by Renée Watson
“Oh, your peers are all for it,” Principal Green tells us. He hands me a sheet of paper. “Cynthia already made a flyer. She and a few others are hanging these up right now. You’ve got a great cabinet, Miss President.”
I can’t even get words to form on my tongue.
Star is the first to walk away, then Charles.
As soon as Tony and I step outside Principal Green’s office, I hear yelling and cursing and Star’s voice is the loudest. I turn the corner, and she is standing with crumpled flyers in her hands.
Cynthia is yelling, “You can’t just rip our posters off the wall! Who do you think you are?”
“I think I’ve been at this school longer than you have and—”
“Are you telling me to go back to where I come from?” Cynthia yells. “You’re such a racist—”
“Racist? I’m the one wanting to have a Black History Month celebration!” Star won’t back down, and now there’s a crowd forming. Nikki and Kate are with Essence, Malachi, and Ronnie. They walk over to me and stand with Charles and Tony.
Tasha stands next to Cynthia. Rachel, Joey, Vince, and Bags join them. And the more screaming and yelling Star and Cynthia do, the more people surround them.
Tasha blurts out, “Cynthia, don’t let that white girl talk to you like that!”
And Cynthia acts all bad and bold and steps closer to Star like she’s going to hit her.
Just then Principal Green appears. “That’s enough! Enough.”
The crowd disintegrates.
“Go to class, all of you, all of you!” Principal Green waits until everyone starts moving. He keeps an eye on Star and Cynthia, who go different directions. I am surprised he lets them go without calling them into his office.
I follow Star up the stairs. She pulls another flyer off the wall. This time, a patch of paint comes with it. She turns to me and asks, “Are you going to help?”
I know that taking these flyers down won’t do anything, but I join her. She takes down the ones on the left side of the hallway. I rip off the flyers on the right.
The tardy bell rings, but neither of us stops. I say, “How can he just change our tradition? And why is Cynthia such a kiss-up? When did she get to make all the decisions?”
After we’ve taken down most of the flyers, Star says, “I think celebrating diversity is fine, but not in the place of honoring black history. February is only twenty-eight days; they can at least give us that.”
For the first time today I laugh.
The hallway is completely empty now except for the two of us. Star takes the last flyer off the wall and turns it over to its blank side. She takes a blue marker out of her bag and writes WE DESERVE 28 DAYS. She refolds the ball of tape and sticks it on the back of the flyer. “They can’t just change things like that.” She looks around and discreetly hangs the flyer on the wall. It’s crooked and the tape is so weak that it’s barely hanging.
I am regretting that I am just now getting to know Star.
I slip into Mr. Anderson’s calculus class, and he doesn’t even notice that I’m late. I try to focus on the assignment, but I can’t fully get my mind off Principal Green and Cynthia, and the fact that I’m a president with no power.
The bell rings just as I finally zone in to get some work done. I have almost forgotten about the flyer Star wrote on, but when I get back in the hallway I see papers of all different sizes and colors taped to the wall. The handwriting is different on each sheet of paper:
PUT BLACK BACK IN HISTORY.
CELEBRATE EVERYONE!
GO BACK TO THE HILLS.
THIS IS OUR SCHOOL, TOO!
WHO CARES?
And the one that’s making Principal Green curse:
The words Black History with a drawing of a fried chicken leg and a slice of watermelon under it.
“What in the world is going on here?” Principal Green is yelling in the hallway and pulling the self-made posters off the walls. “If anyone knows who did this, you must let a staff member know. Anything hung on school property without prior permission is considered vandalism.”
No one is saying anything. He takes down the poster Star hung. “Who started this?” he asks. No one answers. “Well, I’m finishing it. Be aware that anyone who hangs anything up without permission will have detention and possible suspension.”
The two-minute bell rings. We unfreeze and make our way to our next class. As I walk down the hall, I see that Principal Green missed one. It says “Celebrate Tradition.”
I don’t take it down.
Chapter 40
We’ve spent most of class working on our final drafts for the next issue of the Richmond Reporter. There’s about ten minutes left until lunch. Mrs. Armstrong walks to the front of the room and says, “All right, everyone, before you get out of here I need to give you your homework assignment.”
I take out something to write with and open my notebook.
Mrs. Armstrong takes the cap off a dry-erase marker and begins writing a list on the board.
Samuel Cornish
John Brown Russwurm
Frederick Douglass
W. E. B. DuBois
Ida B. Wells
Ethel L. Payne
Nancy Hicks Maynard
Karl Fleming
Bernie Foster
Mrs. Armstrong turns around and snaps the top back on the pen. She leans against her desk, sitting on its edge. “These are names I want you to know. And I don’t just want you to regurgitate information back to me. I want you to tell me why, out of all the people you could know, am I asking you to find out about them.”
The bell rings and we rush to the door.
“I want photos, quotes, facts. Who are these people? Why should we know them?” Mrs. Armstrong says.
I know I could work on this tonight when I get home, but I’m curious to know who these people are. I mean, I know who Fredrick Douglass is. I know that he was a former slave who started a black antislavery newspaper called The North Star. I’m assuming that the rest of the people on the list have something to do with journalism.
