Shack Thomas
You can close your eyes, poke your finger onto a map and Shack Thomas has been to where it lands. He’s done the north-south runs and the east-west runs, he’s been to both oceans and back. If the Pullman Company sends its cars there, Shack was riding. It has been his employment and his education Shack spreads the news, whether it is transporting the colored papers from city to city or just retelling the tales he’s heard on the road, bringing news to that uncle in Chicago, carrying money back to that mother in Clarksdale. Shack is for black folks what the telephone is for white ones. And the greatest bonus, greater than the biggest tip the flashiest sport ever passed him for finding a bottle during the dry years, is the leader, E. Phillip Randolph. The man is an education in himself. The uniform may still turn heads when you pass through, especially in the little one-train-a-week towns, but nothing puts your chin up and authority in your step like knowing the man who represents you in the world is a warrior, a force that the highest and mightiest have to deal with. Some of the young ones are starting to make fun, to shuffle and call out “I get your coat, Suh?”, “Any little thing I can get you, Suh?” like the uniform, the job, is something to be ashamed of. Jealousy, is all- they’ve got no organization, no brotherhood, no A. Phillip Randolph at the head of their march, straight and steady and always pushing ahead.
Shack doesn’t come through Harmony much any more, and when he does he likes to hop off for a day or two, hear what’s in the wind, see his sister and his niece and a certain widow and eat some home food till the next ride comes through. And spread the word. Brother Randolph can’t do it all by himself, he’s got to have his legion of brothers out there working with him, keeping the fire burning. Engine won’t go unless you feed that fire.
His sister Delilah has got herself with a good man now, Tyrone Perkins who runs the kind of roadhouse where a man never has to watch his back. He’s stubborn, though, and thinks he can do it all on his own, and that’s always got to make you worry. But Delilah has gotten a stand-up, stomp-down, look-you-in-the-eye man to be father to her little China Doll, Delilah who used to be so sad and down on herself, coming up in the world now without hurting a living soul to do it. Can’t complain about that. Shack has got his first family in Brownsville and a second one in St. Louis and who knows, maybe another one about to come along up in Detroit. It takes a lot of rolling hours to feed all those mouths, but feed them he will. A lot of bags to lift and coats to check and meals to carry, an awful lot of smiling and nodding ahead, but hey, somebody’s got to spread the word.
