The man pumped his hand and smiled broadly. “Well, I just want to congratulate you and say Godspeed. This is good work you’re doing here.”
Bailey looked from the man to the youth. The lad had a keen, intelligent air about him. His dark eyes darted everywhere, taking it all in.
“My boy and I have come a long way for this,” the man went on. “I’m the pastor of a church in Atlanta.”
“Atlanta?” Bailey grinned. “You have come a long way.”
“This is my son, M. L.,” the man went on. “He’s just finishing up his second year at Morehouse College. He’s going to be a preacher, like his daddy and his granddaddy.”
Bailey focused on the lad. “Second year in college? How old are you, son?”
“Seventeen, sir.” The boy spoke quietly, confidently
“Yessir, he’s a smart one, he is. Skipped two grades in school. We’re real proud of him.”
“As you should be.” Bailey caught a glimpse of Silvie and Amethyst waving in his direction. “You’ll have to excuse me, I’m afraid. We’re about to start.”
“You go right on, son. And God bless.” The preacher moved into the crowd, but the boy laid a hand on Bailey’s arm.
“This is my calling,” he said. His voice was firm, determined.
Bailey looked into the young man’s eyes and saw a depth of wisdom and compassion he had rarely seen in people twice the boy’s age.
“It’s my dream,” he went on. “Equality for all God’s people.”
“Then you keep right on dreaming, M. L.” Bailey gripped the boy’s hand. “The cause of freedom needs people like you.”
He had a sudden, unaccountable urge to throw his arms around the lad and hug him. But before he had a chance, the young man turned to follow his father and disappeared into the throng.
There weren’t many white faces in the crowd, and they tended to cluster together. From the platform Bailey could pick out Amethyst, standing next to Silvie, and just behind them, Dixon Lee Godwin, the new Presbyterian minister. Clarence Bogart looked intensely uncomfortable, sticking close to Amethyst like a little lost boy. But at least he was here, and Bailey couldn’t have been more pleased.
Absalom Smith, the minister from the African Methodist Episcopal Church, gave a long-winded invocation, and shortly after the first speaker began his impassioned plea, more flashes of white caught Bailey’s attention.
White robes. White hoods.
A knot twisted in Bailey’s gut, and he sent up a silent supplication for peace. So far the Klansmen hadn’t done anything—they just stood there, a menacing presence on the outskirts of the crowd.
Then one of them raised a fist. “Niggers, go home!” he yelled at the top of his lungs. “This is our town, and we aim to keep it!”
“Go back to Africa, where you belong!” another screamed.
The speaker, a huge man with jet-black skin and a barrel chest, pointed a meaty finger in the direction of the Klansmen. “Who brought us here?” he challenged. “Who made us slaves?” He turned his attention to the crowd. “The time has come for the slaves to be set free!”
The audience cheered halfheartedly, but clearly most of them were intimidated by the appearance of the Klan. Women clutched their children closer. A few began to edge away from the gathering.
“We’ll set you free, boy!” the Klansman yelled. “Free at the end of a rope!”
“Just a minute!” a commanding female voice rang out.
Bailey turned his head, and his heart sank. With one hand on Goodwin’s shoulders for support, Amethyst had climbed onto the base of the Confederate statue and was waving her free arm for attention. No, he entreated silently. Amethyst, no!
“Keep out of this, Miss Amethyst,” the Klansman shouted. “This ain’t your fight.”
“It is my fight,” she retorted. “It’s the fight of every decent, peace-loving person in this country.” She pointed at him. “You, Will Tarbush! What do you stand to lose if Negroes are given equal rights under the law? Nothing except the opportunity to put your foot on some other man’s neck. That’s what’s at stake here—not another person’s equality, but your sense of superiority. And the good Lord knows, Will, if that happens, you won’t be superior to anybody!”
