WAKE UPAMERICA - MY REALITY

          Get it straight from the beginning and don’t let anyone else try to interpret what I am going to say.  If you have questions as to my meaning, my motivation . my purpose, ASK ME!  These are turbulent and dangerous times for a young black man.  In the past year these are the events that scare, in the vernacular, the living hell out of me.  A young father goes into Walmart talking on his phone. He wanders through the toy section (as I have often done) looking at different TOYS.  I can only guess at his thoughts….and compare them to mine.  I am sure he noted prices (as all parents do) because toys are not inexpensive…even at Walmart.   I am sure he was thinking  of his children and what   he might able to buy with the available money in his pocket.  Lying loose and unpackaged on a shelf…he sees a TOY  pellet (beebee….in my generation)  gun.  Perhaps he had a similar toy as a young man..who knows?  Idly… he picks up the gun…still strolling through the toy section…still talking on his phone.   Less than five seconds later…he is dead….shot dead by a cop…..all because of a toy gun!  One of my sons works less than a half mile from the site of John Crawford’s death!  The Grand Jury found his MURDER justifiable!

            As a black woman, as a mother of black sons, I am outraged.  It has been over a year and my anger has NOT dissipated, has not lessened.  This incident which occurred less than 25 miles from my home, my supposed safe place wakes me in the middle of the night…seething with rage and anger and the emotions  are coalescing into a fury I do NOT want to name. During this past year…so many other names and faces have been added to this list of senseless, unjustified deaths…the most recent of which also occurred less than 25 miles away from my supposed “safe place.”   Handling a toy in a variety story, handling a toy on a playground, changing lanes without signaling, selling loose cigarettes,  having a missing license plate (in a two plate state)….on and on and on with a litany of excuses which ultimately fade to one excuse…being BLACK in America…..because the dead are all black people and the perpetrators are  white cops!  I no longer hope for JUSTICE for any of these prematurely dead folk because I no longer believe in the corrupt social system that masquerades as JUSTICE in a “civilized “ society.

            I have walked this earth over 70 years and what I see is modern day lynching…a continuation of the “overseer” from slavery times.  I see elements of white society deliberately blinding themselves to reality, willing to hide behind excuses and obfuscations so extreme as to be unbelievable.  The excuse I hear is…” I know  (fill in the name blank).  He is good people…he wouldn’t do such a thing!”  REALLY? ARE YOU SURE?   I think of the wife who told her husband (of another race) that one of his friends/coworkers had made an extremely distasteful verbal pass at her and attempted to grab part of her anatomy.  I think of the teacher who had taught one of the cop perpetrators….who didn’t seem to know that this was the second  person killed by this “cop”.   I think of the government official  who was warned about the racist tendencies of his town’s police department and professed disbelief along with questioning the veracity of the person who reported the incident.    I think about the cop caught on video with his knees in the back of a young teenage woman in a bikini after he hurled her to the ground….the same person who pointed a loaded gun at  the young teenage men who objected to his treatment of their friend.  I could go on and on but I won’t.

WAKE UP AMERICA!  My greatest fear at this point in my life is for the safety of my family.  I have witnessed too much, I have heard the current lie “I was afraid for my life!”  way too often

CHURCH AND STATE?

Yes, Kim Davis has caused a huge “hullabaloo!”  I am fairly sure that is exactly what she wanted in the first place.  Guess what, Kim Davis, you are a government employee and you became one as soon as you were elected and sworn into office.  As an individual, her religious beliefs are her own and I would and will defend her right to have those beliefs.   As a public employee, since this country is non-sectarian and has NO state religion, personal beliefs legally can not and should not enter the work place.

Do I have other issues with Kim Davis?  Yes!  She loudly proclaims her Christian beliefs which “prevent” her from issuing a legal sectarian document, i.e. a marriage license to individuals whose legal marriage she disapproves of.  It would have been better for her to do her job and not try to hide behind her “beliefs.”  Why? 

By the essential definition……Christian means a person who believes in/accepts Jesus Christ. Using that definition…anyone who belongs to  any Protestant, Roman Catholic, or Eastern Orthodox  church is a Christian.  (Are you listening, Kim?)  The significant difference  is that each  denomination has slightly different  opinions about one’s personal conduct!   The Ten Commandments  is basically a core belief…..but….there are variances in specific application of those beliefs and some denominations are stricter than others.  (Are you listening, Kim?)

My husband’s denomination would have kicked Kim out when her children (not her then husband’s offspring) were born!  They would have taken her back after she confessed before the elders (and maybe the whole congregation).   My denomination on the other hand would have considered the children her husband’s.  After confession and penance  the church would have  not have much more to say ….except….the divorce would have caused raised eyebrows.  The second marriage would have been the final straw and she would have been excluded from Communion.  Further divorce-remarriage-divorce-remarriage would have resulted in permanent suspension of membership (adultery without repentance).  

I cannot speak with any authority about the processes and procedures of other denominations except to say that Kim Davis would have been on  very shaky grounds with her marriage/divorce  record.  Am I condemning her?  NO!  Final judgment and/or condemnation/or forgiveness is in the venue of a Higher Power which  brings me to my main point.  All of us will face GOD’s judgment at the apropos time.

There is an old saying (secular version) that people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. We have NO state church and the rules of Kim Davis’s church do NOT rule any other church. My religious freedom gives me the right to associate with any church I choose and I have done so. Kim Davis has chosen her church and that is fine . However…Monday through Friday…when we are at work at our secular jobs…..at our government jobs…the LAW must be followed and other than mentioning in passing that I am a member of ???? church, I/we are not ALLOWED to be proactively churchy!

RANTING AND RAVING on a WEDNESDAY NIGHT

          After  many years spent in public school classrooms teaching communication (translate that word into reading and writing) in not one but 2 languages and much of the last decade decompressing and regaining a sense of myself. I am finally giving myself permission to speak and to speak candidly. I am pissed off!  That’s right, you read it correctly. no sugar coating, no polite speak, no editorial correcting the angry black woman’s language. I told you how I feel and now, I will tell you why I feel that way!

