All the Days Past, All the Days to Come

by Mildred D. Taylor

  As we got out of the car everybody was in a joyful mood and pledging to take the test again. Despite the letdown of the day, I was feeling good about our commitment as I crossed the lawn to the class building. Before I reached the building, Flora Johnson, another teacher in the registration drive, shouted out to me. She was standing by the old well talking to another teacher, but now hurried to meet me. “Cassie,” she said. She paused, looked out to the road as if worried someone was watching, then back at me. “There’s someone here to see you.”

  I could feel her distress. “Who?”

  Her voice lowered. “A white man. He’s inside, waiting on you.” Flora then hurried away without giving me a chance to question her further. I looked after her and walked with foreboding to the building. At the door I stopped, took a deep breath, and opened it. Across the room, standing by the old potbellied stove, was Guy. I sighed.

  “Cassie, I had to come,” he said softly.

  “I told you not to come.”

  Guy came toward me. “I had to, Cassie.”

  I was angry, but I spoke with measured words. “No, you didn’t. You just did what you chose to do.”

  Guy didn’t come any closer. “Listen, Cassie, I knew how you felt, how you feel, but I figure this is my fight too—”

  I looked past him to the potbellied stove from another time, from the days of my childhood when I was a student in this very room. “You could never understand.” My voice was almost a whisper.

  “Maybe not.” His tone was contrite. I didn’t say anything, and he went on. “But dammit, Cassie, I want to understand! I’m not the only one who wants to understand. There are other white people feeling the same as I do.”

  “But you’re the only white person I know standing up here in my old classroom, standing here where I never wanted you to be.”

  Guy argued his case for coming. “I couldn’t have you putting your life on the line and my doing nothing. I don’t want you fighting this thing without me. It affects us both and our future together. You’re my world, Cassie. You have no idea how you’ve affected my life. I had to join you here.”

  I kept looking at the stove. Guy stood in silence. Finally, I looked at him. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done, what you’re doing? I’m trying to help get the vote for my folks here, people I know, people who’ve known me since I was born, people I grew up with, old people who took care of me when I was little, people who never thought they’d have a chance to vote. This is my world. These are my people. You have no place in it.”

  Guy shook his head in denial. “I’ll make a place. I’ll do whatever it takes. I’ll teach, I’ll drive and go pick up people, take them to the courthouse, run errands, whatever. I’m here to learn, Cassie, to support you in any way I can. I’ll do whatever it takes.”

  I froze out his words. “I won’t forgive you for this.”

  “I think you will.” Guy took another step toward me and stopped again. “I managed to get some time off from the office.” He smiled. “You know I’ve got pull there.”

  I didn’t smile back. “Well, it’s your choice. I told you I didn’t want you down here, but you came anyway. You’re this smart white Boston lawyer, so I suppose you figured you knew better than I do about how things are and what was best, and you could totally disregard my wishes. Well, it’s done now. You stay or you go, but if you stay, there’ll be nothing between us. I’ll let people know we’re from the same law firm and that’s it. There’s nothing else.”

  Guy stared at me. “You’re ashamed of me, Cassie? Afraid to face up to what we have together?”

  I stared back. “You’re so smart, you figure it out.” With that being said, I turned and left the room.

  * * *

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  I kept my word and kept my distance from Guy. I was polite to him and professional, but I allowed no overtures from him and refused to be alone with him. The other workers were all aware that Guy and I worked together in Boston, but only Morris connected the two of us to a closer relationship. “You sure you don’t want to tell Mr. and Miz Logan about Guy?” he said.

  “Tell them what?”

  “That he’s more than just a co-worker?”

  I scoffed off the suggestion. “What makes you say that?”

  “By just looking at the two of you. Body language, Cassie, body language. Better watch it.”

  I just shook my head at that and refused to acknowledge that Morris’s assertion had any validity, but I knew he knew he was right; yet he kept my secret.

