The Walls of Jericho

by Jack Ford

  The Buick lurched out onto the road, followed by the pickup truck. As they roared away, rain began to fall, first as a soft pattering, then a steadier thrumming, finally bursting into a raging torrent, silver sheets of water pounding down on Elijah Hall’s body as jagged streaks of lightning split the dark, angry sky.

  CHAPTER 1

  Jackson, Mississippi

  2002

  The door to the liquor store creaked open and a man sauntered in, a long-barreled revolver in his hand. At first, the old man behind the counter did not bother to look up, his eyes locked on the small television screen perched next to him. The gunman quickly scanned the two narrow, packed aisles, overflowing with bottles and cases of beer. Satisfied that they were alone, he sidled up to the counter.

  He was tall and rangy, dressed in jeans, scuffed cowboy boots, and a tattered hooded sweatshirt. Heavy, gray-flecked stubble covered a long face, with skin like worn leather, an angular jaw, a hawk-like nose and cold, dark eyes. Leaning over the counter, he gently nudged the clerk under the chin with the gun barrel.

  “Sorry to interrupt your show there, bud, but I’m in a bit of a hurry.”

  The clerk, a withered and stooped old black man with a crown of tufted white hair, looked up slowly, pulling his chin carefully away from the gun. There was only a brief flash of fear in his eyes, replaced swiftly by what seemed to be defiance. He locked eyes with the gunman and spoke softly.

  “What y’all want?”

  “I think I’ll just take everything you got in there,” the gunman answered, nodding toward the cash register. “All of it. Throw it in one of them bags. And hurry it up.”

  The clerk shuffled over to the cash register, his eyes still locked on those of the stick-up man.

  “Ain’t much here,” he said.

  “No problem. Whatever it is, it’s more’n I got right now.”

  Grabbing a paper bag, the clerk stuffed a handful of bills inside and tossed the bag across the counter.

  “Thanks,” the robber said, a big smile creasing his face as he picked up the bag. Reaching across the counter, he grabbed a bottle of Jack Daniel’s, and then waved the gun in the man’s face.

  “Now don’t go bein’ no hero and do something stupid, ya hear?” The clerk said nothing, just glared.

  The scream of the sirens reached them a moment before the flashing lights came racing into the parking lot outside the store.

  The would-be robber turned on the clerk. The smile gone, his face now twisted in anger.

  “You call the fuckin’ cops?” he screamed.

  “This the third damn time this month someone tryin’ to rob me. Yeah, I called the fuckin’ cops,” the old man said angrily, nodding toward a switch near the register. “What you gonna do now? Shoot me?”

  “Hell no, I ain’t gonna shoot you,” the man said, his eyes frantically searching the inside of the tiny store. “You got a back door?”

  “Nope. Only way out be the same way you came in.”

  The robber stepped behind a shelf packed with cases of beer and peered out the grime-streaked window. He counted at least three police cars outside.

  “Aw, shit,” he snapped. Shaking his head slowly, he tossed the paper bag on the counter, walked to the rear of the store, and sat down on the floor, his back against the wall. Twisting off the bottle cap, he took a long swig of the Jack Daniel’s.

  “Might as well just make myself comfortable for a spell,” he said calmly to the clerk, “and enjoy some of this.” He raised the bottle and took another long pull. “Don’t think I’ll be gettin’ my hands on much of it for a while.” He closed his eyes, leaned his head back, and exhaled deeply.

  “Damn, Ricky Earl,” he mumbled to himself, “now you fucked up big time.”

  Outside, two more police cars came flying into the parking lot, overheads flashing, sirens blaring.

  Ricky Earl took another drink.

  CHAPTER 2

  “Professor?”

  The young black woman’s hand shot up as she peered out from behind the screen of her laptop.

  The man pacing the stage of the small lecture hall looked up in the direction of the question.

  “Yes?” he answered.

