Delta Jewels

by Alysia Burton Steele

  “A tornado comin’, a storm comin’ and gonna kill all of us.”

  MRS. LILLIAN B. MATTHEWS, 87

  INDIANOLA

  BORN FEBRUARY 1928

  STILL MARRIED, 62 YEARS, TO REV. DAVID MATTHEWS

  1 CHILD

  5 GRANDCHILDREN

  Rev. and Mrs. Matthews have a lovely home. I can tell they’ve lived there a long time. Family photos are everywhere. From the garage, I enter a TV room, where Mrs. Matthews greets me. She’s wearing an apron, baking fruitcake cookies. It smells like comfort. The TV is on.

  To the right is a wall with a built-in bookshelf full of cookbooks. Through a doorway to the left is the formal dining and living area. It’s after Christmas, and her fine china and silverware are sparkling at the dining room table. Each seat has a full setting with formal white cloth napkins in Christmas-themed napkin rings. A huge crystal chandelier above the table is unlit, and light coming through the curtains causes rays to shine on the walls.

  I don’t see Rev. Matthews, who’s run an errand.

  Mrs. Matthews and I sit at the dining table. “What about your childhood would you want people to know about you?”

  “I love basketball. My brothers and I—we taught each other.” She tells me that she moved from the hills of Mississippi to the Delta when she was in the ninth grade, but she started playing ball in the hills. “We would walk to the different schools and play the game. Wasn’t no such thing as a gym, we played outside. I could play any position—forward or guard, or whatever—and I loved it so, they called me ‘Bad Banks’ [her maiden name]. I mean, I had to put my hand on that ball.”

  She tells me the girls played against the boys in her family. She didn’t get to play ball in college at Valley State in Itta Bena, Mississippi. They didn’t have girls’ basketball. When she was a teacher, she also coached the girls at school. “I was a coach for the girls—about 17 years—when I was teaching, and, baby, we didn’t lose no games.” She chuckles. She retired after 33 years as a home economic teacher.

  She also talks about the team she organized at her church in Indianola. “The mothers didn’t like it too much, but we wasn’t doing nothing but playing. We played basketball and we played softball. They didn’t think we should do that to lead the young people in church, but I said, ‘The Lord understands, we wasn’t doing nothing but developing our bodies.’ ”

  When I ask her if they played basketball with any white children while growing up, she says no. “Whites rode the bus to their school and we had to walk to our school. When they had their friends with them, well, they would throw rocks at us. They didn’t want their friends to know they associated with us. They would come to our house, eat with us, and play with us, if their friends weren’t around.”

  I muse on her glowing testimony about marriage, and then Mrs. Matthews moves on to a much heavier subject—voting in Indianola.

  I’ve been married 62 years, 62 sweet years. My husband is so gentle. He just loves me to death. We love each other. They call us the lovebirds. When I first met Rev. Matthews, I ran from him and he just ran me down. So finally he came down to my home. My sister-in-law’s mother was there and she said to him, “Nobody here but Lil and me.”

  He said, “That’s who I wanna see.” So, he came on in, sat down. I sat at one end of the couch, and he sat on the other side. I was so excited and scared. He said, “I’m lookin’ for a wife and I don’t want no long courtship.”

  I said, “What?—Oh, Lord. I really don’t want no minister for my husband and the reason for that was, our house was the minister’s house and they [all the ministers] would all come in and eat up all the food from us and sit there and argue about the Bible and start eatin’ again until they eat everything off the table. No, I don’t want no minister.”

  “Well,” he said, “I’m a modern minister.”

  But anyway, we fell in love and from there we went on. He’s just so soft and easy.

  The first time I voted, of course, they [Whites] didn’t want to us to vote anyway. Had us pay poll tax, and all that, but still couldn’t vote. We were the only two, my husband and I, and one or two other [black] people here with good reputations, were allowed to vote. Just anybody [black] couldn’t vote.

  The mayor’s wife and I were tallying votes, you know, takin’ the names down and puttin’ it on the book, and she always referred to us “Nigras.” She pretended she couldn’t pronounced Negroes. When she called us Nigras, I stopped and I said, “The word is ‘Negro.’ ”

  A tender moment with Reverend Matthews holding Mrs. Matthews’s hands during our interview.