I go to the library and ask Mrs. Butler if I can use the computer. “I’ve got some research to do,” I tell her.
“On the computer?” she asks. “I expect more thorough research from you.”
“It’s just to get me started,” I say.
Mrs. Butler smiles.
I sit down at a computer and randomly pick a name off the list.
Chapter 41
Ethel L. Payne.
She was known as the First Lady of the Black Press and gave a voice to the civil rights movement by writing articles about the Montgomery Bus Boycott; the desegregation of a high school in Little Rock, Arkansas; the protests in Birmingham and Selma, Alabama; and the March on Washington in 1963. In 1973 when she took the job as a commentator for CBS, she became the first black woman to become employed by a national broadcast.
I scribble these facts in my notebook.
I can hear Mrs. Armstrong saying, “Don’t just tell me what. Tell me why.”
Nothing is ever simple with Mrs. Armstrong, so it has to be more than just the fact that Ethel L. Payne was a journalist.
I read over my notes, look for the answer.
Chapter 42
I walk out of the library armed with my notes on Ethel L. Payne and the extra articles about her that Mrs. Butler let me print. After begging with her, she even let me print a photo.
There’s about ten minutes of lunch left, so I make my way to the cafeteria to get a bag of chips out of the vending machine.
I see Star walking toward me. “There you are. I just asked Nikki if she knew where you were.”
“Library,” I say. “Got an early start on some homework.” I hold up the picture of Ethel L. Payne. Under her photo, there’s a short bio about her.
We walk down the quiet hallway. Star sighs. “Are you going—” She stops in the middle of her sentence and starts a new one. “Do you see that?” Star stops walking
and stands in front of a sign hanging on the wall.
WE ALREADY KNOW YOUR HISTORY
“Seriously? Who is putting up these ridiculous posters?” Star reaches to take it down.
I grab her hand. “Don’t,” I tell her. I look around to see if anyone is looking. I think I hear footsteps, but then no one comes, so I hold up the printout and say, “Let’s put this one up right next to it.”
Star hesitates, then smiles. She looks around, too, and then says, “Hold on.” She eases the sign off the wall and tears the tape in half. “Here we go.” Star takes my printout and hangs it on the wall next to the poster. Then she reaches into her bag and takes out a pen.
“What are you doing?”
Star doesn’t answer me. She just starts writing.
DO YOU KNOW HER?
I hear footsteps and voices.
Star and I run down the hall.
The bell rings and students flood out of the cafeteria.
We blend in and walk with them to our next class, trying to catch our breath, our chests rising and rising.
Chapter 43
It looks too dark to be only three-thirty in the afternoon. Rain must be coming. I’m so glad Tony drove to school today. “So are you going to sing at the assembly?” Tony asks.
I’m in the backseat next to Nikki. Kate is in the front. Kate turns and looks at me. “That would be so cool if you sang. I hear you and Nikki both can sing really well.”
“I’m not singing at that assembly,” I tell them.
Nikki shakes her head in disappointment. “What, are you going to boycott again?”
“You can sing,” I say.
“Principal Green didn’t ask me to sing. He asked you.”
“He won’t care what token black girl sings the black national anthem. He just wants something that represents us colored folk.” I laugh. Tony looks like he wants to laugh, too. But he doesn’t.
Kate doesn’t seem to know what to do. “Are you really the only black person on the program?”
“Well, I’m not on the program. But, yes, pretty much. He’s having representatives from each culture or race, or whatever he wants to call it, on the program. It feels, I don’t know, it feels—”
“Forced?” Kate asks.
“Exactly.”
Nikki shakes her head again.
And I can’t believe that Kate seems to get it more than she does.
“I just want to hear you sing,” Tony says. “So since you’re not going to perform at the assembly, how about we get a song right now.” He looks at me through the rearview mirror.
I look at Nikki. “Only if you sing with me,” I say.
Nikki says, “Okay. I’ll sing.”
Tony’s eyes get happy, and Kate sits up straighter in her seat.
Nikki and I count off and then we serenade them with the song we always sing when people put us on the spot. “A-B-C-D-E-F-G—”
Tony and Kate laugh. Tony says, “That’s so wrong. So very wrong.”
“But I have to say, if you sound this good singing the ABCs, I can’t imagine how good you really are,” Kate says.
Tony turns on the radio. “Guess we’ll have to listen to this, since we can’t get any live music,” he says. “Just promise me that I’ll get to hear you really sing one day.” He looks at me again and I almost answer him, promise him, but then I feel Nikki looking at us, picking up our vibe with her twin sister magic.
I don’t say anything. I look out the window, watch the changing sky.
Chapter 44
The poster war has been going on for a week. Star and I had no idea one little sign would cause all this drama. I guess in a way we started it, but we have no idea who’s keeping it going. The dismissal bell rings, releasing us for the weekend. It’s Friday, and even the teachers seem eager to get out of here.
On my way to my locker I see students standing around the poster of Ethel L. Payne. Principal Green is standing in the middle of the mob yelling, “Who did this? Who did this?”