  At Sunday morning church service, Guy was introduced to the congregation, as all the registration workers were when they arrived. Guy was the only white worker in the drive, but he was welcomed. Pastor Hubbard made a point of announcing that Guy and I worked together as attorneys in Boston. I had already told Mama, Papa, and Big Ma that a member of my law firm had arrived to work in the registration, but of course I told them nothing else about the relationship, and Stacey hadn’t either. Mama suggested maybe having Guy over for Sunday dinner, but I discouraged it, saying that wasn’t necessary since the church was celebrating all the workers with a picnic dinner. I really didn’t want Guy getting any closer to the family, coming onto our land, into our house, into our lives.

  I wasn’t strong enough for that. I felt like a hypocrite.

  At the picnic dinner, when all church members brought dishes of food to share with the registration workers, Guy took the occasion to stand close to me and whisper, “I like your folks. I think they like me too.”

  “Well, don’t get too comfortable with that notion.”

  “Anyway, glad I could finally meet them. I’d like to get to know them better.”

  “Don’t plan on it.”

  Guy shook his head at my retort, then moved even closer. We talked a few minutes longer, the first personal talk we’d had since that first day he had arrived, then I saw Papa watching and I moved away.

  It was on that picnic Sunday when we first noticed the white men on the road parked in their cars and trucks watching us. After that, there were often days when small groups of white men and teenage boys gathered on the road in front of the church. Charlie Simms and his boys and his nephews, Statler and Leon Aames among them. They did not come on the grounds, but they spewed their obscenities and taunted us. When they realized Guy was with us, they singled him out and were especially hard on him. “’Ey, white boy! What you doin’ with these niggers? You think you helpin’, tryin’ to teach them how to go vote when we all know they ain’t got the sense for it!”

  “You ain’t nothin’ but another nigger-lovin’ outside agitator!”

  “What kinda white man are you, workin’ with these here niggers?”

  “Ain’t nothin’ worse than a nigger lover!”

  “Go on home, white boy, back up north where you come from!”

  The taunts kept coming, but Guy took them in stride and never responded to them. I was proud of him.

  I also was proud of the fact that Guy not only immersed himself in the drive but in the Great Faith community. He said he was there to learn as well as to teach, and it did not seem to bother him that he, for the first time, was the “only one.” He attended the church services and offered help to those in need of transportation for medical appointments to Strawberry, or even to Jackson or Vicksburg. He also volunteered to help a couple of families with work on their farms, and even though I had discouraged Mama from inviting him to dinner, some of the other families did, and Guy happily accepted their invitations.

  Best of all about Guy was how he interacted with the children. Just about everybody at Great Faith, young and old, loved baseball. Morris had organized two Saturday games at the school, one game played by the men, another by the children, both boys and girls. Guy participated as one of the coaches to the children. He taught them how to swing a bat, tossed balls with them, and even ran the
bases with some of the younger players. He was very empathetic to their needs and the children loved him for it. Once, when the school field became crowded with Great Faith spectators, a little boy was trying hard to see the game in which his daddy was playing but couldn’t get through the crowd. Guy, with the permission of the boy’s mother, picked him up and placed him on his shoulders, allowing him to tower above the crowd. The boy beamed. So did I. Guy had endeared himself to the children and to me. He would have made a good father.

  * * *

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  One afternoon when the white men were parked on the road, Mr. Wade Jamison came to the church. He parked on the grounds and spoke to the small group of people gathered in the classroom. Morris had invited him. Mr. Jamison spoke only briefly about the Mississippi constitution. He said he knew that everyone had been receiving instruction about its meaning and its intricacies and the possible questions they could face before the county registrar and how to answer them. What he chose to speak about was how he felt about the laws and the changes he wanted to see.

