by Daniel Black
The children stood idle in the middle of the living room while the adults piddled around with miscellaneous details.
“Whwhwhwhwhat y’all thththtink g-g-g-gon happen?” Chop asked Sarah Jane and Ray Ray.
“Man, be quiet!” Ray Ray huffed.
Sarah Jane rubbed Chop’s back. “Just wait and see,” she said. “Everybody’s a little nervous right now.”
“I ththththink it’s gon bb-b-b-b-be all rrright. I jjjjjjjes got a ffffffffeeelin’.”
“Shut up, boy!” Ray Ray said more emphatically, balling both fists.
“Everybody ready?” Jeremiah called, and looked around.
“Guess so,” Miss Mary answered for the family.
“Then let’s go!”
When Pet Moore and the Johnsons stepped onto the front porch, they gasped in disbelief. In every direction, they saw black, brown, caramel, and dusky yellow faces looking back at them. Some were standing proudly in black dress clothes while others looked like farmers on their way to the fields. Jeremiah shook his head in awe.
“Oh my God … ,” Pet Moore murmured.
Miss Mary started laughing hysterically. “I told you to look out fu de Lawd, didn’t I?” Her mouth opened to full capacity, and she hollered, “Yessir! Don’t chu never thank de Lawd don’t know what He’s doin’! Jes when you thank you done lost de battle, He’ll pull a ram out de bush and remind you who sits on de throne! Oh praise His name!” She stepped off the porch and began to hug everyone.
Jeremiah looked at Pet, and said, slowly, “Never in a million years did I think—”
“Well, you ain’t got to think no mo’ ’cause here they is!” Pet’s head rotated. “Good God from Zion! Look at all de folks!”
Jeremiah blinked back tears, and said, “I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t say nothin’,” Pet answered. “You lead dese people where we need to be, and you thank de Good Lawd He heard yo’ cry.” Pet squeezed Jeremiah’s shoulder.
Jeremiah descended the porch without greeting anyone and began to walk toward Money’s white section. He strutted like an old peacock that knows others gawk in awe and reverence of its majestic gait. The crowd fell in line and mimicked his walk, proud to be part of a liberation movement they never dreamed would come to their neck of the woods.
“Chile, ain’t it a great day!” Aunt Sugar declared, switching her rotund bottom like a rotating washing machine.
“Yes, ma’am, it is!” Miss Mary confirmed.
“I didn’t have no idea so many folks wuz comin’, Mary. Did you?”
“I didn’t really think ’bout it. All I knowed fu sho was what de Lawd promised me.” She pointed to herself.
“And what was that?”
Miss Mary lifted her flabby arms. “He told me that if I had the faith the size of a mustard seed, we could go over to dem white folks and they’d have no choice but to bow down.”
“Sho nuff?” Aunt Sugar smiled.
“Jes pay attention and get your blessing!”
The Johnson children joined other children who followed their elders exultantly.
“You ain’t nervous at all, Ray Ray?” another fourteen-year-old boy asked.
“Naw, not really,” Ray Ray lied.
“I’m a little scared,” the boy admitted. “I ain’t neva seen no colored people look nobody white dead in de face.”
“It’s gon be all right,” Ray Ray counseled. “We jes gotta stay strong and believe in ourselves. Dat’s all.”
The boy said nothing more, and Ray Ray was glad about it. He wondered why people kept talking and laughing like they were on their way to a celebration.
Sarah Jane walked next to Yolanda, Tiny’s granddaughter.
“I like the yellow ribbon in your hair,” she told Sarah Jane bashfully.
“Thank you.” Sarah Jane smiled.
Yolanda smiled back. “My brother says you’re the prettiest girl in LeFlore County.”
Sarah Jane blushed. “I wouldn’t say that.”
“I would.”
“I think you’re pretty, too.”
“Really?”
“Yep.”
Each reached for the other’s hand, and the two girls walked the rest of the way together, grateful to find the sister neither had.
When the mass of Black boldness crossed the bridge into Money, people immediately fell quiet. The truth of what they were about to do could no longer be disguised. Their steps slowed considerably, and the spaces between them closed like fingers preparing to make a fist.