I strain to see the poster. Someone has marked up Ethel’s face, and on the borders of the poster the words fat and ugly are written over and over.
Vince calls out, “He did it! I saw him.” He points to Devin, who is holding a black Sharpie in his hand, along with poster board paper.
“This is for my presentation!” Devin shouts. He throws the oversize paper down and reaches into his bag. He pulls out a handout from our science class. “See, we have to make a poster about—”
“I saw him do it!” Vince repeats.
Devin yells back at him, and they start cursing at each other over who’s lying. Then Principal Green tells Devin, “Come with me.”
“For what? I didn’t do anything! How are you going to take his word over mine?”
The yelling and cursing is contagious. Students scream at Principal Green and at one another, taking sides. It’s too loud to make out what anyone is saying, but over all the hollering, one word cuts through the noise.
“Nigger!”
I don’t know whose lips spewed the word, but I know it came from behind me. When I turn around, Bags, Joey, Vince, and Tony are standing there, the four of them looking around like they’re trying to find out who said it.
I have heard that word before. Mostly in documentaries about the civil rights movement. This is the first time I’ve heard the word in real life. The first time the er is at the end. Pronounced clearly and precise enough to cut. This is the first time it’s been said in my presence to communicate hate.
I’ve heard it on my block when boys greet each other, when the er is replaced by an a. When it’s a word of solidarity and brotherhood. I’ve heard it in lyrics when it’s a word of pride, when it’s a word black people have taken back, taken the negative power of it and reshaped it into something good. But Dad says it was never our word so it’s not something we can take back. He says it will always symbolize a beaten slave, a hanging noose, a burning cross.
That word hangs in the hallway like black men’s bodies hung from trees. It lingers and struggles and chokes out all the air. It is a word that suffocates. It is a word that makes me see Confederate flags and a bloated Emmett Till sinking in dirty water.
I feel hot all over. Angry tears fight their way down my face, falling slow and reluctantly. I have to get out of here. I turn around to leave and see Tasha walking over to Tony.
“I know you didn’t just say what I think you said!” Tasha shouts. She gets in Tony’s face.
“What? That wasn’t me! I didn’t, I—”
“Everybody settle down right now. Right now!” Principal Green stands between Tasha and Tony. “Everyone out of the building. Everyone. It’s time to go home,” Principal Green says. He looks at Devin. “Young man, you make your way to my office.”
“He ain’t got to go to your office?” Tasha asks, staring at Tony.
“Out of the building now!” Principal Green says.
All the commotion has brought other teachers to the hallway. Just as they start moving everyone toward the exit, Devin barges through the crowd. “I’m not going to your office if they don’t have to go.” He points to Vince, Bags, Joey, and Tony. “I’m going home. I didn’t do anything.”
“Devin! Devin!” Principal Green is not going to win. Devin walks out the door.
Students are still standing in the hallway, yelling and telling each other what just happened, as if we all didn’t just experience it.
“Did you see that?”
“I know he wrote it!”
“I heard him say it.”
“Principal Green is a sellout.”
Tony grabs my hand. “Let’s get out of here,” he says.
I snatch my hand from his grasp.
“I think we should go,” he says.
“I’m coming,” I yell over the noise. I follow him, walking through the crowd, forging my way, bumping up against backpacks, squeezing myself through the groups who refuse to move.
Teachers start ushering us o
ut one door, not letting anyone go anywhere except outside. “And go home. Don’t loiter around the building,” a teacher says.
“Come on, move it along,” another teacher calls out. “This way, this way.” He holds a door open and calls us toward him with his hand.
Tony and I walk outside. He is walking so fast in front of me, I can barely keep up. The sidewalk is crowded. We cross the street and wait for Nikki and Kate to come out. “You didn’t want to hold my hand?” Tony yells. I’ve never heard him yell before.
“Tony, did you see what just happened in there? I mean, really, are you crazy or something? This is not the time for holding hands.” I look for Nikki and Kate. No sign of them.
“Have you told your friends about us?” he asks. Still yelling.
“Tony, stop making a scene,” I say.
“Have you told anyone? Nikki? Essence? Anyone?”
“This is not the time or place to talk about it.”
“Are you ashamed of us?”
“Tony, stop yelling at me and stop asking me questions.”
“No. I want you to answer me. Why wouldn’t you hold my hand?”
“I didn’t want—”
“People to know we’re together?”
“Do you really think it’s a good idea to take my hand after what you’ve been accused of?”
“I didn’t say it!”
“That’s not the point. My point is our relationship is not some kind of statement. I didn’t want to bring attention to the two of us. I don’t want drama.”
“Well, if Devin hadn’t vandalized the school there wouldn’t have been—”
“He didn’t do it.”
“Common sense says the person holding the marker is the one who wrote on the wall!”
Most students clear out and make their way home by foot or bus. Tasha comes outside and leans against the school wall. I wonder who she is waiting for and why she is staring at me. She doesn’t even care that I see her looking. It’s almost like she wants me to say something to her, but instead I just keep talking to Tony.
“Look, Devin didn’t do it. I know him,” I repeat.
