Freedom Lessons

by Eileen Harrison Sanchez

  “Have you ever seen a gym like this one?”

  “Is that a double basketball court?”

  Five coaches stood in a line facing the students. Each had a whistle attached to a lanyard around his neck, a blue-collared knit shirt, khaki shorts, white socks, and gym shoes. Hands clasped behind their backs, they looked like they were posing for a photograph.

  Seeing Mr. Peterson, one of the white coaches blew his whistle to get the students’ attention. He grew impatient and blew it again. Frank realized that the meeting was starting without their head football coach.

  The white coach told them his name was Coach Welborn. “Good morning. Welcome to Kettle Creek High School.” Then he introduced the other two white coaches as his assistants and asked them to pass out the rosters.

  “Next to your name, you will see that you have all kept your positions and will remain on the varsity team, but as second string to Kettle Creek High School’s team.”

  Frank sat in stunned silence as his teammates gasped and shouted.

  “Second string?”

  “Where’s our coach?”

  “Why can’t we play?”

  One of the seniors called out, “We can’t go to our own school, and now we can’t play here?”

  Coach Welborn blew his whistle. “You still have these coaches.” He pointed at the black coaches. “Y’all get scrimmages.”

  The quarterback stood up and walked down to the gym floor. That was the signal.

  Sixty students stood.

  “Hey! Where y’all going?”

  “Stop! Sit back down!”

  The students ignored the coaches’ whistles and walked out of the gym.

  As he passed the line of men, Frank heard Coach Welborn say, “Hey, Peterson! What just happened?”

  Another white coach said, “You need to discipline those colored kids.”

  Fred Peterson stood strong, his shoulders back, his fisted hands at his sides. “Did you really expect that they would just go along with it?”

  Mr. Peterson and Mr. Armstrong, the other assistant principal, walked outside. The students were seated on the grass. As they approached the group, Dedra, West Hill School’s student council president, stood to speak.

  “Mr. Peterson, we want representation on the football team, the cheerleading squad, and the student council.”

  Mr. Peterson’s eyes scanned the group and then returned to Dedra. “Young lady, I understand that, but this isn’t the way it will happen. Classes have started, and you need to go into the building or leave the school property.”

  Mr. Peterson pulled at the knot of his tie as Dedra nodded at her fellow students. They rose on her cue.

  Frank felt the energy of the crowd of black students as they walked off the field in defiance. Their voices might have been silenced, but their feet spoke volumes. The pounding of shoes on the pavement caught the attention of the people holding the FREEDOM OF CHOICE signs, who watched in astonishment.

  Freedom of choice, Frank wanted to call out. Guess that’s what we’re doing now.

  Mouths tight, eyes focused straight ahead, Frank and his friends walked down the middle of the street—past the police, the reporters, the elementary school. Arms and legs swung in time to an internal drumbeat, filling him with energy while they moved along as one.

  At first the police seemed stunned, but they pulled out their bullhorns and shouted for the students to halt. Dogs barked nearby. A girl screamed.

  As they reached the second intersection about half a mile down the street, the persistent barking of the dogs and the police bullhorns’ blaring shouts to halt created even more confusion. Frank was no longer in the center of the crowd. The students behind Frank broke into a run. Patrol cars blocked the road behind them. Police flooded the street before them. Dogs snarled. They were surrounded.

  Someone tackled Frank from behind. He struggled to rise, but the weight of a boot held him in place. Stones from the street pressed into his cheek. His arms were yanked back, and handcuffs clicked around his wrists. He thought of his mother.

  The person grabbed Frank’s shirt to pull him up and looked him in the eye—an officer, his face purple with anger. “Don’t want no trouble from you, boy! Don’t you be like your daddy, now!”

  Frank felt boneless with shock at the unexpected mention of his father and the hate he saw in those eyes. He tried to jerk free as the officer shoved him into another handcuffed classmate. Other students shouted while dogs chased them. The police slung billy clubs along with muttered curses and racial slurs. Frank tasted his own fear as bile rose into his mouth. Flashes of color raced past him in the confusion of the moment, and his mind raced to another time.