            Being born female in this country or in any other supposedly male dominated society is a negative factor. Being born black and female is a double whammy.  Strangely enough because my mother died shortly after my second birthday, the significant adults in my life were my grandmother, a four foot eleven, born red-headed, dynamo along with my father, my grandfather, and my mother’s four brothers. (Told you society, as well as my life, was male dominated!)  Since my family were always my family, I had no clue just how different and egalitarian they were until I reached early adulthood and was confronted with “the world.”

            As  a liberal arts major (languages not history) I have a tendency to acquire books .  Yes, I have a personal library of books on black literature and black history (which I described to the husband of a college friend ….”The day I leave this earth permanently….my children/grandchildren will be downstairs splitting up my library!”).   They might as well since I won’t need the books any more!  All kidding aside…the books I have acquired or reacquired after dealing with two devastating house fires….have value to me because no matter how “integrated” our schools have/have not become…the literary and social history of folk of African descent in the USA has been lost, strayed, stolen and purloined.  We as a people have been carefully edited out.  Of course years ago…..I understood and accepted the responsibility of educating my children about who we were and the validity of our history.

            Anyone who thinks ”edited” out history is accurate has a lesson to learn from a black academic, the holder of a Ph.D. from a major university and a man who teaches the history of black folk at a famous  university in the South. He made the mistake of telling me there were no black folks in Appalachia! I remember sarcastically asking him if I had turned “white.”   Then I realized he genuinely believed what he said. It was school time…for him.  The history of black folks in Appalachia is as diverse as we are, as diverse as are our origins. Immediately I thought about a poet also born in my birth state of Kentucky, Countee (Porter)  Cullen who was born in Louisville in 1903.  I thought about Whitney Young, an early voice in the Civil Rights Movement as president of the National Urban League, born in Lincoln Ridge, Ky. I remember thinking that this professor was a published academic and he had no clue about the origin of many significant black folk!  Henry Louis Gates, well known and published historian, a professor at Harvard University is a native West Virginian.  Carter G. Woodson, a fellow Berea College alumnus, and the “father of black history”  was a native Virginian. Booker T. Washington  was born in Hales Ford, Va., a small town near Roanoke. William C. Matney, my cousin and a national news correspondent for both NBC and later ABC was born in Bluefield, W.Va. Muhammad Ali was born, went to school and grew up in Kentucky. Without thinking, I rattled off names of significant people of Appalachian origin. Perhaps I made the mistake of looking for a depth of knowledge that was not required for history professorships? I knew that the people I have named had Appalachian origins and I have never had a black history class in my life! I thought about the poets – Nikki Giovanni, Bell Hooks, Frank X. Walker whose birth places were all in Appalachia….Knoxville, Tennessee. Hopkinsville, Ky., Danville, Ky. At that point….if  the professor wanted to know of any more black Appalachians…he would have to do his own research…I was through !  (Before anyone starts complaining about the number of Kentuckians named….don’t forget that I am a native born Kentuckian!)

            My list is not definitive, it was not meant to be. I have never  shied away from my Appalachian origins nor will  I.  However, the next person who complains about my identification as a “hillbilly” a.k.a.  an Appalachian very well may find themselves the recipient of either a snub or an old fashioned   dressing down. Let me shut up before I start with the profanity!

MS. MARGARET OF CASSVILLE

Family stories passed from one generation to another are sometimes the only way that one generation  of a family becomes real and tangible to succeeding generations.  In our family, the prime storyteller was my grandfather. He would always respond to the request, “Tell me a story.” To my child’s mind, he told great stories, stories I in turn , many years later, told my children. Sometimes they listened, mostly they filed the information  away  into some mental file called “momma’s  stories.” One day when my daughter was in sixth grade….”momma’s stories” became real. She came flying in from school with a question….

            “Did my grandmother really shoot up a Ku Klux Klan meeting?”

            “Where did you hear  that?”

            “From Liz (a kid on the next street whose family came from my home town in the Big Sandy Valley).”

            “No, my mother did NOT shoot up a Klan meeting..”

            “Liz’s mother said her mother told her…”

            “Her mother has the story a little mixed up but that’s probably not her fault….”

 

            The Old ones came out of Virginia after the end of the Civil War….probably around 1869.  My great-grandfather’s  father had taken him out for a walk one day to talk seriously  about the future. The older man was worried. He was growing older…in nhis middle sixties….and his creeping age concerned him greatly.

            “You and your family need to head west You have to keep my grandchildren safe. If I die tomorrow…you lose your home and everything you have worked for….the others will never let you keep the farm or anything else…because you are a black man…”

            William Henry (according to his son) was outfitted with a wagon (maybe two wagons), the basic tools he would need to work a farm, and more importantly enough funds to but property.  The family (the parents and and  children ranging in age from  15 to a few months)  packed their belongings and supplies in the wagons  and prepared  to head across the mountains.  The second eldest son chose to remain in Virginia. They would communicate by letter from time to time but would NOT see each other again.

            The farms that they purchased and settled on            was in a small town once called Cassville. The family managed to buy enough acreage to support everyone as long as everyone was willing to work. (Almost a century and a half later…part of that small farm is still family owned.)    Cassville was and is the setting for this story…..

            A time arrived when William Henry and his sons had to be away from the farm for two to three days.  Miss Margaret would be at home with the sons’ wives and the children of the family. The women could and would see to the farm chores with the help of the older children. Before he left, William Henry loaded the two ancient shotguns with bird shot and put them in a safe place not accessible to children. The men of the family then left to take care of their business. The mule team pulled  the wagon down the holler, through the town and on to the main road and away the men folk went.

