A Sky Full of Stars

by Linda Williams Jackson

  I gasped as we approached what looked like houses but, in my small frame of mind, couldn’t have been because they were much too large.

  “Are those houses?” I asked.

  “Yes, they are,” Reverend Jenkins said. He pointed at a two-story brick home and said, “That’s the former home of Mary Booze, one of the daughters of the city’s founding fathers. The house next to it is the former home of Isaiah Tecumseh Montgomery himself, the man who founded this fine city. That’s where the lucky teachers in this city now get to live.”

  “Teachers have a special house?” I asked.

  “A lot of small towns provide for their teachers this way,” said Reverend Jenkins. “But Stillwater doesn’t. That’s why most of us have more than one job. Can’t make a living teaching in these small towns.”

  I thought about how Shorty had mocked Miss Hill for having to chop cotton like the rest of us during the summer. I felt even more sorry for her and wished Stillwater had a home specifically for teachers so she wouldn’t have to labor in the field like the rest of us common colored folk. “That’s a spectacular house,” I said, admiring the sprawling three-story brick structure with its white columns. “If I could live like this, I wouldn’t care about going north.”

  Reverend Jenkins glanced at me in the rearview mirror but said nothing.

  “Did I say something wrong?” I asked.

  He called over the seat, “Sweetheart, our people are fleeing even a city like Mound Bayou in favor the North. They can’t stay cocooned within the safety of this city forever. At some point, they have to venture out into the Jim Crow South with the rest of us. And it’s that venturing out that scares people and makes them fear for their lives.”

  “But Dr. Howard is here,” I offered. “He’s not going anywhere, is he?”

  “No time soon, I hope,” Reverend Jenkins replied. “Besides, he came from up north. Well, I shouldn’t say up north,” he added. “He was born in Kentucky, but he’s lived up north and various other places around the country. His last home was Nashville. But he’s here now, and we’re lucky to have him.”

  “Hey,” Hallelujah pointed, as if to divert attention away from the current subject. “The Banks house.”

  I raised myself slightly in my seat to have a look. Before me sat another beautiful house in which I couldn’t believe a colored person could possibly live. “Did you say Banks?”

  “Yes,” said Hallelujah. “Mr. Charles Banks.”

  “Humph, wonder if he’s related to me,” I said under my breath.

  “What’s that, Rosa?” Reverend Jenkins called over the seat.

  “Nothing,” I muttered. Though Reverend Jenkins and Hallelujah knew all about my daddy and how he wasn’t a part of mine or Fred Lee’s life, I was still embarrassed whenever he was mentioned around them.

  “Mr. Banks was from Clarksdale,” Reverend Jenkins offered. “He moved here shortly after the city was founded and opened, quite fittingly, the Bank of Mound Bayou.”

  I continued to stare out the window and wonder at that marvel called Mound Bayou, a place where a Negro was as free as a white person. My eyes bugged out as we came near a large red-brick building. “Is that a church?”

  “Sure is,” said Reverend Jenkins. “First Baptist Church.”

  “It’s brick!” I gasped. “And it’s bigger than Second Baptist in Stillwater.”

  Reverend Jenkins chuckled. “It was probably built before that one, too. It’s supposedly the first brick church ever built in this area.”

  “Wow,” I whispered. “I wonder what Mrs. Robinson and her Cackling Church Club would think of a colored church that was bigger than theirs and was called First Baptist instead of Second.”

  Reverend Jenkins laughed heartily this time. “And I’m sure they have no idea that one of the very first Second Baptist churches was started by former slaves in the North.”

  “Really?” I said, sitting a bit straighter in my seat.

  “Yep. And it was also one of the stopping points on the Underground Railroad,” said Reverend Jenkins. “Right up there in Detroit.”

  “How interesting,” I said. “That’s the same place they caused Levi’s family to run off to.”

  “Maybe we should tell them all this,” Hallelujah joked.

  Reverend Jenkins shook his head. “Nah. Ignorance is bliss. Let ’em be happy.”

  “One of the ladies in Mrs. Robinson’s Bible study implied that colored children aren’t as smart as white children so we shouldn’t want to go to the same schools,” I said. “I bet all of ’em would be surprised if they came here and saw these fine houses and that fancy brick church.”

  Reverend Jenkins’s hearty laugh seemed to rock the Buick. “Not as smart, huh?” he said, his shoulders shaking from his laughter. “Well, wouldn’t they be surprised to know that one of their very own, Mr. Joseph Davis, and his brother Jefferson Davis, believed their slaves were so smart that they taught them not only to read and write but also how to run their plantations.”

  Hallelujah and I shouted at the same time, “They did?”

  “Sure did,” said Reverend Jenkins. “Benjamin Montgomery, father of one of the men who founded this city, was owned by Joseph Davis. The story goes that old Ben ran away. When Mr. Davis captured him, he asked him why he was so dissatisfied that he would run away. Old Ben told him he wasn’t happy being treated like property instead of a person. So Mr. Davis made an agreement with him to treat him like a fellow human being, and the first thing he did was take old Ben out of the cotton field and put him in charge of his general store.”

  “A slave ran a white man’s store?” Hallelujah inquired.

  “Yes, he did,” Reverend Jenkins said, nodding. “And that was only the beginning. When Mr. Davis saw how well old Ben handled his store, he put him in charge of all the purchasing and shipping on his large plantation. And when old Ben’s son Isaiah, the one who founded this city, was born, Mr. Davis made sure he received a proper education too. So you just tell Miz Robinson and her Second Baptist church friends that Mr. Joseph Davis thought Negroes were smart enough to run his plantation and handle his money.”

  I laughed and said, “Reverend Jenkins, you know I can’t say that to Mrs. Robinson.” Then, in a voice like Ma Pearl’s, I said, “We’d git thowed right off her place.”

  The car roared with laughter.

  After the laughter died down, I asked a bit more about the city. “How did it get started?”

  Reverend Jenkins sat a bit straighter. “Well, long before the war that freed the slaves was ever fought, folks said that Joseph Davis and his brother Jefferson were already thinking perhaps Negroes could actually be enterprising and run their own towns.”

  “Really?” Hallelujah interrupted. “A slave owner thought like that?”

  Reverend Jenkins nodded. “They even allowed their slaves to work outside the plantation and keep whatever money they earned.

  With a raised finger, Hallelujah interjected. “But didn’t they have to reimburse the slave owner for their time off the plantation?”

  “Oh, definitely,” said Reverend Jenkins. “Just the same, folks say that old Ben actually accumulated wealth and opened his own store—​Montgomery and Sons—​with his son, Isaiah. It was actually Ben’s dream to establish a community of freed slaves, but he died before his dream came to fruition. His son, Isaiah, with his cousin Benjamin Green and a few other freed slaves, purchased this land and established the city of Mound Bayou.”

  “So the Davises were good slave owners?” I asked.

  Reverend Jenkins began laughing so hard that I thought he’d have to pull the car to the side of the road. When he finally composed himself, he glanced at me in the rearview mirror and said, “Sweetheart, there’s no such thing as a good slave owner. Joseph and Jefferson Davis might have been good to their slaves, but there’s nothing good about buying and selling your fellow human beings and owning them as if they were cattle.”

  “How come you never told me all this st
uff about the Davises and old Ben?” Hallelujah asked.

  “You never asked,” answered Reverend Jenkins. “You’re not as inquisitive as Rosa,” he added, laughing playfully.

  “It’s because of my name,” I said. “Aunt Belle’s fiancé, Monty, said it’s Italian, after a saint, Rose of Viterbo. He said the bearers of the name tend to analyze the world. And we search for deeper truths than what’s simply on the surface.”

  “Well, I’ll be,” said Reverend Jenkins. “That sure does sound like you.”

  “Hmmm,” said Hallelujah. “I wonder what Clyde means.”

  “I don’t know what Clyde means, but I know hallelujah means ‘praise ye the Lord,’” said Reverend Jenkins.

  I snickered when I thought about how coarse Hallelujah’s words could get when he was angry. I didn’t know all that much about names and such, but I did know I wanted to learn as much as I could about a town that was founded by ex-slaves whose masters taught them to read, write, and figure mathematics.

  I gestured toward the houses and shops lining the main street in Mound Bayou. “How come they don’t write about this in the history books?”

  Reverend Jenkins glanced at me briefly, then chortled.

  Hallelujah answered my question. “They don’t want us to know that our people are smart. They want us to think they were all just dumb slaves who were incapable of learning. Who wouldn’t appear dumb after they’ve been captured and brought to a strange land where they don’t speak the language?”

  Silence filled the car. Captured and brought to a strange land where they don’t speak the language. I always knew that slaves came from Africa. But I had never really given much thought to how hard it must have been for the first slaves—​brought over on ships like cargo, separated from their families, sold to people who made them live in shacks and work all day in fields, then whipped them if they didn’t. I wonder how many whippings some of the slaves got simply because they couldn’t understand the instructions given by their owners. I shivered at the thought.

  “Slavery was horrible,” I said quietly.

  The car was quiet again, and I felt badly because it seemed I had spoiled our good mood. But by the time we toured the main streets in Mound Bayou, drove a little way out into the country, and arrived at the home of Miss Bertha’s friend, I was—​as Mr. Booker T. Washington predicted—​inspired.

  Then my stomach clenched like a fist.

  I was outside of Stillwater. Off Mr. Robinson’s place. Not at school. Not at Aunt Clara Jean’s. Not at Aunt Ruthie’s. Not in Miss Bertha’s store. I was sitting in the back seat of a car, which was parked in the driveway of a home of people who were probably as sophisticated as the Saint Louis spectators who had visited with Aunt Belle back in the summer. The house wasn’t as huge as the houses we had seen earlier, but it was larger than any colored person’s house I had ever seen. And it was painted white, unlike most of the houses I had seen in my lifetime, which had no paint at all.

  The white house was accented by green—​the shutters surrounding the windows, the front door, shrubs surrounding the house, and a couple of evergreen trees. Even with winter approaching, the green surrounding the house seemed to make it warm and inviting.

  Regardless, I began to panic. Who was I to go in there and meet Miss Bertha’s friends? And what if she complimented me on how nice I looked in her dress? My armpits moistened with sweat, and the sweat rolled down my sides. I prayed it didn’t show through the pink fabric of my borrowed dress. I would simply die.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Saturday, December 3

  WE WERE BARELY OUT OF THE CAR WHEN Miss Bertha appeared at the door. She smiled brightly and waved big.

  “Y’all come on in,” she called.

  Hallelujah raced up to the door and grabbed his aunt in a hug. He squeezed her as if he hadn’t seen her in years. And from my perspective, it seemed Miss Bertha was squeezing him as equally hard.

  Reverend Jenkins strolled up to her. “How ya doin’, sis?” he asked as he gave her a quick peck on her cheek.

  Miss Bertha hugged him and said, “I’m ready to go home. Ready to get back to my store.”

  Reverend Jenkins shook his head. “I told you I don’t want to have to hurt anybody in Stillwater. So unless you want to see your old brother behind bars, you best stay here where it’s safe.”

  “I’m not gonna let those people keep me from my store,” Miss Bertha answered as she led us inside the house. “They’ve tried to destroy it a hundred times already, and I haven’t let that scare me into shutting it down. So there’s no point in being scared now. I might as well face my fears and get back home.”

  “We’ll see,” Reverend Jenkins answered. He stood to the side and allowed us all to enter first.

  I trailed behind Miss Bertha, actually wishing I could somehow disappear. I tugged my ratty coat closed as if that might somehow hide it—​as if no one would notice where the cloth on the sleeves had rolled into tiny balls like white polka dots on brown fabric.

  We entered what I recognized as a foyer—​a cozy, narrow hallway for welcoming visitors. The Robinsons had one. I couldn’t believe I was in a colored home that had one, too. The floor was a glossy dark wood, the walls, a welcoming shade of green, like the rind of a muskmelon. Framed photos sat atop a dark wood table, and above the table was a mirror framed in gold. I hurried past it before I dared catch a reflection of myself and spoil the moment.

  To the right of the foyer was a dining room. It was as lovely as the Robinsons’, with a cherry wood table and a matching china cabinet. To the left of the foyer was a living room. Miss Bertha motioned us toward it and said to make ourselves comfortable.