A titter of nervous laughter ran through the assembly. Tarbush took a step forward. “You shut up, Amethyst! We all know what you are, you nigger-loving—”
“You sit in church behind me every Sunday,” she went on, “but what good has it done you? You thrive on hate, and you’ve taught your son Billy to be just like you. Look at yourself, Will Tarbush. You think you’re a big man, a powerful man, because you have the power to prey on the helpless. But you’re mean and ignorant and miserable. I pity you.”
Will Tarbush jerked off his hood and glared at Amethyst. Even from this distance, Bailey could see the hatred in his eyes. “This ain’t over yet.”
Bailey watched as the state police closed ranks around the Klansmen, and he breathed a sigh of relief. The local authorities had promised him that if he wouldn’t call in the federal troops, they would see to it that there were no incidents of violence, and apparently they intended to keep their word.
The Klan gradually dispersed, shouting obscenities as they left, and the rally resumed. But much of the enthusiasm had drained from the crowd, and a pall of apprehension overshadowed all of them for the remainder of the day.
Bailey suspected that Will Tarbush, in his own perverse way, had spoken the truth.
This wasn’t over yet.
Amethyst stood staring at the spectacle. She was seeing it with her own eyes, but she couldn’t believe it.
An enormous red truck blocked the entrance to Jefferson Davis Avenue. Water gushed down the driveway and ran in rivulets along the street. Men in rubber jackets and helmets milled around, their big boots crushing through the flower beds. Thick hoses snaked across the lawn, mauling the shrubbery.
Noble House was on fire.
Or at least it had been. By the time Amethyst, Bailey, and Silvie arrived, most of the damage had been done. The outer walls, though charred, still stood, and the left side, where the old log cabin had been built, seemed untouched. The conflagration had been contained before the flames reached the upper level, but the right side of the house on the first floor looked to be gutted. The front parlor had been reduced to a mass of rubble. There was smoke and water damage everywhere.
Amethyst blinked. Her eyes were gritty, but tears wouldn’t come. “Who would do such a thing?”
“I think you know who,” Bailey muttered.
He was right, of course. Most of the townspeople had been in the courthouse square all afternoon—a few of them attending the rally, the others watching. Except for the Klansmen, who after Amethyst’s tongue-lashing had slunk away like the cowards they were.
A light touch on Amethyst’s shoulder arrested her attention, and she turned to see Dixon Lee Godwin standing beside her.
“Don’t say it,” she warned.
“Don’t say what?”
“Don’t say, ’I warned you.’ Please.”
He gazed at her with an expression of compassion and pain. “After today—being at the rally, and now this—there’s only one thing I can say.”
Amethyst closed her eyes and waited. “Then go ahead, if you have to.”
He cleared his throat. “I think—I think you’re the most courageous person I’ve ever met, Amethyst. I want to help. And I want to be your friend.”
“Courageous?” She let out a shuddering sigh and shook her head. “Some people would call it pure obstinacy. And maybe they’re right, if this is what it gets me.”
The fire chief walked by, his muddy boots making squishing sounds on the soaked ground. When he saw Amethyst, he stopped and removed his hat. “I’m sorry about this, Miss Amethyst,” he said as he wiped a sooty hand across his face. “We done our best.”
She forced a smile. “You saved the house, Jake. I have you and your crew to thank for that.”
�
�Yes’m.” He pushed a lock of wet hair out of his eyes. “But Miss Amethyst, if I was you, I’d think twice before taking on the Klan again.”
When he was gone, Dixon Lee took her hand and looked into her face. “And if you were to think twice, what would you do?”
“I suppose I’d do it again,” she said. “Somebody has to stand up to them.”
“It’s a high price to pay for your principles.”
“Other people have paid a greater price,” she mused. “People have died, Dix. And more lives are likely to be lost before this is all over. Still, I believe it’s a battle that needs to be fought.”
“But is it a battle we can win?” he asked, his eyes searching hers. “It’s a godly cause, and an important one, but you know how deep the prejudices run. Is it possible to change those attitudes, or even to stop the violence?”
She regarded him with a measured gaze. It was a legitimate question, one she had asked herself time and again. And at this moment, standing before the smoking ruins of Noble House, she wasn’t sure she had an answer.
