Always Forward

by Ginny Dye

  Nancy frowned and pulled them to the side of the room where they could talk privately, but she cast a hesitant look at Rose.

  Rose interpreted her thoughts, certain she knew the reason for the hesitancy in her eyes. “Please talk freely, Mrs. Stratford. I’m aware there are many mixed feelings about black men getting the vote before, or in lieu of, women getting the vote.”

  “Please call me Nancy, and I will talk freely.”

  Rose smiled. “Nancy,” she agreed.

  Nancy took a deep breath. “There is not a woman in this room who does not want black men to have the vote, but there are many determined to fight it if the vote for women is not also granted. We are still reeling from the fact that if the Fourteenth Amendment is passed, it will put the word ‘male’ into the Constitution for the first time ever.”

  Rose nodded. “The women here are demanding voting rights for black men based on the broad principle of natural rights that is in the Constitution, but the logical result of that action must be the enfranchisement of all ostracized classes, which includes women of all colors.”

  Nancy cocked her head. “You are well informed.”

  Rose smiled. “My daughter keeps me up-to-date on current affairs. Without her, I’m afraid life on the plantation would be rather isolating.”

  Nancy raised her eyebrows. “You do not look old enough to have a daughter who would keep you so well informed.”

  Rose chuckled. “My brilliant daughter is only twelve.” She smiled proudly. “She is also my teacher’s aide at school, making sure all the students know what is going on in the country.”

  Nancy’s eyes widened with surprise.

  Abby laughed. “She amazes all of us, too,” she confided. “Thomas sends her every magazine, newspaper and journal he receives because she is so hungry for information and knowledge. She is quite extraordinary.”

  “Obviously,” Nancy murmured.

  Rose decided to enlighten her further. “Felicia is my adopted daughter. She saw both her parents murdered during the Memphis riots last year. Moses brought her home to be part of our family.”

  Nancy’s eyes filled with sympathy. “The poor child.”

  “She is quite resilient,” Rose replied. “She has come a long way.”

  “And she is also a direct part of one of the historic occasions that led to the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment,” Nancy observed. “It was the riots in Memphis and New Orleans that spurred the North to vote the Republicans into office last year, giving them the power to make the Fourteenth Amendment happen, and also to begin Radical Reconstruction.” She swung around to look at Abby. “How do you feel about all this?”

  Abby sighed. “Politics are messy,” she said ruefully, “and they are seldom simple.” She gazed around the room while she formulated her thoughts. “It is easy to understand why the motivations and goals of those who have been working so closely together for the last several years are beginning to unravel. It is rather a slap in the face to realize that women stepped back from fighting for suffrage in order to support the abolitionist movement, and now we are being cast aside as not important.”

  “So you agree with those who want to block the Fourteenth Amendment?” Nancy pressed.

  Abby hesitated. “I’m not sure I would go that far,” she objected. “Yet,” she finished in a firm voice.

  “I believe it is going to split the ERA,” Nancy predicted. “If the Fourteenth Amendment is passed, and we allow the word ‘male’ to be included in the Constitution, it might well set suffrage for women back for generations to come.”

  Abby frowned. “I realize that is true.”

  “And you’re all right with that?” Nancy asked sharply.

  “Not at all,” Abby protested. “I read something recently that indicated that if they attempt to pass the amendment without introducing the word ‘male,’ it will certainly be defeated. There seems to be wide political support for protecting the freed slaves, but not for giving women the right to vote.”

  “So we just give up all we have fought for in order to let black men have the right to vote?” Nancy sputtered. “I can’t believe you think that.”

  “I don’t think that,” Abby retorted. “I’m simply telling you what I read.”

  Rose chuckled, hoping to alleviate the tension she felt building between the two friends. “Well, I certainly understand why the room feels like a bomb getting ready to explode,” she said. “I understood you two were good friends.”

  Abby took a deep breath. “We are,” she said quickly.

  “We are,” Nancy agreed. “I think what I hate the most is that political decisions made by men have had the power to turn women who have worked as allies, almost into enemies.”

  Abby nodded sadly. “There must be a way to come to a point of agreement on this.”

  Nancy shook her head. “I’m afraid it is too late for that. I fear each woman here is going to have to make a decision about what side they stand on if the Fourteenth Amendment passes as it is written.”

  Rose was very much afraid Nancy was right, but she had doubts that granting black men citizenship would automatically grant them the right to vote, because she knew how hard the southern states would fight to keep that from happening. They might pass the amendment in order to gain their voice in the country’s government, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t find ways to exclude blacks from voting. Whatever happened with the Fourteenth Amendment, it was still going to be a long, difficult battle to achieve equality—for blacks and for women.

  ********

  Rose’s head was spinning by the time Sojourner Truth took the stage during the second day of the convention. There had been many excellent speakers who had given her much to think about. They didn’t all agree about the right course of action, but they were all equally passionate. No matter what decisions were made, it was clear not everyone would agree.

