Water Tossing Boulders

by Adrienne Berard

  The three women living in Jeu Gong’s house scurried about at such a frantic pace, it seemed they might be preparing for the German invasion. In reality, it was the first day of school.

  The date was September 15, 1924, and Jeu Gong was downstairs in the grocery, seeking shelter from the storm rolling through the apartment above. Berda, true to form, made no attempt to hide her displeasure. She could just as well have been preparing to enter purgatory. Martha, on the other hand, was dressed and ready, eager to meet her new classmates and teachers.

  Katherine needed to be sure the girls looked clean and presentable. The impression her daughters made on their first day was crucial. Katherine’s motivations were not those of a matriarch, but of a commander. The girls were unaware that the mother who brushed their hair and straightened their collars was indeed preparing them for battle.

  For the past several weeks, Katherine had been hearing rumors about a new policy that would bar Chinese children from attending Rosedale’s school. The district was experiencing an expansion and the school had made numerous changes in faculty, the most significant being the promotion of a new principal, a man named J. H. Nutt.

  Even with all the changes, Katherine found it hard to believe that the school board would actually implement a policy strictly designed to exclude her daughters. The only way to test the board would be to send her girls to the front lines. It was a risky move. If Martha and Berda were turned away, Katherine’s family would face a dangerous choice.

  She knew all too well the type of violence inflicted on those who tried to change the social order of the Delta. Over the past few years, Katherine had heard accounts of night riders burning homes and businesses all over the county. The increase in violence was a direct response to black laborers’ rising demands for equality, an equality that Katherine, too, sought. She was not ignorant as to the risk. Local planters like W. B. Roberts and Walter Sillers Jr., whom Katherine often saw at church, were involved with the Ku Klux Klan and used the association as a tool for maintaining control and influence over the town.

  Along with their lives, the Lums’ livelihood would be at stake. One step too far and Sillers, who mortgaged their store, would cut their credit line. The town’s white officers could demand their immigration papers. They could arrest Jeu Gong and separate him from his family for life.

  Still, if Katherine did not send her daughters to school, she would be admitting defeat before the battle had even begun. Jeu Gong needed convincing, but eventually he sided with Katherine that Martha and Berda should attend the first day of classes. Maybe, deep down, Katherine knew the girls would be turned away. For in that moment, they would finally have a reason to take a stand.

  As Martha and Berda left for school, their parents offered them a warning: On this day, they would have to remember to stay strong, no matter what happened. Then they sent the girls out onto Bruce Street and into the most important morning of their lives.

  Jeu Gong was uneasy. If he had had more time, he might have told his children a story, the story of the Lum name and the lesson behind its Chinese character. If he was sure they would understand, he could have sat them down and shown them how to draw the brush strokes, two strong lines with interlocking branches, the two trees that once bore the weight of a child’s future.

  He would have begun the story this way: “Three thousand years in the past . . .”

  During the Shang Dynasty, a king named T’ai-ting had a son named Pi-Kan. Pi-Kan was a virtuous child, with a fierce sense of purpose. After leading a good and noble life, Pi-Kan was honored as a member of the royal house and became an advisor to his nephew, the king, Chou-hsin. Chou-hsin was a cruel and tyrannical king. He inflicted tremendous suffering upon his people. When other loyal advisors went to the king and begged him to change his ways, Chou-hsin ordered their executions. Eventually, all of the king’s imperial advisors were dead. Only Pi-Kan remained. Pi-Kan continued to plead with the king to correct his ways, but the king only grew angrier and angrier.

