The Watsons Go to Birmingham: Chapter 11–Epilogue

Dad cleared his throat and rubbed his hand over the little stubbles that were coming out of his chin.

You talk about some pathetic, tortured-looking little faces.

Yeah, I swear I’ve been looking in the rearview mirror and wondering where my babies were and where these three bad-dispositioned, sour-faced, middle-age midgets came from.

I thought Grandma Sands would be bigger than Dad, I thought she’d be foaming at the mouth like she had rabies.

“You grew up to be a fine-lookin’ boy. You was so puny when you was born you nearly worried us crazy. Got strong too.”

Well, there ain’t too many animals wilier or tougher than a old coon.

Momma started wringing the neck of another piece of paper towel.

The one pointing to the left said “Public Swimming” and the other one, pointing to the right, looked like it had been on the post for a million years but if you got close to it you could read, “WARNING! NO TRESPASING! NO SWIMING! NO PUBLIC ENTREE! Signed Joe Collier.”

“Naw, Joey, the Wool Pooh don’t come on public beaches, he just grabs folks that are too stingy to let peons come on their land, like this Collier guy.”

The little girl had on a blue dress and little blue frilly socks and black shiny, shiny shoes.

I could see a shiny, shiny black shoe lying halfway underneath some concrete, then it got covered with smoke, and then the lightbulb flickered out again.

Even though Byron had a reputation for not being a snitch I got the feeling he told on me.

Only thing that’s gonna happen back there is that you gonna stunt your growth from being in a little ball all day.

At the time of the Watson family’s trip, the U.S. South was caught up in a struggle for basic human rights that became known as the civil rights movement.

Although the Declaration of Independence states that all men are created equal and the Constitution had been amended after the Civil War to extend the rights and protections of citizenship to African Americans, changing the law of the land did not always change the way people behaved.

In the Northern, Eastern and Western states, African Americans often faced discrimination, but it was not as extreme and pervasive as in the South.

There communities and states passed laws that allowed discrimination in schooling, housing and job opportunities; prohibited interracial marriages; and enforced segregation by creating separate facilities for African Americans and whites.

A number of organizations and individuals were working tirelessly to end segregation and discrimination: the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), as well as Thurgood Marshall, John Lewis, Ralph Abernathy, Medgar Evers, Fannie Lou Hamer and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Along with many other people whose names have been forgotten, these men and women strove to change the laws through nonviolent resistance.

Along with many other people whose names have been forgotten, these men and women strove to change the laws through nonviolent resistance.

They adopted many of the techniques that Mohandas Gandhi had used to liberate India from British rule.

Sit-ins and boycotts of stores and public transportation applied economic pressure.

Picketing, protest marches, and demonstrations made headlines.

The goal was to create tension and provoke confrontations that would force the federal government to step in and enforce the laws.

The goal was to create tension and provoke confrontations that would force the federal government to step in and enforce the laws.