  That was when Frank recognized the officer. Years ago, this man had ticketed cars and trucks that came to the repair shop Frank’s father owned. His father had tried talking to the officer, but the conversation had turned heated. Frank’s father paid the tickets himself so he didn’t lose his customers.

  The handcuffs’ cold metal bit into Frank’s wrists.

  Chapter 17

  Evelyn

  Wednesday, November 5, 1969

  “Come in!” Evelyn shouted.

  The morning of the first day at Kettle Creek Elementary School had passed without incident, and it was almost time for lunch.

  The knocking continued.

  “Come in!”

  Now someone was pounding. The students were wide-eyed. Evelyn interrupted her lesson, walking through the narrow row between desks and wondering what was so important that she had to go to the trailer door. When she opened it, a tall white student shoved a paper at her and left without speaking.

  Guess he didn’t want to come into a colored classroom.

  Evelyn’s stomach clenched as she read the note.

  Teachers:

  There has been a problem at the high school. Do not leave your classrooms until your assigned lunchtime. Escort your students to the cafeteria in an orderly manner.

  The lunch aides will keep the students indoors for recess. Do not discuss this information with your classes.

  Mr. Palmer, Principal

  Evelyn scanned the area outside the open door of her mobile classroom. A gentle breeze rustled the trees beneath a cloudless blue sky. The street was empty. All police, reporters, and parents were gone. What was the problem?

  She closed the door with a gentle tug, wishing it had a window. When she turned, thirty pairs of questioning eyes greeted her. One boy bravely raised his hand, and she nodded at him.

  “Ms. Glover, what he done give you? Are we movin’ agin?”

  “No, child, nothing like that. Just directions on how to get to the cafeteria. You must be getting hungry. We can line up inside now, and then I’ll take you there. Doesn’t that sound good?”

  She hated lying, even with the goal of protecting her students.

  Once her class was safely situated in the cafeteria, Evelyn spotted Lulu walking in the opposite direction.

  “Lulu, where are you going?”

  “Don’t know. No one told me where to eat.”

  Lulu looked distraught. Her fitted shirtwaist dress appeared to be the only thing holding her together.

  “The teachers’ lunchroom. Follow me.”

  As they walked, Lulu wouldn’t stop talking. “I’m an aide in a class. Supposed to be a teacher, but they don’t let me do anything. Then I had to cover another class so the teacher could have a break. A break! To use the bathroom! Don’t know where our bathroom is.”

  She kept it up, even when they entered the lunchroom full of teachers they didn’t know. The white teachers were whispering to one another: “How unruly are your new ones?” “Is that smell from their hair?”

  Still, Lulu wouldn’t stop complaining.

  “Hush, now.” Evelyn gave her friend a gentle nudge with her arm.

  “Oh no—two more,” one of the white teachers whispered too loudly.

  “Are they going to use our dishes?” another murmured.


  Lulu didn’t seem to notice, or if she did, it didn’t stop her from talking. “Well, aren’t you the one—Evelyn Glover, handpicked to keep your class.”

  Evelyn gritted her teeth, feeling the eyes of the white teachers on her. “Let’s talk about it later.”

  They joined a table of black teachers in the back of the room. Evelyn’s chair wobbled, and she saw that one of the plastic caps on the legs was missing.

  Lulu continued to mumble. “Lordy, least they gave us a table inside.”

  Evelyn thought about the previous day, which felt a world away by now. As the men with clipboards had left her classroom, she had overheard Mr. Palmer tell Mr. Peterson, “If I have to take all these teachers, I want only the best to keep their classes.”

  Lulu gasped and poked Evelyn in the ribs, bringing her back to the present moment. What had finally made Lulu stop complaining?

  It was Colleen, sitting down at the same table of white teachers who had been so rude.

  A blond ponytail swished as the teacher at the end of the table stood up and said, “Same here, darlin’—don’t think we need Yankees helping us with our coloreds.”

