Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman were two white men who worked with CORE (Congress of Racial Equality), a group that encouraged black Americans to register to vote and coached them on how to pass the voter registration exam. Along with James Chaney, an African-American from Mississippi, they were heading south to Mississippi to investigate the burning of a church there. On Sunday night, June 21, 1964, the three men disappeared. We watched the news report on television, and that night I overheard my mother talking with a neighbor on our front porch about the missing men.
“I wonder where they are,” my mother said. She was especially concerned because she had four sons of her own. When we found out two of the men were white, it struck terror in our hearts. It seemed Civil Rights workers’ lives were worthless—black or white—when they stood up for black people.
The next day we heard that someone had found a burned-out station wagon in the Bogue Chitto swamp. A month and a half later, the FBI discovered the three men’s bodies buried in a fifteen-feet-deep earthen dam. Three years later, on February 27, 1967, the Neshoba County deputy sheriff and eighteen others (all Ku Klux Klan members) were indicted for the murders. A two-week federal trial in Meridian, Mississippi, resulted in seven guilty verdicts and sentences ranging from three to ten years.[64]
Good-hearted people paid a dear price for standing up for African-Americans’ equal rights. Before his untimely death, President John F. Kennedy had promised my people he would set the wheels in motion to outlaw segregation in businesses such as theaters, restaurants, and hotels and in public places such as swimming pools, libraries, and other public facilities. He also promised to ban discrimination in employment. Technically, according to the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, the law called for the desegregation of all-white public schools as well. But as late as 1963, only twelve thousand of the 3 million African-Americans in the South attended integrated schools.[65]
That summer, on July 2, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed segregation in the workplace, in schools, and in public places. But this measure was not without opposition. Johnson’s main opponent was his longtime friend and mentor Richard B. Russell, who told the Senate, “We will resist to the bitter end any measure or any movement which would have a tendency to bring about social equality and intermingling and amalgamation of the races in our [Southern] states.” Russell then organized eighteen Southern Democratic senators in filibustering this bill.[66] I thought, This man must be a friend of George Wallace. Surely not all white men think this way!
A week before the Civil Rights bill became law, Newsweek magazine published a nationwide poll titled “The Negro Revolution—U.S. Attitudes Now.” Most of the nation said they believed it was wrong for unions and churches to refuse black people membership and for employers to refuse to hire African-Americans. Less than half, however, believed it was wrong for neighborhoods to refuse to rent or sell homes to black people or for social clubs to refuse to admit them. More than half of the nation thought black people wanted to take over white jobs. But less than half believed black people wanted to move into white neighborhoods, take over politics, and enroll in white schools. Only 23 percent of Americans believed black people wanted to marry and/or have sexual relations with whites.[67] Clearly, we still had a long way to go.
It was only two years earlier, in January of 1962, that Birmingham’s Bull Connor had refused to desegregate the city’s public facilities. He chose the extreme of closing down the city’s sixty-eight parks, thirty-eight playgrounds, six swimming pools, and four golf courses rather than allowing black people to enjoy them.[68]
“Federal meddling,” Connor had remarked. Along with the other two city commissioners, Jabo Waggoner and Art Hanes, Connor bought concrete and poured it in the golf course holes.
Things were changing in the South. But slowly.
* * *
That autumn, on October 14, 1964, I heard that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for advocating a policy of nonviolence.
Surely he deserves it, I thought.
King traveled to Oslo, Norway, and on December 10, 1964, delivered his acceptance speech. I had always loved and admired Dr. King, and when I read his speech, that love and admiration deepened.
“I accept the Nobel Prize for Peace,” Dr. King said, “at a moment when 22 million Negroes of the United States of America are engaged in a creative battle to end the long night of racial injustice. I accept this award on behalf of a Civil Rights movement which is moving with determination and a majestic scorn for risk and danger to establish a reign of freedom and a rule of justice.”
He continued, “I am mindful that only yesterday in Birmingham, Alabama, our children, crying out for brotherhood, were answered with fire hoses, snarling dogs and even death. I am mindful that only yesterday in Philadelphia, Mississippi, young people seeking to secure the right to vote were brutalized and murdered. And only yesterday more than 40 houses of worship in the State of Mississippi alone were bombed or burned because they offered a sanctuary to those who would not accept segregation. I am mindful that debilitating and grinding poverty afflicts my people and chains them to the lowest rung of the economic ladder.”
