you, Cousin Bee.
-And me, too, Ol' Cap'n.
-Oh, Gitlow, Gitlow.
I know this is some of your doings, my old friend.
-Little bit.
-Well, boy, ain't you gonna congratulate your father?
-Yes, sir!
-This...this is the happiest day of my life.
My darkies, my Negras, my own -- -Hear, hear!
-Hear, hear!
-I am just too overcome to talk.
Come back here, boy.
Silent...speechless...dumb, my friends.
Never in all the glorious hoary and ancient annals of old Dixie, never before, my friends, in the Holy Scripture, and I could cite you chapter and verse if I was a mind to, "In the beginning, God created white folks and He created black folks," and in the name of all that's white and holy, let's keep it that way."
And to hell with Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King.
-I am moved, Ol' Cap'n.
-Oh!
-Moved beyond my jurisdiction.
I have upon my person a certificate of legal tender duly affixed and so notarized to said itemized effect, a writ of habeas corpus.
-Ha...habeas who?
-Habeas corpus.
It means I can have the body.
-Body?
What body?
-The body of the cash, the $500 inheritance they sent you to hold in trust for Cousin Bee.
-Charlie?
-Yes, sir?
-Bring me $500, will you?
No, no, no, no, no, no.
Not that old stuff.
Fresh money, clean money out of my private stock out back.
Nothing is too good for my Negras.
-Yes, sir.
Yes, sir!
And Pa?
-Yes, son?
-All I got to say is "Yes, sir!"
-Oh!
Just wait!
Wait till I tell the Senator!
"Great White Father of the Year"!
-Here you are, Pa. -Oh, thank you, boy.
-Here everybody is, back in the office.
-Just in time, Sheriff, for the greatest day of my life.
Gentlemen, something has happened here today between me and my Negras, makes me proud to call myself a Confederate.
I have just been named Great White Father of the Year.
Right?
-Right!
And now if you'll just -- -Great White Father of the Year?
-Congratulations.
-True, there are places in this world where the darky is rebellious, where he's running hog-wild.
He's rising up and sitting down where he ain't wanted.
He's acting sassy in jail.
He's getting plumb out of hand.
He's totally forgetting his place and his manners, but not in Cotchipee County!
Right?
-Right!
And now perhaps we could get back to the business at hand.
-All right.
$500.
Just one small thing.
One small formality -- a receipt.
-A receipt?
All right, I'll -- -Oh, no, no, not you.
You!
Just for the record.
Sign here.
Your full name and legal name, right here on the dotted line.
-I have her power of attorney.
-It's all right, Reb'n Purlie.
I can write.
[ Laughter ] -Mwah!
Boom!
Sheriff, I want this woman arrested!
-Arrested for what?!
-She come into my presence, together with him and with him, and they all swore to me that she is Beatrice Judson.
-She is Beatrice Judson!
-How come she to sign her name Lutiebelle Gussie Mae Jenkins?!
-Unh-unh!
-Unh-unh!
-Unh-unh!
-Is somebody calling my name out there?
-Come back here, Gitlow!
You'll go out of that door when the Sheriff takes you out.
And that goes for all of you!
And just a minute, Sheriff.
Before you take 'em away, there's something I got to do.
-I'll make it up to you in cotton, Ol' Cap'n -- -Shut up, Gitlow.
Something I started 20 years ago with this bullwhip, something I intend to finish.
-♪ Gone are the days when my heart was young and gay ♪ -Damn it, I told you to shut up!
I'm gonna teach you to try to make the damn fool outta white folks.
All right, boy, drop them britches.
-The hell you preach?
-What's that you said?
-He said, "The hell you preach!"
-Pa, wait.
Listen -- -I thought I told you to shut up!
Boy, I am gonna teach you to mind what I say!
-I distinctly heard that gentleman order you to drop them britches.
Aah!
[ All clamoring ] ♪♪ ♪♪ -What's the matter, Sheriff?
Can't you find him?
♪♪ ♪♪ -Keep your hands off her!
[ All yelling ] -Good luck!
-Charlie!
-Charlie!
-After them, you idiots!
After them!
-After them, you idiot!
-His eyes, Idella, his eyes!
Where are his eyes?
-Gitlow, fetch me the asafetida.
Ol' Cap'n, rub his hands.
Charlie, honey, wake up, wake up!
It's me, Idella.
-Mr. Charlie, wake up.
-It's me, Charlie, me.
It's your daddy, boy!
Speak to me!
Talk to me!
Say something to me!
-Fourscore and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth -- -Shut up!
[ Applause ] ♪♪ ♪♪ [ Lightning crashes ] ♪♪ ♪♪ [ Insects chirping ] -Yeah, toll the bell, Big Bethel.
Toll the big, black ex-liberty bell.
Tell freedom there's death in the family.
-Purlie!
-All these wings, they still won't let me fly.
-Where have you been these last two days, Purlie?
We been lookin' for you.
All this plotting and planning, risking your dad-blasted neck like a crazy man!
And for what?
For what?
