Shadows of St. Louis

by Leslie DuBois

  "And I read your poems."

  "My poems?"

  "Yes, John had them. I didn't know you could write like that, Henry. I didn't know how you felt for the Negro girl. I can't say I approve. But if you love her that much, then you shouldn't let anything stop you."

  Henry reached over and hugged her. "Thank you, Mother."

  The car jerked to a stop. Henry looked out of the window and noticed the hundreds of Negros fleeing across the river to St. Louis, Illinois. Some were being stopped and sent back. Some were being dragged out of their cars and beaten. Others jumped into the river and tried to swim across. He knew he wouldn't have a problem getting across. He was white.

  "This is as far as I go," his mother said after hugging him back. "Take this. It's the four hundred dollars Mrs. Goodwin gave me when she thought I was blackmailing her."

  "What? Why?" Suddenly, he didn't want to let his mother go. He hadn't thought it through, but part of him just assumed she'd be coming with him. "You're not coming?"

  Mrs. Miller shook her head. "I can't leave my husband. My life is here in East St. Louis. You go on and start your own life with the Ne ... with Emma. Okay?"

  "What if I can't? What if I'm not strong enough? What if I'm not a good husband?"

  Mrs. Miller stared into her son’s eyes and said, "You'll be fine. Just think of what your father would do and do the opposite."

  Goodbye

  Their progress was slow and painful. Even if Charles could ignore the pain in his leg, he couldn't ignore the lightheaded feeling that had taken over him. He barely recognized the trash cluttered streets that he had traveled so often to visit his son. He had lost a lot of blood and he had trouble focusing on what was real and what wasn't. Sometimes, he saw images of his curly haired son right in front of him, reaching out his short arms and running to him with his stubby legs. In the recesses of his mind, he knew this image was false. He slightly remembered that he should be running, running away from something. He couldn't quite remember what.

  His son, yes. He was running to his son. Jesse needed him. Did that matter though? Jesse had needed him all of his life, but Charles had chose to leave him to live in the slums of East St. Louis simply so that he could protect his identity. Charles had failed his son. He was a bad father. Maybe Jesse would be better off without him.

  Charles stumbled once, then twice. His legs felt like an odd mixture of lead and molasses. It was nearly impossible to walk. He knew he couldn't go on.

  "Clarence, Clarence stop. I can't do this. You have to go on without me."

  "We can make it. As long as we stay off the main road, we can make it to your home."

  Charles knew Clarence didn't really believe that. He could tell by the resigned tone of his voice. But Charles was still comforted by the lie.

  "Leave me here to die. Please. Take care of Jesse. Take care of Becky and Emmie. Please." Clarence would have made a good brother-in-law to him. He would be good to Rebecca Jane. His only regret would be that he wouldn't be able to see both of his sisters happily married.

  The world started spinning and growing dark. Charles heard voices. Lots of voices. Voices that were drowning out the voice of Clarence begging him to get up.

  “Look there! That nigger is killing a white man.” Someone yelled.

  "They're coming. Run!" were Charles' last words.

  ***

  Clarence knew his life was ending when the first blow hit his head. Once he fell to the ground, he noticed the bloody two-by-four that had been the offender. The mob closed in around him. He barely felt the kicks, jabs, and punches all over his body.

  A certain calm took over him. He pictured Jane the first time they made love. She had tried to make Clarence think she was more experienced than she really was. She started shaking from nerves and Clarence sang her a song to calm her. Lately, Jane was all he ever thought of. Every lyric he wrote was about her. Every chord he played represented her soul. He was going to miss her.

  Clarence hadn't had much hope the evening would turn out well. Not after watching Cecilia die. He also knew Charles wouldn't make it. Yes, people recovered from shots to the leg all the time, but not this one. The bullet must have hit an important artery. He could tell by how much blood Charles had lost. Honestly, he was surprised he was still conscious when they left the apartment.

  But he also couldn't leave Charles behind. He would never be able to look at Jane again if he didn't do everything in his power to help him. Jane. His Jane. He hoped she would be able to get over his death.

  Reflection

  Emma Lynn rose with the sun in order to start her day. The house continued to sleep as she made her way to the kitchen to begin what would be several hours of cooking, cleaning, and caring for her family. So much had changed yet so much had stayed the same.

  The government estimated that 8 whites and 39 Negroes were killed that night. But Emma Lynn knew it was so much more. She could name nearly 50 Negros she knew personally that had been killed. It was the worst day of her life. Sometimes, she wasn’t sure how she survived it. She never knew she was that strong.

  Charles’ body was found two days after the riots. An unidentifiably mutilated corpse was found nearby which they all assumed to be Clarence.

  Rebecca Jane never recovered. She spent three weeks crying for them and blaming herself for everything. After the hysterical crying came the quiet tears. She would sit silently in a rocking chair as tears streamed down her face while she didn't make a sound.

  Suddenly one day she stopped crying altogether. She asked Emma Lynn to fix her a meal of ham, potatoes, and collard greens. She said it was Clarence's favorite.