Jeremiah stopped. He raised his head high and shouted unto the heavens, “Anybody who wanna turn ’round, now yo’ last chance.”
Nobody moved. People looked at each other for assurance no one alone could provide.
“’Fo we go any further,” Jeremiah said, “I wanna ask my boy here to lead us in a word o’ prayer.”
“Amen!” the crowd agreed, grateful for a few more contemplative moments.
Relinquishing Possum’s hand, Enoch knelt on one knee like a deacon during devotion, and the people followed suit. “To the great and merciful God our father!” Enoch declared. “We come to You as humble servants, dear Lawd, askin’ You to be our shelter and our guide as we stand before these white folks today and proclaim what thus said de Lawd!”
The crowd said, “Amen!”
“We come as empty cups befo’ a full fountain, Father, beggin’ You to fill us up wit Yo’ word and Yo’ righteousness! We cain’t do nothin’ ’til You come, Oh God, and we ain’t gon move from dis place ’less we know You guidin’ our footsteps! Do us like You did de Hebrew children, Master, and deliver us if we git in a fiery furnace!”
“Yes, Lord!”
“Do us like You did Moses at de Red Sea, Hallelujah, and move every obstacle which dat ole devil done set up to make us fall!” Enoch clapped wildly. “We rebuke every imp, every mechanism, every power Satan done devised to bring against us, oh Lawd, and we claim victory in the name of Jesus!”
“That’s right!”
“We don’t always do what we spose to do, God, but we struggles to live like You want us to. Use us today, Master, and mold us ’til we look like You and sound like You and walk like You and talk jes like You told us to. Soften de hearts o’ dese crazy white folks ’til they see Jesus in us and wanna know how they can have some o’ dis God we got!”
“Hallelujah!”
“And, Lawd, if this be our dyin’ day, comfort our souls in knowin’ dat everything You do is good and perfect and right, and to be absent from de body is to be present wit de Lawd! Don’t let us be scared o’ nothin’, oh God, and remind us like You did Jesus on de cross dat we is Yo’ people in whom you are well pleased. Give us strength in our bodies and courage in our hearts to do what You done sent us to do. I ask these and all other blessings in Yo’ precious son Jesus’ name, Amen.”
“Amen,” people roared, and stood.
Before Jeremiah could speak, Billy Joe Henderson began singing, “I————love de Lawd, He heard my cry!”
And the crowd responded, “I———love———the———Lawd! He—————heard———my————cry,”
“And pitied every groan.”
“And———————pi————tied—————e———very——————groan.”
“Long as I live and trouble rise! I’ll hasten to His Throne!” Billy Joe bellowed.
“Long——————as——————I——————live——————and——————trou——————ble——————rise——————I’ll——————hay——————sun——————to——————His——————throne.”
Some cried, others shouted, a few lifted their hands in praise, and Enoch kept watch to make sure the devil didn’t sneak up on them.
“It’s time,” Jeremiah said, and commenced walking again.
With each step the people took, their numbers multiplied. Folks glanced around without seeing the presences the
y felt, but they knew others were among them. Miss Mary shouted, “Un-huh, come on, come on!” as the children wondered to whom she was speaking. Aunt Sugar didn’t wonder. She saw them, too, in their invisibility. Their long, graceful strides made her think of angels dancing around the throne of God. She imagined them cloaked in flowing white garments and marching to Zion like the songs prophesied. For now, their presence strengthened the people and made them feel like the Hebrew army preparing to face the Philistines. It was funny, Jeremiah thought, that as soon as he gathered the strength to stand alone, others came. And not just human others but spirit others who had the power and the authority to protect them from dangers seen and unseen. Sarah Jane felt them, but had not the eyes to see. The warm, tingling sensation in her arms felt like her mother’s energy, and that was enough to convince her that they’d live to see another day. In one way or another, everybody knew that their original numbers were now exponentially greater and that God had sent the help they had prayed for. Only Miss Mary knew it would happen this way, having gotten used to God’s moving when others weren’t watching. She had seen the Invisible Ones before, in various places and moments, and prayed for the day when they and the living might unite. All those years of arguing and fussing with God had paid off, she concluded, and now, while others trembled, she sauntered confidently alongside those who’d seen God face-to-face. Meeting Aunt Sugar’s eyes, they laughed knowingly, and Miss Mary declared aloud what both knew: “You can’t always see yo’ help, chile!”
