Together, Peggy and I lugged our belongings out the door and across the campus to the ancient girls’ dorm, Gaines Hall, where a sign on the door read NO SMOKING, NO DRINKING, NO MEN.
“Oh, this mattress!” Peggy said, once she’d dropped her suitcase on the floor of our tiny room and sat down on the squeaky bed.
I sat on my own mattress and felt the springs give way under my weight. “I think these mattresses have been here since the place was built,” I said.
I set my suitcase on the bed and began hanging up my skirts and blouses, while Peggy headed for the door. “Where are you going?” I asked.
“To find David,” she said without a glance in my direction.
She left and I stared at the door as it closed behind her. I felt very alone. Here I was, on a campus where I knew no one, with a roommate who didn’t like me. Would all the students treat me so coolly? There wasn’t much I could do about my accent or my heritage. I missed Brenda, whom I knew I was losing to Garner and a baby. I missed Aunt Carol, who would have cheered me on. And I missed Reed, who loved me more than I deserved. In that moment I would have given just about anything to feel his arms around me.
I wanted to go outside to explore a bit but thought I’d better read over the orientation material instead. Tonight was a welcoming session. Monday through Friday looked like very long days filled with speeches and training sessions and workshops. We’d learn about the history of Negroes in America and there would be a lot of sessions about the South with a capital “S.” I wondered what I had yet to learn about the land I’d lived in my whole life. The words began to swim in my vision and before I knew it, Peggy was waking me up to go to dinner and the welcoming session.
* * *
We filled the metal folding chairs in the sweltering gymnasium and listened to a number of speakers warn us of the danger in the weeks ahead. The head of SCOPE, Reverend Hosea Williams, whose name was familiar to me after all the reading I’d been doing, introduced what felt like dozens of other folks who had various roles in the program. Everyone who spoke gave us the same message: our work was important but dangerous. We needed to keep our wits about us, be sure to let someone know where we were at all times, and always be mature representatives of the program. And we had to produce. I knew that meant we needed to persuade people to register to vote. I looked around me at the serious faces—all those white students from up north and out west, as well as a good number of Negro volunteers who would help us connect with distrustful residents. I listened to the speakers and thought to myself, What am I doing here? I’d never felt so out of place in my entire life.
At the end of the evening, a gray-haired woman named Mrs. Clark taught us “freedom songs.” “You’ll know ’em all by heart by the end of the week,” she promised, handing out the mimeographed lyrics. I liked singing, but in that cavernous space, with unfamiliar melodies, my voice sounded as small and inconsequential as I felt. When we sang “We Shall Overcome,” our last song of the night and the only one slightly familiar to me, I felt so false. I had nothing to overcome. It wasn’t until I was lying, hot and exhausted, on my sagging mattress later that night, that I realized I carried a huge burden of my own creation—a burden it would take a miracle for me to overcome.
* * *
Monday afternoon, Hosea Williams announced that he wanted to speak with two students and I was surprised and unnerved when he spoke my name into the microphone. “Those two students, please meet me in the back of the gym,” he said.
Oh, great, I thought. This could not be good. I felt hundreds of eyes on me as I walked from my seat near the front of the gym to the rear. I waited my turn as Reverend Williams spoke to the other student, a boy, who looked angry by the end of their conversation. The boy stomped past me without making eye contact, and Reverend Williams waved me over.
“How are you doing?” he asked when I reached him. This close to him, I could see his neatly trimmed mustache and serious brown eyes.
“Fine.” I tried gamely to smile. “Though I’m wondering why you wanted to see me.” I glanced in the direction the angry boy had gone.
Reverend Williams nodded. “We have some concerns about you,” he said, getting right to the point. “First, you’re from North Carolina, and second, you haven’t been vetted by any of the universities that are working with SCOPE, nor have you been through the campus briefings on fieldwork. All the other students have gone through a thorough educational process to be sure they know what they’re getting into and to assure us of their … stability. The fact that you’re a Southerner’ll make it hard for you to gain anyone’s trust.”
“Reverend Filburn mentioned that,” I said. “But he thought it would be okay.” I didn’t know if I should address his concern about my stability. I wasn’t feeling very stable at that moment.
He nodded. “Yes, Greg Filburn persuaded me to give you a chance,” he said. “But I warn you, it’s going to be tough.” His dark eyes were unsmiling. “I’m going to make sure you’re assigned to Greg’s county. What is it? Derby?”
“Yes, sir.”
“He’ll be able to keep an eye on you. Assuming you make it through orientation,” he added. “If you decide you want to back out after this week, we’ll understand.”
“Okay,” I said. “Thank you.” I walked back to my seat, ignoring the curious looks from other students who were no doubt wondering what I’d done to merit Hosea Williams’s attention. I felt unsettled but determined as I took my seat again. I hadn’t realized that Reverend Filburn had gone out on a limb for me. I didn’t want to let him down.
* * *
It was a challenge to sit on those hard chairs for speech after speech, but I grew more alert with each one. Every speaker mentioned that President Johnson would be signing the Voting Rights Act in early July, making it easy—or at least easier—for us to register voters. The act would get rid of literacy tests and other obstacles to registering. I kept thinking of our former maid, Louise, and that dirt road through Turner’s Bend and all those run-down houses. I imagined myself going up to one of those houses by myself, knocking on the door, trying to persuade whoever answered to register to vote. The thought was outlandish, and I understood for the first time why we’d have Negro canvassing partners. No one would trust us otherwise.
During the breaks, I struggled to connect with people and I felt my old childhood shyness returning. It seemed that everyone already had his or her own little group of friends, which made sense, since nearly all of them had come from a college with their fellow students. I seemed to be the only loner, or at least that’s how I felt. It was like being in junior high school all over again.
Late into the night, Mrs. Clark taught us more freedom songs. There was one that I really liked—“I’ll Fly Away”—which I knew from church but which touched me in a new way all of a sudden, especially when all the harmonies kicked in in that big open space.
Mrs. Clark was a wonderful teacher. “Now you young folks from the North,” she said, “y’all need to learn how to sing Southern! There ain’t no ‘g’ in ‘i-n-g.’ It’s ‘singin’,’ not ‘singing.’” Finally, a skill that came easily to me.