Has anyone ever told you to go back to Africa? I don’t know about you, but that would be a yes for me. I’m not a visitor in America. My ancestors didn’t come here voluntarily. And contrary to what Dr. Ben Carson, U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development said. My ancestors didn’t come to America as immigrants. Slave traders brought them to America under duress and in chains. I’m not going anywhere.
What about you?
But blacks do leave in A Different Drummer. A Different Drummer is a fictitious story written by William Melvin Kelly, a black writer. The blacks leave without being asked or forced.
When Tucker Caliban leaves, all the other black residents follow. Dumbfounded and rattled, the town’s whites pretend they don’t care about what’s happening. With wide eyes, whites witness an exodus of lifetime black residents. Their maids, farm helpers, floor sweepers, and cooks are leaving.
Why does Tucker Caliban—respected even by whites—leave? Whites are no longer slavemasters. Blacks are free. They have jobs. What possible gripes could blacks have to abandon their homes, schools, churches, and jobs? The whites ponder and ponder. Tucker Caliban and the black population’s sudden departure is a huge jigsaw puzzle. None of the town’s white opinion leaders can fit the pieces together.
But does one race ever fully understand another race? Do whites understand blacks? Do blacks understand whites? Living in proximity for years in the same town, city, and state, the two races are a continent apart. But the town’s whites know one thing.
The actions of Tucker Caliban, One Black Man, aren’t the actions of a typical Negro.
Tucker Caliban is a descendant of the African, a captive slave who had refused to be a slave. Tucker Caliban looks nothing like his herculean ancestor. Tucker Caliban is a petite Negro who wears spectacles. But everyone knows he has the African’s blood.
The African paid the ultimate price for his freedom. Tucker Caliban pays a different price for his freedom. One day Tucker Caliban realizes he lost something he didn’t even know that he owned.
Most of the story is from several of the white residents’ viewpoints.
The town’s whites consider what or who to blame for the exodus. How will they fare with the Negroes leaving?
The story is an allegory with lots of symbolic references.
What does it mean to be an African in America opposed to an African American?