“Look what I got,” he said, waving a magazine toward me.
“Contraband?” I said, staring at and, for the first time, resenting the copy of Jet. The cover was powder blue and white, and it, of course, had a picture of a beautiful Negro woman on the cover. “Where’s the book you said you’d bring me?”
Hallelujah scowled. “Preacher said Native Son wasn’t a proper book to be sharing with a lady.”
I winced and said, “I ain’t no lady. If I was a lady, I wouldn’t be wearing myself out in that cotton field. I’d be sitting under a shade tree like Mrs. Robinson and sipping on some ice-cold lemonade.”
Hallelujah laughed and placed the magazine in my hand. “This is better than the book right now,” he said. “It’s last week’s edition. There’s an article about Emmett Till. Page three.”
“Oh,” I said, my perspective changing as I took the magazine from his hand.
“How Dark Negroes ‘Pass’ Down South,” the cover read. That, at least, sounded like information I could use. But when I opened the magazine to the article on Emmett Till, my jaw dropped. “Oh my God, Hallelujah. He looks so much like you.”
“Looked,” Hallelujah corrected me. Then he said, “I know. Gave me chills when I saw it. Preacher even said we have the same birthday. July twenty-fifth.”
I stared at the picture, a professional shot of a smiling, handsome boy wearing a fedora, a starched shirt, and a tie—what Hallelujah wore every Sunday. I couldn’t believe the resemblance, as if they could have been brothers.
“Glad he didn’t wear glasses,” Hallelujah said, his voice low. “That would’ve been too close.”
“Uncanny,” I whispered. “That’s the word Miss Johnson would use.”
When I glanced at Hallelujah, I noticed that goose bumps were creeping up his neck. I wondered whether he was thinking about our visit to Miss Addie’s and her strange reaction when she saw him. I sure was. I rubbed away goose bumps from my own arms as I pondered on how she “sensed” that something bad might happen by just looking at Hallelujah.
I started reading the article out loud: “ ‘A fourteen-year-old Chicago junior high school student, Emmett (Bobo) Till, who was kidnapped by a trio of gun-toting whites early Sunday morning while visiting relatives in Money, Miss., was feared a lynch victim because he “whistled at a white girl.” ’”
I looked up at Hallelujah. “I thought folks have been saying that the third man might be colored.”
Hallelujah shrugged. “What difference does it make? If he was colored, he’s still as guilty as the whites.”
I read on silently.
“What you think of Preacher Mose sticking around for the trial?” Hallelujah asked.
“What trial?”
“The trial for Roy Bryant and J. W. Milam next week.”
“A trial?” I asked, glancing up from the magazine. “Next week?”
Hallelujah nodded.
“In Mississippi? For a white man killing a Negro?”
Hallelujah grinned. “Two white men. And they could go to prison for life if found guilty.”
“Praise the Lord,” I said.
“Sinners can’t praise the Lord.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “They do every Sunday at Greater Mount Zion.”
Exasperated by my remark, Hallelujah ripped the magazine from my hands and turned to the article on Emmett Till. He read, “‘… the sheriff ordered the family of sixty-four-year-old Rev. Moses Wright, a retired Church of God in Christ minister and the boy’s uncle, to “take his family from the town for their own safety.” The minister, however, refused to leave his home after making arrangements to hide his wife, three sons, and two visiting Chicago grandsons, Curtis Jones and Wheeler Parker.’” He peered at me and asked, “You think you could be that brave?”
“He’s braver than most Negroes,” I said. “I don’t know if I’d be bold enough to hang around. Not after what they did to his nephew.”
“I would,” said Hallelujah. “I wouldn’t let those crackers run me from my home either. I’d stay and testify too.”
“You wouldn’t,” I challenged him.
He nodded. “Would so. My daddy would too. He said Preacher Wright is one of the bravest men he knows.”
“If he’s so is brave, how come he let them take his nephew in the first place?”
Hallelujah stared at me as though I had turned as orange as the sun. After a moment his forehead wrinkled. “He didn’t know they’d kill him, Rosa. They said they wanted to talk to him. He trusted them. Wouldn’t any colored man do the same if two white men came to his house in the middle of the night asking to speak to one of his kin?”