[ Knock on door ] Oh, come in, Miz Idella.
-Is anybody here seen Charlie Cotchipee this morning?
-No, we haven't.
-Is something wrong, Miz Idella?
-He left this morning right after breakfast, and here it is after lunch, and I ain't seen him since.
I can't find Charlie.
First time in 45 years I been working up at that house that I've misplaced anything.
-You don't suppose he'd run away from home and not take me?
-Oh, no, Miz Idella!
Not li'l Charlie Cotchipee.
-Well, I guess I'd better be getting back.
If you should see him -- -Miz Idella, we all want to thank you for keeping Purlie out of jail so kindly.
-Oh, that was nothing.
I just told that old man if he didn't stop all that foolishness about chain gangs and stuff, I was gonna resign from his kitchen and take Charlie right along with me!
But now I lost Charlie.
First time in 45 years I've ever misplaced anything!
-Don't you know there's something more important in this world than having that broken-down ol' ex-church of a barn to preach in?
-Yeah, like what?
-Like asking Lutiebelle to marry you.
-Asking Lutiebelle to marry me?
-She worships the ground you walk on.
Talks about you all the time.
You two could get married, settle down, like you ought to, and raise the cutest, little, old family you ever did see.
And she's a-cookin', poor child.
She left you some of her special fritters.
-Freedom, Missy, not fritters.
The crying need of this Negro day and age is not grits, but greatness, not cornbread, but courage, not fatback, but...fight back.
Big Bethel is my Bethel.
It belongs to me and to my people.
And I intend to have it back if I have to pay for it in blood!
-All right!
Come on in, and I'll fix you some dinner.
♪ I'm comin', I'm comin ♪ -Not so loud, Gitlow.
You want to wake up the mule?
-Not on his day off.
♪ For my head is bendin' low ♪ -Where's Lutiebelle, Gitlow?
-"The history of the War Between the States will be continued next week."
That sure is a good story.
I wonder how that's gonna come out.
-Grown man, deacon in the church, reading the funny-paper.
And your shirt.
You sneaked outta here this morning in your clean white shirt, after I told you time and time again I was saving it.
-Saving it for what?!
-It's the only decent thing you got to get buried in!
-Don't you know that arrangements for my funeral has been taken over by the white folks?
Besides, I got the money!
-What kinda money?
-The $500 kinda money.
-$500!
You mean Ol' Cap'n gave the money to you?
-"Gitlow," he said, "ain't another man in this valley, black, white or otherwise, I would trust to defend and protect me from the NAACP but you."
-Is that a fact?
-Well, now, whatever become of you?
All them "Great God Almighty" plans your mouth runneth over -- all that "white-folk" psychology?
-Gitlow!
Deacon Gitlow, Big Bethel is waiting!
-So you're the good-for-nothing, raggedy-ass high falute around here that goes for who-tied-the-bear!
-Git, man, ain't nothing to me.
-Always so high and mighty, can't nobody on earth handle white folks but you.
Oh, don't pay no attention to Gitlow.
No, he's a Tom.
Tease him, low-rate him, laugh at ol' Gitlow.
He ain't nothing but a fool!
-Git, man, you got me wrong!
I didn't mean nothing like that!
-Yeah, who's the fool now, my boy, huh?
Who the fool now?
-I'm the fool, Gitlow.
-Aw, man, you can talk plainer than that.
-I'm the fool, Gitlow.
-Uh-huh!
Now go over to that window, open it as wide as it will go, and say it so everybody in this whole damn valley can hear you!
Go on.
Go on, man.
I ain't got all day.
-I am the fool, Gitlow!
-Nice!
Ha ha ha!
-Now, beg me.
-What?
-I said if you want to see the money, you gotta beg me.
Do it like you do white folks.
-I'd rather die and go to hell in a pair of gasoline drawers!
-Oh, okay, all right.
All right.
[ Laughs ] -No, wait!
Holy mackerel, there, Massa Gitlow -- hee, hee, hee.
Hey, boss, you think it possible I could see that there $500 dere, sir?
Hyuh, hyuh, hyuh!
-Oh, man, you sure got style!
You know, together you and me could make the big time!
Come and see me during office hours.
As Deputy for the Colored, I guess I'll just sort of step outside for a minute and let that low September sun shine down on a joker as rich as he is black.
-Gitlow, Gitlow?
If slavery ever comes back, I want to be your agent.
-That was a snaggy-toothed, poverty-struck remark if I ever heard one.
-You all wash your hands and get ready.
Gitlow, where's Lutiebelle?
-She ain't get back yet.
-We know she ain't get back yet.
-Where is Lutiebelle, Gitlow?
-Oh, what I mean is, on our way home from church, we stopped by Ol' Cap'n's a while.
He asked me to leave her there to help with Sunday dinner.
-And you left her?
-With that frisky ol' man?
-For goodness' sakes, she's only waiting on tables.
-The woman I love don't wait on tables for nobody, especially Ol' Cap'n!
I know that scoun'.
I'm going up there to get her!
