by Anne Moody
The next day Joan and I were, as usual, the only students left on campus with nowhere in particular to go, but the matron of Galloway Hall asked us to leave the dorm by noon. We headed to the Kings’ again, this time to see if they would put us up for a few days. Joan’s train fare hadn’t come and I didn’t have any coming. I thought of borrowing my fare from Reverend King, but I would have felt bad asking him for the money, although I was sure he would have given it to me. My intention was to go into Jackson on Tuesday and see if I could bum a ride to New Orleans. When Joan and I got to the Kings’, we found Ed and Jeanette packing to go to the Gulf Coast for a week. They said we could stay in their house while they were gone if we liked, and eat all the food in the refrigerator too, before it spoiled. So were were set up for a week.
The next day, Joan and I caught a ride into Jackson with one of the teachers that was on campus for the summer. We went straight to the COFO headquarters on Lynch Street. When we walked in, I was again overwhelmed by all the excitement going on in the office. There were now about thirty white students standing around who had just arrived for the Summer Project. Joan and I walked around and talked with a few of the students for a while. Then the two of us had a conference—we decided that instead of sticking around for a week we would both go home immediately and come back within two weeks to work on the Summer Project.
It seemed as though I had become a professional bum. Before I left the office, I had found a ride all the way to New Orleans the very next morning with Richard Haley, the new CORE Southern Project Director who was in Jackson to see Dave Dennis.
It was about five-thirty the following afternoon when Richard Haley stopped in front of my house. Adline was just getting off work when I got out of the car. She came running down the sidewalk to greet me and peep in at Richard Haley. “Where did you find him?” she asked teasingly. “So I see why you didn’t come back on Sunday night. Where is your diploma?” I looked at her and wondered what she was happy about. She had lied and said that she would come to the graduation on Sunday. Now she was asking me for my diploma as if she doubted that I really had one. I didn’t answer her, I just walked up the steps and opened the door.
When we got in the apartment, I went to the refrigerator for some water, and Adline went to the bedroom. When I came out of the little kitchenette, she was standing in the living room with a box in her hands. “Here, it’s for you,” she said. I took the box and opened it. Inside was a green two-piece dress—one of the prettiest dresses I had laid my eyes on. I just stood there holding it against me, with my mouth wide open not knowing what to say. “I decided I wouldn’t come to the graduation but use the money to get you something real nice,” she said. “Now can I see your diploma?” I opened the suitcase and gave it to her. She stood there a long time just looking at it. And I knew exactly what she was thinking, because at that moment, I thought it too. Here I was, the first person in my entire family to graduate from college. “It’s just like high school diplomas,” Adline said. “Did you expect it to be any different?” I asked. “No, it’s just that I was thinking one day I may get mine since it looks just like a high school one,” she said and smiled.
Chapter
THIRTY
I didn’t stay long in New Orleans—just a couple of days—because I realized I had no way of making any money during the next two weeks. I was a little sorry I had quit my job at the restaurant so soon. The evening after I got back, Tim and Carol, a white married couple from California working with New Orleans CORE, stopped by the apartment and asked if I wanted to ride into Mississippi with them the following morning. They were going to visit a friend of theirs who had been arrested in the Canton Freedom Day march. I just couldn’t resist that free ride to Mississippi.
The following morning I was back in Canton, ready to start work on the Summer Project. As soon as I had left my suitcase at the Freedom House, I went to see Mrs. Chinn. I found her looking terribly depressed.
“Anne,” she said, “if I were you and didn’t have no ties to Canton, I wouldn’t waste no time here. Looka here, alla that work we put into that march and McKinley almost beaten to death and things are even worse than they were before. These niggers done went into hiding again, scared to stick their heads outta the door. C.O.’s in jail, them goddamn cops coming by my house every night, just about to drive me crazy. This ain’t the way, Anne. This just ain’t the way. We ain’t big enough to do it by ourselves.”
