The Darkest Child by Delores Phillips Page A

mo’,” Sam said.“I know I make it hard for myself, but, hell, Max can tell y’all some of the things we been through.We went out wit’ Mr. Butterfield one time. I asked him before I got on his truck, and he told me he needed cotton pickers at three-and-a-half cents a pound. I sweat my way through a hundred and fifty pounds of cotton. It was dark when we finished, and he gave us seventy-five cents apiece. Said we had done put rocks in our sacks.”
    “I remember that,” Max said. “Sam, man, you cried like a baby all the way back into town.The whole truckload of us was scared to touch you or say anything to you.”
    Sam laughed.“I didn’t cry, Max, but I know I was mad enough to kill that bastard. I wanted to kill ’im, but I always heard that nig-ger time in a jail is worst than death.”
    “I believe it is,” Andy Porter said, “and that’s what everybody’s scared of. Don’t nobody wanna go to jail, but if you added up all the law in Triacy County, it would total nine white men— ten, if you wanna count Chadlow. I think there’s enough of us to beat ’em down.”
    “And what would that accomplish, Andy?” Junior asked.“Don’t you know they have politicians in this town who would appoint somebody else before you could blink your eye?”
    “They can appoint me,” Andy asserted. “What’s wrong with a Negro being sheriff around here. Shit. I can crack a nigger’s skull as well as the next man.”
    There was laughter, and then the conversation turned serious again, with each man telling his story, justifying his reason for taking his place in their gathering on a cold winter night. Some of the voices I recognized, others I did not.
    “It’s the schools,” Harvey said.“I thought a law had done passed that said all the children can go to school together.Archie Preston say the Plymouth School is falling apart, and he oughta know, being the janitor. He say one of them children gon’ get hurt up in there.”
    “Well, Harvey, that’s nothing new,” Junior informed him.“That school was falling apart when you and I were in first grade together. The state of Georgia has a governor, Melvin Griffin, who has stated that there will be no mixing of the races during his administration. I don’t think there’s anything we can do to change the man’s mind, so we’ll have to make do for a while longer. Things are changing, though, and some of that change is bound to spill over into Pakersfield. I keep writing letters, that’s all I know to do. I’ve written to the NAACP and to some of the larger newspapers in this state. I’ve also talked with a reporter at the Pakersfield Herald.
    ”
    “Junior, you can’t trust no white man,” someone said.
    “They’re not all bad, Homer.You have to trust somebody.”
    Then Homer’s voice said, “Hambone and a few of us believe in an eye for an eye. I admit I get mad enough sometimes to kill ’em all, but I ain’t figured out yet how to best use my switchblade against them rifles and shotguns they got.”
    There was laughter before Sam said, “You ain’t never gon’ figure that out, Homer. Can’t be done.”
    “The best way to get them is through education,” Junior countered. “What good are laws that cannot be read or understood, or a tongue that spews only hatred and ignorance? What good is the written word to an illiterate man?”
    Complete and utter silence followed. I imagined the other men must have been staring at him with the same perplexity that I sometimes felt when Junior spoke.
    Finally Sam said, “Shit, Junior, we ain’t out here to listen to no . . .” He paused.“What the hell you talking ’bout?”
    “I guess I believe in education as a weapon in our fight. That’s why I walk those roads out through the country every week. I want to help people learn to read and write. I know knives and guns are not the answer. Once we get a fight like that started, who will have the power to stop it? How many deaths will be