he cotton field, some folks say that a nigger won't steal." Very funny. I liked history, but Inever thereafter had much liking for Mr. Williams. Later, I remember, we came to the textbook sectionon Negro history. It was exactly one paragraph long. Mr. Williams laughed through it practically in asingle breath, reading aloud how the Negroes had been slaves and then were freed, and how theywere usually lazy and dumb and shiftless. He added, I remember, an anthropological footnote on hisown, telling us between laughs how Negroes' feet were "so big that when they walk, they don't leavetracks, they leave a hole in the ground."I'm sorry to say that the subject I most disliked was mathematics. I have thought about it. I think thereason was that mathematics leaves no room for argument. If you made a 　English and history were the subjects I liked most. My English teacher, I recall-a Mr. Ostrowski-wasalways giving advice about how to become something in life. The one thing I didn't like 　　Basketball was a big thing in my life, though. I was on the team; we traveled to neighboring townssuch as Howell and Charlotte, and wherever I showed my face, the audiences in the gymnasiums"niggered" and "cooned" me to death. Or called me "Rastus." It didn't bother my teammates or mycoach at all, and to tell the truth, it bothered me only vaguely. Mine was the same psychology thatmakes Negroes even today, though it bothers them down inside, keep letting the white man tell themhow much "progress" they are making. They've heard it so much they've almost gotten brainwashedinto believing it-or at least accepting it.

about historyclass was that the teacher, Mr. Williams, was a great one for "nigger" jokes. One day during my firstweek at school, I walked into the room and he started singing to the class, as a joke, "'Way downyonder in tmistake, that was all therewas to it.