Chop wanted to see what the women saw. “Wwwwhat is it, Gr-rrrrrandma?” he asked, tugging her dress.
Miss Mary wept and proclaimed, “De Good Lawd is here wit His angels, boy! Don’t you see ’em?”
Looking throughout the crowd, Chop saw only familiar Black faces. “No mmmmma’am,” he cried. “B-b-b-b-but I wwwwant to, Grrrrrandma! Cccccan you t-t-t-t-tell mmmme how to sssssee ’em?”
Miss Mary said, “Look wit yo heart, baby. Don’t look wit yo’ eyes.”
Chop didn’t understand, but he determined to try. He closed his eyes and excavated the contents of his heart. He found Ray Ray there, and Sarah Jane, and they treated him kindly and asked his opinion on every subject. He saw Jeremiah and Old Man Cuthbert smoking pipes, laughing, and sharing stories about the old days. Aunt Sugar and Miss Mary made cakes and pies and fried enough chicken for everybody in Money, and people said, “Lawd have murcy! This de best food I ever tasted!” and the women smiled as Aunt Sugar declared, “Get on outta here, child! We jes throwed dat together!” and everybody laughed and everybody got full. And all the elders told all the children what life used to be like for colored people, and the children couldn’t believe that hatred once held humans captive. And when Chop opened his eyes, he beheld the form of angels, hundreds of them, staring into heaven while standing guard among the believers. He gasped, “Grandma! I see ’em! I see ’em!” and reached to touch them, but Miss Mary blocked his hand, saying, “You feel ’em wit yo’ heart, baby. You feel ’em on de inside. Anything you feel wit yo’ hands ain’t real.”
Chop understood. He waved at beings who returned the gesture kindly. “Thank you,” he told all of them. “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you,” he repeated until his wet eyes could hold the tears no longer. “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!” he shouted, then realized that when his grandma, over the years, had waved her hands, and said, “Thank ya!” she was actually talking to a host of Gods, to hundreds, maybe thousands of angels who had helped her or her people or somebody in the world survive something they couldn’t handle alone. Chop concluded that God must be everybody and everything that ever lived all combined, working to teach earth folks how to love existence—not just physical life. With that knowledge, he counted the day a victory—whether they lived or not.
All the while, the people kept moving.
Billy Joe Henderson sang the call:
Go down, Moses,
Way down in Egyptland!
Tell old Pharaoh …
And the people answered:
Let my people go!
He continued:
No more shall they in bondage toil,
Let my people go
Let them come out with Egypt’s spoil
And the people demanded:
Let my people go!
Let my people go!
Let my people go!
… until they knew, like Moses, that God had not brought them this far to leave them. Every colored citizen, buttressed by souls larger than themselves, borrowed strength from those Inexhaustible Ones and purposed in their hearts to tell their children and their children’s children how, one dusty summer morning, God and the ancestors ushered them into victory.
By now, Miss Mary was laughing uproariously. A few thought she might have snuck into Jeremiah’s moonshine earlier that morning, but, ignoring the spiritually indigent, she repeated, “Didn’t I tell you? Huh? Didn’t I tell you?” until her contagious joy caused others to chuckle without ever knowing why. Her rendition of “Woke up Dis Mornin’ Wid My Mind Stayed on Jesus” comforted those who never understood the song’s immediate relevance. Now they knew, and so they added their voices and created a trumpet call to battle that could be heard for miles. In fact, the people guessed that all those old Black church ballads were telling a story that would, one day, come to pass.