-Wait a minute!
You can't go get her right now!
-What you mean, I can't get her right now?
-Not right this minute -- that'll spoil everything.
Ol' Cap'n wouldn't like it.
-How low can you get, Gitlow?!
-I mean, she's got to stay and bring us back the $500.
-What $500?
-I thought you already had the money?
-Not exactly.
But he promised me faithful to send it down by Lutiebelle.
-I'm going up there and get Lutiebelle!
-Wait a minute!
You want to buy Big Bethel back or don't you?
-I hope I misunderstand you!
-Now, you said it yourself.
It is meet that the daughters of Zion should sacrifice themselves for the cause.
-Gitlow, I'll kill you.
-Wait a minute, wait a minute!
-I'll kill you!
-Lutiebelle!
Lutiebelle, honey!
-I think I am gonna faint.
No, I ain't, either.
[ Laughter ] I'm too mad!
I was never so insulted in all my dad-blamed life!
-Lutiebelle!
-Excuse me, Reb'n Purlie.
I know I look a mess.
-What happened up there?
-I'm a maid first-class, Aunt Missy, and I'm proud of it!
-Of course you are.
-I ain't had no complaints to speak of since I first stepped into the white folks' kitchen.
I'm clean, I'm honest, and I work hard!
But one thing...
I don't stand for no stuff from them white folks!
-Of course you don't.
You don't have to.
-I mean, I know my job, and I do my job.
And the next ol' sweaty, ol' grimy, ol' drunkeny man puts his hands on me, so much as to touch like he got no business doing, God grant me the strength to kill him!
Excuse me, Reb'n Purlie.
-Well, Ol' Cap'n do get playful at times.
Did he send the money?
-Money!
What money?
There ain't none!
-What?!
No, he wouldn't do that to me -- not to good ol', faithful ol' Gitlow.
No, sir!
-The whole thing was a trick to get you out the house.
-Not to me he didn't!
-So he could sneak up behind me in the pantry!
-What I tell you?
What I tell you?!
-I knowed the minute I -- come grabbing on me, Reb'n Purlie.
Come grabbing his dirty, old hands on me.
-He did?
-And twisting me around and pinching me, Reb'n Purlie.
-Pinching you where?
Where?
-Must I, Reb'n Purlie?
-I demand to know, where did he pinch you!
-[ Gasps ] That's him all right!
-Oh, Missy.
-I'd know them fingerprints anywhere!
-Right in the pantry, and then he...he... Oh, Reb'n Purlie, I'm so ashamed!
-What did he do, woman?
Tell me.
Tell me.
What did he do?
What he do?
-He...he kissed me!
-No!
-No!
-He kissed me right here!
-Right where?
-Aw, for Pete's sake!
-He kissed my woman, Gitlow.
Kissed the woman I love!
-So what?!
-So what do you mean, "So what"?
No man kisses the woman I love and lives!
-[ Laughs ] -Go ahead and laugh!
Laugh.
Let's have one last look at your teeth before I knock 'em down your throat!
-Aw, man, get off my nerves.
-I'm going up that hill.
I'm gonna call that buzzardly ol' bastard out, and I wouldn't be surprised if I didn't beat him until he died!
-Reb'n Purlie!
-Now looky here, Purlie.
Don't you be no fool, boy!
You still in Georgia.
If you just got to defend the honor of the woman you love, do it somewhere else.
-Kissing my woman?
Kissing my woman?!
Man, I'll break your neck off!
-Please, Reb'n Purlie!
-I'll stomp your eyeballs in!
-Don't, Reb'n Purlie!
Oh, my goodness!
-I'll rip your right arm outta the socket and beat the rest of you to death!
-Don't talk like that, Reb'n Purlie!
-Have you gone crazy?!
-You go up that hill tonight, boy, they'll kill you!
-Let 'em kill me!
It won't be the first time.
-Aunt Missy, stop him.
-Listen, boy!
This is your Deputy for the Colored telling you you ain't leaving this house, and that's an order!
-You try and stop me.
-Good gracious a life, man!
What's the matter with you?
The man only kissed your woman.
-Yeah!
And what you suppose he'd done to me if I'd a kissed his?
That's exactly what I'm gonna do to him.
-Reb'n Purlie, I beg you on bended knees!
-For the glory and honor of the Negro National Anthem, for the glory and honor of brown-skin Negro womanhood, for the glory and honor of... for Lutiebelle.
[ Laughter ] -No, unh-unh.
No.
Stop this.
No, Purlie.
No, no, no, no!
No, Purlie!
Come back here!
[ Dog barking in distance ] -[ Crying ] -♪ I hear the gentle bloodhounds callin' ♪ ♪ Ol' Black Joe ♪ ♪♪ [ Applause ] ♪♪ [ Insects chirping, dogs barking ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -Is it him, Aunt Missy?
Is it him?
-No, honey, not yet.
-Oh, I could have sworn I thought it was him.
What time is it?
-About 4:00 in the morning from the sound of the birds.
