Читать книгу Stranger at the Gates - Tracy Sugarman - Страница 10

My eyes moved around the crowded hall, watching the students settling into the wooden theatre seats. How many had left, I wondered, after the session with King this afternoon. Maybe while we ate our dinner boys had tossed dirty sweat socks into duffles and made their way quietly to the Greyhound station in Oxford. And the girls, talking so earnestly into the phones that tied them to home, how many had said, “Maybe you’re right, Mom. It’s not for me.”

If any had left, you couldn’t tell. The students bunched in at the doors that flanked the rear of the auditorium and broke into twos and threes as they moved down the aisles and into the rapidly filling rows. The weight of the afternoon heat still lay in the dusty hall, and the windows that opened wide on the still June evening brought no vagrant breeze. The movie screen stood nakedly white on the stage in the yellowish light of the hall. A group of SNCC field workers moved easily through the crowds and found six seats in the first row. Their denim jackets seemed almost a uniform in the room of bright blouses and sport shirts. Their heads would bend toward each other, and one could tell they were laughing by the movement of their shoulders. If they felt the eyes of the room on them, they never acknowledged it.

A small staff group of three stood quietly watching, their backs to the peeling yellow plaster of the wall between the doors. Jim Forman, a bushy- haired, brown bear of a man, was the most imposing. He had spoken to the volunteers on the very first morning, a large-voiced, no-nonsense, practical doer. At thirty, he was Executive Field Secretary of SNCC. The T shirt under the blue overalls looked soiled with sweat, his heavy face glowed with heat, and he stood as if planted, his strong-muscled arms folded across his chest. To his left was John Lewis, National Chairman of SNCC. He seemed small against the bulk of Forman. His hands were lost behind him, resting in the rear pockets of his jeans. His shoulders rested against the wall and his neat bullet head was tipped forward, his chin resting in the V of his open work shirt. Only his eyes moved. They appeared drowsy, seeming to brush slowly around the hall. The heavy lids blinked like the shutters of a camera, dreamily capturing the image, closing, opening once again. His upper lip was heavy, overhanging the lower, and it added to the image of a somnolent beaver.

The first thing you noticed about the third man was the spanking neatness of the blue overalls, the snowy white of the T shirt. His body was compact and slim, and there was at once an air of modesty and dignity about him. His young face was alert and pleasant, and his eyes behind the glasses regarded the world with intelligence and a melancholy gentleness. Bob Moses was the Program Director of the Council of Federated Organizations, a group which had been formed to sponsor the Summer Project in Mississippi. The Southern Christian Leadership Council, the Council on Racial Equality, the Commission on Religion and Race of the National Council of Churches, and his own group, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, had combined forces to work out the strategy and the logistics for Moses’ plan. In the long wretched winter nights in the Delta he had fashioned a scheme so daring that it had frightened even the young field workers with whom he worked. It took weeks of patient reasoning to convince them that this could work. He stood now, a pliant sapling, his feet slightly parted. His face moving quietly, his glasses catching the light, he looked at these youngsters who had heard his forlorn pipe and come running. This unlikeliest Pied Piper, a modest Negro Master of Philosophy from Harvard, looked searchingly about him. His face seemed impassive. If a muscle in his jaw moved or if the crease between his dark brows seemed deeper, one couldn’t really say in that badly lit room.

“Don’t come to Mississippi this summer to save the Mississippi Negro,” he said yesterday. “Only come if you understand, really understand, that his freedom and yours are one.”

His voice had been so soft that everyone had leaned forward toward the rostrum. They had heard him before, at Berkeley, at Wesleyan, in New York. Somehow the homely sweetness of this man had caught them and drawn them to Oxford. Now here they were, the white and Negro children come to bear witness from the campuses of America. They leaned forward, and looked hard, for now they sensed the reality of the commitment that he had initiated back at school. He had returned their challenge as he always did. In a calm and quiet voice he had said, “Maybe we’re not going to get very many people registered this summer. Maybe, even, we’re not going to get very many people into the Freedom Schools. Maybe all we’re going to do is live through this summer. In Mississippi, that will be so much!”

Moses had watched them bleed. He had watched them bleed to death. For three cruel years he had clasped hands with death. He loved Herbert Lee and Medgar Evers, and when they were killed he felt altered and lonely. The violence and the pain were scars he would carry privately forever, for they were an obscene offense to his gentle spirit. Of his own arrests and beatings he never spoke, but the savagery heaped daily on the head of the Negro in Mississippi moved him to a calculating action which could change the system that fostered it. Those who knew him best said that even more than the revolting fury of the white violence, the boundless, numbing ignorance of the Mississippi Negro simply appalled and overwhelmed him. Everything in this highly complicated twentieth- century man was offended by the crippling ignorance. He knew that this was the white weapon that emasculated and robbed, that made mock of progress and political sloganeering.