  “Not all white people in Mississippi are against you in this,” he said. “I’ve been around a long time now, more than eighty years. As I grow older, it’s very difficult to face change, but change is always a reality. My father and his father and his father before him were all slave owners. None of them wanted to give up that way of life, but that change came. My father and my grandfather were forced to give up slavery and start a new way of life. I didn’t have to make that choice, but I did have to choose how to go forward after that and how to see the world. I had to decide if I would see people—black and white—as separate and unequal, separate and equal, or just plain equal. It’s taken me a while to reach the conclusion of just plain equal. That’s what all you are fighting for, and from my perspective, I want you to know there are white people here in Mississippi who understand and support you.”

  After the class Morris, Guy, and I walked outside with Mr. Jamison. Mr. Jamison glanced at the white men across the road. “You know,” he said to Guy, “you’re taking quite a chance being here. You stick out like a sore thumb.”

  “No more than you.”

  Mr. Jamison smiled and said wryly, “Oh, they won’t mess with me. They’ve tried to in the past, but I’ve been around too long now for them to do me any harm. But all of you young people, you know what the risks are. Morris, you know better than anybody.” Morris only nodded. Mr. Jamison looked at me. “Cassie, glad to see you here. Looks like that law degree is coming in handy now.”

  “Hope so,” I said.

  Mr. Jamison then said good-bye, got into his car, and drove off the grounds. The men on the road stared after him as he passed, but said nothing to him.

  * * *

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  With the white men watching the comings and goings of people attending the classes, an uneasy feeling descended upon the church and the classes. Threats were made against Pastor Hubbard and all of us teaching. Some people chose not to return to the classes after the threats, but most stayed on, and in the early weeks of September several members of the Great Faith community, all of them elderly, decided they were ready to take the test again. Both Morris and I were going with them, but Guy also wanted to come. Neither Morris nor I thought that was a good idea. “You best stay out of it,” Morris told him. “It’s going to be tough enough when all colored folks walk into that white registrar’s office, but having a northern white man with us, helping us, is just going to make it tougher.”

  “Well, maybe I could follow you in, just as a precaution, as an observer, in case something doesn’t go right and a witness is needed. I won’t be with you, just waiting outside.” He looked at me. “All right with you?”

  I stared at Guy for a moment, then turned to Morris. “Perhaps he’s right. Who knows what could happen, and maybe we’ll need help from an outside source.”

  Morris agreed and we headed out for Strawberry. Morris drove his car, and Ted Sanders, a Great Faith deacon, drove his. Guy trailed us. Once in Strawberry, we parked near the courthouse and all of us except Guy walked to the courthouse steps. At the top of the stairs, Morris opened the door and we all walked in. When we walked out again, not one person was registered to vote.

  Everybody failed the test.

  A white crowd was now gathered on the sidewalk at the bottom of the courthouse steps. They shouted obscenities at us. Some moved close and shoved all of us, including the old people. They spat on us. A sheriff’s deputy stood by doing nothing. I wanted to lash out, but we were taught to accept these white people’s anger and move on. Always we were to keep our goals in mind and not stoop to their level. The ugliness of their vitriolic hatred drenched over us, their vile spittle ran down our faces, and we kept on walking, saying not a word, keeping to our teachings. But at that moment, I hated these people as much as they hated me; there was no love in my heart. We pushed our way through the crowd. Some of the crowd followed us to our cars. We continued to ignore them. Deacon Sanders and his group immediately got into their car and left Strawberry. Mr. and Mrs. Steptoe had already gotten into Morris’s car, when Mrs. Batie whispered to me, “Cassie, I’ve got to go to the pot.”

  I looked at her and understood. There were no restrooms for “colored” in the courthouse. I told Morris, and he decided we would go to the lone Negro café in town. Mr. Don Beasley, though, said he didn’t have to go. “I tell you what,” he said, “I’ll just go on with this boy here and keep him company.” He pointed his finger at Guy. “That be all right with you, young man?”

  “Fine with me,” Guy said.

  “All right then! Y’all go ’head, relieve yo’selves,” ordered Mr. Beasley. “See ya back at Great Faith!”