  She said, “Well, I can’t say that, I have to say like I say it anywhere else.”

  I said, “Well, we don’t like it like that.” I didn’t take it any further, I just let her know I didn’t like it.

  A lot of things, we went through. In the courthouse, they had the black fountain for the water—Well, it said, “Colored”—and the one for white. Well, I just decided I wouldn’t be thirsty. I didn’t drink out of the place. I said I’ll work all day without water. We couldn’t use the same restroom. I didn’t like that. I couldn’t change it myself, but time did.

  An hour or so later, Rev. Matthews returns. He’s a handsome man, about six feet tall. He has a trimmed mustache, his wavy hair brushed back high off his forehead. I imagine he was quite the looker when he was younger because he’s striking now.

  “Rev. Matthews, would you like to join us?” I ask. “Perhaps tell me why you chose this lovely woman to be your wife?”

  He smiles when she looks at him, dotes on her. He grabs her hand and tells me their story about asking for her hand in marriage. She has long nails that are polished with red and white Christmas designs. I stand over them: “I’m going to take this photo. Don’t stop. Just continue to hold her hand. This is lovely.” It’s as if they’re playing music with their bodies as I watch them move closer and lean into each other.

  As I shoot, he tells me he’s a Morehouse man. He went to college when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was there. “What was he like? What story would you tell us that no one else knows?”

  All he says is, “Well, Dr. King was an average student.”

  I chuckle and watch their expressions of deep-down love. He lets her walk in front of him, and he ushers her with his arm on her lower back. I think about Gram and Pop-Pop’s marriage. Even until Gram’s death, Pop-Pop always held her hand. They’d walk down the street and he’d hold her hand. They’d sit on the sofa and he’d reach for her hand. One time in high school I caught them making out in the kitchen. He was kissing her in the middle of the kitchen by the sink. “Ugh. Gross,” I remember saying, and walked out. I feel happy I have those memories. Pop-Pop was giving Gram a bath when she was dying of cancer, and I leaned against the closed door to listen to them. I heard her say in her soft voice, “Oh, Bill, thank you.”

  MRS. LILLIE B. JACKSON, 88

  TUTWILER

  BORN JUNE 1926

  MARRIED 61 YEARS WHEN WIDOWED

  13 CHILDREN

  40 GRANDCHILDREN

  43 GREAT-GRANDS

  6 GREAT-GREAT-GRANDS

  It’s a summer day with clear blue skies. I’m listening to music while driving either to or from a grandmother’s house. I’m still learning the Delta region, and I get confused about where the Jewels live. I’ve just put a Kool & the Gang CD into the player and am listening to “Too Hot.” My phone rings, and it is Mrs. Lillie Jackson from Tutwiler.

  “Hello, Mrs. Jackson. How are you?”

  “What are you?” demands Mrs. Jackson.

  I chuckle, knowing exactly what she means; she wants to know what race I am. “I’m biracial. My mother is white, my dad is black, but I identify as a black woman.”

  “That’s okay,” Mrs. Jackson replies. “I just needed to know who was coming to my house. We got some of them, too,” she says, referring to her own family, before hanging up.

  I holler laughing. I love that these women just say what th
ey’re thinking and they hang up. Some say “good-bye” and a few say “I love you,” but most just hang up when they’re finished with a conversation, no matter how brief.

  I love Mrs. Jackson—straightforward, just a bit of attitude. I’d been trying to get her to interview with me for months. I expected a sweet, little old church lady—and she is that—but oh, she’s got spunk! She didn’t want to interview then, but I left hopeful.

  When we finally sit down, she says, “I can’t imagine what you want to ask me. I’m not important.”

  “You are most certainly important. All of you mothers are. I just want to ask you some questions about your life. I want to record your stories so your children, and their children, and their children will know you. We want it in writing. Is that okay?”

  “Yes, it’s okay, but I’m not important.”

  I learned that her husband was the funeral home director who prepared Emmett Till’s body.

