I wish I hadn’t found the letter. I crumple it up and put it in the recycling bag, then take it out again. Flatten it on the desk. I don’t know why, but I think I should keep it. Then I look around the room at the dozens of other boxes, and I hope there will be no more surprises.
Chapter 22
ELLIE
1965
The past four days had been some of the longest—and most educational—of my life. I finally felt like Win and I had become friends. He gave me small peeks into his life: He had a younger sister, handicapped from having polio. She took all his parents’ energy, he said. “Someday when they’re gone, she’ll be my responsibility,” he told me. I could tell that he loved his sister, that she broke his heart, and that his family was close. He missed them. I envied him for that. I did miss Buddy, but not my parents. To be honest, I was glad to be away from them. As for Reed, I wasn’t sure how I felt about him after the past couple of weeks. I hadn’t written to him. He didn’t fit very neatly into my life right now. I felt like it had been years instead of two weeks since I’d last seen him and my family. No one other than my fellow field-workers could understand what I was experiencing.
I felt safe most of the time as I canvassed with Win. No white people lived in this part of Flint and we hardly ever saw anyone on the rutted roads other than curious neighborhood children, much less white men ready to kill us. The children loved the novelty of us. We were new people to talk to and sing with and walk with. Many of them were particularly interested in me. They didn’t see white people very often, if ever, and they held my hand, swinging my arm as I taught them “I’ll Fly Away” and “I Love Everybody,” inserting the names of people they loved and—at my insistence—the people they hated, and they taught me their favorite songs and took us to see their parents, giving us exactly the introduction we needed.
We fell into a rhythm, Win and me. When an adult would answer the door Win would either begin with his “camel connection” if he thought the family would know what he was talking about, or else he’d mention Martin Luther King.
“Dr. King sent us to talk to you about your right to vote,” he’d say. He’d play up his connection to the beloved man, and except for the truly frightened folks—those who were afraid they’d lose their home or their job if caught talking to us—we’d get an invitation inside.
What happened next seemed to come more and more naturally to me. If a housewife was shucking corn, I’d sit down and start shucking with her while we talked. If she was feeding a toddler, I’d offer to take over to give her a chance to sit and chat. If there were children—and there were always children—I’d engage them in a game or a song. In every house, I found something to love—hand-stitched quilts or a child’s painting hanging unframed on a wall—and I’d ask about it. I was sincere in my questions and my compliments. It was my favorite part of canvassing, really. Getting to know people. Letting them open my eyes to their lives. I tried not to let it show that my heart ached over the poverty in front of me. My pity would help no one.
Win and I would do a back-and-forth exchange about the voting rights bill.
“A new law is coming real soon to help you vote,” he’d say.
“Have you ever tried to register before?” I’d ask.
That’s when we’d hear the horror stories. The embarrassment of failing the impossible-to-pass literacy test. The shocking beatings outside the courthouse. The threats over being kicked out of their homes.
“Once the law is passed, federal officers will protect you as you register,” Win would say.
“And no more tests,” I’d add. “They have to let you register. Then you’ll be able to vote for people who can help you.”
“Negro candidates will stand a real chance of winning,” Win would say.
We’d go on like that, talking about how the law could change their lives. Then we’d try to get their commitment to register once LBJ signed the bill into law and we’d promise them a ride to the registrar’s office.
Win said he was good at getting us in the door and I was good at keeping us there. I liked that. We were a team.
After we finished canvassing on Friday afternoon, we waited at the edge of a cotton field for Curry to pick us up. I felt exposed, standing there. We’d seen no white people in that area, yet I felt a sort of premonition and wished that Curry would hurry up.
I thought about how strange it was that, in less than a week’s time, I’d gone from feeling nervous about living in a Negro neighborhood—a Black neighborhood—to feeling nervous about seeing white people. After that first time, when Win and I saw the guy in a truck and hid behind a tobacco barn, we’d had no trouble at all.
I saw a black truck in the distance, though, and I knew our luck was about to change.
Win picked up my anxiety. “Hold on,” he said. “It might just be … Oh shit! Let’s get out of here!”
I saw the two white faces in the truck’s cab before I turned and began running with Win through the green leaves of the cotton field. I looked behind me only long enough to see that the men had gotten out of their truck, one of them with a shotgun in his hands. I heard the echoing crack of his gun. Two shots. Three. Four. I never ran so fast in my life, expecting to feel a bullet in my back at any moment. The men shouted and laughed, but they didn’t chase us down, and Win and I both collapsed on the other side of the field under the shade of a tree, gasping for air. My bare legs were scraped and my blue shirt was stuck to my skin with sweat, but I was happy to be alive.
When we’d caught our breath, Win smiled at me. He smiled more often now. He seemed more relaxed than he’d been the first couple of days of our canvass. “Damn,” he said. “I thought we were goners there for a minute.” He took off his fogged glasses and cleaned them with a handkerchief, then wiped the perspiration from his glistening forehead, and I noticed the perfect symmetry of his face. I hadn’t thought of him as handsome before that moment. Nice looking, yes. But right now, all I could see in front of me was a beautiful young man.
* * *
That evening, all of us field-workers took turns using the van and Paul’s car to ferry people from their homes to the courthouse in Carlisle to protest the registrar’s office being closed. It was strange to be downtown with all the cars and people—white people—on the sidewalks. In just a few days’ time, I’d lost the sense of being part of that “small town” world. Before the protest, Greg told us that, for the past two nights, some “troublemakers” had shot off guns and revved their truck engines outside the school. “Nothing more than that,” he said calmly, “but y’all should be aware that people definitely know we’re in the county and what we’re about, and they don’t like it.” We all let that news sink in. “Now as for the protest today,” Greg continued, “you, Paul, you’ll lead a prayer.”
“Me?” Paul laughed. “But I’m Jewish.”
“Don’t Jews pray?” Greg asked. “Anyway, you’re a Christian today. Win, you make a short speech on the importance of registering once the bill gets signed and the office opens up. And Ellie, you lead the singing.” That made me instantly nervous and I began running through all our songs in my head.