“They set it.”
“You have the money for it? I’ve got some.”
“I’ve got it, but the girl wants to stay here.”
“What!”
“They’re saying jail, no bail to protest the jailing. Supposed to bring more attention to what’s going on down here.”
I considered. “Well, I suppose it would.” I looked around. “Where’s Man?”
“Seeing to the car.” We both were silent. Then, in a sudden outburst, Stacey proclaimed, “I’m not going to have it, Cassie! I’m not going to have Rie stay in this white man’s jail! I’ve been in jail. I won’t have it!”
I said nothing.
Stacey despondently shook his head, almost in surrender to his daughter’s will. “I should never have let her come down here, Cassie. I can’t protect her anymore.”
“But you did let her come. You knew the risks . . . and you knew Rie.”
Stacey looked away. “I can’t believe it, Cassie. My baby in jail.”
I felt my brother’s pain and touched his arm. “But think why she’s in here, Stacey. Just think about that.”
Stacey turned back to look at me. “I’d rather be in jail myself, Cassie, than have Rie here.”
“But you’re not. Fact is, Stacey, you and Dee, you done good. Rie is right where she’s supposed to be.”
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
In the end, Rie did not stay in jail. Fourteen others did, along with Dr. King. They remained there for six days, until October 24, when Atlanta’s white mayor ordered their release, except for Dr. King. He was to remain. Eventually, the protest charge against Dr. King was dropped, but a judge sentenced him to four months in jail for violating a traffic ticket probation. It was said that Dr. King didn’t even know about the ticket. It was a misdemeanor charge, but the judge refused to set bail. We all kept anxiously tuned to the radio and television news, trying to learn what was happening to Dr. King. Then word came that he had been secretly moved from the Atlanta jail to Georgia’s Reidsville State Penitentiary. Reidsville. It was a dangerous place known for its brutal chain gangs and the questionable deaths of its Negro inmates.
People in high places were contacted to try to get Dr. King out, people like John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon, who were in the middle of an election year as they ran for the presidency of the United States. Richard Nixon did nothing to help Dr. King; he made no response to the pleas for help. But word spread that John F. Kennedy personally called Mrs. King, and that his brother Robert Kennedy called the judge who had sentenced Dr. King and questioned the judge as to why bail had been denied to Dr. King; after all, a traffic violation was simply a misdemeanor. Following that call, the judge changed his mind about the bail and granted it.
Dr. King was released.
On election day, John F. Kennedy defeated Richard M. Nixon by the narrowest of margins, and it was said that the Negro vote helped put him in the presidency. John F. Kennedy had reached out a helping hand to Dr. King and we, as a people, did not forget that. In January of 1961, John F. Kennedy was sworn in as the thirty-fifth president of the United States. We now had a new president, one we thought would be sympathetic to our struggle, and the fight went on.
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
Spring came. Solomon Bradley called. “It’s happening, Mrs. De Baca,” he said.
“What’s happening?”
“Freedom rides.”
“When?”
“Not sure yet, soon though. There’ll be both black and white riders to integrate the buses, sit side by side all through the bus, front to back. You going to go?”
“You?” I countered.
“Not on the first one, but if they keep the buses rolling, then I’m going to try like hell to get up my nerve.” He paused. “So, you with me?”
I hesitated. “I don’t know. I’d have to get up an awful lot of nerve too.”
“Well, think about it. Call me.”
Before I had a chance to really think about it, let alone get up my nerve, Morris called. “It’s on, Cassie, voter registration drive in several counties, including Spokane. Come the summer, we’re starting things up.”
“Why the summer?” I questioned. “Folks’ll be working the fields. Why not wait ’til winter?”
“Can’t wait,” contended Morris. “We’ve got to strike on all sides, keep the irons hot and our fight in the national consciousness. You hear there’s supposed to be freedom rides coming soon, along with the sit-ins?”
“I heard.”
“Well, that’ll get headlines, but you know as well as I do, we’ve got to get people educated to vote for long-term political gain. Like we talked about, we’ll have to teach folks the constitution and how to interpret it. We need people like you, Cassie. Wait a minute, I didn’t say that right. We need you, Cassie. Can you come?”
“Let me think about it.”
I had a lot to think about. If I chose to board an interstate bus and ride it across the South, across Alabama and into Mississippi and try to use a white restroom or sit at a white lunch counter, I was in for real trouble. The same could be true if I went teaching the constitution and trying to get black folks to the courthouse in Strawberry to register to vote. I knew what could happen. As if it were yesterday, the memory of Mrs. Lee Annie was fresh in my mind. But I also knew I would not be in as much peril as the people who actually lived in Spokane County, people who depended on white folks for just about every dollar they made, for the land they lived on, for their very existence. If I were to teach in the drive, I still could go back to Boston and find some employment. Folks brave enough to go against white folks upon whom they depended in Spokane County would truly be putting their lives on the line. That’s what Mrs. Lee Annie had done, and her whole family had paid the price for it.