  Then Chou-hsin came up with a plan to eliminate Pi-Kan. Under the pretext of curiosity, the king asked Pi-Kan why the hearts of great sages possess seven channels, while the heart of a common man does not. Pi-Kan did not know the answer, so the king requested that Pi-Kan offer him his heart. And so, the evil king pulled the heart from his last detractor. When the news of Pi-Kan’s death reached his pregnant wife, she feared for the safety of their unborn child and fled into the forest to hide inside a cave. When it came time to give birth, Pi-Kan’s wife was alone. She used the last of her strength to walk from the cave into the woods, where she found two adjacent trees. Gripping their limbs for support, she brought Pi-Kan’s son into the world. Cradling him on the silent forest floor, she named her newborn son Lum, or “trees,” after the branches that held her when she was weakest. The child would grow to see the evil king overthrown. A new ruler would take the place of Chou-hsin and invite the child into his court, where he would honor the name Lum as royalty and celebrate the strength of a family whose faith brought justice to the kingdom.

  The two girls returned to the grocery at half past twelve. Together, they recounted the conversation that had taken place with Principal Nutt. His tone had been pleasant, cordial, even polite. He cited a decision made by a man in Jackson named Attorney General, who had never met Martha and Berda but saw the girls as a threat.

  “As to whether or not Chinese children should be excluded,” the man had decided, “courts have held in an almost unbroken line that the words ‘white person’ were meant to indicate a person of what is popularly known as the Caucasian race.”

  Principal Nutt said the arrangement was outside of his control. The school’s board of trustees had come to a consensus on their own. He was sorry. He had to follow orders. He told the children to return home. Chinese students were no longer welcome at Rosedale Consolidated.

  The girls were confused. There was no problem with their attendance the year before. What had changed? Over the course of one morning, the sisters moved from one side of the color line to the other. Could they see their classmates again? Would they be welcome in church? If the children could no longer attend the white school, then they could just as easily be excluded from all of white society. The world they once inhabited had disappeared within the length of a conversation.

  In a desperate attempt to avoid discrimination against her family, Katherine vowed to do everything in her power to keep the girls enrolled at Rosedale’s white school. “I did not want my children to attend the ‘colored’ schools,” Katherine told a reporter years later. “If they had, the community would have classified us as negroes.” Katherine witnessed on a daily basis the injustices faced by blacks in the Delta. A lifetime inside a grocery had furnished her with decades of stories, revealed in hushed voices, about indignities too painful to imagine. She knew that such a classification would have instantly disenfranchised her family.

  For Katherine to send her children to the colored school would be to yield to the trustees, to agree with them that her daughters were not worthy of the privileges afforded to whites. Katherine spoke with her husband. She had heard of a lawyer who’d helped another Chinese child once, but the case was stalled in court. Maybe this man would help Martha and Berda.

  Even if Jeu Gong had protested, explaining the risks the family faced if they took legal action, it would not have done any good. Her mind was made up. When Jeu Gong married Katherine, she took the name Lum. Once, there were two trees that held a mother as she gave birth to a child who would one day challenge an empire.

  Jeu Gong slid his arms into a pressed shirt with a high collar and fastened the buttons with metronomic precision. He stood beside his wife looking refined, stately, polished. High cheekbones carved a delicate contour across Jeu Gong’s face, meeting his hairline at the ear. His straight black hair had been trimmed short with a razor, some places cropped shorter than others, but the hair above his forehead he let grow and wore it as long as his fingers. When he finished dr
essing, Jeu Gong ran his hands through his hair, restraining stray strands with pomade.

  With the engine idling, Jeu Gong climbed into the passenger side of the car as Katherine took her place in the driver’s seat. Katherine was the motorist in the family; Jeu Gong had never learned to drive. He was content to sit beside his wife as she pressed her palms against the wheel, a cigarette laced between her fingers.

  For what must have been hours, the Ford lurched back and forth beside the levee on a trail that ran from Onward to Moon Lake, the old cart path carving a parallel course beside the Mississippi River and the Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Railroad line. As the landscape gently unfolded into fertile flatlands, painted white with harvest, the levee rose beside Katherine, a steady, snaking bulwark against the great surge of river behind it.

  The drone of the Clarksdale Gin Company was audible to them long before they glimpsed the pitched metal roof of the cotton gin rising on the southern edge of town. Inside the gin, black laborers churned cotton bolls into soft white fibers that clung to the ginnery rafters like cobwebs. Soon rows of brick storefronts and gravel-lined streets came into view. Katherine and Jeu Gong had arrived in Clarksdale, home to one of the most famous lawyers in the state.

