Freedom Wars in Georgia
Lissovoy, Peter de
The paddy wagons stopped in the narrow Freedom Alley that runs behind the Albany, Georgia, jail. One of the cops ran ahead and unlocked the heavy metal door, and the others dragged us out and...
...I'll tell you what, boy, you get me one a them agitators—get one of them, see—you got a knife—an' I may give you a raise...
...If the city jail is a working symbol of the Southern past, then the notorious and famous and bleak and happy little office on Madison Street stands for a new day, for a hope...
...Oh, thata be mighty fine, bossman," I said...
...This ain't demonstratin', Betty...
...When he saw me, he began to pick his way through the crowd of demonstrators...
...Well, how do you think he'll do...
...I felt that terrific gap between the theory of nonviolent protest and the reality of the Southern mind...
...There he stood—big, bear-voiced, pistol packing and bewildered by my prostrate and peculiar reality...
...His eyes were slits, his voice was rising...
...And it was a rule of thumb that resistance probably will be made only more rigid by prolonged argument—especially when egos become involved...
...I knew what had to be said...
...The paddy wagons stopped in the narrow Freedom Alley that runs behind the Albany, Georgia, jail...
...Whachu doin' sittin' down when you talk to me, boy...
...I was reaching to knock at the second house when, from the third, the porch next door, half-hidden by a growth of shrubbery, a woman called James's name...
...Hell, you ain't nothin' but a troublemaker," he said...
...Like me...
...Who...
...He says, 'This ain' no U.S., boy, this here Albany Georgia.' They're somethin', these crackers...
...For him, the demonstration was no moral or political act, but just a minor riot...
...In the street I felt a familiar and a bittersweet wonder...
...She turned back to me...
...He paused a moment...
...Somebody had sent us a case of ravioli which was unsalable because the labels were ruined or non-existent...
...You registered...
...We cut between two of the houses, picking our way through sparse grass and rusting wagons and headless rubber ducks...
...Moments like these, when we could gain distance from the traditional blackwhite roles and kid them were affirmation of Movement hopes for the future, for a skinless rapport among humans...
...I remember it took me a long time to answer...
...I had just lost in the gamble and was eating in silence when James Daniel, Negro gang leader, part-time worker in the meatpacking plant on Sylvester Road, and one of the young people who have worked so hard with SNCC's voter registration project in Albany, came in and stood beside me...
...she asked...
...He seemed to consider it...
...Look man, the man's black...
...The Movement James turned and started from the porch...
...The panes have bullet holes in them, and the office wears them like medals...
...I had hesitated after James's question out of an ironic sense that he meant me—the white in the movement's future...
...Let's go...
...He thought...
...The constitution—" "James, stop pickin' at me...
...The white civil rights worker talks and breathes and eats and goes about the southern streets with the request in his hands and on his lips and in his eyes, like an aura...
...We would have to come back in the evening...
...I was asking her to accept paradox...
...What're you gettin' outa this, anyhow...
...It was a good show, with a virtuous hero and a chase and plenty of deep-breathing exercises...
...A little farther on he said, "Trouble with you and me, we way ahead of the times...
...Sure," I said finally...
...I was born up north," I said...
...He stopped by my side, and I had a glimpse of the underskin of his broad pink tongue when he licked his lip...
...The floor was dusty beneath us—dank, running, paper-strewn like the walls and ceiling and air...
...Yeah," she said, a little amazed, a little amused, a little suspicious, a little happy...
...Ah sure will try...
...She went to jail with you all in the summer an' her landlord run her out...
...We came out into the street just as two cops swung by, walking their beat...
...She had a baby on her right hip...
...There had been no demonstrations in Albany of any size since the early summer, and it was generally conceded that, in the cold winds of Albany white resistance, the possibilities of nonviolent protest in the form of demonstrations had withered to improbabilities and that the vote was the only means of change immediately at hand...
...He nudged me with his boot, not hard, just to assure himself I was really there...
...Yeah," I said...
...We had two cops apiece—one for each heel, and they were big, white, and had a knack for the obscene gesture, which is about all you can say for Albany cops...
...Who...
...Look, Betty Lee, you ain't scared to register, are you...
...Perhaps this was becoming true all over the South...
...I laughed...
...He was a checkers player, who, not working because there was no work, played a good deal of pool as well...
...The door has new hinges, because of all the coming and going, and they fit poorly, like the crisp new brick that props the overstuffed green armchair where it's missing a leg...
...I was, after all, white, but my participation in the protest was no testimony to the nonracial hopes and character of the Movement, just redundant evidence that all colors like a disturbance...
...Why one a them white boys, one a them communists you always warnin' me 'bout stopped me yesterday an' starts talkin' 'bout votin', an' you know what ah says to 'im, boss...
...Ain't this somethin'," he said, looking down at me, but to himself...
...You ain't registered...
