All the Days Past, All the Days to Come: List 5

Still, those who remained on the plantations were dependent on their white landlords for their livelihood and for being able to keep their homes.

Together and with others, they canvassed the black community for food donations, money for the drive, and housing for the SNCC workers.

It was a song instilled in all of us, a song we all knew: “Free at Last.”

I looked after her and walked with foreboding to the building.

The ugliness of their vitriolic hatred drenched over us, their vile spittle ran down our faces, and we kept on walking, saying not a word, keeping to our teachings.

Guy was too tall to lie totally prone, so I got in and we lifted his upper body so that I could hold him in a sitting position to my chest with his legs outstretched on the seat.

It wore at my papa all his life, and he always taught my brothers and me, ‘You ever have daughters, don’t y’all let them debase themselves....’

He handcuffed him and took him to jail, saying Morris was “inciting folks toward riot.”

Although paying bail was discouraged, many in the movement did pay bail for expedience. As head of the Spokane registration drive, Morris was needed, not in jail, but to continue the drive.

The pungent smell of smoke grew stronger as we approached the crossroads. Then we saw the black plumes rising above the trees.

The fire could be seen in the belly of the church sanctuary.

It consumed the pulpit and the altar and the benches.

The Great Faith drive in Spokane County wasn’t the only one to falter. In other counties, teachers were also going home, but that didn’t mean protests were over.

That white neighbor went before a coroner’s jury that same day and was acquitted. County law officials dismissed all charges.

The Great Faith community remained undaunted.

Guy had been in my life for so long and had become so ingrained in it through some of the toughest and loneliest times.

“You’re right,” Moe said with resignation. "It is done.”

They set a good example for black folks, but they advocated a militant stance that made white folks even more uneasy than did the peaceful protesters who were demonstrating daily.

We cooked a lot, sweated a lot, laughed and talked a lot, but by Saturday, when the rest of the family began to arrive, we had all the food prepared, from turnip greens mixed with collards and onions and chunks of ham hocks to roasted chicken and cornbread dressing, as well as chicken and dumplings and desserts of coconut, pecan, and sweet potato pies and cobblers, both sweet potato and blueberry.

Others, mostly the young folks and children, plopped down on the ground, shaded by the huge pines, and ate voraciously, then hurried back to the pots and trays for more.

Once the family food had been tasted, people moved from truck to truck, wagon to wagon to sample a neighbor’s food and enjoy their neighbor’s camaraderie.

She had applied to the Peace Corps, John F. Kennedy’s new international program to aid developing nations. This was most upsetting to Stacey, who couldn’t fathom his daughter being so far away that he could offer her no protection.

“Good. As long as that’s what it is, friendship.” She emphasized the word “friendship.” Then she reiterated, “That Mr. Hallis was a nice man.”

Many whites considered the university a white sanctuary, a bastion of white purity, and they wanted it to remain that way.

A war had been fought a hundred years before that decided federal law superseded state law, and Mississippi had to comply with the federal order.

Christopher-John and Clayton Chester with their families had come over to Stacey and Dee’s during the afternoon, and we all watched the television news, transfixed, as the rioting, out of control now, raged on and the standoff between the state of Mississippi and the federal government continued.

During the night President Kennedy had ordered in thousands of Army troops from Tennessee to quell the violence, and the soldiers had put a stop to all the mayhem.

Papa had been given vitamins and he ate well, had all the nutritious food he needed what with Big Ma’s cooking and the preserved vegetables from last year’s garden, but his strength still seemed to be waning.

I tried to rationalize Papa’s diminishing strength. “Well, he is older now. We have to expect he can’t be the same as ten years ago.”

I tried to rationalize Papa’s diminishing strength. “Well, he is older now. We have to expect he can’t be the same as ten years ago.”

Patronizingly he said that the NAACP and other groups coming from the North were out to fool Jackson’s Negroes and that they should not be cooperating with these organizations or with NAACP’s field secretary, Medgar Evers.

“Cassie, couldn’t they get a subpoena, force the sheriff to show it to them?”
“A subpoena? From who?” snapped Levis.

Moe reached the coffin, stood there a moment, his head bowed, and gingerly placed one hand flat on top of the coffin.

“Well, y’all sure ’nough been through it,” commiserated Little Willie.

In 2008 Barack Hussein Obama was elected the first African American president of the United States. Great Faith Church chartered a bus to go to the inauguration.