“Scoot over,” I said, plopping down on the step next to him. “I guess if there was a colored man with him, like Reverend Mose believed, then he wouldn’t think they’d do something so violent.” I took off my hat and fanned myself. “I bet even Papa would’ve let Fred Lee go if two white men came saying he’d done something wrong and they wanted to talk to him.”
As I fanned myself with my straw hat, I realized how badly I needed that bath. “Sorry if I stink,” I said.
Hallelujah pinched his nose. “Pee-eww. Yes, you do.”
Playfully, I slapped the fedora off his head. “So how was school today?” I asked.
Hallelujah narrowed his eyes at me as he retrieved his hat from the yard.
He sat back down on the step and fanned himself with the hat. “Folks keep whispering about the Chicago boy and the NAACP, and Miss Wilson’s about to have a fit worrying about white folks getting word of it.”
Miss Wilson was a new teacher at the colored school. She had been out of college for only a year, with plans to move up north. But her mama, although she was only in her fifties, got sick with what Ma Pearl called “old-timer’s disease.” And since her mama refused to leave her home, Miss Wilson remained in Stillwater to care for her.
“Miss Wilson can’t afford to lose her job,” I said.
With a roll of his eyes, Hallelujah said, “She ain’t nothing like Miss Johnson.”
“I bet she ain’t,” I said, rolling my eyes back at him.
Hallelujah scowled and placed his hat on his head. “I ain’t talking about the way she looks.”
After silence sat between us for a minute, Hallelujah finally spoke. “You know how Miss Johnson is. She’s brave like Preacher Mose. She’d encourage us to talk about what happened.”
“What’s Miss Wilson like?”
“As scared as a chicken in a fox den.”
I chuckled, but Hallelujah didn’t even bother with a smile. “She wants us to put on a patriotic play for the fall and sing that stupid song about ‘This land is your land. This land is my land.’”
“So?”
Hallelujah’s brows shot up. “So?” He motioned toward the cotton field. “Is that your land you just picked cotton from?”
“You already know it’s Mr. Robinson’s land,” I said, annoyed at him.
He nodded toward the cotton sack. “How much you gonna get for spending the day in the blazing hot sun filling that thing with cotton?”
“Nothing,” I muttered.
“Because this land ain’t your land,” he said, smiling, satisfied.
I recalled what Mr. Pete had said to Papa before they left for Chicago: A Negro can own all the land in Mississippi and still be treated worse than a hog. “You know that’s why Mr. Pete left, don’t you?”
Hallelujah scoffed. “What good is it for a Negro to own acres of cotton if the white man owns the scales?”
I laughed and told him how I always thought Mr. Pete was rich.
“No such thing as a rich Negro in the Mississippi Delta,” he replied. “Unless you count Dr. Howard in Mound Bayou. But that’s because Mound Bayou was built by Negroes and is run by Negroes.”
“Papa said that all Mr. Pete got for his land was enough to buy a fancy car and drive it to Chicago. He thinks it’s a shame he’s working for Armour and Company, making soap.”
&
nbsp; Hallelujah winced. “He’ll make more in a factory in Chicago than he would’ve made growing cotton in Mississippi. But if he was white …”
He didn’t finish the statement. He simply stared out at the rows and rows of cotton and glowered.
“You gonna do the play?” I asked.
“No.”
“What’d Reverend Jenkins say?”
Hallelujah shrugged. “Haven’t told him. But he’ll probably agree with me.”
“Just do it,” I said. “Don’t cause any trouble for Miss Wilson.”
Hallelujah gave me a sideways glance. “Did you read the last few lines in that article?”
“I read the whole thing.”
“‘If this slaughtering of Negroes is allowed to continue,’” he read from the magazine, “‘Mississippi will have a civil war. Negroes are going to take only so much.’” He slapped the magazine shut. “Those were the words of Dr. T.R.M. Howard of Mound Bayou. And I agree with him. Jim Crow has muted colored folks in Mississippi for too long. It’s time for us to speak up and be heard.”
“And get shot.”
“They’re gonna kill us anyway. Might as well die a hero.”
“Or a fool.”
Hallelujah dismissed my comment with a wave of his hand. “If there’s gonna be a civil war in Mississippi between colored and white, I’ll be the first to sign up.”