            Certain men of the town watched the family’s men leave. It was obvious that they would not be returning before dark so the town men decided that after dark would be a good time to sneak up on the pasture field hill under three huge walnut trees…to build a bonfire and drink white lightning otherwise known as moonshine. To cover up their true planned activity,  the town men passed the word that there would be a Ku Klux Klan meeting that night at the head of “Nigger Holler.”

            The women of the town were not fools and there was no Klan in the town. By barefoot grapevine….someone’s children were sent from house to house with a message to be passed to Miss Margaret.  When the message got to the family farm…Miss Margaret hatched her own plan. The women would finish all the chores and give the appearance of closing up the house for the night. Miss Margaret and one of her daughters-in law would take advantage of a clear moonlit night and climb the pasture field hilln through the woods. They planned to hide under the hard shell hickory tree on the ridge slightly above the black walnut trees.

            Their vantage point gave them a clear view of the happenings below. The town men gathered, lit their fire and passed the whiskey jugs around.  Miss Margaret and her daughter-in- law waited until the moon made its appearance over the walnut trees and town  men were very drunk. She then propped the first gun against a tree branch and aimed for the center of the fire. KABOOM….she fired….the burning embers exploded out from the fire. The drunks were caught by surprise and ran around knocked cinders and embers off each other.  Miss Margaret took the second gun and aimed into the middle of the gathering. KABOOM! Then drunk men bolted down the hill toward town….screaming…..yelling….and cursing.

            The next day, Miss Margaret took her basket of eggs and butter to sell in town. As she walked through town…women came out of their houses to make purchases and someone whispered that the women were forming a Women’s Christian Temperance Union that very week and had she heard….some of the men had gotten drunk last night, shot each other up and were over at Dr. York’s house getting birdshot picked out of their skin? Would she have more butter and eggs to sell next week?

            The WCTU was formed the Methodist Church, the Klan never appeared in Cassville again and Miss Margaret sold a lot of butter  and eggs.

           

 

HE KNOCKED ON THE DOOR AND STAYED FOREVER

Known in our part of the world as Decoration Day,  it was a day late in May when the flowers were in bloom—the early roses, the peonies, the irises, the lilacs, the snowballs.  The woven baskets were pulled from the smokehouse where in other seasons they held vegetables, or the house where on other days they held clothes and filled with a wide array of clipped blooms and blossoms.   The tall fruity juice cans were opened with a can opener and filled a half to two thirds with water, carefully place in a spare cardboard box and securely stashed in whatever vehicle was making the trip to the family site on top of the hill

The only women in the house were Granny and I……after all my mother had already joined her ancestors in the fenced in area on top of the mountain at the end of the Moore Holler.  It was woman’s work to distribute the flowers….in the water filled cans for the more recently dead or at least for those persons closest to us or for all others in the fenced area in bunches of flowers or strewn petals,  Each grave site received some flowers or petals .  The lone grave next to the east fence …..was not a family member but Granny always made sure that it was never forgotten.  As a three year old, I followed wherever Granny led.  She watched and nodded in agreement when I carefully picked my favorite flowers for the can on my mother’s grave.   She knew I didn’t fully understand because I  constantly asked her to explain “death” to me.  I’m sure she tried but I couldn’t quite get it.

That grave by the east fence puzzled me greatly and I kept asking “Who is it? “ I knew everyone was kinfolk but I couldn’t figure out who this person was.  Granny would only shake her head but she always made sure that one grave was not forgotten, Finally one year when I was older, she gave me an answer It was not a long story but it is a story that is important to our once and future family.

The Great Depression during the decade of the 1930’s signaled a massive upheaval in the economy of the United States.  Manufacturing output had fallen by over 50% and over 30% of the work force was unemployed.  In our area of Appalachia life went on much as it always had except families pulled a little closer together.  Granny and Grampa still lived on the family farm that my great-grandfather had bought after the Civil War.  All the grandchildren had been sent home to Cassville to insure their safety and survival.   Grampa would plant more vegetables and hoped to buy another pig to fatten. Granny made plans to can as much food as possible…extra vegetables, some meat..anything the Ball’s Blue Book talked about.  The grandchildren would follow her to the pasture field hill to gather both walnuts in the burlap bags salvaged from livestock feed and  hickory nuts in whatever small buckets little people could handle.  There would be plenty of food for winter.

During the summer the parents, the family’s adult children, had scattered to various places where they could find work, My father was working as an electrician in a steel mill in Pennsylvania and my mother was teaching summer term, my aunts and uncles were finding work where they could. The family at home were left with the responsibility of planting the usual garden spaces with , sweet potatoes, corn, beans, peas, onions, cabbage, beets, lettuce, tomatoes, pumpkins, squash, turnips and any other edible plant that could be dried, canned or otherwise preserved for the coming winter months, The pigs were fattened through the summer and in the fall slaughtered to be salted, canned or hickory smoked to get the family through the winter, By late October seasonal jobs had vanished and those adults who no longer had work  wandered home to the farm and the home community…to help with the both the harvest and preparations for the winter.  

One late day there was a knock at the back door.  A stranger stood there, a black man from “somewhere else.” Between hacking coughs, he asked if there was some work he could do on the farm that would pay for his being allowed to sleep in the hayloft above the barn.  The family took him in, gave him a place to sleep and made every attempt to nurse him back to health, Despite all their efforts, the stranger died…of pneumonia, they thought.   The family and extended family gathered at the farm to discuss the dilemma…the man’s name was not known…all that was known is that he had been riding the freight cars from place to place trying to find work and a place to stay.

The women met in the house, the men met in the barn with a fifth of whatever liquor was available. After much discussion in both places the decision was made. The stranger would be treated as a member of the family. The word was passed, the preacher, a distant cousin, was sent for, the undertaker was negotiated with and the funeral services were set.  The men went to the cemetery to dig the grave and the women gathered the food. At the end of the service, the family prayed together…that if ever one of ours is lost and can’t get home…maybe someone will treat him like he was family. They gathered up the earthly remains of the stranger, carried him to the family cemetery on the hill and buried him.  Every Decoration Day after that, those who came with flowers added flowers to the stranger’s grave. 