“I’m not doing it because it’s possible,” she whispered. “I’m doing it because it’s right.”
43
Grace Amid the Ruins
I don’t even know where to start.” Amethyst shook her head and kicked the toe of her shoe at the charred remains of the parlor rug. It wasn’t as bad as it might have been. Her bedroom furnishings reeked of smoke and were covered with a sticky residue of damp soot, but at least they were still intact. Most of the serious damage had been confined to the front parlor. The only piece of furniture left standing was the old piano. Its finish had been bubbled by the searing heat, and it would have to be completely restored, inside and out, but it was salvageable.
Jake, the fire chief, had showed her the central flash point where the fire had started—a huge oval of black in the center of the parlor. “Gasoline, or maybe kerosene,” he said. “Pour it on the rug, strike a match, and—poof!”
There was no doubt who was responsible. Amethyst’s bedroom drawers had been rifled, and on the mirror over the bureau, a message had been scrawled in lipstick and baked hard by the heat: Niger Lovver. KKK.
Evidently, bigots couldn’t spell.
Bailey and the others had been working since sunup, hauling debris out to the yard, raking through the rubble. Silvie looked like a charwoman, and Dixon Lee Godwin could have been black himself, for all the smoke and grime that covered his face. They were good people, these friends of hers. People who would stand with her no matter what.
Amethyst tied a bandanna around her hair and slipped on a pair of gloves. She might as well get to it. Probably the best place for her to begin was sorting through her personal things in the bedroom. Nobody else could do it. But first she was determined to remove that message of hate from the mirror.
She went out on the porch and waved Bailey down. “Does anyone have a toolbox?”
“Around back, I think,” Bailey answered. “What do you need?”
“A scraper of some kind. To get the lipstick off the mirror.”
Bailey went to track down a putty knife while Amethyst waited on the porch. But before he could get back with the toolbox, a caravan of cars and pickup trucks pulled up to the curb. People kept piling out, two dozen or more of them. Men in dungarees and coveralls, with tool belts slung around their waists. Women carrying covered dishes and loaves of bread and pies.
Rube and Edith Layton led the way.
“Mornin’, Miss Amethyst,” Rube said formally.
“Good morning, Rube, Edith.” Amethyst narrowed her eyes and peered at them. What were they doing here?
“We’ve come to help out, if you could use a hand or two,” Rube went on. “Now, I’m not the mayor anymore, but I’ve still got a stake in how this town treats its citizens. And I’ve still got a little influence, too.” He took off his cap and ran a hand through his thinning hair. “We’re not saying we agree with your stand, Miss Amethyst. You gotta know that. But none of us”—he waved toward the crowd assembled behind him—“think a lady like you deserves this.”
“A lady like me?” Amethyst suppressed a smile. “Time was, nobody in Cambridge would have called me a lady.”
He ducked his head. “Well, you are, in my book, anyway.”
Amethyst wondered, just briefly, if these people would have offered the same support and aid had she been a Negro. But before she got a chance to say anything, Bailey appeared from behind the house with a paint scraper in his hand.
“Morning, Mr. Layton,” he said, eyeing Rube warily. In his old khaki work pants and a T-shirt stained with sweat and soot, he could have more easily been taken for a poor dirt farmer than a Washington lawyer.
Layton looked Bailey up and down. “Good morning, Mr. Blue.” He held Bailey’s gaze. “I’ve got a work crew here, if you’ll just tell us what you need done.”
Bailey moved forward and extended a hand. “We appreciate that, Mr. Layton.”
Rube Layton’s gaze darted to his wife, who gave a curt little nod. Hesitantly, he reached out and shook Bailey’s hand. When he drew his hand back, it was smeared with black grime.
“Hmmm,” he mused. “It does rub off.”
Bailey threw back his head and laughed. “Only temporarily. It’ll wash.”
The tension was broken, and everybody began talking all at once.
“We brought food,” Edith added, holding out a fresh apple pie.