“Maybe all we ’re going to do is live through this summer.”

The Supreme Court decision of 1954 had not altered anything in Mississippi. Not one white classroom had been integrated by the first frightened Negro child, and the only visible response to the prohibition of “separate but equal” was the hasty building of Negro schools in some communities where no schools had existed at all. Mississippi was determined to keep its Negroes docile and ill educated, for a time-entrenched cotton society was built on the immense base of cheap Negro labor. Moses knew that the only way to break the rigidity of the system was to develop local Negro leadership. Where in this carefully ordered society which conspired to perpetuate itself on every level could he hope to find it? Who could stand against the massed ranks of Mississippi clergy, judiciary, journalists, educators, legislators, employers, and landlords? Who could say “No!” in a voice that would be heard?

The handful of SNCC field workers were tough and endlessly resourceful. For three frustrating years they had fought a guerrilla attack on the apathy and fear that had immobilized the Negro community for a hundred years. The McLaurins, the Cobbs, the Formans had started to kindle the flames that would warm and rouse the sleeping gentle giant. But Moses knew it would take whites from the North to catch the conscience of white America. It would take whites from the North to arrest the attention of the press and the legislators. It would take whites from the North to catch the searching red eye of the TV cameras, to force their way into the Sunday sermon and the cocktail party chatter in Washington and New York. And it would take white hands reaching out that could help the Mississippi Negro struggle to his feet and stand erect. The risks of bringing white men and white women into this bastion of “white supremacy” were enormous. This calculated affront to the sensibilities and mores of the white society would evoke a response of applied pressure and harassment, and there was no way of avoiding it. The fear and hatred would not be mitigated because the northerners came nonviolently. To the Mississippi white the act of their coming was violence, and he prepared to resist this latest assault on his “Southern Way of Life.” In Jackson the police chief built a military tank for fifty thousand dollars, calculated to defend law and order in the capital. Americans for the Preservation of the White Race, the town councils, and the Democratic Town Committees grouped their forces to resist the “mixers” who were coming to despoil and deflower. An inspired, reticent Negro who understood White America was going to force Mississippi to acknowledge her black children. No longer the truncheon in the isolated cell, the nameless black body being beaten and torn, the anonymous hooded terror. The whole world would be watching as Bob Moses led White America’s children into Mississippi.

Moses let the wall take his weight. The muffled chatter of the hall murmured along the packed rows and ceased. The screen sprang to life and the last yellow bulb vanished.

In the darkness Mississippi ceased suddenly to be an abstraction. There, on the screen, brightly lit by an August sun, was Mississippi. A Negro girl, looking pert and resolute, walked down a dusty dirt road in a Negro quarter of a Mississippi town. The camera moved in and her intent face filled the screen.

“I want to vote so we can get some lights on our road, and get police protection.”

A car passed behind her, a 1961 Ford, and the dust rose from the dirt road and caught the bright Mississippi sun. Now the camera moved and the documentary dissolved to the massive bulk of a white registrar of voters. The gross indolence of the body was accentuated by the cranky baby face which lolled on the fat, fleshy neck. The effect was startling and ludicrous. Here was a parody of “massive resistance.” This overblown baby of a man had denied the vote to the Negroes of Tallahatchie County for years, and he was somehow at once hateful and ridiculous. A snicker of laughter raced through the hall, and a quick “Shush!” followed as the audience bent to hear. The cameras now moved through the “Sanctified Quarter” of Ruleville, Mississippi. An elderly Negro man, his leather face etched and tooled by seventy years of work in the fields, was quietly describing the horror of shotgun blasts that had torn into his living room. He showed the couch where two young girls had been cut down as they watched television. The hall was hushed, and a clearing of throats was the only sound that competed with the whirring of the overheated projector.

The songs learned at Oxford sustained us all summer.

“I had driven to Indianola and applied to register to vote.” The old man’s gaze into the camera was steady. “I aim to go back to Indianola and apply again. Shooting’s not going to turn me around.”

