The first week I was back, I went with Morris to several families. They were mostly families I knew and they greeted us warmly, but when Morris and I got down to our reason for coming, most people shook their heads and said, “Naw, can’t do that. Admire y’all for puttin’ in the time, but we been told already, we go takin’ classes and tryin’ to vote, we gotta start lookin’ for another place to live.”
“Who told you that?” asked Morris.
The answer was always the same. The plantation owners—the Montiers, the Harrisons, and the Grangers. That was the same thing the Montiers, the Harrisons, and Harlan Granger had threatened years before, when Mama had organized the boycott against the Wallace store. That was what they always threatened whenever the colored folks of the community tried to exert their rights for equality. Despite that, when classes began, there were a few stalwart souls who turned up, and the hard work of teaching the Mississippi constitution began.
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Our Great Faith community wasn’t the only one undertaking the difficult task of pursuing the right to vote in Mississippi. Several counties were involved in the voter registration drive, among them Pike County. At the center of the Pike County drive was McComb, the largest town in the county and a former railroad center. Unlike in Spokane and many other counties, colored workers living near McComb were not so much dependent on sharecropping as on jobs provided by the railroad. Still, some of the colored folks in the county had small farms or lived on white-owned land and, like most other colored folks, were hesitant to go against centuries of tradition and white rule.
The drive in Pike County was staffed by a number of people who had come from outside the county, from outside Mississippi. Mainly, they were from CORE or were members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, known as SNCC. SNCC workers had started teaching in August, about the same time we had. Morris knew some of the people in McComb who were working in the drive and who had helped in getting the SNCC workers to come. He had also worked with them in setting up our program. Morris and I along with Denise, now Morris’s fiancée, decided to go to McComb. First, we went to visit Aunt Callie. Several of her family were studying to register to vote. They took us around the area and introduced us to some of the people working in the drive. We spent the day in McComb observing their program. Among those local people leading the drive and working with SNCC were Reverend C.C. Bryant and Mr. Herbert Lee. Together and with others, they canvassed the black community for food donations, money for the drive, and housing for the SNCC workers. They seemed tireless.
They inspired us.
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By the end of August four people in the Great Faith community were prepared to take the test. Both Morris and I went with them to face the county registrar in Strawberry. I had last climbed the stairs of the courthouse when I was eleven years old, walking with Mama and Mrs. Lee Annie Lees when Mrs. Lee Annie defiantly had gone to register to vote. Now, as I walked up the steps, I felt eleven years old again, and even more afraid than I had been back then. I knew more now and understood how risky it was for us. Morris and I and the four brave souls taking the test stepped into the registrar’s office. They filled out the registration questionnaire, paid the poll tax, and answered the constitutional questions. The result was no different than the result had been for Mrs. Lee Annie.
That wasn’t surprising. Although it was disappointing, we all figured this would be the case. In some counties, recent attempts at registration had resulted in a few colored people being registered, but not many folks who attempted to register had been successful. Judgment was still up to the white county registrar and his interpretation of the Mississippi constitution. In addition to filling out the form to register without any mistakes and interpreting a section of the constitution to the satisfaction of the registrar, the Mississippi legislature had added another hurdle to keep black folks from registering. In November of 1960 legislators had passed a morals clause and added it to the list of qualifications for any prospective registrant, stating that the person had to be of good moral character to vote. Judging the morals of anyone attempting to vote was, of course, also left to the county registrar. Still, as Morris pointed out, each solitary registration of a black voter made a dent in the racist armor of the state and gave hope to every black woman, man, and child that one day they could be registered to vote too.
“Now, we all knew this would happen,” said Morris, trying to keep discouragement from settling in as we drove back to Great Faith. “We just have to keep going back, time and time again, until we get one of you registered, then all of you.”
There was silence in the car.
Morris let his words sink in. After several minutes he suddenly began to sing. It was a song instilled in all of us, a song we all knew: “Free at Last.” “Day we get registered,” said Morris, “this here’ll be the song we’ll be singing.” Hesitantly everybody in the car joined in. By the time we reached Great Faith we had sung the song over and over again, and we were all inspired. “Thank God A-Mighty, we’re free at last!”
As we got out of the car everybody was in a joyful mood and pledging to take the test again. Despite the letdown of the day, I was feeling good about our commitment as I crossed the lawn to the class building. Before I reached the building, Flora Johnson, another teacher in the registration drive, shouted out to me. She was standing by the old well talking to another teacher, but now hurried to meet me. “Cassie,” she said. She paused, looked out to the road as if worried someone was watching, then back at me. “There’s someone here to see you.”
I could feel her distress. “Who?”
Her voice lowered. “A white man. He’s inside, waiting on you.” Flora then hurried away without giving me a chance to question her further. I looked after her and walked with foreboding to the building. At the door I stopped, took a deep breath, and opened it. Across the room, standing by the old potbellied stove, was Guy. I sighed.
“Cassie, I had to come,” he said softly.
“I told you not to come.”
Guy came toward me. “I had to, Cassie.”
I was angry, but I spoke with measured words. “No, you didn’t. You just did what you chose to do.”
Guy didn’t come any closer. “Listen, Cassie, I knew how you felt, how you feel, but I figure this is my fight too—”
I looked past him to the potbellied stove from another time, from the days of my childhood when I was a student in this very room. “You could never understand.” My voice was almost a whisper.
“Maybe not.” His tone was contrite. I didn’t say anything, and he went on. “But dammit, Cassie, I want to understand! I’m not the only one who wants to understand. There are other white people feeling the same as I do.”
“But you’re the only white person I know standing up here in my old classroom, standing here where I never wanted you to be.”