He lies a space or two to the left of my great-grandparents and should you happen to visit the family plot on the mountain, don’t forget this visitor whose name we do not know.

 

WIVES AND HAY FIELDS

 

Two men walked the fields, their identical heads bent in conversation. One man, the elder, walked with a cane, the other man’s gait consciously slowed to match his. In turn each pointed to a specific part of the farm. It was late spring and all the fields were planted.  A wandering traveler headed west had brought the seed of a new wheat variety through the area the fall before. The old man, a canny poker player and an even better horse trader, had negotiated for a share of the precious seed. The field of winter wheat had been planted in the fall by the young man and the few other black men that still lived on top of the mountain. That field of wheat was now almost knee high and would need to be harvested by early summer. There would be plenty of hay and grain  for the coming year.

The tour of the fields ended at the gate behind the farm house. The two men paused and the elder spoke, “The fields are in good shape. You have managed well….no other farm in this area is this far along. The only thing that concerns me is that you are  alone. You don’t pay any attention to any of the women who look at you.”

“Can’t.” was the one word answer. The younger man stared out toward the field, his closest thoughts miles away. He knew the conversation could not be avoided any longer and he stared at the horizon of the far fields. It had been nearly ten years since the elder had filed court papers declaring the young man’s freedom from enslavement but the young man held his greatest sorrow to himself. His personal freedom did not apply to his carefully hidden family.

“Why not?” The elder looked at his only son. There was only concern in his question.  He himself had been alone since the death of his mate….the mother of his only child.  He alone knew why there was a patch of wild flowers in a far corner of the farm and why he walked there some evenings and simply sat upon a huge rock..seemingly lost in thought…his unfocused eyes scanning a high ridge across the valley below. This one spot was a secret he could never share but even now, the memories of that season and spring when he had not lived alone on his mountain kept his heart warm.  His son would need warm memories when he too grew old.

“Don’t feel like being beat up.” The answer surprised both men. The younger man did not realize that he had made a fateful decision…although as he thought to himself..his father had a right to know. The private truth and public secret had been theirs to share for many years.. As a child he had known that as long as he stayed on the mountain and in close proximity to the older man…he was safe.  The older man’smother had seen to his security as a child and both elders had carefully taught him the habits that would protect him as he grew older.

“WHO would dare touch you?!” Anger flared from the older man’s eyes. His thoughts went wild with fury for a few seconds until he saw the younger man’s smile, a smile which was no expression of fear but rather an expression of fact. The older man was somewhat reassured.

“Margaret.” The young man’s eyes narrowed softly as he waited patiently  for a response…

“Who’s she?”

“On old man Howard’s place in Christiansburgh.” The elder remembered a yound woman who worked in the kitchen of the Howard plantation…in the back area where William Henry had to wait his father’s return when business required Meriweather’s presence on that property.  Thinking back over time…yes he could see that there had been some interest between the two.

“You interested in her?” Older grey eyes  stared at younger grey eyes. There was something that  wasn’t being said. The older one waited for the rest of the story.

“Guess so..we got five babies, four boys and a little girl.”

“Why the Hell didn’t you tell me? I would have bought her!” The older man exploded, wondering why he was just now finding out. The two men with identical eyes glared  at each other before the eldern stompednthrough the gate toward the house. Then over his shoulder “Saddle my horse…I’ve got business in Christiansburgh. Does that old drunk know she’s your woman and those are your children?”

“He’s not there. He went to Richmond last week,” the younger man yelled back. “Don’t know when he’s coming back.”

“Then you take the horse and go tell her I’m going to buy her and the children.”               

“Won’t do no good…Howard is mean as a snake…and if he thinks you want to buy her especially for me…he’ll treat her mean….meaner than he treats everybody else.”

“Then you go tell your woman that if I have to get Howard drunk and beat him in a poker game…I will get her and the children away from that old son of a bitch! And if I can’t buy her, we’ll find a way to steal her!’

Surprised at the force of the elder’s response, the younger man answered. “Can’t take the horse...they’ll think I stole it. I’ll have to take one of the mules late tonight. Nobody in his right mind would steal a stubborn mule.”

“Take the mule  and when you get there you’d better teach that girl how to get here  across the

ridge!” The older man yelled over his shoulder nas he stomped into the house. “I’ll be dmned if that

old fool, Howard, will keep her! I will find a way...you should have told me before now!” The

kitchen door of the house closed with a loud thud.

ONE DAY IT SNOWED IN MARCH

 

Sunday, March 3, 1861, was a cold rainy day in the mountains of western Virginia. The clouds in the sky were an inky dark gray the perfect color to signal snow as the day wound to a close and nightfall came. There was a restlessness moving through the slave quarters of the Howard plantation. The ghostly ones, the all but invisible house slaves, had slipped out to brng troubling news to their counterparts in the shacks that served as shelter. The Old Man was drinking heavily and swearing almost continuously,. Tomorrow Abraham Lincoln would be inaugurated President of the United States. Change was no longer just a whisper in the breeze…the Old Man felt that it was a major change to his Southern way of life.

As  night came and snow began to fall, the Old Man sank into a drunken stupor and finally into a drunken sleep. The house slaves finished their work, then one by one slipped away to the quarters to whisper urgently with their friends and   relatives.  The Old Man had been muttering threats all afternoon. If that “damn Yankee” fool became President, it wouldn’t be long before those “damned abolitionists” took over and freed the slaves and if those “nigrahs” were going to be freed, he’d be damned if he’d feed and clothe any “nigrah.”