  Rose took a deep breath of admiration as she gazed at the elderly woman who held her head proudly as she looked out over the audience. Felicia had made sure she was well educated on who Sojourner Truth was before she came. Sojourner had been born into slavery in 1797 and endured great cruelty and tragedy before escaping the year before New York State banned slavery in 1827. She changed her name to Sojourner Truth in the 1840s and began her life as an abolition activist. The calm strength shining from her eyes made Rose long to be just like her.

  Almost as if her thoughts had called Sojourner, the woman turned her head and stared deeply into Rose’s eyes. Rose shivered, her heart absorbing the wisdom she saw there. Sojourner’s gaze was searching and intense. She felt a jolt as she realized it felt as if the old woman was passing a baton to her. Rose chided herself for thinking something so ludicrous, but she couldn’t shake the feeling as the dark eyes penetrated her soul. Sojourner Truth had fought what most certainly must have seemed like a losing battle for decades, simply refusing to give up. Rose was certain the battle she would fight in the decades to come would seem just as hopeless at times. Yet here Sojourner was, the scourge of slavery abolished, now fighting for women’s rights. Rose straightened her shoulders, lifted her head even higher, and with a nod accepted the challenge Sojourner was passing on to her.

  Sojourner smiled slightly, her eyes shining bright approval, before she turned to gaze out at the rest of the crowd applauding her and began to speak…

  “My friends, I am rejoiced that you are glad, but I don’t know how you will feel when I get through. I come from another field—the country of the slave. They have got their liberty—so much good luck to have slavery partly destroyed; not entirely. I want it root and branch destroyed. Then we will all be free indeed. I feel that if I have to answer for the deeds done in my body just as much as a man, I have a right to have just as much as a man. There is a great stir about colored men getting their rights, but not a word about the colored women, and if colored men get their rights, and not colored women theirs, you see the colored men will be masters over the women, and it will be ju
st as bad as it was before.”

  Rose stiffened, realizing how true her words were. She had already seen the results of black men being told they were the heads of their households. The abuse that had been heaped on them was too often now being heaped on the women in their homes.

  “So I am for keeping the thing going while things are stirring; because if we wait till it is still, it will take a great while to get it going again. White women are a great deal smarter, and know more than colored women, while colored women do not know scarcely anything. They go out washing, which is about as high as a colored woman gets, and their men go about idle, strutting up and down; and when the women come home, they ask for their money and take it all, and then scold because there is no food. I want you to consider on that, chil’n. I call you chil’n; you are somebody’s chil’n and I am old enough to be mother of all that is here. I want women to have their rights. In the courts women have no right, no voice; nobody speaks for them. I wish woman to have her voice there among the pettifoggers. If it is not a fit place for women, it is unfit for men to be there”.

  Sojourner paused and let her keen eyes sweep the crowds for a long moment. When they met Rose’s eyes, once again she felt a silent message being passed on. Rose shivered, but this time she didn’t question it.

  “I am above eighty years old; it is about time for me to be going. I have been forty years a slave and forty years free, and would be here forty years more to have equal rights for all. I suppose I am kept here because something remains for me to do, I suppose I am yet to help to break the chain. I have done a great deal of work; as much as a man, but did not get so much pay. I used to work in the field and bind grain, keeping up with the cradler, but men doing no more, got twice as much pay; so with the German women. They work in the field and do as much work, but do not get the pay. We do as much, we eat as much, we want as much. I suppose I am about the only colored woman that goes about to speak for the rights of the colored women. I want to keep the thing stirring now that the ice is cracked.”

  Rose laughed along with everyone else, but everything inside her was responding with fierce agreement as Sojourner’s words rolled through the room with equal parts passion and ferocity.

  “What we want is a little money. You men know that you get as much again as women when you write, or for what you do. When we get our rights we shall not have to come to you for money, for then we shall have money enough in our own pockets; and maybe you will ask us for money. But help for us now until we get it. It is a good consolation to know that when we have got this battle once fought we shall not be coming to you anymore. You have been having our rights so long, that you think, like a slave-holder, that you own us. I know that it is hard for one who has held the reins for so long to give it up; it cuts like a knife.”

  Rose looked around the room filled with a majority of white women. Until Sojourner’s speech, she had never considered that white women were also held in slavery to the men who were determined to control all aspects of their lives. It was a jolt to realize she had been released from one kind of slavery, only to have to fight against another kind, while also fighting the prejudice inflaming the South with so much hatred. It was jarring to understand the free women surrounding her were, in many ways, as much a slave as she had ever been.

  Sojourner, seeming to hear her thoughts, once again swung her piercing eyes to gaze at her before she continued. “It will feel all the better when it closes up again. I have been in Washington about three years, seeing about these colored people. Now colored men have the right to vote. There ought to be equal rights now more than ever, since colored people have got their freedom.”

  Rose took a deep breath when Sojourner finished speaking and moved away from the podium. Without being able to define it, she knew she had been radically transformed. Not so much by the words, which had been powerful, but by the unspoken communication that had passed between the two of them.

  In the lull between speakers, Abby turned to her with a searching gaze.