  Guy helped Mr. Beasley into his car and they left. The rest of us headed for the café. The white crowd watched us go. Some thirty minutes later Morris and our group also left Strawberry. On the trip back to Great Faith, both Morris and I were upbeat, trying to keep the Steptoes and Mrs. Batie from being discouraged. “It’s going to take time,” Morris reminded them. “We couldn’t hardly expect to knock down the walls of Jericho in a day, but we’ll get there, be assured of that. We’ll get there.” As we traveled along the dirt road, Morris continued to talk about the next registration attempt, but soon after we passed the Wallace store and the road straightened toward Great Faith, he jammed on the brakes. In the middle of the road were Mr. Don Beasley and Guy. Mr. Beasley was seated on the ground, bent over Guy, who lay flat on his back, unmoving. At the side of the road was Guy’s car, the back end of it caved in and its front end in the ditch that ran along the road. Morris and I hurried from the car. I dropped to my knees beside Guy and reached out to him. His face was badly bruised and bleeding. His forehead had a gash across it. His eyes were closed. I cried out his name.

  “He can’t hear you, Cassie,” mumbled Mr. Don Beasley. “He can’t hear nothin’.”

  Morris hunched beside me and placed his fingers on Guy’s neck, just under his jawline. “He’s still breathing,” I said, my hand on Guy’s chest.

  “Barely got a pulse though.” Morris looked over at Mr. Beasley. “What happened?”

  “White men,” answered Mr. Beasley, his voice in a whisper. “Four white men. Ain’t know’d who they was. Come along in two trucks, shoved us off the road into that ditch yonder. Boy here helped get me out the car and them white men, they got outta their trucks, standing all around, and they hollered at this boy, ‘What kinda white man are you, helpin’ these niggers?’ Then they started beatin’ on him something terrible. Told me, ‘Uncle, you stay outta this.’ Told me I wasn’t worth foolin’ with, being old and ignorant and all.” Mr. Beasley’s voice rose angrily. “But I ain’t stayed outta it! I’m a man still and I tried to help, but I couldn’t do nothin’. They knocked me down and I couldn’t get up. They kept beatin’ on this boy and all I could do was pray the boy was all right and drag myself over to him when
they stopped beatin’ on him.” Mr. Beasley looked at Morris and me with searching eyes and lowered his voice again. “He gon’ be all right?”

  We gave him no answer. I just looked at Mr. Beasley, then back to Guy, and Morris said, “Come on. We’ve got to get him to the hospital.”

  By this time Mrs. Batie and the Steptoes had joined us. They helped up Mr. Beasley as Morris brought his car as close to Guy as he could, then we lifted Guy onto the back seat. Guy was too tall to lie totally prone, so I got in and we lifted his upper body so that I could hold him in a sitting position to my chest with his legs outstretched on the seat. Morris started the car, and the Steptoes, Mrs. Batie, and Mr. Beasley all stepped back, silently watching as Morris turned the car around and we headed back toward Strawberry. They would have to walk the last half mile to Great Faith.

  * * *

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  At the hospital, Morris and I explained that we had found Guy in the middle of the road. We gave them Guy’s name and how to contact his family. The white doctors listened, asked a few questions, and took Guy away. We had come through the white entrance and they had allowed us to do so since Guy was white, but now, with Guy gone, we were relegated to the colored waiting room. Right after that I found a pay phone, called the law firm, and spoke directly to Guy’s father. I told him that Guy had been beaten and was now in the hospital. I told him Guy was unconscious, but I didn’t go into detail. I didn’t know who could be listening in on the call. Mr. Hallis said he would be taking the earliest flight he could get. I also called home to let Mama and Papa know Morris and I had taken Guy to the hospital. I told them no more than that and they asked no questions. They understood questions would have to wait until I was home. After that, Morris and I waited. We waited for several hours but no one came to tell us anything. Finally we asked at the desk about Guy. The nurse looked at her chart, then back at us. “He’s not on here,” she said.