  Jeu Gong had no way of knowing what the lawyer would say. In all likelihood, Jeu Gong and his wife would be turned away before they even had the chance to meet him. Jeu Gong was painfully aware of how little money they had and how much it would cost to bring the case. The couple had tried to raise funds from other Chinese families, families whose children had also been barred from the school, but no one wanted to take the risk. There was too much at stake.

  The other families tried to convince Katherine to back down, telling her it was better not to burn bridges. She had good standing in the community. She belonged to the Methodist church. Her family ran a business. Why jeopardize everything for a battle they could not win? But for Katherine this was more than just her family’s struggle. It was larger than any one person.

  So on a September afternoon, Katherine and Jeu Gong drove to Clarksdale to meet a lawyer and offer him next to nothing to take a case he would likely lose. They had no strategy, but the law offices of Brewer & Brewer seemed like a good enough place to start. Standing beside one another in the fierce heat of a Delta fall, the Lums knocked on the door and quietly waited for an answer.

  Governor Earl Brewer standing beside a levee in the Mississippi Delta, circa 1912. Photo by Milton McFarland Painter Sr. Courtesy of the Archives and Records Services Division, Mississippi Department of Archives and History.

  PART TWO

  WIN OR LOSE IT ALL

  CHAPTER V

  AUTUMN, 1924

  A WAVE OF FRESH cigar smoke crested over a well-dressed Chinese couple as Earl Brewer, Esq., opened the door to his office at 301 Yazoo Avenue. The lawyer greeted his two guests, ushering them through the foyer of an office that looked to be a combination of library and billiard room. Files and documents lay strewn about on tables, and layers of smoke hung in the air.

  Brewer was a giant of a man. His hulking figure tapered up to a large head with a wide jaw. He was older than his two visitors and certainly not handsome, but his mannerisms betrayed an intense and youthful disposition. Unaccustomed to entertaining guests, at least not lately, he had let his hair grow long, into a wiry gray mane that fell just above his broad shoulders. His voice, weathered by constant smoking, was deep and gravelly.

  Every aspect of Brewer’s appearance showcased the ways in which age will sink into a man. At fifty-five, Brewer had creases across his forehead and ridges under his eyes, eyes that a younger, more successful version of himself used to shade with the broad brim of a Stetson hat.

  He could no longer keep pace with the children darting along Clarksdale’s sidewalks, playfully calling him Governor. His fitness was now maintained by conducting morning calisthenics on the lawn. The limited routine consisted of bending over several times, with noticeable effort. His wife had begun to suggest that he reserve his exercising for indoors.

  Due to a steady wave of misfortune, Brewer was down to his last few clients and therefore his last few dollars. Ever since the value of Delta farmland had begun to plummet, compensation for Brewer’s legal services typically came in sacks of cowpeas and soybeans. Anyone who needed his help was usually too poor to ask for it, and when they did, the bill was rarely paid. The Chinese couple standing beside Brewer was no different. They had no money, but what they did offer was infinitely more valuable: a case that could rescue his career. Gazing at the young couple, the lawyer was aware he needed these clients far more than they needed him.

  If the woman felt out of place inside the smoky haze of Brewer’s office, she did not show it. She was a pleasant and easy conversationalist. Had Brewer been a man to take note of such things, he would have recognized her beauty. She had finely cut features, their clear, elegant lines enhancing her soft brown eyes beneath the smooth ivory of her forehead.

  She introduced herself as Kate, but Brewer took to calling her Katie. She explained that the family’s local school district had recently decided to bar her two daughters from Rosedale Consolidated High School. The school officials had justified the children’s exclusion by saying they were simply following a state mandate. The Chinese, the order stated, were not white and therefore not permitted to attend white schools.