  With her appetite returning for the first time in weeks, both Henry and Emma Lynn thought she was on the road to recovery. But shortly after that meal, Rebecca Jane went for a walk and never returned. The next day, her body was found floating in the Mississippi River.

  Her last will and testament was simple. Everything went to Emma Lynn.

  Through letters to her old schoolmates, Emma Lynn kept up with the goings on in East St. Louis. Over the years Emma Lynn had heard that her only surviving sibling, Mary Anna, still resided in East St. Louis, childless and unhappy. When her husband, Samuel, found out she couldn't have children, he was of course disappointed but wanted to make the marriage work anyway. When he found out that she had in fact been pregnant several times and had terminated the pregnancies, he divorced her and left her with nothing. Mary Anna moved back home with George and Elizabeth. No one ever found out the Goodwin's true identity but living with their secret hadn't afforded them any happiness.

  Somehow Emma Lynn was even able to get in contact with little Tumpie or Josephine Baker as she now preferred to be called. Just like she had stated that night, Tumpie was on her way to becoming a world famous singer. But, unfortunately, her idol, Becky, never got to see her success.

  Emma Lynn often drafted letters to George and Elizabeth. Just little notes to let them know that she was still alive and well. But every time she quickly burned them and never sent them off. She thought about that curtain she saw move in the window the night of the riot. For so long she pretended she hadn't seen it. She pretended that her own mother hadn't left her outside to die at the hands of a mob rather than accept her race. After living with the rejection of her parents all her life, she didn't want to have to face it again. She didn't want to open her mailbox one day and see the letter returned unopened. Instead, she chose to accept that her only family was Henry and Jesse. That was enough for her.

  Emma Lynn remembered threatening Elizabeth Goodwin with some sort of revenge, but she honestly found that the best revenge was her own happiness.

  Henry and Emma Lynn used the money Rebecca Jane had left them in order to build a life together. At first, they continued to live in a house just across the river in St. Louis, Missouri. Their plan worked perfectly for a while. The neighbors assumed that Emma Lynn was his live in maid and that Jesse was her son. But soon they figured out that she
was something more than a maid and the persecution began. They moved from house to house and from state to state until they were able to find a location where they could live in peace.

  After moving eleven times in three years, they settled on Martha's Vineyard where many upper class blacks lived. It was more than they could afford, but they made the sacrifice in order to be able to live in peace.

  Henry pursued his dream of becoming a doctor. Several times he had to stop and restart his education due to the moving. He said he didn't mind. According to him, it was a small price to pay to be with his Emma. Now every morning he woke at 5 a.m. and rode the ferry to the mainland in order to attend classes. Emma Lynn made sure Jesse got to school then spent the day cleaning houses and selling her baked goods around the island in order to support them all. Henry promised her that one day it would be her turn to get an education. She knew he would keep his promise.

  It was a relatively peaceful night and Emma Lynn felt quite rested. Jesse hadn't woken up with nightmares or screaming for his father. She wondered if his little mind would ever be able to reconcile what he'd seen that night. Emma Lynn was far older and more mature and yet sometimes she couldn't get the images out of her head either. She could only hope that one day Jesse would forget. But was forgetting the answer? If everyone grew up forgetting the wrongs of the past, would things ever change? Would history be doomed to repeat itself?

  It's not like Emma Lynn even wanted equality for the Negro. She didn't know if that would ever be possible. Emma Lynn just wanted the ability to feel worthwhile, to be treated like a human being, to not have to fear for her life at the hand of a white man.

  As she dug her hands into a bowl of flour, kneading it into the desired consistency, she stared at how her fingers changed from a soft tinted brown to a stark white. Yes, if she needed to, she could pass for white.

  "What are you doing up so early?" a voice said into her ear as arms wrapped around her waist.

  Emma Lynn twisted around and stared into the eyes of her beloved Henry.

  "You know I like to have a hot breakfast prepared for my family every morning."

  Henry nuzzled her neck and said, "I will happily go hungry if it means twenty more minutes next to you in bed." He kissed her passionately as he did every morning. He kissed her as if every kiss could be their last.

  Yes, in the shadows of the night, she could pass for white, but wrapped in the light of Henry's love, she didn't have to.

  Author’s Note

  In the early years of the 20th century, black Americans fled poverty and oppression in the South in search of jobs in the major industrial areas in the North and Midwest. Supplying necessities to the European soldiers heavily involved in World War I led to an increase in the need of workers. Huge manufacturing companies sought out cheap labor in order to fill this need. Agents from factories in East St. Louis, Illinois, actively recruited laborers from the South.

  On July 1, 1917, a Ford car driven by whites fired shots into black homes along Market Street, near Seventeenth. The next time the Ford passed through the neighborhood, the black residents returned the fire, striking the automobile as it disappeared in the night.

  The police chief was alerted of the shooting and dispatched a car of detectives and uniformed officers to the area. Reporter Roy Albertson stood on the running board. Albertson’s account of the event helped to incite the East St. Louis riot the following day.