I talked it over with Guy. “Not only all that,” I said, “but I’d have to give up my job here. I know I couldn’t take that much time off and still have a job when I got back. Besides that, I have bills to pay and if I were to do the registration drive, it would be strictly voluntary.”
“But you could stay with your family. You won’t have to worry about food or a place to stay,” said Guy.
“True. But I still would have bills to pay here . . . my rent, my car, utilities.”
“You know, I could pay all that for you.”
“I don’t think so!”
“Okay. Sorry, said the wrong thing.” Guy looked appropriately contrite, then said, “I think you’re wrong about not having a job if you took the time. My dad and uncle are sympathetic to civil rights. You ought to talk to them about a leave of absence. They might just give you the time. If you do the registration, how long do you think you’d be gone?”
“Morris wants me to commit to at least two months. He says once people get to know me, to trust me, he doesn’t want to switch out to another teacher. He wants each teacher to take a class through the learning of the constitution and go with them to Strawberry and walk up the courthouse steps with them to try to register to vote.”
“Well, that makes sense,” said Guy. He looked pointedly at me. “And what if you were to go on one of the buses? That’s a commitment of what? Just a few days?”
“Maybe it would be if everything went smoothly, which I doubt it will. Riders are bound to be arrested.”
Guy shrugged. “Well, then, we’ll get you out on bail.”
“A friend of mine told me everybody on those rides is committing to jail time. The rides will get the nation’s attention that way. It’s going to be scary, Guy, very dangerous. You’ve seen what’s happened with the student sit-ins. You think those white folks down south are about to let people take an integrated bus ride through there with black folks sitting next to white folks and sitting up front in the bus, not in the back? You’ve never been down there.”
G
uy smiled. “Been to Florida.”
“Yeah, right. On a train or plane, then a limousine to an exclusive white resort and back. If you’d even left that exclusive white world you’re in, you’d have discovered Florida’s hands aren’t clean either. They discriminate there too. You don’t know how bad these people are. They can be savage!”
Guy was silent as he looked long at me. Finally, he said, “Then give me a chance to know how they are, how things really are down there. What if I come with you? We’ll go together.”
I sighed and turned away. “Oh, Lord, that’s the last thing I need.”
Guy pulled me back. “I mean it, Cassie. It’s time I got in this fight too, whichever you choose to do, ride the buses or the registration. We can do this thing together. Like in the Book of Ruth, your people will be my people. Cassie, whatever you want, I’ll follow you anywhere.”
I was consternated at the thought. “I don’t want you in it, Guy. It’s my decision and I’d rather do it alone. You being a part of it would just make it more difficult for me. I’d have to be worrying about how folks would see us. I can’t deal with it. I couldn’t deal with it with the white folks down there and I couldn’t deal with it with colored folks, and I certainly couldn’t deal with it with my family.”
Guy placed his arms across my shoulders and leaned his forehead against mine. “You forget, Cassie: I’m a big boy and it’s not just your decision to make. If you get in this fight, I get in it too.”
“No, not around me you won’t.”
Guy’s eyes questioned me. He looked hurt, but I didn’t care. The last thing I needed was for Guy Hallis to be in race-torn Mississippi with me.
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
The news in May was riveting. Beginning on May 4, the first Freedom Riders, as they were called, left Washington, D.C., on a perilous route through the South. They were sponsored by CORE. There were thirteen of them, each one battle-tested and with impeccable reputations. Seven were black, six were white, and among the white riders was a man named Jim Peck, who had been on the 1947 Journey of Reconciliation. Another rider was John Lewis, a young black man about the same age as Morris, who had been in sit-ins up in Nashville. Both names were broadcast on the national news. The networks were covering the news about the Freedom Riders, but I learned even more from Solomon Bradley, who, with his close ties to CORE, kept me informed about what was happening. Solomon told me the plan was that, after leaving Washington, D.C., the riders would travel through Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, then on into the dreaded Deep South states of Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, arriving in New Orleans, Louisiana, on May 17. The white riders would sit in the back seats relegated to black passengers, and black riders along with some of the white riders would sit up front in seats reserved for whites, and in those states that chose to enforce their segregationist laws, all would refuse to move from their seats. At each rest stop, the colored riders would attempt to use “white only” restrooms and sit at the “white only” lunch counters, while the white riders would go to “colored” waiting rooms and use “colored” restrooms. Everybody knew sooner or later there would be a confrontation with the segregationists. In fact, the riders and CORE were counting on it.
The first part of the ride through Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina went relatively smoothly, except for a few minor interactions with whites determined that the riders not use the bus terminals’ all-white restrooms or sit at the lunch counters. In Atlanta, the riders split into two groups to travel on to Birmingham, Alabama, some on a Greyhound bus, the others on a Trailways bus. The only scheduled stop for the group on the Greyhound bus headed to Birmingham was Anniston, Alabama. At the Anniston bus station, the bus was stoned and its tires slashed by a white mob. The white bus driver got the bus out of the depot as quickly as he could and sped out of town, where he stopped to try to fix the tires.
The mob followed.