...Uh—bossman...
...I tried to object: "Look, there's a lot of things he wouldn't be able to do...
...I am what you would call (in one tone of voice or another) a white man, and I had just participated in a demonstration against the total segregation enforced in Albany, and that, for the sergeant, was a contradiction...
...It don't matter if he don't win," James said...
...I was always asking it...
...He gonna get me a job...
...Early one morning last fall I was eating a breakfast of grits and ravioli in the kitchen, sitting on one of these seats that still smell of packages and passengers and motion...
...But you know, I figure you can look at the Movement in a lot of ways...
...We trotted round to her house, and when we stood on the porch, he said, "Betty Lee...
...He widened his eyes and caricatured indignation and drew up, filling his chest with air like a tin soldier or a cop...
...How'd you like to be makin' five dollars a week, boy...
...Slater King, the president of the Albany Movement, had recently qualified as a candidate for mayor, had announced he would run, and was the first Negro in the history of the city ever to do so...
...And then I started to laugh too...
...James looked thoughful...
...Slater—who do you think...
...Just what the hell are you, boy...
...Don't that mean nothin' at all to you...
...Ah done put in a good hard day's work, you can't deny that, can you...
...It's not much, but it's a start, an' you gotta start somewhere...
...You probably heard Slater King's gonna run for mayor...
...Perhaps the ethic of nonviolent protest could never have worked given Southern realities...
...We decided to walk clear to the end of the alley and work back, so that the last house was the first for us, and when we rapped at the door all was silent...
...my hair is the color of wet sand and about that curly...
...The question was always there...
...We would come back again...
...James could keep a straight face no longer...
...Where you from...
...When the sergeant had booked us, I shook hands with the other demonstrators...
...The other day—that fella runs the Stop and Save over on—what was that street, James...
...It is, despite the wobble, the most comfortable chair in the office...
...The grits were ordinary fare...
...When I had finished my ravioli, we walked out of the office and along Madison Street...
...The white nigger...
...Sometimes I think you are a Movement ni—" "Oh no, boss," I pleaded...
...He was resolving the contradiction by denying it, not meeting the challenge I had posed but retreating from it to the safe warm caves of the southern past and their stalagtites of habit...
...she said again...
...He walked away, and I knew that he was overwhelmed, and beaten...
...He locked me up on the white side of the jail, and I looked out through the bars of southern tradition...
...One of the cops ran ahead and unlocked the heavy metal door, and the others dragged us out and across the gravelly court and through the door into the walkway of the Negro cellblock...
...How exactly had I influenced the dialogue...
...About every fifth can turned out to be spaghetti, which made opening a can for breakfast a little exciting, because the spaghetti was much better...
...I had to smile...
...An' you caint be white, you sho caint be white...
...He started to laugh...
...When she was silent, he introduced me...
...That was the crucial question of course...
...I recognized him...
...Maybe he talks about a rent ordinance...
...James asked...
...I know these crackers don' know nothin' 'bout no constitution...
...What it really meant was what on earth are you doing, anyway...
...Maybe you all right after all...
...If we work at it, if we can really make the people understand, you never can tell...
...You ever tell that to one a these white folks down here...
...But white solidarity is something new, and it is the daily and unending dilemma of the white field worker that he must convince Negroes of his personal and exceptional reality at the same time he is defining and denouncing the social reality of which he is the exception...
...Bossman—how 'bout buyin' me a hamburger...
...I'll give him some of this ravioli...
...I felt my identity twisted and distorted across the gap into provocateur or simple mischief maker or even mercenary...
...Registered...
...I followed James, waving good-bye...
...That's some kind of cousin of mine," he said, under his breath...
...I stopped...
...An' your friend, he's white, he don' have to worry...
...He gets some places downtown integrated...
...I glanced sharply at him and hesitated only a fraction of a second before I jumped to my feet, scratching my head furiously, grinning, showing my teeth, scraping my feet...
...James interrupted, returning to business...
...I tried to explain that there were all sorts of rewards...
...he said...
...Tell me that...
...I remember that, very soon, the desk sergeant appeared in the mouth of the corridor and, rubbing his hands and stamping his feet like a bear, gazed out on the night's work...
...What're you doin' these days...
...I offered him some ravioli...
...And the joking was a source of strength for us both, a form of prayer that we might go on working and hoping, and some day put an end to the relationships we joked about...
...He don' never come to C.M.E...
...But I knew that this didn't help...
...I knew I was getting something out of it all—probably more than I was giving—but I wasn't sure yet what...
...James Daniel...
...How'd you like that...
...But I'm really from all over...
...The man waved and the woman waved and she picked up the baby's hand and waved it...
...I'm from the U.S., like you...
...He nodded at me, and he shook his head and glared at James...
...On Roosevelt Street, farther on, they were yellow and neat as orange crates...
...Hell yes I'm scared, James Daniel...
