And All Our Wounds Forgiven by Julius Lester

OVERCOME.’’
    MARCH 25, 1965: LOWNDES COUNTY, ALABAMA — VIOLA LIUZZQ, 40, A WHITE MOTHER OF FIVE FROM DETROIT, SHOT AND KILLED WHILE DRIVING A CIVIL RIGHTS MARCHER BACK TO SELMA AFTER THE SELMA-MQNTGQMERY MARCH.
    JUNE 2, 1965: VARNADQ, LOUISIANA — ONEAL MOORE, 34, FIRST BLACK DEPUTY IN WASHINGTON PARISH, SHOT AND KILLED.
    JULY 18, 1965: ANNISTQN, ALABAMA — WILLIE BREWSTER, 39, SHOT AND KILLED WHILE DRIVING HOME FROM THE PIPE FOUNDRY WHERE HE WORKED.
    AUGUST 20, 1965: HAYNEVILLE, ALABAMA — JONATHAN DANIELS, 26, A WHITE MINISTERIAL STUDENT, SHOT AND KILLED.
    JANUARY 3, 1966: TUSKEGEE, ALABAMA — SAMUEL YQUNGE, JR., 22, A STUDENT CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST, SHOT AND KILLED TRYING TO USE WHITES ONLY RESTRQQM AT A SERVICE STATION.
    JANUARY 10, 1966: HATTIESBURG, MISSISSIPPI — VERNON DAHMER, 58, VOTING RIGHTS ACTIVIST, KILLED WHEN HIS HOME IS BOMBED.
    JUNE 10, 1966: NATCHEZ, MISSISSIPPI — BEN CHESTER WHITE, 67, MURDERED BY THREE WHITE MEN WHO WANTED TO KILL A NIGGER.
    FEBRUARY 27, 1967: NATCHEZ, MISSISSIPPI — WHARLEST JACKSON, 37, MURDERED AFTER BEING PROMOTED TO A PREVIOUSLY WHITE-ONLY JOB AT THE ARMSTRONG RUBBER COMPANY WHERE HE WORKED.
    MAY 12, 1967: JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI — BENJAMIN BROWN, 22, WHILE GOING TO A RESTAURANT TO GET A SANDWICH FOR HIS WIFE, KILLED WHEN POLICE FIRE ON PROTESTORS THROWING ROCKS AND BOTTLES FARTHER DOWN THE THE SAME STREET.
    FEBRUARY 8, 1968: ORANGEBURG, SOUTH CAROLINA — SAMUEL HAMMOND, 19, DELANO MIDDLETON, 18, HENRY SMITH, 20, SHOT AND KILLED WHEN HIGHWAY PATROLMEN FIRE ON STUDENT PROTESTORS.

    i have wondered if the real work of the civil rights movement was not interracial sex. do not misunderstand. i am not deriding the passage of the 1964 civil rights act or the 1965 voting rights act. i am not dishonoring the memories of all of us who died. but if social change is the transformation of values, then the civil rights movement did not fulfill itself. there has not been any diminution in the ethic of white supremacy’, instead racism has added legions of black adherents, making america an integrated society in a way i never dreamed. our racial suspicions and hatreds have made us one nation.
    the sixties were unique because so many blacks and so many whites took the risk of extending themselves toward the other. in the twentieth century, there was a brief period of a mere eight years when a significant number of blacks and whites lived and worked and slept with each other. those who did so were forever changed.
    i used to feel guilty about what seemed a compulsion to be with a white woman. i do not know even now when the feeling began. i suspect it antedates my existence, that it begins — where? — on the slave auction block at annap-olis? or charleston? or savannah? who was that african who survived the middle passage, survived the breaking-in period in the west indies where he was acculturated to slavery and then, brought to these shores and placed on an auction block? while standing there did he look out and see for the first time a woman with skin the color of death and hair the color of pain and eyes the color of the corpse-filled sea? did he look at her and she look at him and know?
    i was around 7. one Saturday morning i went into montgo-mery with my father. we were walking along a street. i happened to look up and see a white girl on the other side. she looked like a woman. given my age, she was probably no more than 12. into my mind came the words: “I’m going to marry her one day.” she did not see me, did not know i existed on the planet. what did i see that led to such words? it was as if the story had been leading to that moment for centuries: “i’m going to marry her one day.”
    that is how social change happens. a 7-year-old alabama colored boy thinks a thought it is doubtful any other 7-year-old alabama colored boy had ever thought. except, and i need to be accurate, i didn’t think it. the thought thought me. however, i did not reject it. other 7-year-old