  The trouble, Katie explained, was that her daughters were already attending Rosedale’s white school when they were kicked out. While Berda, Katie’s eldest child, cared little for studies and was often caught skipping class, Martha, her second daughter, was an avid reader and had every intention of graduating college. Katie and her husband owned a grocery business. They paid taxes. They went to church. Katie’s husband had built the family’s house himself, pouring all they had into its construction. They couldn’t just pack up and move to another town. Rosedale was their home.

  Her husband said little, no doubt due in part to his wife’s frenetic pace of speaking. His name was Jeu Gong, but to accommodate Brewer’s American ear, Katie referred to him simply as J.G. He was only a few inches taller than his wife, but he had a broad build and carried himself with a stately stoicism. Behind thick, wire-rimmed spectacles, his face betrayed its age as little as it betrayed anything else.

  Brewer continued his conversation with Katie until he knew enough of the facts to be able to build a case. The family didn’t want to sue for damages. Katie was very clear about that. The only reason they came to Brewer was to get the children back in school. A victory for Katie and J.G. would simply be a return to how life had been before the girls were ejected from Rosedale Consolidated on September 15.

  This left Brewer with limited options. He would have to confront the entire school board and likely the state board of education as well. There were dozens of people involved in enforcing the new policy, and Brewer would have to go up against every single one of them. Fortunately for Katie and J.G., Brewer was ready for a fight.

  Just weeks before, Brewer had conceded defeat in a humiliating Senate race against one of the most established politicians in the state. Envisioning a historic political comeback after decades out of the public sphere, Brewer decided to run against Mississippi’s incumbent senator, Pat Harrison. Following the announcement of his candidacy, Brewer became the laughingstock of the country.

  “Nobody in Washington gives Brewer even a look in,” declared the New York Times. “For Harrison, one of the most popular men in Congress, is just as popular in his home State.”

  Even the local papers derided him.

  “It is very unbecoming of Earl Brewer, alleged candidate for the United States Senate against Pat Harrison, in his tactics of attempting to belittle the brilliant Mississippian,” read an editorial in a Bolivar County newspaper.

  We say attempting to belittle him advisedly, for the reason that nobody is paying any attention to Brewer, except to condemn him for his actions, and if he is affecting Harrison at all by his activities he
is helping him. As a matter of fact, Brewer ought to withdraw from the race. He hasn’t got a ghost of a chance. But, come to think about it, it is every man’s inalienable right to run [for] office, and we guess Brewer is just simply exercising this right. That’s about all it amounts to anyway.

  Even before the final votes were tallied during the third week of August, headlines throughout the nation announced that Brewer had lost in a landslide. He returned to his law practice in Clarksdale the embarrassment of Mississippi.

  Brewer needed this case more than he was willing to admit. He told Katie and J.G. that he would represent them in their lawsuit and sent them back out the door with a final burst of cigar smoke. It was time for him to mount another comeback.

  Dusk was thickening as Brewer sped his horse between the rows of cotton along Cassidy Bayou. A luminous haze blanketed the quiet field, cut from the curves of the Tallahatchie River. Beyond the field, the river churned, brown and sluggish. A breeze passing through its dense swamp carried the faint smell of honeysuckle mixed with the musk of sunflowers growing on a flatter shore. At the water’s edge were muddy coves where willow saplings flickered their shadows onto the sand.

  Sundown was quitting time. As the end of the day neared, a single field hand would begin a song. Then, hoes beating the earth in unison, the other hands would join in the singing. As dusk settled in red along the procession of cotton, an aching hymn would mount over the still air. Just a few more weary days and then, I’ll fly away. I’ll fly away. I’ll fly away. They were calling out to one another, but deep inside, they were calling to God.

  The rhythm of his horse’s hooves kept pace with the pound of harvest. Brewer rode until the wide stretch of cotton became a white blur. This was his land, and he charted its boundary with a fervor he felt only here. The plantation, into which Brewer had poured his life savings, was a badge of pride, a symbol, an idea much greater than the land itself.