By full dark, all  the  black folks on the plantation had gathered to discuss the very real  possibility that they would be kicked off the plantation. Where would they go? Who would take them in? Would they be treated as runaways? Would the Old Man sell them South away from family and all they knew? Winter was sliding away but spring had not yet come to the mountains…just look at the snow that was piling up. Margaret was especially worried. She had five little ones, 8,6, 5, 3 and 1 and if she  was right….another one on the way. If she carried baby George, William  could take Belle’s hand, and Lewis would  be able to hold Charles’ hand. It would not be easy but it seemed the only way. She knew exactly where she would go but it was a long way and she did not know if the children could walk that far and stay warm. Later into the  night, she gathered as much warm clothing as she could find. The other woman asked her in hushed whispers, where would she go, could her husband come and get her and the children? How far away did he live? What were they going to do?

William Henry had whispered to her in the night…his “owner” was really his father and  had tried so hard to buy Margaret and the  children but Old Man Howard would not deal. Then William Henry had whispered the directions to be mountain where he lived and made her memorize the directions. In the ashes from the fireplace…he had drawn a map. She knew she could find the way, she would find the way, she just had to find a way to keep her babies warm. She talked to one of the younger men…did he know a way to get a message to William Henry? Finally she had a promise, her friend would slip over to the next plantation and pass the word and someone else would pass the word until it got to William Henry, He didn’t know how long it would take but he would do his best. She worked tirelessly throughnthe night..whe would walk every step if she had to but she had to carry food and warm clothes…to keep her babies safe.

Slipping and sliding through the night. From farm to plantation, across the mountains and through the valleys, the message traveled more tyhan the twenty road miles between the two Virginia mountain communities. Before daylight broke the next morning, William Henry left his loft bed in the main cabin of the isolated farm on top of  Little River Mountain. He dressed quickly and grabbed a warm coat.  It had  snowed overnight and the livestock must be fed, the cows milked and other early morning chores completed. He stomped down the narrow path to the barn knocking the snow off his boots.  To his surprise, the lat ch on the barn door was open. Looking around the side of the building, he looked for tracks…saw nothing out of the ordinary and then cautiously opened the door, entered the barn and hung his kerosene lantern on the nail be the feed room. There was someone hiding in the barn, he could smell the difference in the air!

A whispered voice came from the hay loft. “William Henry? That you?” He recognized the voice as beng from a neighboring farm…from a Quaker owned farm on the other side of the mountain. It was a black man who had lived at the nearby farm for many years…who had studied beside him in the night when the Quaker lady had taught them both to read and write. “Yep, it’s me Oscar. Something wrong?”

As the other man climbed down the ladder from the loft, “Got  a message for you, A fellow came late last night…from up the road.” The two men looked at each other eye to eye. “Said to tell you…Old Man Howard…is fixing to put your family out! He’s drunk, cussing and swarping cause Lincoln is president. The word is he’s putting all the people out…with just the clothes on their back…no papers..nothing.”

The blue gray eyes darkened and flashed with fire. The neighbor man grabbed the busket, “I’ll milk the cows and feed your stock fore I go back to the Meetin’ House. Haven’t heard of any slavecatchers around lately…with this…snow..they’d be easy to track and once I get back over the mountain, I’m safe.”

William Henry headed back to the main cabin and went in. The older man by the fire knew something nwas wronh. The lighter gray eyes met the darker flashing ones….square on, “What’s going on?

“Word’s come…bad word..old Howard is putting everybody off his place…says he’s not gonna feed or clothe nobody..”

The man with the light eyes slammed his tin cup on the plankboard table.  His eyes flashed with anger, “He wouldn’t sell her to me and he wouldn’t sell the children and now the son of a bitch is throwing them out!  You get the wagon ready and go get them…don’t waste time..GO!”

William Henry set out on Webbs Mill Road toward Christiansburgh. That was the way he had whispered to Margaret,,,if she ever got free to walk on that road. He had knelt by the fireplace and taught her the letters so she would know. Thoughts raced through his mind….he had piled enough hay in the back of the wagon to keep them warm and to hide them from prying eyes. His grandmother had handed him warm blankets to put in the straw and had put warm bricks in the bottom too, She was old and didn’t say much but the message was clear…go get those children and bring them home! The mules plodder along the rowd, The sun was trying to come through but the wind was still swirling the snow about. He had been on t he road for nearly an hour and he was more than half way there when he spotted a small group of people ahead, There seemed to be a woman there who walked like Margaret…could it be her?

Margaret was cold and her three year old boy was heavy but she knew she dared not stop walking. The oldest boy carried the baby and her second  son held his sister’s tiny hand. Both older boys walked in their mother’s  footsteps. They could not be caught on the road, they had no pass…but they had been lucky so far. There had been no other people on the road. Coming down the next hill was a wagon pulled by two mules. The man driving the wagon was black. Surely he would not harm them…but he was headed the wrong way! They could not go back to Christiansburgh…they had tom go the other way….but wait!  The wagon was stopping and the man was climbing down!  Would he help them? Then Margaret recognized the man driving….it couldn’t be! But it was!

“Woman, get up in this wagon. Give me the children! There are warm bricks and blankets in the middle of the hay. Boy, get up in this wagon  and get warm!”  William Henry grabbed his family and loaded them in the wagon, snugly hidden in the straw, “We’re going back up the mountain as soon as I turn this wagon around.”

And, they did.

THE ONION PATCH

          For several months, William Henry had been gathering barrels and storing them in the barn loft. The sporadic news he had been hearing was not good. The war would soon creep  into the everyday lives of those who lived in the western Virginia mountains.  White people in the surrounding towns were talking.  Of course most the them paid little attention to this young black man as he drove the mule powered  wagon from place to place….on farm business. He had his signed pass in his pocket….a pass that authorized him to do certain for Meriweather  L and under that pass…William Henry could travel safely over much of the nearby area as he had been doing since his early teenage years.