The women clustered around Amethyst, and the men, taking their cue from Rube Layton, gathered near Bailey to get instructions.
Amethyst watched in awe as white farmers and builders and one former mayor went off to work side by side with a group of NAACP lawyers. Miracles do happen, she thought to herself.
Sometimes they just came in inscrutable ways.
Dixon Lee Godwin sat on a pile of rubble in the backyard and drank down a cold glass of lemonade. All morning, as he had worked with a dozen other men clearing out debris from the parlor and repairing the interior walls, he had engaged in a silent dialogue with his God.
It was more like a monologue, really. Dix had asked a lot of questions, but gotten little response.
For one thing, he wanted the Lord to tell him what he was supposed to do. His mind and heart swirled with a mass of conflicting thoughts and emotions, and he couldn’t for the life of him sort it all out.
He had been obedient, hadn’t he? After his wife’s death, he had left a moderately lucrative sales job and a comfortable home to go to seminary—at an age when most men were beginning to think about retirement. He had spent what little savings he had on tuition and living expenses, and once he was done, he had said yes to a pastorate in Cambridge, Mississippi, when he would rather have gone back home to Iowa.
He had sacrificed a lot to respond to the Spirit’s call. Yet he felt isolated, lonely, and unsure of himself. Didn’t God have a responsibility to him in return—at least to answer him when he prayed?
But he had received no answers.
The congregation at First Presbyterian had accepted him, he supposed. They smiled and shook his hand on their way out of the service, told him he had preached a lovely sermon. He fit right in, they said. Perhaps they thought it was a compliment.
But he hadn’t become a pastor to fit in, to deliver sermons that made people comfortable. He had gone into the ministry because he was engaged in his own search for truth. The spiritual life wasn’t about being ready for heaven, but about reflecting the character of Christ here on earth. It was about growing, deepening, grappling with the difficult questions of real life, discovering how the power of the living God intersected with human life. Unless he challenged his congregation to enter into that exploration for themselves, he had failed.
And at this moment, Dix felt like an absolute and utter failure.
Not a single member of his church had showed up to offer help and support to Amethyst in her time of need.
The people who came, in fact, weren’t for the most par
t churchgoing folks at all. Rube Layton and his wife attended church off and on—they were Episcopalian, he thought. But from what he could tell through the conversations that went on among the other men, few of them gave the first thought to religion. They were not here because they had any spiritual motivation. They just saw a need and met it.
Dix also knew that Rube Layton and his crew didn’t necessarily agree with Amethyst’s position on civil rights. The man had made that pretty clear, and yet here he was, taking orders from Bailey Blue, laughing and talking and working side by side with a bunch of Negro attorneys. At one point Dix had asked him why he had come, and Rube just shrugged and said, “When a neighbor needs help, you get off your duff and lend a hand.”
Why, Dix wondered, didn’t his parishioners respond like that? Were they simply oblivious to the Lord’s command to feed the hungry and clothe the naked and help those in trouble? Or were they so concerned about appearances that they couldn’t get their hands dirty?
The truth was, he was ashamed of his congregation.
And he was ashamed of himself.
Ever since his first conversation with Amethyst about her perspectives on “the Negro situation,” Dix had felt like Jacob, wrestling with the angel through a very long night. He knew she was right, that as a Christian—especially as a Christian pastor—he couldn’t sit idly by and wait for change to happen. He had heard about the death camps in Germany, about the Jews and Europeans who had been annihilated in German ovens. He had read about the trials going on in Nuremberg. And the question haunted him: If he had been an Aryan pastor in Germany, would he have stood up against Hitler and his purification plan?
Some Christians had resisted. Dix had heard about those who had hidden Jews in their basements and attics, defying Hitler and his gestapo and risking their own lives to save the innocent. Some had escaped. Others, along with those they had rescued, had died in concentration camps or been impaled on the point of a Nazi bayonet.
He hoped . . . wished . . . begged . . . that if he had been offered that opportunity, he would have been brave enough to seize it. He just didn’t know for sure.
The Amethyst Heart Page 35