Ray Ray walked oblivious to the coexistence of spirit and flesh, for his heart’s desire, in the midst of communal jubilee, was simply to get the ordeal over with. The façade of strength and resolve he wore made a perfect mask for an extremely insecure soul.
Chop told him, “Everything’s gon be all right, Ray Ray. I just seen de angels!”
Ray Ray said nothing but appreciated—then borrowed—his little brother’s courage. “I’m okay.” He sighed.
“It’s all right to be scared, Ray Ray. Everybody get scared sometime. I wuz scared, too, ’til I seen de angels.”
“Wait a minute!” Ray Ray screamed, and grabbed Chop’s shoulders. “Yo’ voice! What happened to yo’ voice? You ain’t stutterin’ no mo!”
“That’s right!” Chop said innocuously. Miss Mary winked at him. “I told you, I just seen de angels!”
Ray Ray snickered, “Well, good for you,” without taking Chop seriously.
“No, I’m serious!” he cried. “De angels fixed my voice! I went in my heart and—”
“Don’t worry ’bout it, baby,” Miss Mary consoled. “You can’t tell nobody ’bout God. They gotta see Him fu theyself jes like you had to. His turn’ll come.”
On the other side of the crowd, a voice whispered to Possum:
Hear you that shriek: It rose
So wildly on the air
It seem’d as if a burden’d heart
Was breaking in despair.
Saw you those hands so sadly clasped—
The bowed and feeble head—
The shuddering of that fragile form—
That look of grief and dread?
Saw you the sad, imploring eye?
Its every glance was pain,
As if a storm of agony
Were sweeping through the brain.
She is a mother pale with fear,
Her boy clings to her side,
And in her kyrtle vainly tries
His trembling form to hide.
They tear him from her circling arms,
Her last and fond embrace—
Oh! Never more may her sad eyes
Gaze on his mournful face.
“They killed my baby!” she began to wail. Possum had hoped to keep her agony contained, but the words of the poem insisted that she release. “Oh God! They killed my baby!”
“That’s right!” the voice encouraged. “Tell the world! Let the world know!”
“He was my only chile!” Possum screamed. “Who would do a mother’s baby that way? How could they jes beat him ’til his eye come right out o’ his head?”
“Yes, purge it. Yes! Yes!”
“Clement!” she
cried and stumbled. “I love you, baby! I don’t know what I’m gon do without you!”
Ella Mae carried Possum’s semilimp body as the grieving mother relinquished an unbearable weight.
“Oh God! I can’t do this! I can’t, Ella Mae! I can’t!”
“We gon do it together, girl! You ain’t by yo’self. That boy belonged to all o’ us!”
“I can’t do it, Ella Mae! Why can’t I just die, too?”
“’Cause you cain’t!” Ella Mae screamed. She couldn’t explain her sudden burst of power and authority, although she could have had she seen the Invisible One standing next to her. “There are other chillen waiting on your love and your direction. Use Clement’s life to teach, Possum! Stand up and tell Negroes everywhere that we shall never let this happen again. Declare to the world that your son was the last sacrifice of a people who ain’t scared no mo! Prove to the world that, even when they kill some o’ us, they make de rest o’ us stronger! Live, girl! Live!”
Ella Mae surrendered to the spirit for Possum’s sake.
“Yes, Clement is yo’ son and you love him! But Clement ain’t yo’ only child! Do you see all dese chillen? These yo’ chillen! And until we get clear ’bout that, ain’t none o’ us gon have no chillen ’cause our strength is divided, and once somethin’ happen to our chillen, we don’t commit to takin’ care o’ nobody else’s. So, if we ain’t careful, they gon kill every colored chile in America ’cause they don’t neva have to fight nobody but de parents. You ain’t in this alone!” Possum was in another zone. “We all lost a son in Clement! All of us! And dat’s why we marchin’ right now. To make sure white folks is clear that we ain’t givin’ up no mo Black chillen ever again! Unless they intend to kill every single one o’ us!”
Possum felt her legs strengthen. She would still give anything, do anything, to have her son back, but thinking of Sarah Jane, Ray Ray, and Chop as her own, her very own, brought her healing within arm’s reach.