Now, why ain't you sleep after all that hot toddy I give you?
-I can't sleep.
The strangest thing...
I keep hearing bells.
-Bells?
-Wedding bells.
Ain't that funny?
Oh, Lord, please don't let him be hurt bad, please!
Where can he be, Aunt Missy?
-Now don't you worry about Purlie.
My!
You put on your pretty pink dress!
-Yes, ma'am.
It's the only thing I got fitting to propose in.
-Oh?
-I thought to sort of show my gratitude, I'd offer him my hand in matrimony.
It's all I've got.
-[ Sighs ] It's a nice hand, and a nice dress, just right for matrimony.
-You really think so, Aunt Missy?
Really, really really?
-I know so, and wherever Reb'n Purlie is this morning, you can bet your bottom dollar he knows it, too.
-Ten thousand Queens of Sheba!
Aunt Missy...
I wanted him to get mad.
I wanted him to tear out up that hill.
I wanted him to punch that old buzzard in his gizzard.
You think I was wrong?
-I should say not!
-Of course, I coulda punched him myself, I reckon.
-Why should you?
Why shouldn't our menfolk defend our honor with the white folks once in a while?
They ain't got nothing else to do.
-You really, really, really think so?
-Ten thousand Queens of Sheba!
-Oh, my goodness!
When he walks through that door, ooh, I'm just gonna -- -Well, well, Lutiebelle.
-Did you find him, Uncle Git?
-Don't depend on Gitlow for nothing, honey.
-Where can he be, Uncle Gitlow?
Where can he be?
-Well, a good wind like this on his tail oughta put him somewhere above Macon long 'bout now, if his shoes hold out!
-You mean running!
-What's wrong with running?
It emancipated more people than Abe Lincoln ever did.
-How dare you!
The finest, bravest man... -The finer they come, the braver they be, the deader these white folks gonna kill 'em when they catch 'em.
-Gitlow, I'll skin you!
-All that talk about calling that man out and whipping him!
-A man is duty-bound to defend the honor of the woman he loves, and any woman worth her salt will tell you so.
-Love can make you do things you really can't do.
Can't it, Aunt Missy?
-Look.
That man's got the president, the governor, the courthouse, and both houses of the Congress on his side.
-Purlie Judson is a man the Negro woman can depend on!
-An honor to his race and a credit to his people!
-The Army, the Navy, the Marines, the sheriff, the judge, the jury, the police, the F.B.I.
all on his side, not to mention a pair of brass knucks and the hungriest dogs this side of hell.
Surely you all don't expect that poor boy to go up against all that Caucasiatic power empty-handed.
-O, ye of little faith!
-Didn't Lord deliver Daniel?
-Of course he did, but lions is one thing.
White folks is another.
-Where there's a will, there's a woman.
-And where there's a woman, there's a way!
-Great God --!
All right, go ahead.
Have it your way.
But I'll lay you six bits against half my seat on the heavenly choir, Purlie ain't been up that hill.
And the minute he walks in that door -- if he ever shows up again around here -- I'm gonna prove it!
Oh, damn.
I can make better time out there talkin' to that mule.
-Why not?
It's one jackass to another.
[ Insects chirping ] -It sure is a lovely year for this time of morning, I mean.
I can't tell you how much all this fresh air, wine-smoke, and apple-bite remind me of Alabama.
-Oh, yes.
Old Georgia can sure smile pretty when she's of a mind to.
[ Dog barks in distance ] [ Insects chirping ] -[ Cries ] Aahhh!
Aahhh!
-"Arise and shine, for thy light has come."
-Purlie!
Purlie Victorious!
-Oh, you!
Reb'n Purlie, you!
-"Truth and mercy met together.
Righteousness and peace have kissed each other!"
-Let me look at you.
Behold the man!
Knee-deep in shining glory.
Great day the righteous marching!
What happened to you?
-Mine enemy hath been destroyed.
-What?
-I told that old man 20 years ago that over his dead body, Big Bethel would rise again!
-Purlie, you mean you done -- -"Have I any pleasure," sayeth the Lord, "that the wicked should die and not turn from his ways and live?"
Lutiebelle, put on your hat and coat, and hurry!
-Yes, sir!
-Missy, throw us some breakfast into a paper sack and quick!
-Yes, sir!
-Gitlow?
-Yeah?
-I'm calling on you and your fellow mule to write a new page in the annals of "Negro History Week."
-Well, if it ain't old, little black riding hood there!
How was the mean old peckerwolf tonight, there, kingfish?
-Tell him, Purlie boy, what you told us.
How you sashayed up that hill with force and fistfight!
-Hallelujah!
-How you fit Ol' Cap'n to a halt and a standstill.
-Talk that talk!
-And left him laying in a pool of his own Confederate blood!
-Oh, for Pete sakes, Missy, stop lying!
-Don't you dare call Purlie Judson a liar!
-No man calls Reb'n Purlie a liar and lives!
-What is the matter with you people?!
Purlie ain't been up that hill.