  “He never talked about work when he came home. He never brought it up. Didn’t like to, he just didn’t let things get to him,” she says.

  “Were you ever afraid of white people after that—before that?”

  “I was never afraid of them white folks!” she says, shaking her head. Mrs. Jackson clearly wants to use a few choice words, but she doesn’t fully say them. I know what they are, and I chuckle. “But that’s why Tutwiler so scarce now ’cause when everybody heard about Emmett Till, folks was leaving here,” she says, referring to the fact that Blacks moved away from Tutwiler after Emmett Till was killed. Mrs. Jackson lives in Tutwiler. Emmett Till was killed in Money, Mississippi, which is about 30 miles south of Tutwiler. The torture to Emmett’s body spooked everyone. So much so, people moved away from Delta towns.

  They [stores] sold out all the luggage. Couldn’t find luggage no way around here. People puttin’ they thangs in cotton sacks. People was leaving everythang. We used to pick cotton out there on that plantation and folks left they house—everything, furniture, everything. They left with just they clothes. Folks was leavin’ and goin’ to Chicago wit’ they kids. They was just scared for their chil’ren, that’s why they was leavin’. They figured if they done that child that, they would do somebody else’s chil’ren like that. Everybody who had chil’ren left Tutwiler. A lot of my friends in Tutwiler left. They went all over the country and every which way. But I wasn’t afraid after Emmett Till.

  My husband worked for the funeral home. He picked them [bodies] up, embalm them, take them to the cemetery. His bossman, he owned the funeral home in Tutwiler. Bossman called him [my husband] for to go pick up Emmett Till. He couldn’t go by himself. He couldn’t go alone. He had to have police escort him. After he did the body, he took him to Memphis and put him on a train then from there sent him back to Chicago. Now, I’mma tell you, my husband, he didn’t like to talk about it, stuff like that. He kept it to himself. He was upset. He was really upset.

  “Did you worry about your sons after Emmett Till?” I ask.

  No. My boys was younger. I tried to teach my children the right way to go. Bring ’em up in church. Love them. I try to do the best I can—what a mother supposed to do. I loved my kids. Still do now. Don’t nothin’ come before my kids. My kids always come first. If I had food and I didn’t have enough, I would let them eat first. If they left anything, I’d eat. If they didn’t, I would just wait until next time.

  MRS. DELORIS M. GRESHAM, 64

  DREW

  BORN JULY 1950

  STILL MARRIED, 43 YEARS, TO REV. JESSE GRESHAM

  5 CHILDREN

  14 GRANDCHILDREN

  3 GREAT-GRANDS

  “I don’t want to tell a story. I have a story, but I don’t want to be in your book,” Mrs. Gresham tells me when I phone her. But she keeps telling me stories while we talk on the phone.

  “Mrs. Gresham, I know you want to be in this book. You know you need to be in this book. I know you have stories and I can tell there’s something you’re not telling me.”

  Silence on the phone.

  Several people in the Delta have asked if I’ve interviewed Mrs. Gresham. I reply that she keeps telling me no, but she’s helping me find more women to interview. Rev. Hawkins tells me I must include Mrs. Gresham. “She keeps telling me no, Rev. Hawkins.” He says, “Keep trying.”

  Mrs. Bearden, another Jewel, tells me Mrs. Gresham is the same age as one of her daughters, so I know she is much younger than most of my Jewels. Perhaps she’s refusing the interview because she doesn’t want to be viewed as old.

  Teaching a full load of classes and doing this traveling, transcribing, editing photos is wearing me down. I’m tired and irritable. Bobby tells me to buckle down and finish. Rev. Hawkins and Rev. Self pray me through my frustrations. “Maybe I should lower the age for the book. Maybe I should make it 65 and older,” I suggest to Rev. Hawkins on the phone.

  “Well, if you do that, I can give you more women. I know younger women who have stories. What you need to do is get Mrs. Gresham,” he says.

  “What is her story?” I ask.

  “You have to ask her,” he says.

  “She keeps telling me no.”

  “Women keep canceling appointments,” I whine to Rev. Self. “Maybe I should stop now? This has been a long road and it seems like it is falling apart.” I start to cry.

