The Last House on the Street(31)

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Monday afternoon, Hosea Williams announced that he wanted to speak with two students and I was surprised and unnerved when he spoke my name into the microphone. “Those two students, please meet me in the back of the gym,” he said.

Oh, great, I thought. This could not be good. I felt hundreds of eyes on me as I walked from my seat near the front of the gym to the rear. I waited my turn as Reverend Williams spoke to the other student, a boy, who looked angry by the end of their conversation. The boy stomped past me without making eye contact, and Reverend Williams waved me over.

“How are you doing?” he asked when I reached him. This close to him, I could see his neatly trimmed mustache and serious brown eyes.

“Fine.” I tried gamely to smile. “Though I’m wondering why you wanted to see me.” I glanced in the direction the angry boy had gone.

Reverend Williams nodded. “We have some concerns about you,” he said, getting right to the point. “First, you’re from North Carolina, and second, you haven’t been vetted by any of the universities that are working with SCOPE, nor have you been through the campus briefings on fieldwork. All the other students have gone through a thorough educational process to be sure they know what they’re getting into and to assure us of their … stability. The fact that you’re a Southerner’ll make it hard for you to gain anyone’s trust.”

“Reverend Filburn mentioned that,” I said. “But he thought it would be okay.” I didn’t know if I should address his concern about my stability. I wasn’t feeling very stable at that moment.

He nodded. “Yes, Greg Filburn persuaded me to give you a chance,” he said. “But I warn you, it’s going to be tough.” His dark eyes were unsmiling. “I’m going to make sure you’re assigned to Greg’s county. What is it? Derby?”

“Yes, sir.”

“He’ll be able to keep an eye on you. Assuming you make it through orientation,” he added. “If you decide you want to back out after this week, we’ll understand.”

“Okay,” I said. “Thank you.” I walked back to my seat, ignoring the curious looks from other students who were no doubt wondering what I’d done to merit Hosea Williams’s attention. I felt unsettled but determined as I took my seat again. I hadn’t realized that Reverend Filburn had gone out on a limb for me. I didn’t want to let him down.



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It was a challenge to sit on those hard chairs for speech after speech, but I grew more alert with each one. Every speaker mentioned that President Johnson would be signing the Voting Rights Act in early July, making it easy—or at least easier—for us to register voters. The act would get rid of literacy tests and other obstacles to registering. I kept thinking of our former maid, Louise, and that dirt road through Turner’s Bend and all those run-down houses. I imagined myself going up to one of those houses by myself, knocking on the door, trying to persuade whoever answered to register to vote. The thought was outlandish, and I understood for the first time why we’d have Negro canvassing partners. No one would trust us otherwise.

During the breaks, I struggled to connect with people and I felt my old childhood shyness returning. It seemed that everyone already had his or her own little group of friends, which made sense, since nearly all of them had come from a college with their fellow students. I seemed to be the only loner, or at least that’s how I felt. It was like being in junior high school all over again.

Late into the night, Mrs. Clark taught us more freedom songs. There was one that I really liked—“I’ll Fly Away”—which I knew from church but which touched me in a new way all of a sudden, especially when all the harmonies kicked in in that big open space.

Mrs. Clark was a wonderful teacher. “Now you young folks from the North,” she said, “y’all need to learn how to sing Southern! There ain’t no ‘g’ in ‘i-n-g.’ It’s ‘singin’,’ not ‘singing.’” Finally, a skill that came easily to me.

She introduced us to a song called “I Love Everybody.”

“People who have nothin’—no runnin’ water, not hardly a thin’ to eat—still sing this song about lovin’ everybody,” she said. Then she led us in the song, which included, by name, people in power who’d beaten or killed civil rights workers. We even sang that we loved the racist governor of Alabama, George Wallace. I pictured Aunt Carol rolling over in her grave. She hated that man.

I began to really feel the emotion of the songs and by the time we ended with “We Shall Overcome,” I was more awake and joy-filled than I’d been all day.

Once the events of the evening were over, I crossed the dark campus, hoping Peggy would still be up. I felt inspired to make a new start with her, hoping she had the same positive feelings about the day that I did. She wasn’t in the room when I got there, though, and it was way past curfew. I climbed into bed, but was too fired up to sleep. Something had happened to me in the last twenty-four hours. I couldn’t name it. Couldn’t even understand it. I felt hope and fear, determination and cowardice, all mixed together. I wondered if that’s what all those speakers had wanted us to feel.



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I was still awake when Peggy slipped quietly into the room an hour after I went to bed. I sat up.