A Heart Divided

by Cherie Bennett

content of their character

  rather than of the

  color of their skin.

  The proper place

  for the battle flag in twenty-first-century America,

  in my opinion,

  is in some museum of the South,

  for persons who have the need to preserve that.

  I don’t think the battle flag

  ought to fly over any public facility.

  But if there are

  private facilities,

  or in a Confederate cemetery,

  or a war memorial,

  I don’t have any problem

  or strong feeling about that.

  I am an eternal optimist—

  that’s why I’m still here,

  doing interviews with you,

  and speaking in schools,

  and participating in demonstrations,

  and going to jail every now and then,

  and making my witness.

  But in terms of bringing about

  the kind of

  beloved community

  that Dr. King talked about

  we are still in for a long haul.

  AGNES AUGUSTUS

  (Librarian, Redford Public Library)

  Mrs. Augustus, eighty-four, has a halo of white hair, a peaches-and-cream complexion, and piercing blue eyes. Wearing a flowery dress and sensible shoes, she is slender and has excellent posture. Her manner is both forthright and feminine. We meet at the Pink Teacup over fruit tea and chocolate-chip cookies. The drawl in Mrs. Augustus’s voice is soothing. Soft classical music plays in the background.

  JIMMY MACK’S

  When I was your parents’ age

  there were signs posted everywhere:

  Whites Only.

  Colored Drinking Fountain.

  Blacks couldn’t stay at most hotels

  or eat at most restaurants.

  There were laws about it.

  It was a way to make blacks second-class

  citizens. And not just in the South.

  You know Jimmy Mack’s restaurant?

  It was whites only till 1961.

  Back then, Lucas Roberts was a student at Fisk.

  He and nine other students

  walked right through the front door of Jimmy

  Mack’s.

  The boys wore jackets and ties.

  The girls wore lovely dresses.

  They took seats at two tables

  and waited.

  All the white people were served.

  But these ten young people were ignored.

  So they sat there all day

  in silence.

  At the end of the day

  these young students came outside to find

  white folks

  lined up on the sidewalk.

  Cursing them

  and

  waving the Confederate battle flag.

  I tried to get them to stop.

  So did Birdie’s mother.

  But they wouldn’t listen.

  (she looks sad and sips her tea)

  I know this will be difficult for you to understand.

  I still love that flag.

  I used to fly that flag from my front porch

  with great pride.

  It was the banner of the soldiers, not the Confederacy.

  My grandfather died in battle under that flag.

  So did Birdie’s ancestor—

  The one who freed his own slave.

  But after that day at Jimmy Mack’s

  I brought it inside.

  I haven’t flown it since.

  RONALD BINGHAM(Plumber)

  Mr. Bingham is forty-four, medium height with a slight build, just starting to bald. We’re at his small frame home in Pulaski, Tennessee. He’s just come from a plumbing job and still wears work clothes, boots, and a UT Volunteers baseball cap. From the next room I can hear the voices of his two small children, as well as the voices of the cartoons they’re watching, throughout the interview.

  WITH GOD AS OUR DEFENDER

  They try to say that

  the Confederate Flag

  is a flag of racists.

  You know.

  The Mud People,

  Queer Nation,

  Communists,

  The Children of Satan Jews

  who control the media.

  The godless.

  The mongrelized.

  There’s a lot of them out there.

  We dare say aloud what

  others only think. We say:

  “Rebels! Be proud. Stand tall! We are the South!”

  Do you understand what these people want?

  They say they want to

  take down our flag.

  But what they really want

  is an end to their own white race,

  and you can take that to the bank.

  Do you know what was

  the motto

  of the Confederate States of America?

  Deo Vindice.

  With God as our Defender.

  This was the Confederate motto.

  This is the motto we live by today.

  Make no mistake about it.

  The white Anglo-Saxons

  are the true Israelites.

  We will smite the enemies

  of God’s chosen people and

  then the world shall be returned

  to our righteous hands.

  MALIK EL BAZ (Attorney, Political Activist)

  We speak in his office in north Nashville, where he has a criminal law practice. Mr. El Baz appears to be in his thirties. He’s tall, with sinewy arms visible beneath the rolled-up sleeves of his black shirt. A loosened tie dangles from his collar. Behind him on the wall are photographs of Malcolm X and the deceased Kenyan leader Jomo Kenyatta. He speaks emphatically but at the same time seems in complete control.