  Rose met her eyes, but said nothing. She was still too much under the spell of what had just happened.

  Abby gave a satisfied nod. “You got it,” she stated.

  Rose didn’t even bother to ask her what she meant. Abby would have been well aware of what had just transpired. Rose knew it would take time for the true meaning of the last hour to settle into her heart, but she knew that in the span of sixty minutes she had become a changed woman who was ready to do whatever it took to make things better for her people, and for all women in general. She had no idea how it was going to play out in her life, and she had no idea what it would require of her, but she was determined to live with the same passion, dedication and perseverance as Sojourner Truth.

  ********

  Moses would be alarmed if he knew what Carrie was doing, but she simply had to be outside. She was quite certain if she spent one more minute in the house she would suffocate. Thankfully, she had the perfect way to disappear without being detected. She had reclaimed her and Robert’s room when Rose and Abby had left. There were moments it was sheer agony to be in the room where Robert had died, and to sleep in the bed where she had lost Bridget, but it also connected her with them in a way that comforted her heart. She could feel Robert’s presence in the room. She could almost see him poking the fire to make sure the air was warm when she finally crawled out of bed. She could hear the echo of his laughter and see the brightness of his eyes.

  Carrie reached for the handle hidden within the mirror. The tunnel had been built for escape from Indian attacks when Virginia was first being settled. Now it was going to help her escape the memories that were attacking her sanity. She could hear the sound of John and Moses playing out on the lawn beneath her window—John’s high shrieks mixing with Moses’ deep laugh. Hope’s gurgling chortle as Annie played with her was simply more than Carrie could stand. She stepped into the tunnel, welcoming the black cocoon that enveloped her, and shut out the sounds that taunted her.

  It took only a moment for the candle she carried to illuminate the tunnel. At least here there were not as many memories of Robert. There were plenty of memories, but they were ones that distracted her from her grief. It might only be for a moment, but at this point she would take whatever she could get. She walked slowly down the corridor, running her hand idly along the sturdy brick walls that held more secrets than she would ever know. As she thought through the war years, the memories all became about Robert again—memories of him leaving her for battle, declared missing in battle for almost a year, coming home sick, and then…

  Carrie tightened her lips as she lengthened her strides, once again desperate for air. The tunnel seemed to close in on her, compressing her chest and making her want to scream. She took deep gasps as her vision narrowed and blurred. Desperate to breathe, she broke into a run for the last hundred yards, pushing through the door at the end before she collapsed on the ground, tears streaming down her face.

  She lay still for several minutes, letting the darkness of the night wrap around her. Stars glimmered down as the placid waters of the James reflected them back as little points of light. She could hear the hoot of owls in the distance, but it was the raucous chorus of frogs lining the bank that finally broke through her trance. Carrie sat up and gazed around, relieved to discover she was breathing normally again. She was a little startled to realize she truly was concerned about breathing. Most of her waking moments since Robert’s and Bridget’s death had been spent wishing she wasn’t breathing. When had that shifted? She didn’t know the answer, but was certain the shift was not warranted.

  She stood, walked over to a boulder not far from the tunnel entrance, and sat down. The dark silence, broken only by animal calls, embraced her. She listened to the gentle lap of waves, and watched as fish leapt out of the river in pursuit of the bugs hovering over the surface. As the beauty lulled her, she was startled by a fresh wave of grief. She wanted to share this with Robert. She wanted to experience it with the man she lov
ed. The brief reprieve fled before a fresh torrent of tears that coursed down her face.

  “I miss you,” she whispered into the night. She knew it was ridiculous, but she still found herself listening with all her heart, hoping she would hear the whisper of his voice on the wind. Silence mocked her, causing anger to mix with the grief. She was so tired of the torrent of feelings that ripped through her heart every single day, but she also knew they would never end. She did not deserve to feel better. She had killed her daughter. Whether or not she would have made a different choice about riding home to be with Robert didn’t really matter. She had pondered the conversation with Abby, but in the end it had been her choice that had killed Bridget. Nothing could justify or change that simple fact.

  Devoid of peace but not willing to go back into the stifling confines of a house filled with children’s laughter, Carrie sat on the boulder until the moon had risen to perch on the treetops in the distance. She watched it silently, wondering how such beauty could exist when her heart was completely shattered. Beauty that had once given her joy now seemed nothing more than a mocking cruelty.

  Slowly… slowly… she discovered a feeling that at least resembled peace. The quiet and beauty entwined its way into her heart and mind as she watched the moon glide across the sky. The night noises were like whispers of comfort to her battered soul. There were no children, no one wanting to know how she was doing, and nobody she had to pretend on any level with. Tears flowed… stopped… and then flowed again as she faced the stark reality of life without her husband.

  The moon had long set and the eastern horizon was starting to glow before Carrie rose stiffly from the boulder and made her way back down the tunnel to her room. She still had no answers, but for at least this moment in time, it didn’t seem to matter. And she already knew how she was going to spend the night to come.

  Once again, the tunnel was going to save her life.