Dr. King ended his speech with both a question and a statement: “Therefore, I must ask why this prize is awarded to a movement which is beleaguered and committed to unrelenting struggle; to a movement which has not won the very peace and brotherhood which is the essence of the Nobel Prize. . . . Most of these people will never make the headlines and their names will not appear in Who’s Who. Yet when years have rolled past and when the blazing light of truth is focused on this marvelous age in which we live—men and women will know and children will be taught that we have a finer land, a better people, a more noble civilization—because these humble children of God were willing to suffer for righteousness’ sake.”[69]
* * *
* * *
From Martin Luther King Jr.’s Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech
This evening I would like to use this lofty and historic platform to discuss what appears to me to be the most pressing problem confronting mankind today. Modern man has brought this whole world to an awe-inspiring threshold of the future. He has reached new and astonishing peaks of scientific success. He has produced machines that think and instruments that peer into the unfathomable ranges of interstellar space. He has built gigantic bridges to span the seas and gargantuan buildings to kiss the skies. His airplanes and spaceships have dwarfed distance, placed time in chains, and carved highways through the stratosphere. This is a dazzling picture of modern man’s scientific and technological progress.
Yet, in spite of these spectacular strides in science and technology, and still unlimited ones to come, something basic is missing. There is a sort of poverty of the spirit which stands in glaring contrast to our scientific and technological abundance. The richer we have become materially, the poorer we have become morally and spiritually. We have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers. . . .
This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one’s tribe, race, class, and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all men. This oft misunderstood and misinterpreted concept so readily dismissed by the Nietzsches of the world as a weak and cowardly force has now become an absolute necessity for the survival of man. When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response which is little more than emotional bosh. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. . . .
We can no longer afford to worship the God of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that purs
ued this self-defeating path of hate. Love is the key to the solution of the problems of the world.
Let me close by saying that I have the personal faith that mankind will somehow rise up to the occasion and give new directions to an age drifting rapidly to its doom. In spite of the tensions and uncertainties of this period something profoundly meaningful is taking place. Old systems of exploitation and oppression are passing away, and out of the womb of a frail world new systems of justice and equality are being born. . . . “The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light.” Here and there an individual or group dares to love, and rises to the majestic heights of moral maturity. So in a real sense this is a great time to be alive. Therefore, I am not yet discouraged about the future. Granted that the easygoing optimism of yesterday is impossible. Granted that those who pioneer in the struggle for peace and freedom will still face uncomfortable jail terms, painful threats of death; they will still be battered by the storms of persecution, leading them to the nagging feeling that they can no longer bear such a heavy burden, and the temptation of wanting to retreat to a more quiet and serene life. Granted that we face a world crisis which leaves us standing so often amid the surging murmur of life’s restless sea. But every crisis has both its dangers and its opportunities. It can spell either salvation or doom. In a dark confused world the kingdom of God may yet reign in the hearts of men.[70]
* * *
* * *
These humble children of God were willing to suffer for righteousness’ sake, I repeated to myself over and over. When Dr. King said those words, I thought of all those courageous souls who had died to help make Dr. King’s dream come true for my people—Cynthia, Carole, Denise, Addie, John F. Kennedy, Schwerner, Goodman, Chaney, and many others throughout the ages. Other names would soon join the list of martyrs: Jimmy Lee Jackson, an impoverished, black, twenty-six-year-old advocate of equal voting rights, killed on February 18, 1965, by an Alabama state trooper during a small protest in Marion, Alabama; James Reeb, a white Unitarian minister from Boston, who on Dr. King’s invitation traveled to Selma, Alabama, and was beaten to death by a mob of white men in March 1965; and others. I wondered about the safety of Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth, the fearless Civil Rights advocate and the pastor of Birmingham’s Bethel Baptist Church. Would he, too, become a martyr? And I worried about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. himself.
Perhaps it’s only a matter of time before someone kills Dr. King, too, I thought.
On August 6, 1965, President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act, ending the practice of requiring literacy, knowledge, or character tests (administered solely to African-Americans) to keep them from registering to vote. Within a year, 450,000 Southern blacks successfully registered to vote for the first time.[71]
* * *
In the fall of 1965, I left Birmingham and traveled to Nashville, Tennessee, to go to college. Rather than fight possible racial roadblocks, I enrolled at all-black Fisk University, as my parents had suggested. I enjoyed my classes and my professors. But I found it difficult to study and concentrate like I once had. Ever since the church bombing, I had lost my enthusiasm for school.
The gloom and depression that constantly tormented my soul deepened. I wanted to be alone. I attended few social gatherings and made few friends. Sleep was one of the few things that helped me escape the world, and I tried to sleep a lot. But deep sleep continued to elude me and was proving to have been a prebombing gift. I often sat under an isolated tree on a distant part of campus and wrote in my journal. Writing seemed to help me make some sense out of life. But my written ponderings came from a dark, depressed heart. I wrote of pain and suffering and death. I saved those writings—they now sit in a box on a closet shelf—and to this day it still hurts me to read them. I’ve never shared them with anyone, not even my husband.