  NEVER BOW DOWN

  If any racist

  straw-chewin’

  tobacco-chewin’

  racist redneck

  lays their hands on any righteous

  black man or black woman

  who is the flower of humanity—

  my people should crush that devil

  who is trying to do them

  harm and evil.

  In the Name of God

  and in accordance

  with their legal rights.

  (he stops and folds his arms)

  The state of Israel—

  it’s causing problems

  all over the earth

  for people of color.

  We will never bow down to the

  white Jewish Zionist onslaught.

  I say to all Jewish people:

  Stop pushing your Holocaust

  down my throat.

  Stop your cover-up of the worst Holocaust

  humanity has ever seen

  perpetrated by you against my people.

  That flag?

  That racist, disgusting, cracker

  loser of a flag?

  Burn, baby, burn.

  NIKKI ROBERTS (R.H.S. Student)

  (As before)

  THE DAY OF THE VOTE

  What happened was,

  the day of the vote,

  a lowlife brain-dead white boy

  staged a demonstration

  in front of the school

  in support of the flag.

  In reaction,

  another group,

  which unfortunately

  was led by my brother Luke,

  began demonstrating against them.

  Which I thought was misplaced energy—

  because we were going to win.

  The principal

  used the demonstrations

  as an excuse

  to cancel the vote.

  He said it was “postponed.”

  (she sneers and shakes her head)

  It wasn’t until that day

  that I really got racism.

  That I truly understood:
>
  The ones with the power

  will do almost anything

  to hold on to that power.

  (she looks at me with steely resolve)

  Let them underestimate me.

  That’s fine.

  Because I am my father’s daughter.

  I will never give up.

  I will never give in.

  PAUL MCSORLEY

  (Principal, Redford High School)

  We meet in his office immediately after school. His desk is covered in papers. There are photos and awards on the wall behind him. Kids’ voices can be heard in the hallway. Mr. McSorley is a paunchy fifty-one. He has a gray crew cut and wears a plaid sport coat with an American flag pin.

  WE MAY NEVER KNOW

  I taught American history for fifteen years

  before becoming principal.

  I’ve put twenty-five years of my life

  into public education.

  I willingly scheduled the flag vote—

  at some peril to my professional standing—

  because I believed

  it was the right thing to do.

  What did I get for that?

  Disruptive demonstrations

  in front of my school

  that very nearly turned into a riot.

  I believe in freedom of speech,

  but the safety of my students comes first—

  especially in this day and age.

  I perceived the situation that morning

  to be potentially very dangerous.

  That is why I immediately informed

  the Board of Education,

  and why the vote was postponed.

  I’ve been accused

  in print and on TV and Lord knows what-all

  of canceling the vote. I postponed the vote. And I stand by my judgment. This is my school. The buck stops right here. (he jabs a forefinger on his desk for emphasis)

  Never in my twenty-five years

  as an educator have

  I seen anything as terrible

  as what happened

  before that football game.

  But the media barely mentioned

  that of the eleven—

  the people on the field

  who burned

  the Rebel flag that night—

  Of eleven, only six were my students.

  Do you know that there

  are twenty-four amateur videos

  of the brawl and

  not a single one

  shows the shot being fired?

  Not a one.

  Lord knows what the shooter was

  really aiming at.

  Certainly not your sister.

  We may never know.

  It was just a tragic accident.

  Tragic.

  It fell upon me to decide

  what the consequences should be

  for the Redford students

  who participated in this.

  The only fair thing in my book

  was to mete out equal justice.

  The six students

  who burned the flag

  as well as

  the six football players

  who led the charge onto the field

  were all expelled.

  (he stops, sighs, drums his fingers on the desk)

  They were mostly starters,

  so that ended our season

  right there.

  There are still folks

  who want to run me

  out of town on a rail

  for that.

  LUKE ROBERTS (R.H.S. Student)

  (As before)

  HOW THEY DO

  My friend’s aunt wears a maid’s uniform.

  She cooks for the Redfords

  and serves their food.

  She calls Sally Redford (he clears his throat), “Mrs. Redford.”