The camera moved to the old Negro lady who was his wife. Her face was birdlike, and an absurd hat balanced on the top of her thin gray hair. The voice and the face conspired to conjure the image of an intent, bespectacled parrot, and her recital of the nightmare that had struck their home was lost as a nervous giggle ran through the seats. Again an angry “Shush!” and the eyes stayed riveted on the real citizens of Mississippi.

The lights came suddenly on as the film ended. The blinking students began to stretch and move in their seats. An enraged Negro strode down the aisle and leaped to the apron of the stage. His face was furious, and he quivered as he began to speak.

“You should be ashamed!” he growled. The students looked rapidly at their neighbors and back to the small intent figure that commanded the stage. “You could laugh at that film! Six of the Snick field workers left this hall when you laughed. They couldn’t believe their ears, and neither could I.”

His voice broke and tears glistened behind the glasses. With an effort of will he regained his control, and the words tore painfully from his throat.

“I hope by the end of this summer you will never laugh at such a film again.”

The students looked stunned. What had happened? The dark figure on the stage was an accusing finger. Of what were they being accused?

Preiss and I moved out of the emptying hall and drove in silence to the beer cellar in town. He seemed excited by the evening, and when he finally settled into the corner of the booth, his voice was jubilant.

“It’s classic! Here are these two very different groups. They’re only alike in that they both think they understand the other, and certainly themselves.”

He signaled for a pitcher of beer and placed his feet on the worn bench. His jaw moved with nervous excitement.

“They’re both wrong.”

The bartender came around the end of the bar carrying a foaming pitcher and two wet glasses to the booth. Preiss watched him silently and spoke again when the bartender had returned to his station.

“The students think they really understand these Snick kids. After all, here they are, making their commitment, ready to face the rednecks. Why? Because, they’ll tell you, a great injustice has been perpetrated on the American Negro. They’re coming to Oxford with their gift of a summer in their hands, and they want it to be an appreciated gift. They think they understand the Snick kids because they feel for the Mississippi Negro. A lot of them take the Friday night and Sunday morning morality seriously. So they really do feel for the Mississippi Negro.”

He paused and studied the wet ring of suds on the table, carefully placing his glass exactly in the center. His eyes lifted to mine and he frowned.

“But they can’t feel like the Mississippi Negro. They know it, and it makes them unhappy. Tonight they watched a fat man who was against letting Negroes vote in his district. They laughed at him because he looked grotesque and stupid. And when they saw a funny-looking little old lady who looked like a chicken, they laughed again. But when the lights came up and they heard that the Snick boys had walked out, they suddenly realized how insensitive their reactions had been. They don’t like to find out they’re insensitive about anything. Certainly not about Negroes! They were sure about that much—until tonight.”

He lifted the glass and swallowed deeply. The beer left a faint trace of white on the sandy hairs of his moustache. He wiped it with the back of his hand and lit a fresh cigarette. “The Snick kids watched the same movie,” he said. “But they saw different things.”

“How could they see different things?” I asked. “Okay, these students are not Mississippi Negroes. Granted. But how different is their frame of reference about oppression and discrimination? After all, if they weren’t sensitive to inhumanity, what brought them here?”

Preiss shook his head irritably. He moved the beer pitcher to my side of the table and filled my glass.

“How different? Listen. The Snick kids didn’t see a fat man who was against Negroes. They saw a white man who was powerful, and he had hurt them. They knew this powerful white man. They knew he had hurt them, and they knew he would go on hurting them. This was no abstract injustice. This was the guy who said ‘No’ after you had worked your tail off for months getting frightened people to the point of walking up his county courthouse steps. This was “Mr. Charlie.” This was no laughable fat man. This was the man you weep about. The Snick kids watched the volunteers laugh and they couldn’t believe it. ‘They’re laughing! What are they doing here?’ And then they watched the lady from Ruleville whose house and nieces got shot up. She’s not funny-looking to them. They helped her wipe the blood off the couch and get her nieces into the hospital—the white hospital—because they couldn’t stop the bleeding. And they watched these kids—mostly white kids—giggling at a ridiculous hat and a cackling voice. ‘How can they laugh? What are they doing here?’”

Preiss, his face pale, wet his lips and ground out the cigarette. “These Snick workers have taken it for so long they didn’t think they were sensitive anymore. They thought after the beatings and the grinding frustration they wouldn’t feel pain anymore. They were sure about it—until tonight. The students laughed, and they found their nerves were exposed.” He stretched his arms wide and arched his back. “Like I said.” He grinned. “It’s classic. And like I said this afternoon, they haven’t really been listening.”

