536
PARTISAN REVIEW
of violence
in
the deep South to move down there, so as to partici–
pate with members of his race in the struggle for school integration
now going on. Such an act should, I think, excite similar feelings of
admiration to those elicited by real literary accomplishment.
(Pause.
He lifts up his hand to restrain applause, and points to an imaginary
speaker.)
I give you Mr. Jesse Prince.
JESSE PRINCE
gets down from the stool, steps away from it,
returns, and mounts it again.
Mr. Chairman,
(gesturing toward an imaginary Chairman)
Members
of the Middlebury Faculty, Students, Friends, Ladies and Gentlemen:
I am honored to appear before you and cannot but be gratified by
the manner in which the Chairman of the evening has spoken of me
to you. Nevertheless, I feel obliged to take exception to one of the
remarks he made about me. Naturally I could scarcely ask for higher
praise as a writer than he in his indulgence accorded me. But what
I must insist on is that the motive behind my going to the deep South
should not be misunderstood, and should not elicit an admiration
which I certainly do not deserve. I want to state here and now, be–
fore all of you, that I did not move to the deep South with the view
of participating in the struggle for school integration now going on,
though I support that struggle with all my heart, and hope I am as
much in favor of its being concluded successfully as anyone. Yet, I
did not go South with any such aim, however laudable that aim
may be. So, I must refuse the garland of virtue which the Chairman
of the evening has proffered me. The fact of the matter is, Ladies and
Gentlemen, that I moved to the deep South, to the state of Mississippi,
to be specific, for quite another reason, not so much to fight against
the blindness and backwardness of the white Southerners as, on the
contrary, to absorb at first hand their outstanding and distinctive
civilized qualities, their manners, and let me say it-yes, their chivalry.
For the South has preserved what the North has in large measure
lost-the superiority and refinement of an aristocratic order. After
all, is it so strange? Why should not a member of my race aspire to
something more than middle-class acceptability? May not a Negro
aspire to aristocratic outlook, manners, and bearing, and given such
an impulse, where else can a Negro in this country go to absorb such
values except, alas, to those who were the Negro's masters, those who
are today among the Negro's enemies, to the still cultivated families
in the deep South?
Changing his tone, gets down from the stool, walks to the mid–
dle of the room and facing the rear door, calls out:
