Three and a half miles due east of the front gate of the state university they all attended, the town might just as well have been on the other side of the moon. This was true for Eric’s home town and all their home towns. In big cities and small towns across America in 1968, no matter how loudly James Brown encouraged being Black and proud, no matter how intently Aretha Franklin demanded Respect, they still were perceived as the niggers they’d always been. When the Klan called for a rally and marched down the middle of the town’s main street for the purpose of burning Black Power in effigy, it became the social event of the season: Every white person for miles would be in attendance; every Black person for miles would find somewhere else to be. Eric strongly, almost violently, resented the fact that everybody related to him had already left town, though the KKK event would not happen for another three days, on Saturday.
Eric had thought that firebombing the Klan would be a worthy activity for the BSU since the only activity the group had managed, aside from weekly meetings, was a weekly party. The only person who had disagreed out loud was Charlie, and yet here he was, carrying a five-gallon can of gasoline through the woods to be stashed until the night of the Klan rally.
“They like burning things, we’ll give ’em a fire!” Eric had said in the BSU meeting the night he proposed this particular activity, and he raised his fist to the sky and yelled, “Burn, baby, burn!” Tam, J.T. and half a dozen other students had joined in. William had not. He’d been trying to think of a way to avoid having the group give the matter any serious consideration when Eric made it a motion and Tam seconded it. His only choice had been to call for a vote, and the resulting whoops and shouts had left no doubt as to the will of the group. He’d later thought he should have called for a show of hands, because two weeks later the BSU membership had dwindled down to the five of them now sneaking through the woods to hide ten gallons of Esso Regular, thirty glass bottles, and yards of ripped up sheets and tee shirts in a rock pit Eric and Charlie had prepared the previous weekend.
“Let’s get this done,” William said, moving forward again, and the line followed him: Eric directly behind in case William lost sight of the string; Tamara behind him; J.T. behind her; Charlie bringing up the rear. In the deep darkness, they all looked the same, and any racist would have been forgiven for saying so. Again, it was Eric’s idea that they all wear black jeans and turtleneck shirts, black combat boots, and green fatigue jackets. All of them had huge afro hair dos. It was only Tam’s petite build that identified her as the sole woman among the men, all of whom were close enough to six feet tall for nobody to argue about an inch or two, and in excellent physical condition.
The wardrobe was camouflage costume, but also a matter of practicality. It was Fall in the northeastern United States, and chilly to cold at night. Each of them was glad for the warmth of the heavy jacket and the thick boots, though only two of them—Eric and Charlie—were comfortable in the woods. For reasons known only to the two of them, this was Charlie’s home town, too, and he’d spent many youthful hours playing hide-and-go-seek, king of the mountain, and can’t catch me in these woods. He and Eric knew each other casually, acquainted through their younger sisters who were in the same class at the high school. Within the small town’s small Black community, it was well-known that Eric was a genius and always expected that he would attend the university.
It was just as well known that Charlie was not a genius, and his attendance at the university was a surprise to all, including Charlie himself. While he was by no means a stupid young man, the mechanics of learning had never excited him. He’d learned what he was taught, he had behaved himself in school, he’d applied to college because his counselor told him to do it, and he’d been accepted—the first in his family to have achieved such a milestone. His parents had been more bemused than proud at the notion of their son the college student, and Charlie always felt that they were waiting for the letter that would explain that the previous letter of acceptance had been, after all, a mistake.
Charlie attended his classes, took reasonably good notes, did the reading and writing he was assigned. He attended his first Black Student Union meeting because he’d been invited. He attended the second because he welcomed and enjoyed the feeling of belonging. He liked being called Brother, and he liked calling people Brother and Sister, liked feeling that the words had real meaning. He also liked feeling that he wasn’t alone on the huge campus. The fact that he lived in the town had no meaning during those long hours of the day when he had to make his way from class to class, always the only Black in that class, often not seeing another Black student until the evening hours when they’d meet to share a meal—and that wasn’t a daily occurrence. He was, after all, a freshman.
Little more than a child to the likes of William and Tamara and J.T., Eric treated him like a man, but Eric’s head so often was in an esoteric cloud of one kind or another. Charlie wasn’t the only one who didn’t always understand what Eric was talking about but he was the only one too intimidated to question, to challenge. Except the one time. Except the time he objected to firebombing the police station. He’d expressed his opinion and they’d all sat quietly, listening to him. Respecting him. Some of them even agreeing with him when he’d made the point that only Black men would be in the jail when they burned it. The chief wouldn’t be there, or any of the white officers. And for a moment, they’d hesitated. Then they’d voted to burn, baby, burn.
Charlie was on tonight’s mission because he felt bad that almost everybody else had abandoned Eric. He thought it cowardly to advocate for a position, then withdraw. He thought it manly to support a friend if not the friend’s position, and he knew that Eric appreciated his support. He had accompanied Eric on the scouting mission, had helped dig the hole where the gasoline would be buried and line it with rocks, making certain that the combustible material was far removed from anything that would combust—until it was time.
“Are you sure gasoline will burn down a brick building?” he had asked Eric. And Eric had explained in great detail the history of the Molotov cocktail, and the way it worked. As always, Charlie marveled at Eric’s vast store of knowledge. Eric explained in his quiet way that he was a revolutionary.
“We’ll toss them on to the roof,” Eric told him. “The roof isn’t brick. It’ll burn. Two dozen incendiary devices thrown simultaneously will set that roof on fire in a matter of seconds. Maybe minutes,” he allowed, for his knowledge of the devices was purely intellectual.
“Wouldn’t it make more sense to make them first, then carry them into the woods, instead of bringing the gas, the bottles and rags separately?” Charlie had asked, and Eric had agreed, and complimented him on his clear thinking.
“But Tamara and J.T. didn’t want to do it that way and I didn’t want to rock a boat that already was on the verge of tipping over.”
They’d had that conversation less than a week ago and though Charlie couldn’t imagine anything other than chaos and disorganization on Saturday as the four of them would hurriedly work to fill the bottles, he did agree that carrying the already filled bottles through the woods would have been extremely uncomfortable if not dangerous. As relieved as he was to be rid of the gas can, he couldn’t shake his residual and persistent worry about the men who’d be trapped in the jail, consigned to a fiery death, and he realized it didn’t matter to him whether they were Black or white. “Phase One of the Mission: Accomplished,” William said, putting his gas can in the pit beside the one Charlie had placed there.
“Good work, everybody, and thanks,” Eric said as he spread a tarp over the cans, then began to push and shove dirt into the pit to cover the gas cans while J.T. and Tamara covered the bottles and rags with boughs, tree limbs and branches that Charlie and Eric had gathered for that purpose.
“You sure this is secure?” William asked, for even in the dark it was obvious that something was buried there. “You sure nobody will see it?”
Eric gave a slight shrug, then nodded. “Pret
ty sure. Black folk don’t usually come this far through the woods and white folks almost never go through the woods toward Coontown.”
“Toward what?” Tam had shouted, then quickly covered her mouth with her hand and repeated the question in a hoarse whisper: “Toward what?”
Eric almost smiled. “Coontown is what they call the Black side of town.”
He had explained to them, when it first became apparent that serious consideration was being given to the plan to firebomb the local police station and jail, that a narrow but dense wood separated the Black and white sections of the city. Might be railroad tracks everyplace else. Here it was woods and, Eric said, for his whole life, Black children had played in the woods up to a specific and delineated point, while white people almost never entered these woods. They had no need. They had their own woods that led to a lake, off-limits to the residents of Coontown.
“You said ‘almost never’ came into these woods,” J.T. said. “Define ‘almost never.’”
“When they were up to no good they’d come through,” Eric said. “Usually teenaged boys or good ole boys drunked up and feeling mighty.” Now he did smile, a thin, chilly thing that likely would have been unnerving in full light. “Saturday night’s activities likely would be the kind of thing to draw them into the woods, toward us.”
“But won’t they know that all the Black people are gone?” Charlie asked.
“Sure. They know” Eric replied softly. “But they’ll still be mad when they won’t be able to find anybody to intimidate or beat up. That’s when they’ll want to burn. Only they won’t get that far. Unless they put out our fire first” he said, then whispered, “Burn, baby, burn,” and it sounded like a prayer.
“Still,” J.T. said, “I just can’t picture them letting us sneak up on ’em and set fire to their police station, no matter how many papier-mache Black Power dolls they’re burning.” His growl was whispered but it sounded loud.
“You saying they’ll know what we’ve got planned, J.T?” Tam asked.
“No, I’m not saying that, Tamara … “
She cut him off. “Because if you are, J.T., I’d like to know how it happened that they would come to suspect us. After all, it’s not like we’ve got a hundred fired-up, bushy-headed, fist-raising Black Power militants on our campus. No need for them to give us a second thought.”
William had had enough and for once, that included enough of Tam. “Look, nobody has said anything to anybody about any of this. Eric, if you’re sure this is safe here for the next three days, let’s go. Let’s follow the exit plan to the letter. No detours, no exceptions. We meet back at the Black House in half an hour.”
“Hold up a second, Will,” Tam said, grabbing his arm. “I need to hear J.T. say it.”
“You don’t need to hear nothin’ from me! I ’bout had enough of you. In fact, why don’t you tell us that you’re not the Uncle Tom in the woodpile. You’re way too quick to point the finger at other people. William, man, I don’t know how you stand her. Bad enough we’re out here in the woods, in the dark, without her mouth.”
“It figures you’d be afraid of the dark,” Tam said, and William was certain he saw her eyes flash. “Always talking about the Homeland and when you get to Africa this and when you get to Africa that, and you can’t even hike a quarter mile in an Upstate woodland. You do know, don’t you, ‘X,’ that there are jungles in the Homeland? Dense, deep jungles and no electricity to speak of. Talk about dark.”
J.T. made a grab for her but Charlie caught him and William stepped between them.
“I’m sick of her!” J.T. snarled.
“I’m sick of both of you,” Eric said, sounding for the first time like the enormity of what he had concocted was finally sinking in. “We’re doing this. I’m doing this if the rest of you are getting cold feet. I don’t mind going it alone. And for the record, Tam, I trust X.”
Ironically enough, it was Eric who’d almost called the whole thing off early in the planning stages. He’d become convinced that there was a traitor among them, an Uncle Tom, somebody who was on the payroll of The Man. About half their members agreed while the other half reminded him that not a single one of them knew anybody white on campus, to say nothing to knowing any law enforcement or government types. Sure, they went to classes and lived in dormitories with white students, but they didn’t know them. And besides, when would a traitor have had time to betray them?
They spent practically all of their free time with each other, studying, partying and planning the revolution. Those who agreed with Eric pointed out—quite correctly—that almost certainly their betrayer would not be white but Black like them, in addition to which almost every even quasi-radical, pseudo revolutionary had heard the clicks on the telephone line that signaled J. Edgar’s goons were listening—or knew somebody who had heard the clicks. If any one of them had aroused suspicion, they’d know they were suspected. The real threat of such provided sufficient reason for most of the BSU membership to have had other things to occupy them on this frosty Wednesday night. This sudden, intense need to study angered everybody but Eric. He understood, he said. It was, he often said, one of the most dangerous times in American history to be Black and fear was a natural response to danger.
“Nice of you to call cowardice fear, Eric,” J.T. had said in his customary growl. “We’re all afraid. We’d be crazy not to be. But sooner or later, everybody has to take a stand.”
Five of them had taken a stand on this Wednesday night. As they disbanded, heading off in four different directions—William and Tamara together, J.T., Charlie and Eric each in a different direction—they gave each other the Black Power salute, intoned Power to the People with reverence, and promised to arrive at the Black House in half an hour bringing food and drink. The adrenaline produced by the trek through the woods needed to be fed.
Only Charlie was looking forward to the midnight rendezvous. He thoroughly enjoyed every moment of the time he spent at the Black House, though BSU meetings had, in the past several months, morphed from a fascinating and fiery mix of the political and the philosophical to the merely polemical, with anger usually trumping all attempts to introduce rationality into the discussions. And while he was unnerved by the force of some of the anger, Charlie knew that he was learning much more than ever would be taught in the university’s classrooms, for nobody in the school’s administrative hierarchy acknowledged that things were changing in the world.
That Black people were angry was evident to anybody who’d been paying even scant attention to events in the United States of America. What white Americans seemed unable or, worse, unwilling to understand was the reason for the anger. Black anger just made them angry, and the angrier they got, the more powerfully they resisted any notion that there could be any justification for what they were seeing on their television screens on an almost daily basis: The rioting and the burning and the talk of power and revolution. Who did they think they were? Guilt was a mighty motivator. Self-righteousness was a deadly one. For a people whose historical landscape was littered with corpses, the tossing of a few bottles of gasoline at a few sheet-wearing murderers seemed to Charlie not an unreasonable response.
He already was scrunched inside his VW Beetle when the thought floated, fully formed, into his brain: Firebomb the KKK marchers, not the jail. Throw the cocktails over the roof, not on the roof. They’d crash in the street, forcing the KKK and their followers to run like hell away from the flames, which would give them, the flame throwers, time to escape through the woods. The Black men housed in the jail would be spared, the sheets would feel the fire, and Charlie et al. would live to fight another day. Eric would, he thought, approve of this plan. So would J.T. and perhaps even William. And, Charlie thought, a few dozen already assembled Molotov cocktails would be convincing.
He climbed out of the Beetle and hurried back through the woods. He didn’t think he’d be missed tonight. William and Tamara, who lived at the Black House, probably would rather be in bed than e
ntertaining them. Eric usually preferred the company of his own thoughts. And if J.T. never spent another moment in Tamara’s presence, it would be okay. Charlie would do his work tonight, in secret, and then tell them all on Friday night at their final planning meeting. It would be his surprise gift to them.
But it was Charlie who was surprised on Friday night. He’d stopped his car two blocks from the house. He could get no closer because the police had blocked off the street. He backed up, turned around and drove away, thinking frantically about who he could ask about what was going on, because he was certain that whatever it was, the Black House was involved. He drove around for a while, then went home. His mother ran down the walk and grabbed him before he could haul himself out of the tiny car.
“OhGodOhGodOhGod! I thought you were dead, Charlie!” She held him so tight he couldn’t breathe.
“I’m not dead, Mama. Why would you think that?”
“’Cause the rest of ’em are dead! That’s what they’re saying on the TV!”
Charlie broke away from her and ran into the house. He spent the rest of the evening on the floor before the television, not believing what he was hearing: William Rodgers and John Thomas Anderson, Jr., both twenty-one-year-old seniors at the university, found shot to death in an off-campus residence used by Black students to plot against the school and the government; another senior, twenty-three-year old Michael Eric Mason was being held, charged with the murders. It couldn’t be true. Charlie didn’t believe it.
He learned the following day that it was true. The gun that killed William and J.T. was found in the leather satchel that Eric used to carry his books and papers. His fingerprints were all over it. He also learned that all the Black students enrolled in the university were to be expelled. Immediately. Acting on a tip from a confidential source, the police uncovered a stash of Molotov cocktails buried behind the police department that the dead and jailed Black Power advocates planned to use to disrupt the weekend plans of the KKK.
Send My Love and a Molotov Cocktail! Page 11