“Blair House.”
“What’s that?”
“I want you to meet my friends.”
“I don’t know…” Continuing her relationship with Lucy was one thing; meeting the others was another. “Emma said it isn’t safe.”
“Do you feel unsafe with me?”
“No.”
“Then trust me. Goodness, I’ve never met someone so reluctant to make friends.” Kitty didn’t have the heart to tell her that she’d gone years without having any.
They drove east toward downtown, then made a left onto a street in Hancock Park with brick houses with long driveways. Lucy pulled into the driveway of a gray one with a front lawn covered in a thicket of roses. She put her finger to her mouth to silence Kitty before they got out of the car in the backyard, where there was a large carport and an old shed. Both neighboring homes had lots of windows facing the property.
They entered through a long, narrow kitchen, too small for the house’s size, with a gray-and-white checkered floor that matched the home’s exterior. It was hot, as if the oven had been going, and the air smelled of cinnamon. In the center of the kitchen was a freestanding countertop with open shelving around the base, where multiple glass jars sat, filled with hard candies that likened the space to a candy shop. Dozens of champagne glasses sat on its top, along with dessert forks and plates with tiny rings of roses around the edges, similar to the ones Lucy had at her house. There was jazz playing—Miles Davis. Lucy motioned for her to follow her through a dark hallway, wallpapered with a rose vine design, toward the front of the house.
Standing in the front room, under a simple bronze-and-crystal chandelier, were two dozen Negro women, with skin colored near-White, light, yellow, medium beige, tawny, bronzy, brown-black, dark, and blue-black, and varying hair textures and features. The cluster represented the full color spectrum of the Negro race, Americans comprised of varying degrees of African and European blood.
The room fell quiet. Someone turned off Miles on the record player in the corner. It was clear they’d been expected.
Cora blossomed from the interior of the group like a budding flower. Although she was dressed down, in a drab black service-looking dress, and had her hair pulled back, she shone with genuine glee. She slipped her arm around Kitty’s waist, an intimate gesture that was off-putting to Kitty, who remembered a frigid first introduction. “So glad you could make it. Welcome.” She let Cora shift her body closer to the group. “Everyone, this is Kitty Karr, Nathan Tate’s assistant at Telescope and Emma Karr’s younger sister.”
Murmurs accompanied this news. Kitty couldn’t discern the exact words, but she presumed some of the others had grievances with Emma. “She arrived in June,” Cora said.
“I met her at Lucy’s.” Laurie, Lucy’s sister, came down the front staircase to the left of the living room where they were. Her hair hung long down, and bushy, as though she’d taken a brush to her curls. She waved at Kitty. “Nice to see you again.”
The whispers ceased; it seemed Laurie had validated Kitty’s presence.
“We’re going to talk to Kitty,” Cora said to Laurie. “Start without us.”
Following Lucy back to the kitchen, Kitty heard Laurie ask for “the ledger.”
“What is this place?”
“It’s a boardinghouse for women who are passing,” Lucy answered. “Makes it easier for them to transition. Gets them a job, helps them get on their feet.”
“And it’s our meeting place,” Cora said. “It’s easy for people to believe that the darker among us work here, so it’s safe. It’s been in the network for years now.”
“Network?”
“Of Negro women. We belong to an underground resistance that spans the United States.”
Kitty’s eyes grew in size. It was a far cry from what Emma had thought they were up to, but perhaps more dangerous.
“There aren’t any records of its inception, for obvious reasons, but semblances of this network began during slavery, when the one-drop rule classified anyone having one drop of Negro blood as Negro, and thus a slave. So Massa’s babies, no matter how White they came out looking, became property,” Cora said. “As more and more slaves became parented by their owners, the Negro race came to span the entire color spectrum, like the women here. Among the runaways were some of the fairest, who slipped through the cracks without detection, taking those who were darker with them. Passing women and men assisted runaways, then Union soldiers, by smuggling notes, goods, and guns to the North. They became abolitionists, teachers, politicians, doctors, lawyers. They influenced elections and assisted families whose head of household had been jailed or lynched. The passing women married White men of esteem and Colored freemen and became educators, provided shelter. It was through this work that passing women made alliances with other Colored women who couldn’t pass. The web grew as more and more Coloreds left the South. And here we are.”
Kitty leaned against the kitchen counter, looking between Lucy and Cora as they volleyed explanations at her.
Just as the White wives of slave owners—who later became KKK members and sympathizers who then ran for public office; started businesses; became lawyers, judges, and landlords; and joined various ranks of law enforcement and the military—were unable (or unwilling) to stop their men from their unspeakable crimes and petty actions, passing women influenced their men to do good.
Kitty learned that it was under that spirit that Blair House operated: to champion the rights of Negro women, whose burdens were doubled, being Negro and female. Their needs were often overshadowed or ignored by everyone, even their men, who were depleted, depressed, and often dependent mentally, spiritually, and economically. The virulence against Negro men was pressing, and as their ability to support their families as head of the household was inhibited, it was Negro women who had to take up the slack and absorb the shock of the blows they faced.
In order to solicit and then funnel donations for causes in support of the advancement of the Negro race, Blair House became an orphanage, a foundation for blind children, an animal charity, and a summer camp for underprivileged children. The rich people in their orbit needed tax write-offs, so they never refused to donate and asked few questions.
The benefit of the doubt was one of the many privileges of Whiteness.
“There’ll be twenty-four of us with you. Twelve passing, twelve not.”
“How do you make alliances? Laurie’s your sister, you can trust her—what about the other women?”
“Like attracts like. Somehow, we get lucky.”
“Like how we found you.”
“You didn’t find me; Emma told you I was coming. You knew who I was.”
“We didn’t seek you out,” Cora said. “You came to my taping that night, and Lucy decided to befriend you.”
“You were the only one who came to set. I didn’t know who you were until you introduced yourself,” Lucy clarified.
“How did you two learn about this?” Kitty asked.
“My momma raised Laurie and I up in the same way,” Lucy said, “because we look so different. Our momma could pass but only did it to feed us. She had a job downtown. My father was too dark. It would have been better had he been the one who could pass. He was jealous of her, and his beatings cost her her life. I did her hair for her funeral, watched them bury her, and never looked back.”
“I’m sorry,” Kitty said. Fathers had created problems for everyone she knew.
“He thought being White was better and married her wanting to fix himself. When that didn’t work, he beat on her, and on Laurie, whom he hated for the same reasons he hated himself.” Lucy popped a champagne bottle and started filling the glasses on the counter. It was clear she was done sharing.
“Lucy and Laurie recruited me,” Cora said.
“Laurie is our president,” Lucy said, taking a sip of champagne.
Cora refused a glass. Lucy didn’t offer Kitty one. “The three of us built this together. And with Billie and Nina.”