          As he traveled the countryside, he played the game well…always acting subservient…his blue gray eyes hidden behind the floppy hat he always wore…eyes (and ears) that missed very little of what was going on around him. From time to time, he would carry a note…complete with a signature  that supposedly belonged to Meriweather,,,asking to be sold an oak barrel. That barrel would ride home securely in the wagon with no white person aware that William Henry had written the note and counted out just enough money to pay the bill….,and placed the money in the money box under his seat.    Any curious person in the community  would assume that whiskey was being made on top of Little River Mountain and there was…just enough to justify a few barrels. What the curious would not know is that  William Henry had purchased more than a few barrels and more importantly…he had a plan, a plan that he prayed would be successful. The survival of his young family and everyone else living on the farm atop Little River Mountain depended on his plan’s success.

          It was early May 1964 and rumors were rampant throughout Floyd County. Two bloody battles had been fought nearby…on Cove Mountain, two counties away, and on Cloyd’s Mountain just barely across the border of the next county. Both battles had been decisive Union victories and the Confederate forces had scattered looking for safe haven and a place to regroup. Many of those straggling soldiers had begun to raid farms and take whatever they wanted….food, valuables, livestock, anything that could be carried…eaten…or drunk. Having heard those rumors, William Henry had made a plan and taken action. The majority of the livestock were safely hidden deep in a cave on the Quaker lady’s side of the mountain. His two oldest boys, eleven year old Lewis and nine year old Stan, had been given the responsibility of caring for the animals and had been warned to keep themselves well hidden. Since the cave was high on the mountain in a heavily wooded and secluded area, it was unlikely any person unfamiliar with the mountain would find either the stock or the boys.

          The livestock should be  secure from scavengers  and now  it was time to secure everything else of value on the farm.  Those items of value would be carefully packed in the barrels…cooking utensils, good tools, dishes, warm blankets, warm clothes, any usable money, hunting weapons…whatever would appeal  to a renegade soldier or that would be useful to a retreating army fighting for the enslavement of every black person hidden on the farm.  While the barrels were being packed, the men on the farm were digging a huge pit in the garden plot. Rocks were thrown in the bottom of the pit to cushion the barrels and promote drainage . Fence slats were thrown across the rocks and the sealed barrels were carefully placed in the pit. When all of the barrels had been carefully placed, more slats were crisscrossed across the top…..followed by enough bound sheaves of hay to fill in the gaps between the slats. Finally the dirt was shoveled back into the pit. The last layer of dirt was mixed with composted manure and mounded into raised garden beds.

          Next sprouted onion sets were pulled from the farm’s root cellar. By shaded lantern light, the men planted the onions in neat rows. The women followed with  watering can to make sure the plants would not wilt in the sunlight of the day. Next to the onion plants, thinned seedlings from the lettuce bed were carefully planted and watered. Following the lettuce, pea plants were added to an additional bed and carefully watered and mulched with dried straw. At last the camouflage was completed. The men were sent off to bed with instructions to wear their most raggedy clothes for the next few days. The onion patch was planted and the valuables were safely hidden.

          A few afternoons later, straggling Confederate soldiers stumbled out of the lower woods. They were confronted by a bearded Meriweather  L.  sitting on his back porch with a shotgun across his knees. The adult black folk, dressed in rags and shoeless feet were working in the big garden plot. The children were carrying buckets of water from the well first to the working adults and then to pour on the straw mulched plants and seedlings. The working adults kept their heads bowed and paid no attention to the stragglers.

          “Howdy boys!” Meriweather spoke to the soldiers. “Can I help you all?” Black folks kept  on working. The old man shifted his gun toward the soldiers, “If you are looking for food…it’s been a bad year….some fellers came along and took nearly all the stock so I’ve got no meat…all I’ve had is dried beans…not seasoned too well…got my people working on trying to grow a little food….but….I can share my beans….Margaret…bring these fellows some of those beans….they were cooked yesterday and might be a little sour…but it’s all I have!” The soldier peeked in the stripped bare house…saw an elderly woman seated by a cold fireplace…smelled the sour beans….thanked Meriweather as he pointed out the path down the mountain. The shotgun’s barrel followed the straggling soldiers. Black folks kept on working and did not look up until the sound of the whippoorwill was heard from down  the mountain. William Henry raised his head and answered the whippoorwill call.  Soon two boys and a rag tail dog came out of the woods.

          “Those soldiers are gone…sent them down the rocky way…down the cliff.” Meriweather chuckled softly…and handed the gun to Margaret. "Feed those sour beans to the pigs!” he instructed the boys, and then to William Henry…”You reckon that pig you got buried in the fire pit in the lard rendering kettle is done yet? I’m hungry…lets eat.”

          The top of the mountain grew quiet as the sun set.

50 YEARS LATER

 

 

 

The week was not a typical winter week but it was not atypical either.  In southwestern Ohio a dusting of snow fell to renew the remains of the unmelted late February snowfalls. The weather forecasters talked about a storm front  but the end result was not remarkable….barely demanding the use of four wheel drive on our hill.

The largest snowfall fell in central Kentucky around I-65 and the I-71 interchange with I-64.  That hundred miles to the South sounded like a different world, Facebook and Instagram lit up with snowfall pictures and the news channels talked about an accumulation of between ten to 20 inches depending on one’s location. The Kentucky governor declared a snow emergency…people had been stranded in major traffic jams on interstate highways.  College and school campuses either closed or were on time delays.  Prospects for a trip south to Alabama did not look good as of late Thursday evening.

My sons were looking at me with  an unspoken question. They knew I was supposed to be in Berea Friday afternoon. Not being prepared for a discussion, I said nothing. Truthfully, the argument was in my head….would I go or would I stay home? I tried calling my cousin in Lexington to get his take on the roads and the weather.  Unfortunately, there was no answer so I continued to say nothing while delaying my final decision until Friday morning. I decided to email Diana as soon as Berea College opened for the day…at least my information would be first hand.  The internet provided no more information than I already had so Diana’s response would be critical.  