During those college years, I discovered that a glass or two of wine took the edge off my inner pain and helped me forget. I shared my deep pain with no one but God. Few of my classmates or professors knew of my church-bombing experience or any of the other traumatic events from my childhood. I just didn’t talk about any of it. Drink would eventually become my friend, my artificial comforter. I never would have imagined where this drinking would lead. I was too wrapped up in finding a way to ease the pain and depression—in making myself feel happy, at least for a while. It would take me a long time to realize that the relief a drink brought was always temporary and that the pain and depression always returned. It was not a permanent fix.
I wasn’t sure if my open and bleeding wound would ever heal.
One day I was feeling overwhelmed by the torment I felt. I didn’t know what to do with the sense of hopelessness and despair that plagued me. So I scribbled this letter to God, imagining I was having a conversation with him:
“God, why didn’t you take me too? Why did you leave me here?”
“Carolyn,” I sensed God saying to me, “I needed Cynthia, Addie, Denise, and Carole to come. I needed you to stay.”
“But I don’t want to stay,” I pleaded. “I want to come too.”
“Carolyn, I still have something special for you to do. I need you to tell this story.”
“But I miss Cynthia so much. Could you just make the pain go away? It hurts to wake up in the morning, and I am so afraid.”
“I know you miss her, Carolyn. But she is just fine. Carolyn, don’t cry. And don’t be afraid. I love you, and I am always with you.”
“Will you let Cynthia know that I paid for her cap and shirt? I gave them both to her mom. And tell her I miss her and I’m sorry I didn’t get to say good-bye.”
“Carolyn, she is happy. She is fine. And you will see her and the other girls again. They will be waiting.”
And then I sensed God planting in me a vision for my future. “Carolyn, I need you to tell people that this is not about skin color or ethnicity or religion. It is about love, it is about forgiveness, it is about reconciliation. I need you to be my messenger, my ambassador. They will know I allowed you to live—I saved you so you could bear personal witness to my power to restore and forgive and draw people to me. Just lift me up.”
“Lift Him Up”—one of my very favorite hymns that we always sang at Granddaddy’s church. I got the message. God was showing me what he wanted me to do.
“Tell them about me. Tell them about Cynthia, Addie, Denise, and Carole. Tell them that when they are reconciled to me, they can be reconciled to each other.”
I wasn’t there yet, but I thanked God for holding me gently in his arms until I could find my way.
* * *
While at Fisk, I continued to drink to numb my inner pain, and gradually I began to need drinks of increasing strength. I began to look forward to my times alone to get my fix. My journal entries grew darker and more disturbing. I seemed to be on the periphery of life, not really a part of it. I felt as though I didn’t belong anywhere, as though I lived separated from life by a glass window. I stood on the outside of that window and looked in, not really part of anything.
“This is a time in American history,” I wrote one day, “when people say nothing. People are murdered, and no one says, ‘This is wrong’ or does anything about it.”
God gave me one unique gift during this time—my friend Mary Kate Bush. Mary Kate was also from Birmingham. I first met her when she and I had entered the Gaston spelling bee in the seventh grade. Like me, Mary Kate had suffered many wounds. She knew when I needed to be alone, and I knew when she needed to be alone. But when I needed to talk or cry, Mary Kate was always there to listen. The lives we had lived already, at such a young and tender age, gave way to many discussions about the future and what it held for us. Sometimes, it was hard to believe that the future held anything except more pain. It was providential that we would live together for those four years at college, and after graduation, we continued a friendship that was a healing balm. Through Mary Kate, God enabled me to understand true spiritual friendship. He blessed me with a “forever friend,” one
who would always be there for me.
Chapter 17
The Deaths of the Dreamers
* * *
You see things, and you say “why?” But I dream things that never were, and I say “why not?”
George Bernard Shaw, BACK TO METHUSELAH
The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.
Martin Luther King Jr.
In the fall of 1982, Geraldine Watts Bell wrote an article in Down Home magazine (a new publication started by Denise’s father, Chris McNair) about the glaring absence of a memorial in Birmingham for the girls who had died in the church bombing.
Bell wrote, “The time is long overdue for Birmingham citizens to establish a perpetual commemoration in honor of the sacrifices made by these [girls’] families. Although there are several memorials to the deaths of these young people in other states, there has been no significant effort on the part of Birmingham and Alabama citizenry to remember these sacrifices appropriately.”
She continued, “It can be readily seen, then, that there is an urgent need for the citizens of Birmingham and the State of Alabama to seek some type of appropriate commemoration for this tragic act. . . . This one act awakened the conscience of the nation to the fact that something was not right in the way Black citizens are treated.”[72]
Several decades have passed. We’re still waiting.
* * *
By the late 1960s, a few things had changed in the South, thanks to some key leaders. Former all-white public schools had opened their doors to black students, as had department stores, restaurants, lunch counters, swimming pools, libraries, and other private and tax-supported facilities. African-Americans could now register to vote without undergoing ridiculous qualification games, taking difficult exams, experiencing Klan intimidation, and paying “blacks only” poll taxes.
While the World Watched Page 15