  Calls Jack Redford (he clears his throat), “Mr. Jack.”

  They call her “Dora.”

  I said:

  “Tell them to call you Mrs. Washington.”

  She said:

  “Go on, boy. That’s just how they do.”

  She doesn’t mind

  long as they pay her good

  and treat her good and

  she ain’t about to risk gettin’ fired.

  When we burned that flag

  we were saying:

  “We don’t care

  how you do

  and we don’t care

  about the risk. We refuse

  to stand

  in your bread line

  for the crumbs of power.”

  I got my nose broken.

  James got thirty stitches.

  My boy Malcolm got a concussion.

  That boy is fierce—yo,

  he plays for the Rebels—but

  when some white jock

  grabbed me

  and some other white jock

  bashed in my face

  Malcolm pulled them off me.

  He chose his real boys, you know what I’m saying?

  We knew there’d be a fight.

  The crackers who jumped us

  took their hits—believe that.

  But what happened after—

  your sister getting shot—

  (he rubs his face, obviously upset)

  I have a sister, too. So I can imagine….

  I’ll tell you this:

  It was a white boy pulled that cop’s gun.

  No doubt.

  A brother might murder

  for drugs or money—

  which too often occurs because

  he feels so put down and used up

  that he commits

  suicide by homicide

  though he doesn’t recognize it as such.

  But no brother

  steals a gun from a white cop

  and shoots it into a crowd

  of innocent people

  with other white cops

  swarming all over the place.

  No brother is that big a fool.

  Think about it.

  If a brother had actually done it

  he’d already have been lynched for it.

  Hell, a brother’ll

  probably get lynched for it anyway.

  Cuz you know

  that’s just how they do.

  JARED BOOSE (R.H.S. Student)

  Jared is a senior at Redford High. He’s average height, very thin, with a narrow face and darting eyes. He wears a jean jacket and a backward Confederate flag baseball cap. We’re in the stadium bleachers. He points to various locations as he narrates his version of events for me. It’s a blustery afternoon, and he moves around a lot to stay warm. He has a strong Tennessee mountain twang.

  TALL, COLD LADIES

  Me and Sandy

  had a big-ass blowout that night.

  I stopped to pick up a six-pack

  and she wants a brew and

  I’m all:

  “You know you ain’t supposed to drink when you’re pregnant, girl.”

  So

  she gets all pissy and pulls out her smokes.

  So

  I grab ′em and throw ′em out the window.

  I’m all like: “You’re gonna be a momma.

  You gotta be more responsible.”

  So she just went off—

  Went off.

  How I ain’t her daddy and I don’t tell her what to do.

  The girl’s slapping me and cussing me out and

  I’m all: “Damn, girl, get off me!”

  I seen it was still early.

  So

  I drop her ass off at the game

  and tell her I need to go

  blow off some steam,

  you know what I’m saying?

  So I drive around for a while—

  crank up my man Travis Tritt.

  Just me and my tall, cold ladies

  getting me a nice buzz.

  Then I head back.

  I find my
girl,

  we patch things up,

  and shortly after that the preshow commences.

  And well.

  You know what happened after that.

  What gets me is how

  everyone gets theirs in America.

  Blacks, women, Mexicans, or whatever.

  But come up white and poor …

  Like my daddy.

  He worked over to the shower curtain factory for twenty years.

  Company up and moves to Mexico

  an’

  just like that

  my daddy’s out of a job.

  Ain’t no one reaching into the goody basket for me and mine.

  That flag—

  That flag says F you to all y’all.

  And them people set fire to it?

  And what?

  I’m supposed to sit there

  with my thumb up my ass

  and take it?

  So, hell yes

  I jumped that fence

  to defend my flag.

  And I’d do it again.

  So, I’m right in it—BAM! BAM! BAM!

  (he makes a fist and mimes throwing hard punches)

  I seen this big black guy—

  ain’t never seen him before—

  I seen him pull that cop’s gun.

  They hauled all of us

  down to the police station

  and I done told them what I just told you

  and they said:

  “Jared Boose, you’re drunk,”

  and they book my ass!

  Said I got me an agenda and

  no one else collaborated [sic] my story.

  They don’t do squat.

  I mean

  I’m just some