  “I don’t think I understand. How did the courts allow the Sovereignty Commission to exist?”

  Professor Jefferson Trannon stopped his pacing and paused thoughtfully before answering. One of the youngest professors on the faculty of the Law School of the University of Mississippi, Trannon was a favorite of the students. He was trim and athletically built, dressed in jeans, loafers, and a white button-down shirt under a blue blazer. With long brown hair, swept back from his forehead and curling up at the collar, framing an angular, ruggedly handsome face which was highlighted by sparkling blue eyes, he looked younger than his thirty years—more like an older student than a professor.

  “It was a very different time,” he began, scanning the earnest young faces arrayed before him. “And Mississippi was a very different place. The Sovereignty Commission wasn’t just a collection of angry racists. It was actually an official government agency, created by statute and funded by taxpayers.”

  Another hand shot up. “Funded by taxes? And nobody had a problem with that?”

  “Nope.” Trannon paused. “Well, not most folks, anyway.”

  “Did anyone ever try to challenge the Commission’s work?” another student asked.

  The professor shook his head and shrugged. “As I said: different time, different place.”

  “So, Professor,” a student in the first row asked, chuckling, “is this discussion some kind of a marketing tool to get us to buy your book?”

  Trannon smiled. He had recently published a book about the history of the Sovereignty Commission, titled Shades of Darkness: The Secrets of the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission. It was a scholarly look at the creation and workings of the Commission, based on previously sealed files that were finally made public in 1998. The book was well reviewed, gaining him some notice in legal and academic circles. It had also garnered him, to his surprise, some hate mail—and even some actual threats—which, more than a year later, had finally slowed to a mere trickle.

  “No, but that’s not a bad idea,” he said with a sheepish grin. “Might have to add it to next semester’s required reading.”

  He looked around the lecture hall. Thirty young and searching faces peered back at him, nearly a third of them black. Different time, different place, he thought.

  “So, here’s the deal on the Commission,” he said, the smile now gone. “A quick synopsis, so you don’t actually need to buy my book. Established by a law passed in 1956, it was part of Mississippi’s response to the Supreme Court’s school desegregation ruling. You remember Brown v. Board of Education? Not a very popular decision down here back then, as you might’ve guessed. Anyway, the Commission’s function—at least, officially—was to ‘protect the sovereignty of the State of Mississippi.’”

  Another raised hand. “What did that mean, ‘protect the sovereignty’?”

  “Well, theoretically, their mission was to keep the federal government out of Mississippi’s business. And that sounded fine, especially in a place where the notion of states’ rights is so revered. But in practice—well, the mission wasn’t so politically noble. The bottom line is that the real job of the Commission was to preserve segregation—by any means necessary.”

  “But how could a government agency get away with that? Even back then?” asked a young black man from the center of the room.

  “Because it was just that—a government agency. The governor acted as chairman and the attorney general and a bunch of state legislators were part of the Commission. Plus, the state provided a budget of about a quarter-million dollars a year—or more than one and a half million dollars in today’s money.”

  “For what?” came a question from the back of the room. “What exactly did they do?”

  “Well, for starters, th
e Commission created a vast network of spies and informers. Staff members included a number of former cops, state police, and even some FBI guys. Their job was to track down and keep an eye on so-called ‘racial agitators’ and others who supported desegregation. But it didn’t stop there. Sometimes ‘keeping an eye on someone’ turned into harassment, threats, and even violence.”

  “And they got away with that?”

  “The Commission was so powerful and its connections to local law enforcement and government so strong—” Trannon paused and looked around the lecture hall, “—that it simply did whatever it wanted. And nobody asked any questions. At least, nobody who was in a position to do anything about it.” Shrugging his shoulders, he added, with a rueful half-smile, “Hard to imagine in this post-Watergate, cable news, Internet world. No questions asked.”

  “So, what happened to it?” asked the young black woman who had started the discussion.