  A fierce blush rose on Colleen’s face, hiding her freckles. Colleen bit her lip and stared down at her brown paper lunch bag.

  Well, that girl has her own troubles, doesn’t she?

  At the end of the day, Lulu came to Evelyn’s classroom trailer. Her easy laugh was gone, and her eyelids were puffy. Wide circles of perspiration marked her underarms. Lulu’s class had been divided up into the other second grades. Six in Colleen’s, and a new white teacher got the rest. What was Lulu supposed to do now?

  “Look here, now, Lu. Don’t let them beat you down,” Evelyn said. But she felt a quiet guilt. She was proud to have been chosen to keep her class, but did that pride betray her friend?

  Lulu shook her head. “You saw what those white teachers did to Colleen at lunch. White women usually say mean things in a sweet voice with a smile on their face. Today, they didn’t even bother to smile.”

  Evelyn shrugged. “Colleen can deal with her own kind. She must know how to handle them.”

  “Do you hear yourself? Colleen’s no better off than we are.”

  “I can’t worry about a white woman.” Evelyn opened a drawer to her desk, staring down into it. She couldn’t remember what she was looking for.

  Lulu tugged at the buttons on her shirtdress. “It’s hot in here, Evie. I can hardly get a breath.”

  “I turned off the air conditioner because these poor babies were cold. They’re not used to it.”

  Lulu walked to the back and turned it on, letting the blower wick the sweat trickling down her neck.

  “Humph. Feels good to me.”

  Evelyn frowned. “I told them to bring a sweater or wear a long-sleeved shirt tomorrow.”

  “You’ve got no worries, Evelyn Glover. Know what I had to put up with today? Is this a hundred years ago?”

  Evelyn searched for the right thing to say. Lulu was a kind soul who visited her students at home if they took ill. Her desk and bookshelves had been cluttered with cherished treasures from years of teaching second-graders. She even saved handmade creations of pipe cleaners and Popsicle sticks licked clean.

  “Tell me about it. I’m listening.”

  “Those white teachers got special meetings on how to integrate our children into their classes, but no one could bother telling me where I could eat my lunch.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “And the white teachers keep complaining.” Lulu sat on a student’s desk and said, in a high, whiny voice, “‘What are we supposed to do with these children? Why did they close the colored schools now?’”

  “I guess that’s the one thing we agree on with the white teachers. Why now?” Evelyn walked over to the air conditioner to turn down the blower. “We should have been included in the meeting. Remember, if we don’t do well, the principal can transfer us.”

  Lulu scowled. “For what? Do you see any white faces in your classroom? And where will they send me, Evie? I’m at the bottom now. There’s no place lower for me to go.”

  Chapter 18

  Colleen

  Wednesday, November 5, 1969

  As she parked her car, Colleen saw Miguel standing on the dirt road, talking to Jan. Her hand was on one hip as she wagged her finger at him. When he stepped back, she stepped forward. Colleen leaned over the steering wheel and sighed, wishing she had been able to tell Miguel about the day first.

  Colleen sat there, exhausted, hoping Jan would go inside. No such luck—Jan strutted to the car and tapped on the window.

  “Oh my—you’re late getting back. And it’s your first day in the white school! I’m glad to work in a private school where we don’t have to deal with this nonsense. I don’t know how you can do it—all day in that trailer classroom with those colored kids. You must need to take a shower as soon as you get home.”

  How can she say such things? Colleen threw open the car door, narrowly missing Jan.

  “It was a long day, and I’m tired. I need to make dinner. Let’s catch up another time.”

  Colleen clutched her schoolbag and scrambled to her trailer, leaving Jan standing there. She was grateful that Miguel had arrived home first and cooled the trailer. The drone of the air conditioner muffled the sobs that escaped from her the instant she shut the door.

  When Miguel came in, she tried to talk but choked on the words. He held her close, stroking her hair. “Mi amor, lo siento. I’m sorry.”