We left at 1:15 and managed to avoid Cincinnati  rush hour although as we crossed the Ohio River, there was close to a five mile backup on the northbound interstate.   To my surprise, Kentucky had totally cleared the interstate (remember we were NOT on I-65, we were on I-75).  We checked in a motel a few minutes from 4 p.m. and as soon as we deposited our luggage in the room….headed for the Berea campus.  Since I am no longer able to walk extended distances, I was dropped off at the door of the alumni building along with my transport wheel chair.  Thanks to my younger son I was soon in the Carter G. Woodson Center where to my surprise, I was expected to participate in a panel discussion. Normally, I don’t do panels…my preference is to talk interchangeably  with folk.

Left the panel discussion and my sons and I went around the corner from Boone Tavern to Papalenos. There we connected with Irene  and her daughter. Since I really hadn’t seen Irene in nearly 50 years, we  talked about people we knew and with whom we had attended Berea.  Surprisingly to me, many of those folk are no longer among the living. In one’s mind, as one grows older, the people you knew are just as you last saw them. In that sense, the people you know never age and in spite of the fact that logically some folk pass on…logic does not attach itself to memory.

Saturday morning arrived with a 5:30 a.m. wakeup call. The assembly time at Boone Tavern Hotel was 6:30 a.m. in preparation for the nearly ten hour trip to Montgomery, Alabama.  We stopped at McDonalds on old highway 25 and headed for the middle of campus. The Berea College bus was in place.

 

 

Walter and I would not ride the bus, however.   We rode south in a car driven by the husband of another participant in the 1965 march and the 2005 commemoration.  I will be eternally grateful for their support  because, without them, I would NOT have been able to make the trip.

The further south we got, the less roadside snow we saw. By the time we got to Tennessee, a student who had been left behind and had jumped in her car to catch the bus….reached our caravan. By that simple dedicated act. It was apparent how much the trip meant to a student nearly three generations younger than most of us “originals.” That action by this young lady reinforced  my premise that my generation needs to open our mouths and talk to these concerned rising young adults.  Many times our foreparents did NOT share their experiences with my generation perhaps under the mistaken impression that they were “protecting” us. They misread us badly. I did not bother telling  any of my family I was participating in the 1965 trip.  Why? I refused to let their fears hold me back.

 

            The trip south was in a sense mind blowing. At a rest area in Alabama we picked up a very colorful, tourist aimed brochure titled “Selma –Historic places, Social graces” and labeled OFFICIAL VISITOR GUIDE 2014.  I  sit and look at this brochure over a week later and I find that I am bothered by the concept and I feel more bothered now than when I picked it up. When I think of Selma, Alabama, I picture in my mind’s eye “Bloody Sunday,” I think of the late Rev. James Reeb, I think of   the late Jimmie Lee Jackson. Yes, I also think about Viola Liuzzo even though she was killed outside of Montgomery at the end of the Voting Rights March.   The Edmund Pettus Bridge is prominently labeled…the memorial park,not so much….but it is there. The last time I crossed that bridge, I spent some time at the memorial park. Yes, technically I was a tourist…but I didn’t feel so much like a tourist… I felt like a distant observer of those historical days and in a sense I feel the restlessness of those that were lost….fifty years ago.  

Three of James Reeb’s killers were “acquitted” when they went to trial! The fourth ran a used car dealership in Selma and was NEVER tried.   Justice for those who were lost during the civil rights struggles was at best illusive but ultimately will be rendered  on Judgment Day. In the meantime, the Reeb family  would complete his crossing of the bridge in 2015.  I would like to believe that the spirit of that lost husband and father accompanied them!

Jimmie Lee Jackson’s killer was a cop who ”feared for his life.”  My sarcastic side sneers “sure he did.” Somehow that feeble fake excuse has been so overused that I can safely label it a “trite” falsehood. As an old man …he finally plead guilty and spent 6 months in jail. Two of the three men involved in Viola Liuzzo’s murder did serve jail time (10 years) but the third turned state’s witness and in modern slang “copped a plea.”  As further indignity, J. Edgar Hoover  orchestrated an attempt to assassinate her character. He was NOT successful.

All of these thoughts swirled through my mind when I stood in that \memorial space ten years ago. Have I forgotten? No. There is one thing I fervently believe about all of these killings. There is no escaping the final justice! The perpetrators may have largely escaped mankind’s justice. They will never escape God’s justice.

I look at the Selma tourist brochure again. It still disturbs my thoughts but the only consolation would be that if  the brochure brings some financial sustenance to the city and people of Selma…so be it.  When I looked at a city that now has a substantial black majority population….I stumbled on the cracked and broken sidewalks…barely crossed the cracked and stagnant water filled street gutters…understanding that if problems are to be remedied….the people must be able to generate public money. Good jobs are needed and if tourism generates money to support the citizens of Selma…then maybe, just maybe they will be able to move on from the ghosts of the past and create a viable future.

When we finally get to Selma, early on Sunday morning, I do see signs of a hopeful future. Two of our alumni, a husband and wife team, have sunk roots in the community. He is an attorney, she is a physician and their professional home is

 

 

 

in the community and our group was able to touch base with these alumni and briefly visit. From these roots springs hope for the future.

            We also met another striver in Ms. Martha Hawkins, owner and founder of Martha’s Place, a great soul food restaurant in Montgomery.  Ms. Martha greeted our group and shared her story…of prayerful determination, courage and fortitude as she made her journey from single parenthood in public housing to businesswoman and entrepreneur.  To those of my generation meeting successful folk like Attorney and Dr. Robinson and Ms. Martha is an indication that out of the confrontational “fires” of the early Civil Rights Movement….are firmly sowed the seeds of hope and progress for the generations behind us….our children and grandchildren. The path to the future is not perfect but….there is hope.