“And maybe the first to die.”
“They can’t kill all of us.”
“Says who?”
“Eisenhower would send troops down here before he let that happen.”
I laughed. “You think the president of the United States cares about Negroes in Mississippi?”
“Abraham Lincoln did.”
I stood and stretched. “Well, I, for one, ain’t ready to die,” I said, yawning. “I want to live. And not in Mississippi.”
“Well, I’m not running. I’m staying. And I’m fighting.”
“Thought you were going to Ohio.”
“I am. But not anytime soon. Like I said, if there’s gonna be a civil war between coloreds and whites, I’m up for the task. If old man Preacher Wright won’t run, then neither will I.”
Maybe Hallelujah was right. Maybe it was time to fight. If Mississippi was willing to have a trial for two white men who killed a Negro, maybe the battle was already halfway won. But of course, there were always people who did what they could to dodge a war—like Ma Pearl’s brother Elmer, who Papa said refused to fight in the First World War. Uncle Elmer said the fight wasn’t his business, much like Ma Pearl was always claiming the fight between coloreds and whites wasn’t hers.
Was it mine? I wasn’t so sure. I didn’t know if I could be as brave as Hallelujah or Preacher Mose or even Levi Jackson, who risked his life to fight for change.
“I’m proud of you. You know that?” I said, smiling at Hallelujah.
He tipped his hat. “You should be. I’m a man who’s going places. And right now I’m about to go in there and feast on whatever Miss Sweet cooked up for supper.”
I turned up my nose. “Cornbread. Warmed-up speckled butter beans we had at dinnertime today. Fried corn. Okra and stewed tomatoes.”
“Beats the air soup Preacher’s serving up at our place,” Hallelujah said, patting his stomach.
I tilted my head to one side and squinted to keep the evening sun from my eyes. “You been there before, haven’t you?”
“Where?”
“Money.”
Hallelujah shrugged. “A few times.”
“You ever been to that store? The one where they say Emmett Till talked to the woman?”
He nodded.
“You see her?”
Hallelujah turned his gaze from me and stared at the ground. “Twice.”
“She pretty?”
Hallelujah nodded.
“Would you have done it?”
“Whistled at her?”
“Yeah.”
Hallelujah stared at me for what felt like an entire five minutes before he finally said, “Heck, no. I’ll fight, but I ain’t crazy enough to start one.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14
IT WAS LATE, AND WE HAD JUST SETTLED IN FOR THE night after attending church. We were all kind of piddling around before we went to bed. I sat in the front room with Fred Lee, who was reading his history text while I looked at the funny pages from a week-old copy of the Jackson Clarion-Ledger. After reading through several chapters of the book of Jeremiah—the “weeping prophet”—during church service, I needed something to give me happy thoughts before going to sleep.
Across from us in the parlor sat Ma Pearl, Papa, and Queen. Ma Pearl and Queen listened to a show on the radio while Papa browsed the pages of a Sears and Roebuck catalog.
When the knock came, it surprised us. No one ever visited that late at night.
We all froze. Except Papa. Springs creaked when he rose from his chair.
He touched his finger to his lips, requesting our silence. As quietly as he could, except for the squeaking floorboards, he crept to his bedroom to retrieve his shotgun.
Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. The knock came again. My heart pounded so fast I thought it would beat out of my chest.
With his shotgun at his side, Papa called through the door, “Who there?”
“It’s me, Papa,” a weak voice came from the other side. “Open the door.”
“Ruthie?” Papa called.
When he opened the door, Aunt Ruthie and her children flooded inside. The children clung to her like cuckle bugs.
Ma Pearl, with Queen at her heels, stormed from the parlor. “Gal, what the devil is you doin’ with these chi’rens out this time a night?”
Aunt Ruthie stood in the middle of the floor, her face illuminated by the glow of the kerosene lamp. The two younger children, their faces buried in the fabric of her faded plaid dress, hugged her knees; the older ones circled her waist. The baby was cradled in her arms.
“Ruthie,” Papa said, his face puzzled, “what is you doin’ here?” He placed the shotgun against the wall and peered out the door. “How y’all get here?”
“Walked,” Aunt Ruthie muttered, her head hanging, a wide-brimmed straw hat covering her face.