  His tender words only made her cry harder. She pulled away from him, hiding her face in her hands.

  “Colleen, we can talk later, whenever you want. Let’s just eat the leftover meat loaf for supper and then see how you feel.”

  Lying on their bed, she listened to Miguel as he began busying himself in the kitchen and wondered what she had gotten herself into. In three months at West Hill School, she had adjusted and—aside from some moments of tension with Evelyn—felt welcomed. She’d grown fond of her students. But each night had been an abrupt transfer back into her comfortable white world. Now the white world was foreign, unfamiliar, and judgmental.

  Her first day with her students at the new school had gone better than she’d anticipated. The portable classroom was a novelty, and they were excited about the new notebooks and crayons that Colleen had purchased as emergency supplies for the overnight move. The classroom’s tight quarters served as a cocoon, protecting them from the confusion of the schoolyard and the activity on the street across from the high school.

  But then there was lunch.

  The teachers’ lounge had been crowded. In the front, the tables were decorated with small vases of flowers, napkins, and pairs of salt and pepper shakers, like at Colleen’s favorite pizza parlor back home. But the black teachers all sat at card tables with folding chairs in the back of the room. She had lifted her hand to wave at Lulu and Evelyn but hesitated, remembering Lulu’s coolness earlier in the day. Their table was full anyway.

  Spotting an empty place at one of the front tables, she asked if the seat was taken. No one looked up or answered her. So she sat down across from a woman who was busy putting away a small makeup case. Her blond hair was styled in a pageboy, which she had just smoothed down after a look in her compact mirror. Colleen envied the woman’s freckle-free, alabaster complexion.

  Colleen said, “Hello.”

  The teacher didn’t respond, so Colleen figured she hadn’t heard her and greeted the woman a second time. “Hi, my name is Colleen Rodriguez. What’s yours?”

  No reply.

  Colleen was seated directly across from the woman, who looked straight into her eyes. How could she not have heard her?

  “What grade do you teach?” asked Colleen.

  No reply.

  Colleen felt a chill creep up her back. The woman looked right through her. She was stone-faced, an unfinished sculpture, devoid of expression.

  It was as if the chair Colleen ha
d chosen were still vacant.

  A teacher from the end of the table confirmed Colleen’s feeling.

  “She won’t waste her time talking to you. Same here, darlin’—don’t think we need Yankees helping us with our coloreds.”

  The affront stung as if the teacher had slapped Colleen’s face. As she reached into her brown bag, her hands shook. Her favorite tuna salad on pumpernickel bread was no longer appealing. A knot of anxiety twisted her stomach. She looked at her watch and realized that she had forty minutes before she needed to return to her classroom. The gift of lunch without playground duty had become a penalty.

  An older woman retrieved a whistling teakettle. When she returned to her place, she asked if anyone would like a cup of tea. Her cat’s-eye glasses framed her large green eyes. She nodded and smiled when Colleen looked back.

  “Thank you, but I don’t have a cup.”

  “Well, I’m sure we can rinse one out for you,” the teacher said.

  A mutter came from the opposite end of the table. “She wouldn’t mind a dirty cup.”

  The older teacher ignored the remark and cleaned a cup for Colleen. That single act of kindness helped her through the rest of the meal.

  In the trailer, Miguel called from the kitchen that dinner was ready. Colleen smiled, grateful for the warmth and comfort of his presence. She went to the bathroom sink and rinsed the dried tears from her eyes. She threw her shoulders back and stood tall as she felt a reserve of courage rise and move through her.

  She wouldn’t let that alabaster statue keep her out of the lunchroom.

  Chapter 19

  Evelyn

  Wednesday, November 5, 1969

  Evelyn knocked on Annie Mae Woods’s door. They had planned to go to a meeting about the school closing at the church hall.

  The dead bolt slid, and the door opened wide.

  “Hello, Sissy. Is your mama ready?”

  Sissy stepped back without answering and gestured toward her mother, who stood in the kitchen. She had just put the phone back on the hook.