“Well, you did that, Moe, and you went to school. Lot of boys wouldn’t have.”
Moe grinned. “Yeah, I wanted my education, and Daddy wanted me to have it too. Insisted on it even when I said I’d stay on at the house to help do the work instead of going. He told me, ‘You get yourself on to school, boy, ’fore I lay a whip on you!’ And you know how long it took to walk those roads to Great Faith and back.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Course, like Stacey, I never did finish school. Stacey went on to Jim Hill in Jackson for a year, but I decided to stay on with Daddy to help him, things were so bad. And you know how things turned out after that.”
I nodded.
“Cassie, I want to see my daddy again. I want to see my daddy before he’s gone.”
I reached over and laid my hand over Moe’s, but said nothing else, and Moe just looked at me in silence.
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
The summer of 1962 turned out to be a hot one. National news broadcasts from CBS, NBC and ABC reported church burnings in Georgia and sit-ins in North Carolina. Since the beginning of the year, there had been demonstrations in Georgia and Louisiana. There were demonstrations, boycotts, and sit-ins all along the Eastern seaboard from Maryland to Florida as protesters attempted to integrate white establishments. There were demonstrations in the North as well. The whole country was heaving with unrest and we all felt it. The sit-ins, the freedom rides, the boycotts—every single act of civil disobedience was bringing attention to all the injustices black people endured daily. In some states, high-pressure water hoses were used to disperse the demonstrators, as were police dogs and tear gas. Each time there was a protest, the hammer of white law slammed down even harder to keep the old line of segregation and bigotry intact. In Mississippi, it was commonly known that the white Citizens’ Council, which had been formed to prevent integration of the schools, worked hand in hand with the mayor of Jackson and with the governor and state legislature to prevent all integration. Television programs that promoted integration were not aired, and physical violence was always threatened against blacks who participated in any protests.
News about the battle for equality came daily, not only from the national broadcast networks but also from our local colored newspapers, from NAACP publications, and from Jet and Ebony, national magazines published by and about people of color. News also came from our churches, from people who were greatly involved in the movement and went around speaking to church congregations and Negro civic groups, raising money for the cause and arousing our communities to action. What was happening around the country was uniting Negroes as a people, and making us proud. News also came directly from down home. Mama wrote weekly in her long letters of what was happening there. She cautioned us to be forever vigilant, both in Toledo and certainly when we ventured back to Mississippi. It was a troubling time and a dangerous time and she worried for all of us.
News came too about a new group rising. They were known as the Black Muslims. Unlike the peaceful protesters around the country, the Black Muslims wanted nothing to do with white people and advocated total separation of the races, as well as a separate state to be governed by blacks. Their leader and founder, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, had organized the religious group in the 1930s, but most black folks had never heard of them until now. Few of us knew either that long ago in Africa, before our ancestors were snatched away, captured and thrown onto slave ships to the Americas, many of them had been Muslims. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad and the Black Muslims’ most vocal minister, Malcolm X, taught us that.
Many of the Black Muslims changed their last name to a simple “X” to eradicate the taint of white slave owners whose last names so many of us carried. They lived by a strict religious code, the men always wearing suits, the women dressed in traditional Muslim clothing, with their heads covered. They were a disciplined people organizing their own businesses. They set a good example for black folks, but they advocated a militant stance that made white folks even more uneasy than did the peaceful protesters who were demonstrating daily. The fiery Malcolm X did not hold back feelings about white people, calling them “white devils” and warning them that they had better deal with the nonviolent blacks, because dealing with groups like the Black Muslims would not offer the same peaceful alternative. Much of what the Black Muslims said made sense and many were drawn to the group. But most black people still held on to the promise of America, and continued to fight nonviolently for the end of segregation.
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
So much was happening, and each time a new event arose, news that took over the headlines, I wanted to call Guy and talk about it. I was accustomed to talking to him about everything, speaking to him several times each day, and I missed that. I wanted to talk to him about Moe’s situation, about what was happening in the country and in the world, about what was happening in my life, about my cases. I wanted to talk to him about the little things that were going on in the church and in the neighborhood and in my family. I just wanted to talk to Guy, but I resisted calling him. I had to learn to do without him, as I learned to do without Flynn. There was no other choice for me.
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
August. Hot and sweltering. It was time for revival.
We would all be going home, including Uncle Hammer—but without Aunt Loretta, who said Mississippi had seen the last of her in the heat of an August summer. I was the first to arrive. Mama and Big Ma had asked me to come a few days early to help with the cooking. Mama, as a professional lady, had never cared that much for cooking. Her days and evenings had always been devoted to teaching her students and preparing for the next day of studies. Besides, she had Big Ma, and Big Ma, no matter how old she got, still loved to cook. In addition, the kitchen had always been Big Ma’s domain, and even though Big Ma had signed the land over to Papa and Uncle Hammer many years ago, she still proclaimed the kitchen as her own and declared that it would be until the day she was gone. Although Big Ma allowed others in from time to time, she was totally the boss of the kitchen and she let everybody know it. Now in her nineties, her sight failing and her movements slower, her mind was as sharp as ever and her hold on the kitchen stronger still, but she knew when to ask for help and wasn’t too proud to do it.
“Now, your mama’s got to make a speech coming up during the revival,” Big Ma said as I sat at the table, cooling myself with some freshly made lemonade, “so she’s got her hands full workin’ on that. ’Sides, she ain’t never been much hand in the kitchen anyways.”
I smiled, knowing that was true.
“So, you and me, we’ve got a lot of work to do.”
“Well, that’s why I’m here, Big Ma. You know, though, Dee, Becka, and Rachel all are cooking something to bring.”
“Course I know that. But they can only bring so much that ain’t gonna spoil on the way down here. Told them to bring cakes and pies and such, maybe some of them rolls they make so good. Rest, we’ll cook up here.”