  According to Albertson’s report of the incident, which was published in the morning paper, the police car “turned into Bond Avenue from Tenth, meeting more than 200 rioting [armed] negroes… [who] without a word or warning opened fire.’” Albertson later admitted under oath in the Congressional investigation of the riot that the fatalities he so righteously attributed to callous blacks intent on premeditated murder could have been a case of mistaken identity of the same white Ford car, which had earlier shot into black people’s homes, returning to the neighborhood to do more harm.

  The bullet-riddled car was parked in front of the police station in downtown East St. Louis on the morning of July 2, 1917 for all to see. After reading Albertson’s account, the white citizens of East St. Louis formed mobs and sought revenge.

  The major causes of the 1917 riots in East St. Louis included this influx of blacks into the city as well as conflict between the Democratic and Republican parties, conflict between labor leaders (representing whites) and industrialists (needing cheap labor), and misleading reports by journalists about a shooting of two plainclothes police officers by blacks trying to protect their families on Sunday, July 1st. These events lead to the violence on Monday July 2nd.

  In Shadows of St. Louis, I chose to condense the events of July 1st and 2nd into one day.

  Source: SEMP Inc.

  About the Author

  Leslie DuBois lives in Charleston, South Carolina with her husband and two children. She currently attends the Medical University where she’s earning her PhD in Biostatistics. Leslie enjoys writing stories and novels that integrate races. Her other novels include Ain’t No Sunshine, Guardian of Eden, Nobody Girl, The Queen Bee of Bridgeton, The Devil of DiRisio and Nothing Else Matters. She also writes as Sybil Nelson. Visit her at www.LeslieDuBois.com to learn more.

  Other Novels by Leslie DuBois

  Ain’t

  No Sunshine The Queen Bee of Bridgeton

  The Devil of DiRisio

  Guardian of Eden

  Nobody Girl

  Nothing Else Matters

  Visit her website to learn more.

  Read an excerpt from the best selling Historical Fiction novel from Leslie DuBois

  Ain’t No Sunshine

  Prologue

  The officer placed a cup of black coffee on the table in front of me.

  "I don't drink coffee," I said, continuing to stare out the window at the Chicago skyline.

  "Well, you might want to start. You're not going anywhere for a while, son."

  I crossed my arms and slouched in the chair. "I'm not your son," I said through gritted teeth. I focused on a pale yellow Volkswagen van driving past the window of the police station. I shook my head with frustrated regret. I should have bought a new car before we left. I never thought a broken taillight, of all things, would land us in this police station. Now they were asking me questions. Questions I wasn’t prepared to answer. Not yet, anyway.

  The officer didn't respond at first. The only sound was that of the rotating fan in the corner of the room, blowing out the same hot, stale air.

  "Fine," he said after a few minutes. "Let's talk about whose son you are then, huh?" He took some pictures out of a file and laid them out on the table. I refused to look; I knew what they would show. "Do you see this, Stephen? Why don't you look at your father's mutilated body? Beaten to death with a shovel outside his own home."

  He picked up one of the pictures and waved it in front of my face. I shut my eyes tightly. I was there when it happened. I knew what it looked like. I didn't want to be reminded of the image; it was already permanently ingrained in my mind.

  "Did you do it, Stephen? Did you kill your own father in cold blood?"

  I kept my eyes closed and refused to answer. The image of my father's bloody corpse floated behind my eyelids.

  "No, you couldn't have done it." I heard the officer's footsteps as he walked to the other side of the room. "There's no way a smart, wealthy boy like you could murder the man that took care of you and loved you for eighteen years."

  I opened my eyes and glared at the fat, sweaty man interrogating me. "My father never loved me. Never!"

  His eyes expanded. My tone shocked him. He took a step back as if he was actually afraid of me for a second. He quickly recovered his composure, though. "Well, then I guess you did kill him."

  I bit my tongue and turned away. I had already said too much. There was no way he was getting me to talk. Not yet, anyway. I needed a few more minutes to get my thoughts together.

  "I guess we're gonna have to do this the h
ard way," he said after a few moments. He sat down in the chair across from me and opened his file again. "Maybe I'll just have to ask that pretty little colored girlfriend of yours," he said, staring at Ruthie's picture and licking his lips.

  "You leave her out of this." My hands clenched into fists.

  "I don't know if I can do that. She seems to be pretty involved." He kept staring at her picture as he spoke. "Your father is found dead at your home in Virginia and you're found seven hundred miles away with a nigger whore. I can't -"

  He didn't get to finish his thought. I leapt across the table and started pounding his face in. Seconds later, I was subdued by several officers. They placed me back in the chair and handcuffed me to the table as everyone stepped outside and decided what to do with me.

  This was getting worse and worse by the minute. I'd gladly go to jail for killing that man. He deserved to die. I just didn't want Ruthie to get dragged into this. After all we'd been through, at least one of us deserved a chance to be happy.

  After what felt like hours, another officer entered the room. He placed a bottle of peroxide and some napkins on the table.

  "You gonna behave?" he asked, holding up the key to the handcuffs. He was much younger than the other officer. With his dark hair and blue eyes he kind of reminded me of my older brother, Matthew, except with a bushy mustache. For some reason, I felt I could trust him.

  I nodded and he unlocked my handcuffs.

  "What's that for?" I asked, indicating the peroxide.