  Rev. Self tells me, “Do not to let the devil win. I’ll reach out and find some more women for you to interview. I have a family friend, Mrs. Curtistene Davis, who lives in Leland. I think she can help you out.”

  Strengthened, I call Mrs. Gresham again, the fourth time.

  “Hello, Lisa.”

  “Hello, Mrs. Gresham. I need to interview you for the book. I know you have a story and you know you need to tell me. I lowered the age for the book. I’m interviewing Ms. Myers next week.”

  “Okay, Lisa.” She sighs. “You know some people from the Library of Congress contact me for my parents’ story. I got a certificate. I will be in your book. Besides, I can’t have Ms. Myers in the book and I’m not in the book. I referred her to you.”

  I have both of them scheduled for the same day. I interview Ms. Myers first. Then I head to Mrs. Gresham. She doesn’t like to be photographed. She turns her head to the side and cuts her eyes at me. After I take ten or so photos, she says, “That’s enough. You have enough shots.”

  “I like to shoot a lot of photos. I’m not sure that I have it. Be patient with me. I want to give you my best,” I plead.

  “I don’t take good photographs. I don’t like to have my picture taken.”

  “I don’t either, Mrs. Gresham, but I promise to use a nice one for the book.”

  I move closer and stand over her.

  “You’re making me uncomfortable. You’re too close.”

  “Just be patient. I’m almost done. Just relax as much as you can,” I say.

  She doesn’t think she’s pretty. She’s gorgeous, and I keep clicking. She continues cutting her eyes at me. She must see and approve the photos before I leave, and insists I delete the ones she dislikes. I delete one or two that I don’t like, but I refuse to delete the rest. I already know that I’m going to use one of her cutting her eyes at me, especially after I hear her story.

  The most pivotal moment in my life was growing up without my parents because of the tragic day in their lives when my father was murdered by a white man. He [the white man] asked for a full tank of gas and said, “No, I didn’t ask for a full tank of gas. I asked for $2 worth of gas.” My father told him, “No, I distinctly heard you ask for a full tank of gas.” The service station owner said, “Yeah, you did ask for a full tank of gas.” The white man, Mr. Elmer Kimbrell, said, “You got a smart-ass nigger working for you. Don’t be here when I get back.” After Kimbrell left, the service attendant said to my father, “I’ll tell you what, why don’t you go home and we’ll take care the rest of the night.” So, he was about to leave. He was getting gas because he was going to take his mother to Greenwood to the train station bec
ause she was going to Chicago. He gets in the car, getting ready to leave, this guy drive up and just start shooting. He shot my dad in the hand and in the head. He threatened one of the other workers ’cause he said, “Don’t do that. Don’t shoot him.” And Kimbrell told him, “If you get in my way, I’mma shoot you, too.” The other man ran into the back of the store. I read, and I’m not sure how this happened, but he did end up with a bullet wound in the shoulder. They wanted to say that my father shot him, but they could never find the gun. Mr. Kimbrell ran when he did it.

  After my father was murdered, four days before the trial, my mother, Beulah; my oldest brother; and I were in the car together. All of a sudden we end up in the river. I think we were forced off the road. The car was turned upside down. I remember distinctly my brother telling me, “Water gettin’ in my face, water gettin’ in my face.” I kept feelin’ around in the car until I found him. I pulled him up close to me and I told him, “Just hold on, hold your head up, keep your head up.” I was searchin’ for the door lock. The door was locked. By that time I heard somebody outside. I was feelin’ the inside and I could feel my mother’s face, but she wasn’t movin’ or anything. I found the lock and unlocked the door and someone let us out.

  Just like Emmett Till, he [Mr. Kimbrell] was acquitted. The same people that was involved with my father’s death were involved with Emmett Till. They had an all-white jury. You know, if I had my way, I would convict the jury because they’re guilty. They know that he did it. They’re just as guilty as he is. They’re the one that let him go. I’m sure they have a conscious, I’m sure. Everybody got a conscious and I’m sure this has been on some people’s mind for a long time.