“You hear ’bout that Clemens boy got killed few weeks back, lived far side of the Rosa Lee?”
“Lemoine Clemens’s boy?” questioned Uncle Hammer. “You know we don’t get that kind of news unless it comes direct from somebody down home.”
“Well, we certainly can’t write you about it,” Mama said.
“Wouldn’t expect you to, sister.”
“No telling who reads that mail,” said Big Ma. “Course now, son, you come home more often, you’d be knowin’ what’s goin’ on.”
Uncle Hammer released a slow smile. “Now, that ain’t much of a reason to go back down there, Mama, to hear news about another lynching. Only reason I even set foot in that state is to come see about you, Mary, and David.”
“Boy wasn’t lynched,” corrected Big Ma. “He was shot in the head. Well, anyways, I sho hope you plannin’ to come back down home when it’s time to put me in the ground—”
“Ah, Mama, now—”
“Time ain’t that far away. You gonna come, ain’t you?”
“Now, Mama, how’d we get on that?” chided Papa. “We were talking about that Clemens boy.”
“Got on it ’cause I wanna know! I want both my boys there when I go meet my Maker!”
Papa started to speak again, but Uncle Hammer waved his hand, stopping him, and said, “I’m still in this life myself, Mama, I promise you I’ll be there.”
“All right then.” Big Ma now sounded satisfied and settled back in her chair. “Go on ’bout that boy.”
Uncle Hammer turned back to Papa. “What happened?”
“Boy come back from Germany, still in uniform. Was walking down the street in Strawberry and maybe he thought he was still in Germany, but he refused to move over on the sidewalk to let a white man pass. Bunch of men followed him out of town, shot him, then dumped him in the Rosa Lee. Like I said, things as bad as they always been. We might be a week from the year nineteen sixty, but things ain’t changed.”
“You expecting they would?” asked a cynical Uncle Hammer. “Only change coming to a black man down there in Mississippi is getting put in the ground.”
“We had a meeting up at Great Faith about what happened,” Mama said.
“And what good that do? Y’all collect some new clothes for that Clemens boy to be buried in?”
“Yes, Hammer, as a matter of fact, we did,” Mama replied. “Collected a little money for his family too. We also listened to a man from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the NAACP. I even went to an NAACP meeting up in Jackson and heard the young man who’s leading it in Mississippi. His name is Medgar Evers. He’s from Decatur. Worked in the Delta selling insurance for a while, but he’s been working with the NAACP for about eight years now, and I heard from Little Willie that he did investigative work for the NAACP checking on so-called accidents whenever colored people were killed. He even did investigative work up around Money, town where that poor Emmett Till boy was murdered. He said they’re organizing for some real protests in Mississippi.”
“To do what?”
Mama leveled her gaze at Uncle Hammer. “To deal with what’s happened to all the young men like Clay Clemens. To deal with all the killings and the mutilations and the burnings, with all the injustice. There was another young man too recently, roped and dragged along the road because he didn’t address a white woman with the kind of respect they demanded. He was so torn up his own family couldn’t even recognize him. We’ve got to stop it, Hammer. You know if we organize, take a chapter from the Montgomery boycott, we might be able to get some change.”
“And you believe that?”
“I have to believe something’s going to change things, Hammer.”
Uncle Hammer sneered. “Haven’t long as I’ve lived. Our folks been in this country how long now? Went from slavery to so-called freedom. What freedom? Still got to kowtow to those white folks down there, other parts of the country too. Can’t vote down there. Can’t drink from their water fountains. Can’t eat in their restaurants, except at the back door. Can’t sleep in their hotels, though they don’t mind us cleaning them for them. Still got to sit at the back of the bus. Still got to step aside when they come walking.”
“What you said about riding at the back of the bus, that’s no longer the case in Montgomery,” contested Mama. “After that boycott in fifty-six, colored folks can sit wherever they choose on the bus. They don’t have to sit in the back any longer. They got that through a boycott and the protest movement. Now, from what I understand, it was the Supreme Court that ended the boycott, banning segregation on the city buses. Said it was unconstitutional, but Negroes hurt the city with the boycott. We hit the white businesses where it counted, in their pocketbooks.”
“Yeah, well . . . you let me know how that goes in Mississippi,” retorted Uncle Hammer.
“I’ll just do that, Hammer,” Mama countered. She smiled at Uncle Hammer’s disillusionment. “Got to start somewhere, Hammer.”
Uncle Hammer laughed. “Well, you just keep on believing, Mary. I’m going to keep on believing too, believing things don’t ever change much with these white people. Just think about it. Right here in Toledo just year before last, wasn’t it, white folks got all upset because a colored girl was voted queen of the high school? First colored queen in the city? From what you said, they hung an effigy from a tree right there on the school grounds. They doing that stuff up here, you know it’s a whole lot worse down there.” He turned to Papa. “Remember Cousin Thad?”
Papa nodded. “Course.”
“Went to work one morning, came home early and found that white sheriff on his wife. Cousin Thad yanked that white man off her and beat him near to death. White folks put him in jail for life.”
“Wonder they didn’t lynch that boy,” said Big Ma.
“Only reason they didn’t,” Papa said, “was because that sheriff didn’t die.”
“Might as well have,” concluded Uncle Hammer. “Thad, he still down there serving time at Parchman. Been there going on more than thirty-some years.”
Big Ma sighed heavily. “Crying shame,” she said. “Thad, he was a first cousin of mine.”
“Point is,” said Uncle Hammer, “same thing happening today.”
Big Ma nodded agreement. “Just blessed that ain’t happened to that boy Moe.”
“What about Moe? What’s going on with him?” We told Uncle Hammer about the arrest warrant and extradition request from Mississippi. “Where is he now?” Uncle Hammer was looking at Stacey, but it was Papa who replied.