  “Finally, as the civil rights movement gained some traction, it became just too much of an embarrassment—even for Mississippi. Funding got cut in 1973, and the Commission officially shut down in 1977. But state lawmakers ordered all of its files sealed until 2027.”

  “How could they do that?” the young black woman erupted angrily.

  The professor shrugged again. “As I said before: different time, different place. But the ACLU and some other organizations decided to jump in. After a decades-long court battle, most of the records were unsealed in 1998.”

  “Most?” someone asked. “How come not all?”

  “Good question. Not entirely sure of the answer. The federal judge who issued the order to unseal the files—more than 130,000 documents, by the way,” he flashed another rueful smile, “I know because I looked through most of them—held back information on forty-two people. The judge’s order kept their names and information secret until they die. But with no explanation of why. Kind of mysterious, isn’t it?”

  “Was anybody ever prosecuted?” asked another voice from the back of the room.

  “Nope. The really nasty stuff—murders, beatings, burnings—could never be proven. There were always stories and rumors, but nobody would ever come forward to testify. And most of the major players are dead now. So the Sovereignty Commission has receded into the past, just another ugly footnote in the chronicle of the civil rights struggle.”

  “That sounds pretty good. Is that the last line in your book?” asked a grinning front-row student.

  “No. But it does sound pretty good, doesn’t it? Have to remember that if there’s ever a second edition,” Trannon said, grinning back at him. “Okay, folks, that does it for today,” he said. “Make sure I hear from you soon about paper topics. See all y’all next week.”

  As he was gathering up his notes, Trannon was quickly surrounded by several students.

  “Hey, Professor,” said a young man, who had the square, solid build of an athlete. “We’ve got a flag-football game Thursday afternoon against the business school geeks. You in?”

  Trannon looked up, cocked an eyebrow, and seemed to ponder the question. “We got anybody in this law school with a better arm than that chicken-wing of yours?” he asked good-naturedly.

  “‘Chicken-wing’?” exclaimed the young man in mock indignation. “Man, with your over-the-hill wheels you could run for two days and still not outrun this cannon,” he said, flexing his right bicep.

  Trannon chuckled. “Okay, Robert. I’m in.”

  “Great. See you then,” the young man said as he hustled out of the classroom.

  “Professor?” Two of the female students—one black and one white—who had been so curious about the Sovereignty Commission, approached. “We’ve got a favor to ask,” they said in unison, broad, slightly flirtatious smiles splayed across their faces. “We’re in charge of the job opportunities symposium next month,” one of them said, “and we’re hoping we can get you to be on the panel? And to come to the cocktail party the night before?”

  “Happy to help out,” he said, being careful to keep his return smile as professional as possible. “Just get me the details.”

  “Thanks so much,” said one.

  “See you next week,” said the other as they both backed out of the room, still beaming.

  Glancing at his watch, Trannon grabbed his notes, stuffed them into an old leather satchel, and rushed out the door.

  CHAPTER 3

  The cramped, cluttered office was not much bigger than a storage room. A small wooden desk was wedged into a corner, surrounded by bookshelves stuffed with legal texts, case books, and what seemed like reams of loose paper, some cascading down to the floor. Two diplomas from the University of Mississippi—one from the college and the other from the law school—were hung on the windowless walls, together with a photo of the 1992 Ole Miss football team and a framed copy of the book cover of Shades of Darkness.

  Jeff Trannon tossed his satchel onto the chair and grabbed the handful of phone messages that had been left on his desk. A slightly perplexed frown creased his face as he read one of them. The message was from a New York Times reporter who wanted to speak with him about his book. Funny, he thought, that a reporter would want to talk with him at this point—more than a year after the book came out.

  Damn, Trannon thought, looking at his watch, I’m going to be late. He stuffed the messages into his jacket pocket and hurried out of the office. Moments later, he emerged from the front doors of the building and took off at a jog across the Grove, the legendarily beautiful center of the Ole Miss campus.

