An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States

working within the system versus creating change by other means,
including separation or the use of force. In the story, Simple says,
I say, I love them Indians! And it is stone time they went on the
warpath again. Indians has been too quiet in this country too long.
Outside of the movies, I have not hear tell of them scalping any white
folks in a hundred years.
And I can think of no better scalp to scalp than the scalp of a Ku
Klux Klanner. I wish them Indians had snatched each and everyone of
them Klansmen baldheaded, and left them nothing but their empty
hoods. 8
Hughes responds to this sensational comment, “How bloodthirsty you
are!” “Besides,” he continues, “rioting in a cornfield solves no problems.
Anyhow, nobody went on a warpath.” He further corrects Simple by
explaining that the Natives just “shot guns in the air—nothing more and
surely didn’t carry any tomahawks.”
Hughes then asks Simple, “You are such a race man, and the Negro race
has suffered so much at the hands of the Klan, so tell me why no Negroes
have ever broken up a Klan rally? Huh? Why did we leave it to the
Indians?”
Simple responds, “Negroes ain’t united enough. . . . To attack the Ku
Klux Klan in person you need a tribe. But all us Negroes has is the
NAACP.”
Hughes then cites all of the benefits of the NAACP, including civil
rights, education, voting, and peaceful protest through the legal system.
Simple replies that these are not as fun as “scalpings,” to which Hughes
retorts, “Think how vital it is to preserve the right to vote. Would you rather
vote than scalp?”
“It’s all according to who I am voting for. To scalp a Klansman and
remove his wig would be more fun than voting for Eisenhower.
“Besides, you only votes for president once every four years. But
Klansmen down South burns a cross somewhere almost every day. A
scalped Klansmen would not burn a fiery cross again.
I am 100 percent behind my Indian brothers in North Carolina. In fact, I
move that the NAACP give all of them life membership in the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People.”