Chapter 19 Summary
Arriving for his first downtown lecture on the Woman Question, the narrator was optimistic. After his speech, an attractive woman invited him for a drink that evening to continue the discussion. Over a glass of wine at her apartment, she told him she was thrilled by the Brotherhood and especially by the content of his speeches.
As they drank, she told him her husband was out of town and complained that he didn’t care about the same important things they cared about. The narrator knew he should leave, but he eventually succumbed to her advances, and the two had sex. Some time later, he awoke to hear voices and realized the woman’s husband had come home. Unsure whether the woman’s husband had seen him sleeping beside her, he got dressed and left in an anxious rush.
Summoned to an emergency meeting one evening thereafter, the narrator was informed that Brother Tod Clifton had gone missing and that he would be transferred back to the Harlem office immediately to help negotiate the emerging situation. Ras the Exhorter knew Clifton was missing, they continued, and was taking the opportunity to agitate further without his interference.
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