...We passed an eatery...
...After a while, James again returned the conversation to Slater King's election, and a few moments later, the woman's husband or boy friend appeared...
...That's the Movement too—see...
...Betty Lee...
...He would stand or fall now on his ability to persuade Negroes of the power of the vote...
...What's that man gonna do for me...
...You ain't black, I can see see that," he said...
...Their glance swept easily over us...
...I had long since given up deluding myself that I was sacrificing anything by working with the movement, risking anything...
...But suppose the Negroes, voting as a block, put a man in office...
...I'm workin' with the Movement—full time," James said...
...He had a fine sense of drama—he knew just how to rock a man back on his heels and leave him there, thinking...
...King among Negroes already on the lists...
...If there's apathy among the whites, and the Negroes come out a hundred per cent, there's a chance, I guess...
...The question, put so baldly, was a little stunning...
...Sorry, boss," I said...
...Anyway—he drew a knife...
...It is busy, untidy, full of writing, talk, people, plans, and there is in the very air around it a promise and a colorlessness that can liberate as totally as bars can hold...
...Ah sho mus' nota been thinkin'—" "Sometimes I think you're messin' with them Movement niggers, boy," James said...
...Getting Out the Vote "So Slater King is runnin' for mayor," James said, abruptly...
...I got my chillern...
...They don't pay you no attention no more...
...We're tryin' to get to everybody 'n be sure they vote...
...You—a white cat—you really get to just a few people even, just a few, but so that they stop thinkin' it's somethin' different or special...
...They've got some control over him and so he gets some streets paved...
...But look here, there a whole lot a people don't give you no second looks these days...
...Her feet were bare...
...James and I had taken in a show in Albany's Harlem...
...On Flint Street, approaching Davis and The Corner, the houses were squat, gray, unpainted, cracked...
...Well, you done right there boy...
...He tiptoed and peered to catch a glimpse of her...
...And James knew...
...There is a minor tradition of white kindness, of course—kindness with that sweet, fatherly, denying smile...
...No, Lord...
...Sure...
...She turned back to him, her face clouding...
...A Skinless Rapport The office of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in Albany stands outside tradition...
...I don't have to hate you, you don't have to fear me...
...You eat too much anyway," James said...
...she asked...
...We called out news of the demonstration to Negro prisoners in the cells, and they stared and shouted encouragement, and some were merry and some inscrutable and silent...
...The sergeant was shaking his head, his mouth puckered in disgust...
...Away at the end of the walkway a corridor ran up steps to the white cells with their separate but equal filth, and on to mugging and fingerprinting and booking...
...At any rate the white field worker no longer had the easy role of martyr-demonstrator to play...
...The elections would take place in October, and SNCC was intensifying its attempt to help Negroes register and had launched a get-out-the-vote campaign for Mr...
...I know what I want...
...I gulped the stuff down, happy, aware of our triumph...
...You ain't got nothin' to lose...
...In the evening I got a kind of an answer...
...I forgot she lived here...
...In the next day's paper, and on the radio, the demonstration would be so interpreted for the bulk of the white community that had not seen it...
...So you gonna have a hard time gettin' to some of 'em, gettin' 'em to want to register—harder'n me...
...I slumped into the seat...
...He don' know me...
...But almost at once I stopped...
...You heard what they done to Mae Liza...
...Well you can't change cops...
...But most of these people, they still gotta hate an' fear—an' usually they got a pretty good reason for it...
...this is votin...
...If he does good, it'll help...
...In the little adjoining kitchen, there are two patched bus seats for sitting, and a kerosene stove for cooking...
...The front door of the office is very old, scrolled in rococo, with small window-panes...
...Ah tol' 'im me an' mah bossman we gets along fine, he good to me, what ah wanna vote f'r...
...He looked down at me again...
...I had to smile at the irony...
...She looked skeptical...
...Residential segregation in Albany is a patchwork affair, and we walked into a white area, and hurried out again, turning left on Flint Street, aware of the railroad tracks just ahead, and entering the inevitable tracks-fringing poverty that in Albany, years ago, was called C.M.E., after the church, and today is called C.M.E., after a way of life —the C for crime, the M for murder, the E for that punishment or reward or fulfillment or probability, the electric chair...
...I am pale of skin...
...Is that good...
...Black, you hear...
...Who's your friend, James...
...Everyone was at work or out hunting it...
...I don't know," I said...
...I mean, you look at 'em like a friend, but they just can't look at you the same way...
...He ran his eyes around the room, and he ran his hand through his thick bear's hair...
...We had stopped the day before at the end of this street, where the little yellow houses are turned back by a lumber yard, and today we would move on, into Roosevelt Alley...
...Hell man, these big Negroes, they bad as the whites...
...Southern tradition says that whites go among blacks for material gain...
Vol. 11 • July 1964 • No. 3
