Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe

Incidentally, I met Dr. Max Yergan at this time in Pittsburgh, when he visited the YMCA, and I had the privilege to be one of the speakers at a testimonial meeting held in honour of his return from South Africa. Among the other speakers on this occasion were two African students from Freetown, Sierra Leone: Constance and Samuel Tuboku-Metzger, who studied respectively chemical and electrical engineering at the Carnegie Institute of Technology.

Early on the morning following my sacking by the Duquesne Electric company, after worrisome night, I was asleep when I heard a voice say: ‘Wake up, Mr. Zikiwacki or whatever is your monicker.’ I opened my eyes and behold a fat woman was sitting by my beside, shaking me out of my slumber with her ham-like hand. ‘Look a yere, boy, I ain’t no money-making tree. I’s got five children to care for. I’s got a husband to care for. I’s got myself to care for. If you ain’t gonna pay your rent and board, how do you ‘spect us to live? That was my landlady’s greeting.

Although she knew that I was a student who was fighting his way in the world and it was her husband’s younger brother who had brought me to stay with them because we were pals at Storer College, yet she demanded that the rent and board be paid promptly. I pleaded that since I had been ‘fired’ she should be patient with me. As soon as I got another job I would pay regularly. Besides, I begged her to have mercy on me because the little money that I earned was to be used by me to enroll at a university.

‘Boy,’ she replied, I’ain’t playing no Santana Claus to nobody. I’s got to eat and I’s got to feed my sweet daddy, and I’s got to feed the li’l children. So let me have some dough if you know what’s good for you.’ At that time, I had about 80 dollars (16 pounds). So I braced up and asked her to let me have the bill. She replied that I owed her 30 dollars for three weeks and explained that I had to pay for everything: ‘Even the water you drink and your enjoyment of the sitting room cost us money; and you’ve got to pay your share. Bisness is business, you see?’

Early on the morning following my sacking by the Duquesne Electric company, after worrisome night, I was asleep when I heard a voice say: ‘Wake up, Mr. Zikiwacki or whatever is your monicker.’ I opened my eyes and behold a fat woman was sitting by my beside, shaking me out of my slumber with her ham-like hand. ‘Look a yere, boy, I ain’t no money-making tree. I’s got five children to care for. I’s got a husband to care for. I’s got myself to care for. If you ain’t gonna pay your rent and board, how do you ‘spect us to live? That was my landlady’s greeting.

I got up from my bed and put on my bath robe, opened my suitcase and handed her 30 dollars. She smiled and remarked: ‘Lawdy, damn if I did not think that you were broke. Thirty green back! Where did you get dem money from, you rascal? I thought you got canned. You hardly go to the movies or dances, and you don’t seem to like the broads (girls). I thought you were broke, boy. Now, you are forty with me. You can stay as long as you like and pay your bills when you are employed.’

By now I was disillusioned, I gave this semi-literate-Alabama-corn-fed-lady the length of my tongue. I told her that I would move that very day, and if the garbage she fed me twice daily and the ‘hen coop’ in which I slept at night were worth 10 dollars (two pounds) a week, then she was a real gold-digger.

Of course she retaliated and told me about my African origin, and asked who ever heard of a cannibal going to college, much more coming to Pittsburgh. ‘You can go, brother, because you may get hungry one day and I may miss one of my babies, while you’ll be getting as fat as I is, she added. She was now wild as the Bay of Biscay and I had to pacify her by apologizing that I was to blame for the imbroglio. Later, I moved to the YMCA Hostel at 2620 Centre Avenue.

For days and weeks I wandered from place to place seeking for employment, but it was in vain; and my funds were depleting. One evening, as I returned from job-hunting, I saw an old cleric sleeping on the other bed in my room; it was a large room usually rented to two bed roomers. He was dignified in appearance and his portmanteau showed that he was an experienced traveler. From the way he slept, it was evident that he was very tired. I decided to wait till the next morning before speaking to him.

When we finally spoke to each other, he introduced himself as the Reverend Mark C. Hayford, of the African Baptist Mission, Cape Coast. He told me that he had just returned from a trip to Canada where he had gone to collect funds for his missionary endeavours on the Gold Coast. I explained my plight to him and he gave me words of comfort. When he left me the next day, he wrote in my autograph book a quotation which became my spiritual rock of strength: ‘In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy path.’

Four weeks had passed since I lost my job and no new job was in sight. By now I was worth one dime in all the world. I had rationed my funds so frugally that I went on diet for a long time, and at times had one meal a day. When no job was forth coming. I reduced this to a cup of coffee and two thick slices of breads. But it was in vain.

I asked one of my Italian comrades for a possible explanation and he revealed the secret to me. Behold, the foremen were instructed to recruit unskilled labourers every two weeks or every month, so as to inject fresh blood in the labour supply. This idea enabled the company to employ and dismiss hundreds of unskilled labourers at will. It also enabled contractors, who were responsible for the supply of labour, to be busily engaged.
I was shocked that an economic system upon which human lives depended could condone such inhumanity, and I refused to believe it. But he confessed that he had been employed and ‘fired’ on that job over six times! He used to change his name, his countenance, his dress, his language; in fact he had to use his wits in order to get a job. He would wear a moustache of a varying shapes, or represent himself as an Italian, a Pole, or a Hungarian, or what not. He once blackened his face to look like Negro!

Then I began to live on lemonade and bread. I bought three lemons for a dime, and a loaf of bread and a pound of sugar. I would squeeze one lemon into a pitcher filled with water, and add sugar into it so as to have lemonade. Then with the bread I would have a good meal. A few hours later I would feel as if I had eaten nothing. After all attempts at frugality, I was still unemployed and was worth onleone dime, which later shrank to a nickel, and then to nothing. I bore the humiliation of starvation for two days in silence, and could not convince myself of the necessity of begging anybody for money or for food.

I wrote a letter to the Secretary of the YMCA, my good friend, Rev. Samuel R. Morsell, a graduate of Yale, asking him to forgive me for my delinquency in the rents and begging that he should inform my people of my fate. Thoughts of death filled my mind. I could not see any way out of my dilemma. Two days without food, two days of anxieties, and then came the final resolution. I took my pen and composed some lines, four stanzas of which are as follows:

Friendless, dejected,
Sorrow fills my mind,
‘HIS SOUL GOES MARCHING ON’

All hope is gone, and now:
I want to die.

No one to cheer me
In this wilderness,
That is my fate, and now:
I want to die.

Farewell, my loved ones,
Far across the sea;
Whate’er I have, I gave:
I want to die.

Oh God, who mad eme,
Watch this feeble frame;
And let it rest in peace:
I want to die