Purlie ain't seen Ol' Cap'n.
Purlie ain't done doodley-squat!
And all that gabble about leaving somebody in a pool of his own Confederate blood ain't what the bull left in the barnyard!
-$500 says it is!
-$500?!
-$500?!
-In cool September cash!
-Money!
-And that ain't all I got.
-Oh, my goodness, Missy!
Great day in the morning time!
Missy!
Missy!
-Gitlow, that's it!
-That's it, Missy.
That's it!
-Of course that's it!
Ain't nothing in the world but it!
-Ain't but one way, one way in all this world for nobody to get that bullwhip off'n Ol' Cap'n!
-And that's off'n his dead body!
-And that's the everlovin' truth, so help me.
-Here, take it and burn it in a public place.
Lutiebelle?
-Yes, Reb'n Purlie?
-This money belongs to the Negro people.
-Reb'n Purlie, my boy, I apologize from the bottom of my knees.
♪ Gone are the days ♪ -- -Get up and shut up!
-Take it and wear it next to your heart.
-Until death us do part.
-If I ever catch you with that song in your mouth again, I'll choke you with it!
-And go wake up the mule.
We due in Waycross to buy Big Bethel.
-I'm going.
I'm going.
Cash -- $500 in cash.
And a bullwhip, from Ol' Cap'n Cotchipee himself!
Man, I'd give you a pretty piece of puddin' to know how you did it!
-You go and wake up the mule!
Me, too!
How did you do it, Purlie?
-What happened when you first got there?
-Well, now wait a minute.
Don't rush me!
-That's what I say.
Don't rush him.
Let the man talk!
-Talk!
Missy, I told you.
I haven't got the time.
-That's all right, Purlie.
We'll listen in a hurry.
-What happened when you called him out and whipped him?
-I didn't call him out and whip him!
-What!
You didn't?!
-Reb'n Purlie?!
-I mean, I called him out.
-Oh, you did call him out!
-But he didn't come.
-What?!
-What?!
-So, I went in to get him!
-Oh, okay.
-What happened?
-It went like I told you.
-Tell us, Reb'n Purlie, please!
-Well, there was him, and here was me.
-Uh-huh.
-Uh-huh.
-Twisted and bent like a pretzel, face twitchified like a pan of worms.
Eyes bugging out, sweat dreening down like rain.
Tongue plumb-clove to the roof of his mouth.
Well, this thief... this murderer, this adulterer, this oppressor of all my people, just a sitting there -- "Stonewall" Jackson Cotchipee, just a sitting there.
"Go to, rich man, weep and howl, for your sorrows shall come upon you."
And-a "Wherefore abhor yourself and repent ye in sackcloth and ashes!"
'cause ol' Purlie is done come to get you!
-What did he do, Purlie?
What he do?!
-Fell down on bended knees and cried like a baby.
-Ol' Cap'n Cotchipee on his knees!?
-Great day in the morning time!
-"Don't beg me, white folks!
It's too late!
Mercy?
What do you know about mercy?!
Did you have mercy on Ol' Uncle Tubb when he asked you not to cheat him out his money so hard you knocked him deaf in his left ear?"
-Mnh-mnh.
-"Did you have mercy on Lolly's boy when he sassed you back, and you took and dipped his head in a bucket of syrup?"
-Mnh-mnh.
"And 20 years ago, when little Purlie, black and manly as he could be, stood naked before you and your bullwhip and pleaded with tears in his little, old eyes, did you have mercy?!"
-No!
-"And I'll not have mercy now!
'Vengeance is mine,' sayeth the Lord!
Ye serpents, ye vipers, ye low-down sons of... How can you escape the damnation of hell?!"
-Throw it at him, boy!
-And then, bless my soul, I looked up, up from the blazing depths of my righteous indignation, and I saw tears spill over from his eyeballs, and I heard the heart be-clutching anguish of his outcry!
His hands was both a-tremble.
And slobber a-dribblin' down his lips!
-Oh, my Lord!
-And he whined and whimpered like an ol' hound dog don't want you to kick him no more.
-Great goodness a-mighty!
-And I commenced to ponder the meaning of this evil thing that groveled beneath my footstool -- this no-good, no-good lump of nobody!
-Uh-huh!
-Not fit to dwell on the face of the earth beside the children of the blessed, an abomination to the Almighty and stench in the nostrils of His people!
-Yes, sir, Purlie.
Well?
-And yet a man.
-All right.
-A weak man, a scared man, a pitiful man, like the whole Southland bogged down in sin and segregation crawling on his knees before my judgment seat, but still a man!
-A man, Lord!
-He, too, like all the South was one of God's creatures.
He, too, like all the South could never be beyond the reach of love, hope, and redemption.
-Amen!
-Somewhere for him, even for him, some father's heart was broken, some mother's tears undried.
-Dry 'em, Lord!
-I am my brother's keeper!
-Come on, Purlie!
