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At the end of May, I went to Toledo. I had been sickened by the savage attack on the riders. Even more, I was angry. I had to do something. I left on a Friday evening and planned to take a plane back to Boston Sunday night. It was to be a short trip, but that didn’t matter. I needed to talk to my brothers. “I’ve made a decision,” I announced as we sat at the table in the breakfast nook. Dee and ’lois were there as well. “I’ve decided to work in the voter registration drive down home.”
They all looked at me in silence.
I went on. “Morris called me back in April, wants me there in July. He’s gotten Pastor Hubbard to agree to let us teach classes at Great Faith, and he’ll be announcing that to the congregation. We’ll be going around to see folks there too, trying to get them to take part.”
Again there was silence, then Christopher-John said, “Won’t you be putting your job on the line, you do that?”
“Well, I was thinking maybe I would, but someone at the firm suggested I could take a leave of absence.” I didn’t mention that someone was Guy. “I wouldn’t get paid, but the firm would hold my position. I’ve done good work and they like having me, if only as a token.”
“Still, you go down there to teach,” Stacey said, “it could be dangerous.”
“You know as well as I do, anything we do down there is dangerous.”
“So, you’ve pretty much made up your mind?”
“I figure I can be of help and I’ve got to do something. You know, people are protesting in all kinds of ways, putting themselves at risk down there. Look at those students from Tougaloo who went to the main public library in Jackson a few weeks ago and got arrested for disturbing the peace. Just imagine that! Colored college students sitting quietly in the white library and they were the ones charged with breach of the peace! On top of that, they got expelled! Whatever I do, other folks have done just as much—or more.”
Christopher-John looked worried. “I can understand you wanting to go, Cassie. I’d like to do more myself, but you know what can happen.” He was silent, then asked, “You going to talk it over with Mama and Papa first? It’ll affect them too, you know.”
“I’ll talk to them, but they’re not going to change my mind about it.”
“You stay with them, you could be putting them at risk too.”
“Maybe I can stay somewhere else.”
“Where?” questioned Dee. “You know they’ll want you at home with them.”
“There’ll be some other workers coming from different parts of Mississippi and outside of Mississippi to teach. Morris’ll be asking folks at Great Faith to put them up, feed them, but if they don’t, he was thinking maybe we can all stay at Great Faith in one of the old class buildings. We can get some foldaway beds. It’s only for a couple of months.” I looked at Man. He had been uncharacteristically quiet. “What do you think, Clayton?”
Man’s eyes were downcast. Without looking at me, he said, “Least you’ll be doing something, Cassie.” He was again silent. He was in one of his moods.
“You’re mighty quiet,” I observed. “What is it?”
Man’s eyes were still downcast, looking at the table. “Remember that friend of mine, Ray Wallace, served in the Army with me? Got killed back in forty-nine because he refused to move to the back of the bus.”
I nodded. “I remember.”
“They dragged him off that bus, kicked him, beat him over the head with baseball bats. Police stood there and watched it all. Everybody who wasn’t beating on him just stood there and watched it. They killed him because he wouldn’t move to the back of the bus. He served this country. He fought in their war and they killed him.” Man paused, then looked up. “Ray and I always watched out for each other. Once I got into it with some white soldiers and Ray came right over and joined up with me to fight them. He didn’t even know what the fight was about, he just jumped in. He didn’t stop one moment to think about the trouble we were about to be in either. He never let me down. Now, I’ve been thinking, maybe I need to do the same for him.”
Christopher-John leaned forward. “So, what are you thinking, Man?”
Little Man looked around the table at each of us. “We all know how they used to do us when we were walking to school, how those white school buses used to pass us spewing that red road dust and splashing all that muddy water over us.”
Dee, who had experienced the same where she grew up, said, “How could any of us forget?”
“That’s right,” said Man. “How could we forget? Well, I’m thinking maybe it’s time for me to take one of those freedom rides right into Mississippi. Maybe it’s time for me to get on the bus.”
“You know what this could mean, don’t you?” asked Stacey. “You would go to jail. You thought this through?”
Little Man looked at Stacey with a wry smile. “When you know me not to think things through? I’ve talked to Rachel. She knows the risks. She’ll go along with what I decide to do. We’ve already figured it out, how we’ll get along. We’ve got those two rental houses that’ll bring in some money. We’ve got a little savings and we’ve got the gas station.”
Yes, they did have all that. Man had been very good about investing his money. Like Stacey and Christopher-John, he had bought houses that he rented. He also had bought a small gas station on the corner of his block. It was a quiet street of residential houses. Several blocks around were all residential too, and the little gas station on the corner was a bonus to the residents of the neighborhood. People stopped there in the early morning on their way to work or when they returned in the evening. Clayton, always hardworking, opened the station at five in the morning and worked there until he left for his job at the factory. A part-time worker took over after that.
“Clayton,” I said, “you know anybody going on a freedom ride has to be prepared to stay in jail for thirty-nine days, and not post bail until after that. In Mississippi, sentencing is usually for sixty days, but to stay any longer would mean giving up any right to appeal. Are you ready to be in prison that long?”
Man’s eyes met mine. “If you were going, wouldn’t you be?”
I shook my head, doubtful about my own perseverance. “It’ll be hard. It’ll mean Parchman. That’s where they’re sending all the riders, men and women.”
Man nodded in acceptance and for several minutes we all were silent; then Christopher-John said, “What about your job?”
“I’ll do like Cassie and apply for a leave of absence. I’m hoping that time will cover some of my jail time. Of course, I won’t tell them what the leave is for, just that it’s personal, and it is. If they find out, if it gets on the news and they have a problem with it, I figure I can find work somewhere else.” Clayton spoke as if unconcerned about his job; being a mechanical engineer, he had more security than workers like Stacey and Christopher-John. “I’ve talked to the children, tried to explain to them what I plan to do, tried to explain that this is for them and their future. But they’re so young, it’s a difficult thing for them to understand.”