“Walked?” asked Papa. “Seven miles?
Aunt Ruthie nodded.
“In the dark?”
Without raising her head, Aunt Ruthie lifted her arm and mumbled hoarsely, “I had a flashlight.”
Her voice rattled, like she’d been crying.
“What you doin’ walking seven miles in the dark with these babies?” Papa asked.
Before Aunt Ruthie could answer, Ma Pearl yanked the hat off her head. One of the baby’s diapers was wrapped around her head. Blood had soaked through.
“Lawd, Ruthie,” Ma Pearl snapped. “You done let that ol’ drunk fool beat you again?”
“What happened, Ruthie?” Papa asked gently.
Aunt Ruthie choked back a sob. “He hit me in the head with his steel-toe boot.”
“Lawd-a-mercy,” Papa whispered.
Queen went over to Aunt Ruthie and took the baby from her arms. When Aunt Ruthie’s tears crested, so did mine. I wiped them quickly with the back of my hand.
“Rose, you and Fret’Lee make a pallet on the floor in Grandma Mandy’s room for them chi’ren,” Papa said. “Ruthie and the baby can have the bed.” He turned to Aunt Ruthie and said, “Come on back here. Let me clean you up.”
But Ma Pearl wouldn’t let her go without a fight. She planted herself right in front of Aunt Ruthie’s face. “Don’t make no sense how you let that man beat on you, gal,” she said. “And he’n even feed’n you and them chi’ren?” She shook her head. “You shoulda left that fool long time ago.”
Aunt Ruthie, rubbing her arm and still staring at the floor, choked back sobs. “I’m leaving,” she said. “For good. This the last time he go’n hit me.”
As if hearing her voice triggered their memories, the childre
n began to cry. Papa, in a sterner voice this time, said, “Take them chi’ren on to the back, Rose and Fred.”
Fred Lee had already set his book aside, but I was still sitting on the sofa with the funny pages spread in my lap. I felt immobilized. Everybody talked about Slow John beating Aunt Ruthie, but I always hoped it was an exaggeration. Now I was seeing it for myself. Her children huddled around her, crying—clinging to her, as if at any minute she could be taken away from them—was a testimony of how frightening it must have been. Aunt Ruthie herself stood there looking equally frightened, as if the boogeyman himself had chased her and the children through the dark night, along those wooded predator-filled roads, to the safety of her parents’ house. And all she received from her own mama was chastisement, blaming it all on her.
Then, as if Ma Pearl’s words finally registered, Papa asked Aunt Ruthie, “These chi’ren ett?”
Aunt Ruthie glanced at Ma Pearl, then at Papa. “They ett,” she said softly. “They ain’t hongry.”
Ma Pearl snorted. “I bet they ain’t.” She stepped aside as Fred Lee and I pried the children from the folds of Aunt Ruthie’s dress.
“Lord, my chile ain’t got a bit o’ sense,” Ma Pearl said, throwing her hands into the air. “Let’n that man beat the devil outta her.”
“That’s enough from you, Pearl,” Papa said. “This gal can’t help that man so hard. She here now. That’s all that matter.”
“Humph,” Ma Pearl said. “She been here befo’. She’ll go back soon that jackass show up saying he sorry.”
“I ain’t goin’ back” was the last thing I heard Aunt Ruthie say before Fred Lee and I ushered the children to the back. I prayed she was speaking the truth.
While Fred Lee and I got old quilts from the chest in Grandma Mandy’s room, surprisingly, Queen came in and calmed the children. All four of them huddled around her as she sat on the side of Grandma Mandy’s bed and held the baby. At that moment, as she rubbed their backs and whispered, “Hush now. It’s go’n be all right,” I almost liked her. I almost forgot how mean and ugly she could be most of the time.
By the time we got everyone settled—the children resting on a pallet, Aunt Ruthie cleaned up and in the kitchen sharing a cup of coffee with Papa, Ma Pearl and Queen back to their radio show—I headed to bed, as it seemed cruel to continue reading the funny pages when there was so much sadness in the house. As I passed through Fred Lee’s room and said good night to him, there was another knock at the door. My heart knew it was Slow John, and again it threatened to pound out of my chest.
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