-♪ Thinking on these things ♪ ♪ I found myself to pause ♪ ♪ And stumble in my great resolve ♪ ♪ Sorrow squeezed all fury from my heart ♪ ♪ Pity plucked all the hatred from my soul ♪ ♪ Racing feet of an avenging anger slowed down to a halt ♪ ♪ And a standstill ♪ And the big, black, and burly fist of my strong correction raised on high like a stroke of God's own lightning fell useless by my side.
The book say, "Love one another."
-Yeah, it say that.
-Love one another!
-The book say, "Comfort ye one another."
-Comfort ye one another!
-The book say, "Forgive ye one another."
-Forgive Ol' Cap'n, Lord.
-Slowly I turned away to leave this lump of human mess and misery to the infinite darkness of a hell for white folks only, when suddenly... -Suddenly, Lord.
-Suddenly I put on my brakes.
Purlie Victorious Judson stopped dead in his tracks, stood stark still, planted his feet, and rared back, and asked himself and all the powers-that-be some mighty important questions.
-Yes, he did, Lord.
-That is the truth!
"How come..." I asked myself, "it's always the colored folks got to do all the forgiving?"
-Oh, man, you mighty right!
-Yes!
-How come the only cheek ever gets turned in this country is the Negro cheek?
-Preach to me, boy!
-What was this, this man, Ol' Cap'n Cotchipee, that in spite of all his sins and evils, he still had dominion over me?
-Ain't that the truth!
-God made us all equal!
God made us all brothers!
"Hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on the face of the earth."
Who changed all that?!
-"Who changed it?"
he said.
-Who took it and twisted it?
-"Who was it?"
he said!
-And where's that scoun' hiding?
-So that the Declarator of Independence himself might seem to be a liar?
-Who?
that's what I want to know.
-That a man the color of his face could live by the sweat of a man the color of mine!
Could live away up there in his fine, white mansion, and us down here in a shack not fitting to house the fleas upon his dogs!
-Nothing but fleas!
-Could wax hisself fat on the fat of the land.
Steaks, rice, chicken, roastineers, sweet-potato pies, hot buttered biscuits and cane syrup anytime he felt like it.
Never hit a lick at a snake!
And us got to every day get up and get with it from sunup to sundown... -All day long.
-...on fatback and cornmeal hoecakes.
Don't wind up owning enough ground to get buried standing up in!
-Come on, Purlie!
Preach!
-Horses and Cadillacs, bullwhips and bourbon, two-for-$11 cigars, and our fine young men to serve at his table, and our fine young women to serve in his bed!
Who made it like this?!
Who put the white man on top?
-That's what I want to know!
-Surely not the Lord God of Israel, who is a just God!
-Yes, sir!
-And no respecter of persons!
Who proved in the American Revolution that all men are created equal!
-I was there when He proved it!
[ Laughter ] -Endowed with civil rights and first-class citizenship, Ku Klux Klan, White Citizens Council not withstanding.
-Yes, he did, Lord!
-And when my mind commenced to commemorate and reconsider all these things, and I thought of the black mother in bondage... and I thought of the black father in prison... And of...Mama herself.
Missy can tell you how pretty she was.
-Indeed I can!
-How she died outdoors on a...on a dirty sheet 'cause the hospital doors said, "For white folks only."
And of Papa, God rest his soul, who brought her tender, loving body back home and laid her to sleep in the graveyard and cried himself to death among his children!
-Purlie, Purlie!
-Then did the wrath of a righteous God and the strength of ten thousand swept into my good right arm, and I arose, and I smote Ol' Cap'n a mighty blow!
And the wind from my fist ripped the curtains from the eastern walls, and I felt the weight of his ol' bullwhip nestling in my hands.
And a fury of a good God Almighty was within me, and I beat him.
I whipped him.
-What?!
-And I flogged him, and I cut him.
I destroyed him!
-Oh-ahh!
Ahh!
Oh, great day and the righteous morning!
Man, I ain't been stirred that deep since the tree caught fire on the possum hunt, and the dogs pushed Papa in the pot.
-Idella, you shoulda heard him!
-I did hear him, all the way across the valley.
I thought he was calling hogs.
Well, anyway, all hell done broke loose at the big house.
Purlie, you better get outta here.
Ol' Cap'n on the phone to the sheriff.
-Ol' Cap'n Cotchipee is dead.
-The hell you preach?
-What?!
-What?!
-Ol' Cap'n ain't no more dead than I am.
-That's a mighty tacky thing to say about your ex-fellow man.
-Mighty tacky!
-Reb'n Purlie just got through preaching 'bout it, how he marched up Cotchipee Hill.
-And took Ol' Cap'n by the bullwhip.
-And beat that ol' buzzard to death!
-That is the biggest lie since the devil learned to talk!
-I am not leaving this room till somebody apologizes to Reb'n Purlie V. Judson, the gentleman of my intended.
-Purlie Judson, are you gonna stand there sitting on your behind, and preach these people into believing that you spent the night up at the big house whipping Ol' Cap'n to death, when all the time you was breaking into the commissary!
-Breaking into the commissary?
-Something is rotten in the cotton!