  And comfortable I was. My shoes seemed to sink right into the stuff I knew to be carpet. The Robinsons’ bedroom floors were covered with it. But since I was never actually allowed inside any of the bedrooms, I had never felt this stuff called carpet before. It didn’t feel the same as walking on the rugs in the parlor and dining room. It felt more like walking on a thick layer of fallen leaves.

  The room was so green. And vibrant. Green velvet furniture. Green walls. And green plants in pots that sat upon shiny, unscratched tables at the ends of the long sofa. Framed family photos dressed the walls. We had family photos on the walls, too. But there were no frames. Tacks held them in place.

  A smile spread across my face at the thought that colored people in the Mississippi Delta lived in houses like this. I could easily imagine a picture of this room on a page of Jet magazine. Then I thought about folks like Levi Jackson’s family, who had for years lived in that decrepit old house on Mr. Robinson’s place before they moved to Detroit after Levi was killed in July. Or Aunt Ruthie, whose house was so cold in winter that she and her children, even though huddled around the woodstove, still wore their coats to keep warm. And poor old Miss Addie—​she lived in that three-room shack where a huge tree trunk grew right through the middle of her front-room floor. Thinking of her almost turned my smile to sadness, until a beautiful girl appeared in the doorway and asked if we wanted something to drink.

  The girl had long, thick hair, curled in ringlets. Her complexion was like cocoa, and I couldn’t help noticing the loveliness of her features. She reminded me of something I had read in the Song of Solomon: I am black, but comely. And if I recalled correctly, Reverend Jenkins had said comely meant “lovely and pleasant to look at.” And that’s what this girl was: black, lovely, and pleasant to look at. Just like Aunt Ruthie.

  Reverend Jenkins leaped from his seat. “Lord, is this little miss Joe with an e?” he asked.

  The girl grinned and said, “I prefer Joe Ann, now. Thank you very much.” She crossed her arms and declared, “Besides, I’m sixteen. I’m not little anymore!”

  Joe Ann, with an e?

  Like me, she had both a girl’s name and a boy’s name, except hers sounded pretty. I never liked that I had my daddy’s middle name, Lee. It was fine for my brother, Fred Lee. But I always thought it sounde
d strange on me, a girl—​Rose Lee. I wondered if this girl, Joe Ann, was also named after her daddy.

  When she entered the room, Reverend Jenkins rushed over to her and embraced her, patting her gently on the back. Then he held her at arm’s length and said, “Child, I haven’t seen you since you were the size of a gnat!”

  “Me?” Joe Ann said with a giggle. She pointed at Hallelujah. “What about him? The last time I saw this little fellow, he was running around in church shouting, ‘Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!’”

  We all laughed at the reminder of how my friend got his nickname.

  “Look at you,” Reverend Jenkins said. “I can’t believe how quickly you grew up. Where were you when we came by last Saturday?”

  Joe Ann’s forehead creased. “Miss Bertha didn’t tell you?” she asked. “I’m in college now.”

  Reverend Jenkins’s eyebrows shot up. “College? Already? At sixteen?”

  Joe Ann nodded. “Yes, sir. I started at Tougaloo back in September.”

  “Like your mother, huh?” said Reverend Jenkins.

  “Yes,” Joe Ann answered. “Except she skipped first and sixth grades, and I skipped first and fifth.”

  When Joe Ann spoke, her face seemed to smile, even without the aid of upturned lips. I couldn’t believe she was in college. At sixteen. And there was poor Queen at sixteen about to have to drop out of high school.

  She also seemed quite sophisticated, like Ophelia the Ogre from Saint Louis. But I bet she wouldn’t make someone walk out to the toilet in the middle of the summer heat just to ridicule them the way Ophelia had done me back in August.

  “Would y’all like some RCs?” Joe Ann asked. “Or I could fix some coffee if y’all think it’s too cold for cola.”

  RC? Royal Crown cola? I had seen folks drink it, but I had never tasted it myself. Hallelujah had even seen in a newspaper where a Negro baseball player named Junior Gilliam, who played for some team called the Dodgers, claimed RC was his favorite cola. Before I had time to think about it, I blurted out, “I’d like a cola.”