He slid along the bench and stood up. “But tonight tore it. At last we can really start talking tomorrow.”

We drove back to the campus and parked by the Administration building. We entered the foyer and immediately sensed that something was different. The center hall was deserted except for two students who stood at the entrance to the lounge. They leaned intently against the door- jambs, listening, and seemed completely unaware of our approach. Preiss glanced quickly at me and we moved swiftly across the hall and into the crowd that filled the room. It seemed that everyone was there. They sat hunched on the floor, knees drawn up, silent. The carpet was filled with students, and each leather lounge sofa and chair was hidden by the crush of bodies. All attention was directed at the two SNCC field workers who stood in the center of the crowd. The shorter, a wiry, very dark youngster in his early twenties, was weeping openly, and his words twisted out raw and savage.

“We love you—and we don’t understand you! Sure we want you to come with us, but we’re scared for you. You don’t know the score—and we’re scared for you. You can’t know. You just can’t know.”

The words were alive and they moved into the room like a torn high- tension wire, sparking, leaping, and lethal.

“I was in the Army. They taught me how to hate and they taught me how to kill. But that’s not what I need.”

His voice broke, and he blinked as the tears moved down the dark, young cheeks. His hands were clenched tight against his thighs.

“I need to love you. We’re going to Mississippi together, and I need to love you.”

Time seemed to stop in the hushed hall. No one seemed to notice that the clock had pushed past midnight, for a torrent of love, heat, self- confessions, hopes, and fears swept the room in a violent flood of emotion. When he finished speaking—the pulsing rush of tumbling words suddenly ceasing—the second youngster began. His eyes were dry and his young brows knit intently as he sought voice for his fear. He started to speak, the words beating like nervous fingers on a bongo. He spoke in a cadenced rhythm, his voice expelling a sharp “hey” at the breathless end of each sentence. His eyes were troubled, and they seemed to beg understanding like a child, even as the staccato and stylized bop language made him sound worldly and citified. The students watched and listened, not quite knowing why they were not embarrassed by this public display of such profoundly private feelings. Instead they felt a great surge of relief, and their gratitude flowed like a released spring. This stripping of cool pretense, this humble reaching out of hands for common touch was a frightening and beautiful thing, and they felt for the first time a real sense of communication with these SNCC workers who were taking them away from home.

I looked at the two SNCC boys (I had thought they were young, but now for the first time I saw how vulnerable they were as well). They seem a breed apart, isolated guerrillas fighting a lonely battle for recognition and dignity. (“Look at me! I’m a man, too. Look at me!”) They had been altered by their direct participation in the struggle, and this was what divided them from the kids listening. The volunteers were not removed from them by years, or even by race, for some of the students were Negro. They were removed by a searing experience that had stretched through three years (not two months with an exit waiting). Tonight their deep concern for these eager neophytes had swept away their defenses. The students’ sense of exclusion and inadequacy was consumed in the heat of the confessional. The terrible intensity of the stated commitments began to forge a common bridge, for each in that room found an echo of his own private fears. They started to see each other for the first time, and they started, finally, to understand.

Bob Moses stood small and silent, his arm gently cradling the shoulder of his wife. She leaned like a heartbroken child against his side. Across the room I saw Jim Forman standing silent on the edge of the crowd. He looked spent and very young. This was the wonder, I thought, of SNCC. Two half-educated, southern Negro kids had moved with a sure hand into a crisis that might have torn apart the whole fabric of the summer. Their instinctive sense of the right word and the right moment had illuminated the room. The simple honesty of their grief and fear had acted as a catalyst and transformed two suspicious groups into one. This was no prearranged tactic of the leadership. It was the kind of gut response that had kept them alive and resilient for three years. The room was on its feet now, arms around the shoulders of the nearest neighbor, and the voices were one voice. It rose and filled the lounge, a fervent and plaintive song that must have echoed across the darkened campus.

I watched these kids as they swayed and sang. Faces were streaked with tears and sweat, but their eyes were alive.

We’ve been ’buked

And we’ve been scorned—

We’ve been talked about

Sure as you’re bo-orn,

But we’ll never—

No, we’ll never turn back.

John Strickland came back to the room as I lay feeling wound up and prickly. His black hair was plastered with sweat to his pale forehead. His eyes moved restlessly, and he looked stunned.

“Are you all right, John?”

He dropped onto the side of his bed and stared at me. A quiet, wondering smile moved across his white face and he nodded. “It’s the first time I’ve ever been confronted by the raw force of love. It’s quite a force.