Whites encircled the bus and threw in a firebomb. The Freedom Riders and all the other passengers managed to escape, but the bus exploded into flames. The mob savagely attacked the Freedom Riders. Another white mob was waiting at the Birmingham depot for the second group of riders on the Trailways bus. They too were attacked. There were no police to protect them.
These attacks were reported all over the newspapers, in all the national television broadcasts, and in international news too. The government suggested that the Freedom Riders give up their rides for now, to let things cool down. But the Freedom Riders refused the request for a cooling-off period. They kept right on with their plans to continue their ride. The problem was that now the bus companies were refusing to take them. They did not want their buses destroyed. On top of that, all their drivers were white, and they refused to drive buses for the Freedom Riders. They feared for their lives.
Solomon said black college students experienced in the sit-ins began to arrive in Birmingham to carry out the ride. Before they could even try to arrange for a bus to take them on their journey, the students were arrested, supposedly placed in protective custody, or so they were told, “for their own well-being.” They were put in jail on a Wednesday night, and in the darkness of early Friday morning, around two o’clock a.m., they were packed into police cars and taken to the Tennessee state line, where they were forced out of the police cars and left by the side of the highway. Once the students got someone to pick them up, they headed right back to Birmingham to get a bus to Montgomery to continue the ride, but they could not get a driver to take them.
Finally, the Kennedy administration became involved. Attorney General Robert Kennedy contacted the Greyhound bus company directly to secure buses for the Freedom Riders, and a week after the riders had been stopped in Anniston and Birmingham, the ride resumed. On this second leg of the trip all was calm from Birmingham to Montgomery. As the bus carrying the riders pulled into the bus terminal in Montgomery, things still seemed quiet.
Then all hell broke loose.
Hundreds of whites were suddenly everywhere, carrying sticks, bricks, baseball bats, pipes, any kind of weapon they could find. Spewing words of hate and wielding their weapons, they cried, “Kill the niggers!” The riders, black and white, were beaten, as well as a white federal agent who ended up in critical condition. He and several of the injured riders who at first were denied medical attention by ambulances eventually were taken to a hospital. The remaining riders fled. The following night the riders gathered at a Montgomery church. As the black congregation celebrated the riders, several thousand whites surrounded the church, putting it under siege. By this time, more than fifteen hundred people were in the church. Solomon was there.
So was Dr. King.
When President Kennedy had heard about the attacks on the riders, he had sent federal marshals to protect them. But the several hundred marshals were no match for the thousands in the mob who attacked them and lobbed bricks, breaking church windows. The marshals responded with tear gas, which wafted into the church, but churchgoers feared the marshals would be overwhelmed. After talks between Dr. King, in the church, and the attorney general, in Washington, pressure was put on the governor of Alabama, who finally declared martial law and ordered the state police and National Guard to the church. They dispersed the white crowd, but did not allow the churchgoers to leave until early the next morning. Two days later, the Freedom Riders, twenty-seven of them now, left Montgomery on two buses to continue their ride to New Orleans. But they had to get through Mississippi first.
They didn’t make it.
At the Jackson bus terminal, the riders were not greeted by a white mob, but by white police. They were arrested and taken directly to jail. Mississippi had decided not to put up with any violence in its streets. The day after their arrest, after a trial of sorts, all the riders were sentenced to sixty days at Mississippi’s maximum-security penitentiary, Parchman, the most dreaded prison in Mississippi. Our childhood friend T.J. Avery had b
een sentenced to Parchman when he was only fifteen. We had never seen him again. He died there.
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
At the end of May, I went to Toledo. I had been sickened by the savage attack on the riders. Even more, I was angry. I had to do something. I left on a Friday evening and planned to take a plane back to Boston Sunday night. It was to be a short trip, but that didn’t matter. I needed to talk to my brothers. “I’ve made a decision,” I announced as we sat at the table in the breakfast nook. Dee and ’lois were there as well. “I’ve decided to work in the voter registration drive down home.”
They all looked at me in silence.
I went on. “Morris called me back in April, wants me there in July. He’s gotten Pastor Hubbard to agree to let us teach classes at Great Faith, and he’ll be announcing that to the congregation. We’ll be going around to see folks there too, trying to get them to take part.”
Again there was silence, then Christopher-John said, “Won’t you be putting your job on the line, you do that?”
“Well, I was thinking maybe I would, but someone at the firm suggested I could take a leave of absence.” I didn’t mention that someone was Guy. “I wouldn’t get paid, but the firm would hold my position. I’ve done good work and they like having me, if only as a token.”
“Still, you go down there to teach,” Stacey said, “it could be dangerous.”
“You know as well as I do, anything we do down there is dangerous.”
“So, you’ve pretty much made up your mind?”
“I figure I can be of help and I’ve got to do something. You know, people are protesting in all kinds of ways, putting themselves at risk down there. Look at those students from Tougaloo who went to the main public library in Jackson a few weeks ago and got arrested for disturbing the peace. Just imagine that! Colored college students sitting quietly in the white library and they were the ones charged with breach of the peace! On top of that, they got expelled! Whatever I do, other folks have done just as much—or more.”
All the Days Past, All the Days to Come Page 34