I had never seen Mrs. Chinn that depressed. What she said got me to thinking real hard. I walked around Canton for hours looking at the familiar streets. There were hardly any Negroes to be seen. The whole place looked dead. Walking past the jail, I saw C.O. Chinn coming in with the chain gang. They had been out digging ditches all day and he was filthy from head to toe. When he saw me, he waved trying to look happy. I couldn’t hardly bring myself to wave back. I walked away as quickly as I could. I couldn’t get that picture of C.O. out of my mind. A year ago when I first came to Canton, C.O. was a big man in town, one of Canton’s wealthiest Negroes. He had opened up Canton for the Movement. He had sacrificed and lost all he had trying to get the Negroes moving. Now he was trying to look happy on a chain gang!
I felt worse about everything than I had ever felt before. Mrs. Chinn’s words kept pounding through my head: “We ain’t big enough to do it by ourselves.” My head began to ache. I found myself running. I was trying to get away. I felt like the walls of Mississippi were closing in on me and Mrs. Chinn and C.O. and all the other Negroes in the state, crushing us. I had to get out and let the world know what was happening to us. I ran faster, and faster. I soon got back to the Freedom House out of breath, just in time to stumble into Dave Dennis’ car and head for Jackson. About twenty minutes later, Dave was parking in front of the COFO headquarters on Lynch Street. Parked right in front of us was a Greyhound bus. The motor was running and smoke was shooting out of its exhaust pipe. It looked and sounded like it was about to pull off. Getting out of the car, I saw Bob Moses holding the door open waving good-bye to the people inside. I ran up to him and asked:
“Hey Bob, where’s this bus going?”
“Oh! Moody, I’m glad you came. Can you go? We need you to testify,” he said.
“Testify? What do you …?”
“Hey Moody! C’mon get on, we’re going to Washington!” It was little twelve-year-old Gene Young, leaning his head out of the window. As the bus began to pull out, Bob grabbed the door and held it for me. I just managed to squeeze in. The bus was packed. To avoid the staring, smiling faces I knew, I just bopped down between Gene and his friend. As soon as the bus was really moving, everybody began singing “We Shall Overcome.” I closed my eyes and leaned back in the seat listening to them.
We shall overcome, We shall overcome
We shall overcome some day.
Oh, deep in my heart I do believe
We shall overcome some day.
“C’mon, Annie Moody, wake up! Get the Spirit on!” little Gene yelled right in my ear. I opened my eyes and looked at him.
“We’re gonna go up there to Washington and we’re gonna tell ’em somethin’ at those COFO hearings. We’re gonna tell ’em what Mississippi is all about,” Gene said excitedly, joining in the singing. His eyes were gleaming with life and he clapped his hands in time with the song. Watching him, I felt very old.
The truth will make us free,
The truth will make us free,
The truth will make us free some day.
Oh, deep in my heart I do believe
The truth will make us free some day.
Suddenly he looked at me again and saw that I still wasn’t singing.
“Moody, what’s wrong? What’s the matter with you? You cracking up or something?” he asked, looking worried for the first time. When I didn’t answer, he gave me a puzzled look and joined the singing again, but this time he was not so lively.
I sat there listening to “We Shall Overcome,” looking out of the window at the passing M
ississippi landscape. Images of all that had happened kept crossing my mind: the Taplin burning, the Birmingham church bombing, Medgar Evers’ murder, the blood gushing out of McKinley’s head, and all the other murders. I saw the face of Mrs. Chinn as she said, “We ain’t big enough to do it by ourselves,” C.O.’s face when he gave me that pitiful wave from the chain gang. I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes.
“Moody …” it was little Gene again interrupting his singing. “Moody, we’re gonna git things straight in Washington, huh?”
I didn’t answer him. I knew I didn’t have to. He looked as if he knew exactly what I was thinking.
“I wonder. I wonder.”
We shall overcome, We shall overcome
We shall overcome some day.
I WONDER. I really WONDER.
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