            Because our group left the hotel early, we were able to establish a walking
“home base” on the edge of downtown Selma. Because the focus of the commemoration was the bridge crossing, I wanted an early picture of the bridge.

 

 

Despite the early morning chill people were already standing and walking on the bridge and many more  were purposely headed in that direction.  Neither the time of day  nor the temperature of the air were a deterrent.   Someone in the crowd mentioned walking to Brown Chapel AME Church,  a significant starting point in 1965. Dozens of folk headed in that direction. Many others followed.

            As we grew closer, the immense police presence in Selma became obvious.  There were state police cars,  sheriff cars, and municipal police cars from many jurisdictions parked here and there along the way. Some officers stood quietly simply observing the growing crowds. Some officers walked along the streets and sidewalks with the crowd, The mood of the crowd we walked with was both somberly serious and helpful. The distance walked was maybe five to six blocks, maybe a little more.  Neighborhood residents watched the throng of visitors walking by in a quiet, slow and steady stream.  Here and there were vendors selling tee shirts, posters, commemorative calendars and other memorabilia.  There was no money in my pocket for such and our focus was on reaching the church/ At times we were forced to walk in the street because of the deteriorating infrastructure…a malady  that affects many small cities  during these stressful economic times. In a sense…the physical limitations of that early morning walk  were and are symbolic of the obstacles that even fifty years later are being restructured to deliberately keep voters distanced from or even removed from exercising their right to vote.

            Finally we reached the church. The  television media  took up most of the sidewalk in front of the church..apparently filming the arrivals  of significant folk, among them Andrew Young, John Lewis and Melissa Harris Perry. For a few minutes tall people were taking pictures over the heads and shoulders of media personnel.  I guess the media were being crowded because a policeman soon started ordering the growing crowd to the center line of the street in front of Brown Chapel For the second time, the crowd was finally moved to the sidewalk completely across the street. There was no argument probably because there was a huge outdoor screen  blocking the area to the far left of the church but allowing the crowd to see what was transpiring in the church.

 

 

 

 

 

As  people gathered, the sidewalk became more and more crowded, more SUV limos arrived and it became increasingly difficult  to see beyond the assembled company. The students managed to secure a vantage point where our banner could be prominently displayed. I was glad my son managed to get that picture.

 

While Walter was working his way back to me, I spotted a box of posters lying on the curb. A bystander pulled a few out and I remember thinking that the poster was very appropriate for the occasion. Both sides screamed at me to be framed and kept because they summarized all that mobilized the march in 1965 and 2015.

 

 

I was surrounded by a group of teachers and I mentioned to them that this exemplified the whole battle then and now and that if I had still been in the classroom, there would be two securely framed pictures on my wall on Monday morning! From their reaction I believe that there are some classrooms somewhere in this country where both sides of the NAACP poster are prominently displayed and ready for discussion.  Then someone spotted my Berea shirt and name tag and made the 50 year connection! I found myself somewhat overwhelmed by their reaction since then and now…I consider myself to be an insignificant one of many thousands.

 It was time to leave Brown Chapel but before we could leave I found myself talking to a free lance female journalist from Colorado and a young man who works for a major daily newspaper.  The sidewalks were congested by that time but that same young man talked to a police officer working on the street and the officer cleared a path through a barricade for my adult son pushing his mother in a wheelchair.

We took a different path back toward the center of Selma. Never in my life had I seen so many media trucks and vans….both sides of the street for a solid city block…all vehicles backed against the curb to make maximum use of the space. I saw print journalists mixed with electronic media representatives. Maybe someday I will do an internet search just out of curiosity regarding the national reaction to the half century commemoration.  

I watched the people surrounding the center of Selma and tried to read as many of the identifying shirts as possible. There were groups of union members, church groups, family groups, fathers pushing their babies in strollers, school groups led by their teachers, local church members, members of fraternal organizations, college groups. They walked proudly with their heads held high not huddled together shoulder to shoulder as we did so many years ago. They stopped near the big screens to watch and listen to events at Brown Chapel, they paused in small groups and talked. I sat on a street corner nearly three blocks from the bridge and watched…and listened. Some of the students came by and stopped to sit, talk and snack on the street corner near me. Other members of our group drifted near.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was fascinated by the crowds as they began the lineup in the street. I found myself thinking of the contrasts from 50 years ago…and the similarities.  The police scattered here and there  throughout the crowds were black, white, male, female and were dressed in ordinary every day walking the neighborhood type uniforms. There were no military vehicles in site…no military types obviously about…only a few, very few folks in camouflage….authentic or not…I wouldn’t know.

Most remarkable to me was the seriousness of the whole assembly. The people were walking in and on the footsteps of history. Most of them were NOT even born in 1965….yet here they were and they were going to cross that bridge. Many had walked over to the museum and taken pictures and here and there were snatches of conversation about why they had come…it was a very, very

 

serious day and the beginning of a very serious week.

 

            The students soon gathered in the middle of the intersection and asked the whole delegation to gather with them, Once more our banner would unfurl.

 

By this time of day people had filled the streets and sidewalks in every direction.

 

We “originals” would hold the banner before it was passed off to our young adults.

Everyone gathered and soon it would be time to join the bridge crossing group. 

 

I will always wonder how many people crossed on that Jubilee Sunday. All I know

 

is that our young adults were ready and anxious to make the journey. I was so proud of their enthusiasm and energy and their recognition of the importance of their mission.

            I did not cross on Jubilee Sunday. On the day when I crossed ten years ago, in my minds ear I could hear the voices of those who attempted to cross and did  not make it and those who successfully made the original crossing . This is the new generation stepping up to the responsibility to let their voices and actions be heard. I wish them well and I pray for their continued success. For our democracy to survive, their involvement is critical.