The meeting was informal. Before the call to order, I was introduced around by Little Willie and Dora as the lawyer from Boston. I didn’t meet everybody. As the meeting began, several people scheduled to speak were seated in wooden chairs in front of the fireplace. One of the men looked very familiar to me. I tried to place him. I searched my memory, knowing I had seen that face in a younger time. It was a face now different, but echoing of the past. It was not until his name was announced that I recognized who he was.
Solomon Bradley.
Solomon Bradley had been my first love. My Memphis prince. I had met him when Stacey, Little Willie, and I had fled Mississippi to get Moe on a Memphis train headed north. Solomon Bradley had been in his twenties then and was publishing his own newspaper. At the meeting he was introduced as an active member of both the NAACP and CORE, the Congress of Racial Equality, and as publisher of a weekly Negro newspaper up in Memphis. When he began speaking, his voice was as I remembered, deep and resonating.
“There’s a lot of talk now about voter registration,” he said. “The NAACP is talking about it and CORE is talking about it. Now, there’s some might think we’ve got no chance to get our people registered to vote, but we’ve overcome hurdles just as big during this last decade alone. We put pressure on the government and now we’ve gotten the end of segregation in our armed forces. President Truman ordered desegregation back in forty-eight, didn’t get it though until we were deep into the Korean War, but now our colored soldiers fight side by side with white soldiers. In fifty-four, the Supreme Court ruled racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional, under Brown versus Board of Education, that separate but equal no longer stands since there is no ‘equal’ when it comes to segregation. We’ve already moved forward with school integration in Baltimore and Washington, D.C., and, of course, down in Little Rock at Central High School—other cities too. We’ve gotten integrated city buses in some cities. Just look at Montgomery. Supreme Court ruled segregation on those buses was unconstitutional.
“Supreme Court also ruled way back in forty-six that segregation in interstate travel is unconstitutional, and the Interstate Commerce Commission has banned segregation on all interstate travel, and that includes trains and buses—waiting rooms too. But these southern states still enforce their own segregationist laws while the federal government just looks the other way and lets them do it. Well, now we could change all that. If we continue to organize in Mississippi, we take our fight right to the heart of the beast. We change things in Mississippi, we break the backbone of segregation.
“Now, we all know Mississippi is going to be a tough nut to crack,” Solomon said. “No state in this union is harder on black folks than Mississippi, and more than likely it’ll be the last state to go down before we finally get the equal rights we’re fighting for. Just saying the word ‘Mississippi’ strikes terror in the heart of the strongest black man alive. Sure does me! But the time has come for us to face the terror, to face the fear. The time has come for all of us to stand up, stand up and be heard.”
During his talk, I noticed Solomon Bradley’s look more than once directed my way. It was as if he was trying to place me too. After the meeting was adjourned, I watched as people crowded around him, but I did not join them. I remained with Mama, Little Willie, and Dora and those encircling us. Soon, however, with everyone enjoying coffee and sandwiches and homemade sweets, a soft voice from the past spoke over my shoulder. With my mouth full of sweet potato pie, I turned.
Solomon Bradley was standing in front of me.
“Cassie Logan,” he said, then he smiled his big smile.
I gulped, held up my hand to let him know that at the moment I could not speak, and swallowed my pie.
Solomon laughed. “Hot-shot lawyer from Boston can’t find her words! Ah, yeah, I heard about you!”
I laughed as well. “I don’t think of myself as a hot-shot lawyer,” I declared as I studied him. Solomon was heavier now and he was balding, but once, when I was seventeen, I had thought him the most handsome man I had ever met. “I can’t believe it!” I exclaimed. “I’m standing in the presence of Mr. Solomon Bradley!”
“And I’ve sure heard plenty about you, Miss Logan,” he responded. “Little Willie and Dora been talking you up. They’re mighty proud of you.”
I patted my lips with a napkin. “Well, they’re pretty much family. What do you expect?”
“You know, Cassie, at seventeen you were a very pretty girl, and now you are a woman. A beautiful one.” I let him know that I had heard that line before. Solomon smiled. “So, what are you doing here in Mississippi, Miss Cassie Logan?”
“The name’s Cassie Logan de Baca, Mr. Bradley, and I’m just here visiting my family.”
“De Baca? That’s your husband’s name?”
“It was. He’s gone now.” I cleared my throat. “He passed.”
“My condolences.”
“No need,” I said. “It was a long time ago. What about you? Are you married?”
“Happily, with four worrisome teenagers.” I laughed. So did Solomon, then he said, “All right, Mrs. De Baca, what do you do after your visit with your family? Do you go back to Boston?”
I put down my empty pie plate. “Well, that’s my plan.”
“Not joining in the fight?”
He caught me off guard. “Here in Mississippi? I don’t think so!”
“You know you’re needed here. You could make a big difference. You’re a lawyer. You could challenge the Mississippi laws. A lot is being planned for this state and change is coming. It’s coming sooner than a lot of folks think.”
“To Mississippi?” I was doubtful.
“All over. Even Mississippi. It’s coming—as sure as the sun rises, it’s coming. Won’t be overnight, but we’ve already put in close to three hundred fifty years of slavery and inequality and it’s high time for a change. Come nineteen sixty-three, we’ll be facing a hundred years since the so-called emancipation that was supposed to set us free, but we still don’t have equal rights. We’re still second-class citizens. We’ve got to get those rights, Cassie, and the time is now.”
I stared at him. “You know you’re preaching to the choir.”
“Sorry. Wasn’t meaning to talk down to you. But thing is, Cassie, we’ll need lawyers like you when things begin to break here. Some people even been talking about taking interracial bus rides all across the South, even into Mississippi. We’ll sure need lawyers then.”
“What!” I exclaimed. “Lord, these white folks down here’ll kill them!”
“Maybe,” Solomon said. “But if the rides happen, they’ll get the attention of the whole country. They’ll help show just how bad things are down here.”