-It's all right, Miz Idella.
I'll take it from there.
-It is not all right!
-Now, while it is true that I didn't exactly go up that hill just word for word and call that old man out and beat him to death so much on the dotted line... -I'm goin' to take back my lunch!
-Missy!
Wait a minute!
-You know what, Aunt Missy?
-Yes, honey?
-Sometimes I just wish I could drop dead for a while!
-Lutiebelle, give me a chance.
-Here's your money!
And that goes for every other great big, ol' handsome man in the whole world!
-What do y'all want me to do?
Go up that hill by myself and get my brains knocked out?!
-It's little enough for the woman you love!
-Why'd you have to preach all them wonderful things that wasn't so?
-And why'd you have to go and change your mind?
-I didn't mean for them not to be so.
It was a parable!
A prophecy!
Believe me!
I ain't never in all my life told a lie I didn't mean to make come true someday!
[ Laughter and applause ] -Purlie?
Purlie?
Unless you want to give heartbreak a headache, you better run!
-Run?
Run for what?
-You want Ol' Cap'n to catch you here?!
-Confound Ol' Cap'n!
Dad-blast Ol' Cap'n!
Damn, damn, damn, and double-damn Ol' Cap'n!
-Somebody!
I say somebody is calling my name!
-Ol' Cap'n, you just in time to settle an argument.
Is Rudolph Valentino still dead?
-Shut up!
-See?
I told you.
I told you!
-One thing I have not allowed in my cotton patch since am I born to die... that's stealin'!
Somebody broke into my commissary tonight, took two cans of sardines, a box of soda crackers, my bullwhip... and $500 in cash!
And, boy, I want it back!
-Stealin' ain't all that black and white.
-And we certainly wasn't the ones that started it!
-Who stole me from Africa in the first place?
-Who kept me in slavery from 1619 to 1863, working me to the bone without no Social Security?
-And tonight, just because I went up that hill and disembezzled my inheritance that you stole from me -- -I have had a bellyful of your black African sass.
-All right, everybody, drop that gun!
-Drop what gun?
-So there you are, you idiot.
What kept you so long?
-Well, like you told us to do on the phone, sir, we was taking a good, long, slow snoop 'round 'bout the commissary, looking for clues, when, doggone, if one didn't just a short while ago stumble smack into our hands!
-What!
-We caught the culprit red-handed!
Bring in the prisoner, Dep!
-Glad to oblige you, Sheriff!
-Southern justice strikes again!
-Charlie!
-- oh, no!
-Charlie, my baby!
-Release him, you idiot!
Release him at once!
What have they done to you, my boy?
-What have they done to you?
-Hello, Pa, Idella, Purlie.
-I'll have your thick, stupid necks for this!
-It was you give the orders, sir!
-Not my son, you idiot!
-It was him broke into the commissary.
-What?!
-It was him stole the $500.
He confessed!
-Steal?
A Cotchipee?
Sir, that is biologically impossible!
Charlie, my boy, tell them the truth.
Tell them who stole the money.
It was Purlie, wasn't it, boy?
-Well, as a matter of fact, Pa, it was mostly me that broke in and took the money, I'd say.
In fact it was me!
-No!
-It was the only thing I could do to save your life, Pa. -Save my life!
Idella, he's delirious.
-When Purlie come up that hill after you last night, I seen him, and lucky for you I did.
The look he had on his face against you was not a Christian thing to behold!
It was terrible!
I had to get into that commissary, right then and there, open that safe, and pay him his inheritance.
Even then I had to beg him to spare your life!
-You spare my life?!
Boy, how dare you?
Charlie, my son, I know you never recovered from the shock of losing your mother almost before you were born, but don't worry.
It was Purlie who stole that money, and I'm going to prove it.
Gitlow, my old friend, arrest this boy.
Gitlow, as Deputy for the Colored, I order you to arrest this boy for stealing!
-"Gone are the days..." -Stealing, is it?
Well, I'm gonna really give you something to arrest me for.
-Oh, have a care, boy.
I'm still a white man.
-Congratulations!
I told you 20 years ago this bullwhip was gonna change hands one of these days!
-Purlie, wait!
-Stay out of my struggle for power!
-You can't do wrong just because it's right!
-Never kick a man when he's down except in self-defense!
-And no matter what, you are and always will be the hero of Cotchipee Hill.
-Am I?
-Ten thousand queens!
-I bow to the will of the Negro people.
But one thing, Ol' Cap'n.
I am released of you.
The entire Negro people is released of you.
No more shouting hallelujah!
every time you sneeze, nor jumping jackass every time you whistle "Dixie"!
We gonna love you if you let us and laugh as we leave if you don't.
We want our cut of the Constitution, and we want it now and not with no teaspoon, white folks.
Throw it at us with a shovel!
-Charlie, my boy -- my own, lily-white, Anglo-Saxon, semi-Confederate son, I know you never recovered from the shock of losing your mother, almost before you were born, but don't worry.
