Juneteenth by Ralph Ellison

Forty-four in all, they were sitting in the Senate's Visitors' Gallery when Senator Sunraider arose to address the body. They sat in compact rows, their faces marked by that impassive expression which American Negroes often share with Orientals, watching the Senator with a remote concentration of their eyes. They barely moved while the Senator developed his argument, sitting like a row of dark statuary-until, during an aside, the Senator gave way to his obsession and made a quite gratuitous and mocking reference to their people.

It was then that a tall, elderly woman wearing steel-rimmed glasses arose from her chair and stood shaking with emotion, her eyes flashing. Twice she opened her mouth as though to hurl down some retort upon the head of the man holding forth below; but now the old preacher glimpsed her out of the corner of his eye, and, without turning from the scene below, gravely shook his head. For a second she ignored him, then feeling her still standing, he turned, giving her the full force of his gaze, and she reluctantly took her seat, the muscles ridged out about her dark prognathous jaws as she bent forward, resting her elbows upon her knees, her hands tightly clasped, listening. But although a few whites departed, some angrily shaking their heads over the Senator's remarks, others extending them embarrassed smiles, the rest made no sign. They seemed bound by some secret discipline, their faces remaining composed, their eyes remote as though through some mistake they were listening to a funeral oration for a stranger.