  The University of Mississippi had been home to Jeff Trannon for nearly a third of his life. He was born and raised in the surrounding town of Oxford, and it was the only college he had ever dreamed of attending. A local high school football star, he happily snatched up a scholarship offer to play for his hometown Rebels and enjoyed a modestly successful career, playing in every game his last two years as a wide receiver and special teams standout. Following graduation, he stayed on at the law school, where he worked his way onto the Law Review and graduated with honors.

  Spurning offers from some of the more prestigious law firms in the state, he instead took a job as a prosecutor in the local district attorney’s office. By the time he left the job five years later, he had developed a reputation as a tough, but fair, prosecutor—well liked by the cops, judges, and even the defense lawyers he worked with. A year with a big firm in Jackson had quickly convinced him he wasn’t cut out for private practice, with all of its hourly billings and internal politics. So he came back home to Oxford and the law school at Ole Miss. Although there were times that he missed the inside of a courtroom, he had to admit to himself that he had quickly fallen in love with teaching and writing.

  As he emerged on the far side of the Grove, he could see that a crowd had gathered outside of the Lyceum, the main administrative center, and the geographic and historic heart of the university. Erected in 1848, it was the university’s first building. An elegant and stunning Ionic Greek Revival structure, the portico fronting the red-brick façade was guarded by an array of six enormous fluted columns, with a mirror-image six more columns gracing the rear. Although much of the town of Oxford, including the courthouse, had been burned by Union troops in 1864, the Lyceum and the other university buildings had been spared the torch by serving as hospital facilities for Union forces.

  Arriving at the front of the Lyceum, Jeff joined the crowd as it snaked around the building toward the rear. As he turned the corner, he spied the dean of the law school standing in the front of the gathering, near the podium, waving and gesturing to an empty seat next to him. Weaving his way through the crowd, Jeff reached the front row and settled into the empty seat.

  The dean, a dapper man dressed in a seersucker suit, sat down next to him, offering a small, ironic smile.

  “Glad you could make it.”

  “Sorry,” Jeff offered somewhat guiltily. “Class ran a little late.” />
  Glancing around, Jeff saw that about two hundred people were assembled around a monument that featured a life-sized sculpture of James Meredith, the courageous young man who, in 1962, had been the first black student to enroll at Ole Miss. Most were milling about, talking, while others had already claimed their seats.

  Turning back toward the dean, Jeff noticed an attractive young woman standing near the Meredith statue. She appeared to be examining the quotes inscribed in the marble walls of the memorial and scribbling into a reporter’s spiral notepad. As he strained to get a better look at her through the shifting crowd, an official stepped up to the podium.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, leaning into the microphone. “Please take your seats. The ceremony is about to start.”

  CHAPTER 4

  The University of Mississippi has played a unique role in the passion play that has been the civil rights movement in the Deep South. In 1962, it found itself at the epicenter of the shocking violence that marked that movement, at once both the face and voice of decades of racial anger, intolerance, and fear that were woven throughout the fabric of Dixie.

  The segregationist South was reeling in 1962, buffeted by the winds of change ushered in by a parade of legal decisions fueling the increasingly active struggle for racial equality. Following the 1954 decision by the United States Supreme Court outlawing segregation in public schools, small legal skirmishes were giving way to actual pitched battles as civil rights opponents fought to prevent the Court’s pronouncement from becoming a reality.

  One of those pitched battles took place before the gracious, historic columns of the Lyceum in late September and early October of 1962. When the smoke, quite literally, cleared, two people had been killed, twenty-eight United States Marshals had been shot and wounded, dozens of other law enforcement personnel had been injured by tossed bricks, bottles, even Molotov cocktails—and the first black man to be enrolled in Ole Miss’s history had walked up the Lyceum steps, passed through the sacred columns, and entered the tradition-bound symbolic heart of the university.