There is still time to take these insolent, messy, cotton-picking ingrates down a peg and prove by word and deed that God is still a white man.
Tell 'em!
Boy, tell 'em!
-Tell 'em what, Pa?
-Tell 'em what you and me have done together.
Nobody here would believe me.
Tell 'em how you went to Waycross, Saturday night, in my name.
-Yes, sir, I did.
-Tell 'em how you spoke to Ol' Man Pelham in my name.
Yes, sir, I spoke to him.
-And paid him cash for that ol' barn they used to call Big Bethel!
-Yes, sir, that's what I did, all right.
-And to register the deed in the courthouse in my name.
-Yes, sir, that's exactly what you told me to do.
-Well, then, ain't but one thing left to do with that ramshackle dung-soaked monstrosity -- that's burn the damn thing down.
-But, Pa -- -First thing, though -- let me see the deed.
'Cause I wouldn't want to destroy nothing that didn't legally belong to me.
-Twenty years of being more than a mother to you!
-Wait, Idella, wait.
I did go to Waycross, like Pa said.
I did buy the barn -- excuse me, Purlie.
The church, like he said.
And I registered the deed at the courthouse like he told me, but not in Pa's name.
-What's this?
-I registered the deed in the name of -- -Purlie Victorious Judson?
No!
-Purlie Victorious Judson?
-Purlie Victorious Juds--?
-It was the only thing I could do to save your life.
Well, Purlie, here it is.
[ Applause ] -You done a good job, Charlie.
I'm much obliged!
-Thank you, Purlie, but -- -Big Bethel is my Bethel.
Charlie, it's my responsibility.
Go on, take it.
-No, no!
I couldn't take your money, Purlie.
-Boy don't be a fool.
Business is business.
-Idella, I can't do that!
-I can!
I'll keep it for you.
-Well, all right.
[ Laughter and applause ] But only if -- if... -If what?
-Would you let me be a member of your church?
-You?!
-Li'l Charlie Cotchipee!
-A member of Big Bethel?
-May I?
That is -- that is, if you don't mind, as soon as you get it started?
-Man, we already started.
The doors of Big Bethel Church of the New Freedom for all Mankind are hereby declared open for business!
-Brother Pastor, I move we accept Brother Charlie Cotchipee as our first candidate for membership to Big Bethel on an integrated basis.
-I second that motion!
-You have heard the motion.
Are you ready for the question?
-Question!
-Question!
-Those in favor will signify by saying, "Aye."
-Aye!
-Aye!
-Those opposed... Those opposed will signify by saying...what?
[ Laughter ] -The first man I ever seen in all this world to drop dead standing up!
♪♪ [ Applause ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ [ Laughter ] [ Cheers and applause ] ♪♪ [ Bell tolling ] -And toll the bell, Big Bethel.
Toll the bell!
Dearly beloved, recently bereaved, and friends, we welcome you to Big Bethel, Church of the New Freedom -- part Baptist, part Methodist, part Catholic -- with the merriness of Christmas and the happiness of Hanukkah, and to the first integrated funeral in the sovereign, segregated state of Georgia.
Let there be no merriments in these buryments.
Though you are dead, Ol' Cap'n, and in hell, I suspect... [ Laughter and applause ] ...as post-mortal guest of honor, at our expense, it is not too late to repent.
We still need togetherness.
We still need each otherness with faith in the futureness of our cause.
Let us, therefore, stifle the rifle of conflict, scatter the shatter of discord, smuggle the struggle, tickle the, uh...pickle, and grapple the apple of peace!
-This funeral is brought to you as a public service.
-Take up his bones.
For he who was my skin's enemy was brave enough to die standing for what he believed, and it is the wish of his family and his friends that he be buried likewise.
[ Laughter ] There, there.
Put kindness in your fingers.
He was a man, despite his own example.
Take up his bones.
Tonight, my friends, I find in being black a thing of beauty... [ Applause ] ...a joy, a strength, a secret cup of gladness, a native land in neither time nor place, a native land in every Negro face!
Be loyal to yourselves.
Your skin, your hair, your lips, your Southern speech, your laughing kindness are Negro kingdoms, vast as any other.
Accept in full the sweetness of your blackness, not wishing to be red, nor white, nor yellow, nor any other race or face but this.
Farewell, my deep and Africanic brothers.
Be brave, keep freedom in the family.
Do what you can for white folks... [ Laughter ] ...and write me in care of the post office.
Now, may the Constitution of the United States go with you, the Declaration of Independence stand by you, the Bill of Rights protect you, and the State Commission Against Discrimination keep the eyes of the law upon you, henceforth, now and forever.
Amen.
[ Cheers and applause ] ♪♪ [ Cheers and applause ] [ Cheers and applause ] [ Cheers and applause ] [ Cheers and applause ] [ Cheers and applause ] [ Cheers and applause ] [ Cheers and applause ] [ Cheers and applause ] [ Cheers and applause ] -To find out more about this and other "Great Performances" programs, visit... Find us on Facebook and follow us on X.
[ Cheers and applause ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪
