Beneath the Bars of Justice
A Historical Work of Fiction
BY BAILEY-BANKSON
An Excerpt
CHAPTER THREE
As we walked, single file, down a long corridor, we could hear chains and keys and doors opening ahead of us. We turned and went down another corridor where I could now see chains being removed and a door opening. Finally, we were led into a very large jail cell, with the dogs right at the door nipping at our heels as we passed them. The officers were laughing because we were so frightened of the dogs. The last two girls in line were pushed into the cell, almost falling on their faces, and the door was shut with a loud bang. We could hear the chains being placed back on the door and the dogs barking ferociously.
Lo and behold, as I turned to look at the cell, I saw about 10 girls from Albany already in there! I knew as many of them as I did of the ones who were in my marching group. Some were even my classmates. But the best surprise of all was seeing one of my best friends, Bonnie.
“SavannahBelle,” Bonnie screamed. “I don’t believe it! Not the scary girl I know.”
We hugged each other. Then I said, “Shut your mouth! I am not scary. Anyway, how long have you been here, girl?”
“Since Thursday night, and this place is no picnic. Come on over to my cubicle. There’re only two of us in it so far, a girl from Monroe, named Dean, and me.”
Bonnie leaned closer and whispered, “Let’s pick who else we want before somebody is forced on us, ‘cause it’s gonna get mighty crowded in here.”
Bonnie invited my marching partner, Jackie, and two other classmates, Dee-Dee and Pat, to share the cubicle.
We learned from the other girls that we were in Camilla, which was about 40 miles from Albany. Most of them had been in jail only 2 days, but a couple of them had been in 3 days. In addition to the group of girls who came in with me, there were now 67 girls in the cell. Our ages ranged from 13 to 18 years, 9th grade to recent high school graduates.
Although it was after 1:00 o’clock in the morning, well past my bedtime, I was so tense that I didn’t feel at all sleepy or tired. I was trying to see how many of the girls I knew and check out our dismal surroundings. I was shocked at the accommodations.
The cell appeared to be about the length of a basketball court, with 10 small cells or cubicles along one side of the structure. Except for the first cubicle, there were two solid walls where two sets of bunk beds were anchored. The back enclosure had bars from floor to ceiling that allowed us to look out to a spacious corridor where there were big windows across the top of its outer wall, which allowed plenty of light to come into the cell, both during the day and at night, from the street lights. The first cubicle had a solid back wall where a toilet was anchored. All cubicles had bars across their entrance with an opening where a door had once been. I would guess that each cubicle was probably 8 feet by 8 feet.
In the center of the cell was a long iron picnic-style eating table with benches. In the far back corner, across from the 10th cubicle, was an open bathroom consisting of another toilet, a shower, and a small sink. Neither toilet had a seat. The girls had hung a sheet in front of this area to provide some degree of privacy.
The three solid walls that enclosed the cell were made of cinder block. The longest of those three walls was across the floor from the 10 cubicles and had six small windows with bars high on the wall near the ceiling. We were told that this wall faced the city’s main street, but the only way to be able to see outside was to stand on the picnic table or, if you were tall enough, you could stand on one of the benches.
The girls said that the long corridor on the other side of the cubicles with the big windows on the wall was used primarily by the jail trustee, Benny, a fortyish-looking Negro man who would do favors for us if we paid him.
Shocked, I asked Bonnie, “Does anyone in here have money?”
“Nickels and dimes, girl, but they add up.”
My first taste of jail reality was when it was time to try to get some sleep. I had not realized that there were no mattresses on the iron bunk beds nor were there enough beds to accommodate all the girls. There were 40 bed frames and 67 girls. This meant that there were 27 more girls than there were beds so almost everyone would have to double up. Some girls chose to sleep atop the picnic table and on the narrow benches rather than squeeze on a bunk bed. The girls who were there when we arrived said we would get used to the discomfort of sleeping on the iron frames.
I didn’t go to sleep at all that first night. Bonnie, Jackie, and I sat on Bonnie’s bed and talked and giggled the rest of the night. As the morning light began to enter the cell, more chatter could be heard. Girls were still learning who was there and what it had been like for those who had been locked up for a few days.
At about 7 o’clock the next morning, Sunday, we heard the banging of the cell doors and learned from the other girls that they were bringing breakfast. I hadn’t thought about food but suddenly realized how hungry I was. After hearing several banging doors, we could hear the jiggling of keys that opened the outer door to our cell and soon the inside cell door was opened.
We were ordered to line up beside the long solid wall. There were two officers and two other men who weren’t wearing police uniforms. They pushed two large carts inside the cell door. We were told to take a plate and spoon from the first cart and proceed to the next cart. At the second cart, one of the men served our plates. The menu was cold thick grits with grease-gravy poured over them, fatback, a slice of white bread, and a plastic cup of water that had a cloudy film on top.
I whispered as I headed to a spot at the table, “I can’t eat this.”
One of the girls who had been there a few days said, “Don’t throw it away. Someone else might want it. You’ll eat it when you get hungry enough.”
I was hungry and knew I would get hungrier, but I couldn’t see myself eating that food. No one else wanted my plate.
Lunch was a similar routine of lining up to be served. The menu was peanut butter sandwiches and water. Again, I could not stomach swallowing that.
Dinner was served at 5 o’clock. This was Sunday, so certainly, I thought, we would have a special meal. No such luck! We had fatty, greasy beef stew; potatoes; two slices of white bread; and sweet, syrupy tea. Again, I couldn’t eat any of it nor drink the sugary tea.
Many of the other girls were also having problems eating the food. Some ate the bread and tried to scrape off the grease and pull the fat off the meat, making every effort to eat some of the disgusting food.
After a day of chattering, dozing off and on, and wondering how long some of us could survive on the jailhouse meals, we decided on Sunday evening to have church service.
We gathered in the center of the cell and began singing spirituals and were really enjoying the harmony. Everybody joined in. Because many of the freedom songs were sung in the tune of spirituals, we easily transitions into a few of them. Someone started singing “Oh Freedom,” and I immediately thought of Larene because she loved this song so much:
Oh, oh freedom, oh, oh freedom, oh freedom over me, over me.
And before I’ll be a slave, I’ll be buried in my grave and go home to my Lord and be free.
No segregation, no segregation, no segregation over me, over me.
And before I’ll be a slave, I’ll be buried in my grave, and go home to my Lord and be free.
I almost cried because we sang it so beautifully. Then Brenda, one of the older girls, began to pray spontaneously. I was so amazed at her prayer. I had never heard a teenager pray with the kind of power she had.
“Jesus, O Jesus,” she said, “We need you right now, Lord. Yes, we need you and only you. We need you in this jailhouse tonight.”
Raising her voice like a preacher, she continued, “We need you to keep the devil away from us. We need you to protect us because our mothers and fathers can’t while we are locked up. They don’t even know where to find us. We need you to free us from these devils, Lord. There is evil all around us. We don’t know how long we will be here but we shall not be moved!”
Then someone started singing and the rest of us joined in:
We shall not be, we shall not be moved. We shall not be, we shall not be moved.
Just like the tree planted by the water, we shall not be moved.
And some of the girls were shouting “Amen,” and “Thank you, Jesus.”
“I wonder what churches they attend,” I whispered to Bonnie.
“Girl, who knows?” she snickered. “They sure don’t go to my little church. Only the deacons pray like that, and ladies aren’t even allowed to pray in church.”
“So, God, we beg you to change things for Negroes,” Brenda kept praying. “Don’t let White people continue to treat us like slaves. Let us see some of heaven right here on earth. Thank you for hearing our prayer. Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Amen.”
Everybody joined in, “Amen, Amen.”
As we began returning to our cubicles, many, it seemed, now filled with what my grandmother may have described as the Holy Ghost, Brenda said to Diane, one of the other older girls, “I heard you were talking about me today and I don’t let nobody talk about me. You got something to say, hussy, then say it to my face!”
“Who do you think you’re calling a hussy, hussy? I haven’t said anything about you. Besides, you ain’t significant enough for me to waste my precious time talking about,” Diane responded, as she got right in Brenda’s face. Diane was about 3 inches taller than Brenda, so she towered over her.
Then the two of them started a nasty exchange of insults and curse words. And it was all about a boy whom Brenda liked. According to some of the girls, he didn’t like Brenda but was crazy about Diane.
Some of Diane’s friends gathered around her, so Brenda began backing away as she continued uttering less threatening insults.
I couldn’t believe my ears! I couldn’t believe what had just happened! I’d never experienced such a mood switch before. This was the girl who had just prayed her heart out on our behalf, convincing me she was almost a preacher. In a flash, she had transformed from being a humble angel to an evil devil. She was right; there was evil around us and she was part of the problem. This made me very, very sad.
CHAPTER FOUR
After a restless second night of trying to sleep on an iron bunk bed frame with Bonnie, and with the confrontation between Brenda and Diane playing over and over in my head, it was again time for breakfast.
I had gotten up earlier and brushed my teeth, using just a smidgen of my toothpaste so that it would last, and tried to take a shower. The water was cold and there was no water pressure. The floor of the shower was filthy and had mildew on it. I tried to stand so that only my heels touched the floor; I kept my toes elevated hoping that I would avoid getting athlete’s foot between my toes. I smelled funky so I knew I had to endure the discomfort. However, the way it smelled in the cell, in general, it would have been almost impossible for anybody to pinpoint the source of any odor. The smell came in waves, and depending on your frame of mind, you could ignore it or become sick to the stomach. At that moment, I was able to ignore it.
We repeated the routine of lining up against the wall, getting a plate and spoon from the first cart, and being served from the second cart. There was a different man serving the food on this morning. He had a cigar hanging in the side of his mouth, and he used his hand to dip the grits out of the pot onto our plates. Yes, he used his bare, ungloved hand!
This was the nastiest and most disgusting thing I had ever seen! This unshaven, cigar-smoking man put his grubby bare hand in the food that we were to eat! He put the grease-gravy on top of the grits using a rusty spoon. Again, we had fatback and white sliced bread; this also was handled with his bare hand. However, the water did not have a film over it on this morning.
As much as I hate to admit it, I ate the center of the bread and drank a swallow of the water. I had to have something in my stomach. I felt sick before I ate it and sicker after I ate it. This was certainly a time when I had to control my thoughts about what was going on in order to keep from vomiting.
Soon after breakfast, I had my first sighting of Benny, the jail trustee. He had a push broom, mop, and pail and was beginning to sweep up and down the corridor while keeping his eyes on our cell. The girls who had been in the longest were familiar with him and began talking to him. They were asking if he could bring sodas and other snacks to us from the store because the food we were served was so nasty.
“Sure, gimme me the money,” he grinned.
“How do we know you won’t keep our money?”
“It looks like y’all will just have to trust me. Anyway, how do you think I became a trustee, baby? They trust me!”
Many of the girls hollered with laughter.
“Tell me this, who got the problem, you or me?” he asked.
“You got a point there, Benny,” someone agreed with him.
“I tell you want. I’m going to the store to get some cigarettes befo’ lunch and since I’m already going, I won’t charge you just this one time. Give me the money for what you want.”
The girls put together $3.76 and asked him to bring as many sodas, chips, cookies, and candy as the money would buy.
A girl named Pearl pulled one of the benches under the window to keep an eye out for Benny since the store was on the corner adjacent to the jail. After a while, she yelled in excitement, “Here he comes, here he comes!”
She said that Benny was coming out of the store with two large paper bags.
The girls who had pooled their money said they would share with all of us. Having abandoned my pocketbook in the church, I was grateful because I didn’t have a penny to contribute.
It seemed to be taking Benny a long time to come back with the snacks after Pearl announced that he had come out of the store.
Someone asked, “What if he doesn’t bring us anything or doesn’t give us our money back?”
About that time, we heard the opening and slamming of doors. It was lunchtime. We repeated the routine of lining up and being served. This time, we had jelly sandwiches and that sweet, syrupy tea.
I ate the edge of one slice of bread and drank a swallow of tea, but it had just too much sugar. I was still extremely hungry and began worrying about how long I would be able to survive on the little food I was eating.
I heard hand clapping and squealing from the girls and turned to see Benny out in the corridor with two large paper bags. He was sweating. He told us to hurry and take the items and hide them, as he handed them through the bars. He said he almost got caught because it was hard to hide two big bags.
We all thanked him over and over. He had bought 20 sodas, several bags of chips, cookies, and candy bars. We all shared the goodies. I had a cookie and a penny candy bar, and shared a bag of chips and soda with Bonnie, Dee-Dee, and Jackie. I thought it was the best tasting food I had had in my whole life!
Later that afternoon, after we nibbled on our snacks, we heard some commotion outside. Pearl and another girl named Marie jumped on the benches and looked out the window. Pearl reported that there was a city of Albany garbage truck in front of the jail.
“Oh no” she screamed!
“What? What?” several girls asked as they scrambled to get a spot on one of the benches to take a look.
“Girls, the boys are being led to the truck by several guards and big dogs,” Marie said anxiously.
“What’s happing? Oh, Lord, are they loading them in the truck to crush them and take them to the dump to bury them?” screamed one girl in anguish.
“Hold on, hold on! Well, will you look at this! The garbage truck is loaded with mattresses. They’re using the boys to unload it,” Pearl explained in a relieved voice.
Almost immediately, we could hear the banging of the jail doors in the distance. We all scrambled to make sure we were presentable. Then we heard the jiggling of keys as the door to our cell was soon opened. And there they were, our boys! Their backs were slightly bent as they brought the mattresses in under the direction of the guards and eyes of three large dogs.
Some of the boys were going with some of the girls and they were trying to sneak kisses or hugs as they placed the mattresses on the frames. I was shocked to see Steven, a rising junior whom I had a crush on. I didn’t even know he was in jail! Apparently, he had marched at an earlier rally. He was so cute and popular! He had no idea I was in love with him. Only Bonnie knew that and I had given her the eye to keep her mouth closed.
Steven’s girlfriend, Nona, was also in jail. They were sneaking a kiss when he took a mattress to one of the back cubicles. “Boy, oh boy, how lucky can you be?” Jackie asked, almost to herself.
After all of the mattresses were in place and the boys and guards had left, many of the girls started jumping up and down with joy because they had seen their boyfriends. The rest of us jumped up and down because we had something soft we could sleep on. Even though the mattresses were dirty and musty smelling, we were jubilant because our bodies ached from sleeping and sitting on metal.
As I sat on the mattress relaxing, I decided to start writing about what was happening to us during our stay in jail. I didn’t have any paper but, to get started, I improvised by using one of the large paper bags Benny brought our snacks in. What “back-to-school essays” we would be able to write when we returned in September! This was like no other summer I’d ever had.
I was snapped back to reality when I head commotion in the back of the cell.
“You bumpy face sapsucker, with your short hair-r-r! You been pickin’ on me all day, now I’m ready for you,” cried a girl with a thick Southern drawl.
I jumped off my bunk bed to find out what was going on. Most of the girls were gathering outside their cubicles into the open area of the cell. My 13-year-old classmate, Flora, was livid! She was hyperventilating and had started pacing and shouting to the top of her lungs at a girl named Quin, a recent high school graduate.
“You been strutting ‘round in my housecoat for 3 days! I haven’t had a chance to wear it none! And you took my hair rollers and comb. I don’t want any of my stuff back now. I’m just sick of you! You, you old outhouse smelling, mildew lips, pancake chest, alley cat,” Flora continued shouting.
Quin didn’t respond as she stood in the center of the cell looking shocked and embarrassed.
Flora’s sudden and unusual outburst shocked everybody. She was quiet, cute, and well liked. It was obvious, though, that she had taken all she planned to take.
One of the older girls pulled Flora to the side to calm and comfort her.
Quin was wearing a housecoat that seemed too little for her, and her hair was in rollers.
Bonnie whispered to me, “I’m no lawyer, but looks like the evidence speaks for itself. Quin is rather sneaky and spooky acting. I think she took advantage of Flora because of her age. Hey, but Flo showed her!”
Quin slithered back into her cubicle, speechless, so it seemed there would be no fight or any additional excitement at this time. The other girls wandered back to their cubicles.
Once Bonnie, Jackie, Dee-Dee, Pat, and I got back to our cubicle, we buried our faces in the musty-smelling mattresses to smother our hysteria.
“You bumpy face sapsucker, with your short hair-r-r,” snickered Bonnie.
We were going crazy trying to smother and control our laughter.
“No, no,” I said, “The funniest part was when she said, ‘You outhouse smelling, mildew lips, pancake chest, ally cat.’”
“Oh, Lord, save me,” Jackie screamed with laughter as she buried her head in the mattress.
Then, it became overwhelming and we just couldn’t help it. Our laughter escaped our mouths and could be heard throughout the cell. This was the funniest verbal attack we had ever heard.
Pat had climbed on the top bunk bed and was kicking her legs in the air, laughing so hard that she was breathless. Dee-Dee on a lower bed, pounded her fists into the mattress, hollering as she laughed.
I laughed so much that my stomach cramped. We continued laughing uncontrollably, between whispered recitations of Flora’s attack, for what must have been 15 minutes. We just couldn’t control ourselves.
Finally, Quin walked to the opening of our cubicle and shouted, “Shut the crap up!”
That brought about even harder and louder laughter because she still was wearing Flora’s housecoat and her hair was in those pink rollers that also belonged to Flora. And, she had a bumpy face. She glared at us angrily and then suddenly stormed away.
Jackie was now on her knees hollering with laughter, out of control. And our laughter was contagious, because soon laughter could be heard coming from other cubicles.
If I had been alone, I would have been afraid of Quin; but I was surrounded by friends and Quin was on the defensive, so my laughter grew even louder. And no matter how hard I tried, I could not stop laughing.
Then an older girl named Trudy, who wanted to appear more mature and sensible than most of the girls, and she probably was, stood on top of the eating table to get everyone’s attention and asked that we all bow our heads and pray. Of course, that quieted everyone. After all, we were in jail for religious-based, Constitutional-entitlement reasons.
Trudy prayed a long and softly spoken prayer.
She said, “Lord, come by our cell and keep us in harmony. We need you to guide us because we are children. When we do something wrong, we need forgiveness. We know that you don’t have time for fussing and fighting. We are looking for freedom. Petty things need to be left on the playground. Silly things have no place in the fight for freedom. We need to be serious. If we can’t be serious, we need to go home.”
“I know she’s talking about us being silly, but we didn’t start any of this, “ Bonnie said to me under her breath.
“Shh,” I said, “We did get out of hand.”
Trudy’s prayer seemed to settle everybody down. To put the icing on the cake, a couple of the girls began softly singing, and everybody joined in:
Come by here, My Lord, come by here.
Come by here, My Lord, come by here, Oh Lord.
Come by here, My Lord, come by here.
Oh Lord, come by here.
Somebody needs you, Lord, come by here.
Somebody needs you, Lord, come by here, Oh Lord.
Somebody needs you, Lord, come by here,
Oh Lord, come by here.
Singing and praying, Lord, come by here.
Singing and praying, Lord, come by here, Oh Lord.
Singing and praying, Lord, come by here,
Oh Lord, come by here.
In the calmness and quietness of the evening, with mattresses that helped to soothe our weary bodies, I began thinking about how one of my grandmothers always said how much we really need the Lord.
CHAPTER FIVE
My mind drifted back to an incident three summers earlier when I was 10 years old and visiting my grandmother in Cuthbert, a small town in South Georgia. Grand Vann is what we called Grandmother Savannah. I always loved spending time at her house during the summer because I felt independent and grown-up. Grand Vann lived on the main Negro street in Cuthbert, so everything worth knowing or worth seeing happened on Andrew Street. We could sit on her huge front porch and catch it all. Grand Vann also lived adjacent to a café, or juke joint as she sometimes called it. There was plenty of music and laughter every Friday and Saturday night.
I would sit near the end of the porch, which was closest to the café, so I could hear the laughter, especially from the ladies. There were different sounds to their laughter. Some were raspy, some were breathless and high pitched, and my favorite one had a lingering growl that seemed to snap at you. It was such a sweet sound. I never saw their faces or knew who was doing the laughing, but I imagined they were having the time of their lives, dancing and smoking cigarettes, sitting on café stools. I dreamed of being one of those ladies, with a beautiful laugh, having fun in a café.
Grand Vann didn’t know I had such aspirations. She would have quickly dispelled such outrageous thoughts. She just enjoyed having me sit with her as we watched the people entertain themselves. We would sit on her front porch from late afternoon, right after dinner, until about 9:30 p.m. I would have to take my bath and put on my pajamas at 8 but I was allowed to stay on the porch with her until she was ready to prepare for bed at 9:30.
People who had cars would ride up and down Andrew Street while others walked. Age didn’t matter. Everybody was out on weekends.
This particular late July Friday night seemed to have so much excitement in the air. People were laughing and talking as they strolled up and down the street and, as usual, speaking to Grand Vann as they passed her house. It seemed like a big street party, so when 9:30 rolled around, I didn’t want to go to bed and begged to stay up a little longer. Grand Vann agreed and we sat until a little past 10 o’clock. I was fast asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.
The clanging of empty beer bottles being dumped into a metal barrel woke me on Saturday morning, and I quickly rose, leaning on my elbows, to begin counting. I pushed the curtains aside so I could feel the breeze that was coming through the open window. It was just after 7 o’clock in the morning. A second dumping made a more thunderous sound. While I couldn’t see the barrel, I could smell the stale beer odor from across the narrow side street that separated Grand Vann’s house from the café. A minute later, I heard a third clanging sound of broken glass.
“Oh yes,” I whispered, “Keep them coming.”
Po-Boy dumped a total of six of those huge buckets into the barrel that morning. I was jubilant as I jumped out of bed. This meant that Mr. Boot, the café owner, would give big scoops of ice cream to the kids that day, maybe even two scoops. I had long ago determined that you could tell whether Mr. Boot had a great Friday night or just an average one by the number of buckets of empty beer bottles that were dumped on Saturday morning. If Po-Boy dumped four or fewer buckets of beer bottles, it was a lousy night even if I had heard the piccolo playing into the wee hours of the morning. However, five or more buckets of empty bottles meant the night had been jumping and Mr. Boot would be in a good mood. Although I was only 10 years old, I was very calculating.
I had my nickel ready and couldn’t wait until 5:00 o’clock when Grand Vann would allow me to walk (I actually skipped) over to the café and get an ice cream cone. Kids could enter the café until about dusk; after that, it was grown folk only.
On that Saturday evening, the town’s men had gathered at the café for their annual rattlesnake roundup. On Friday and Saturday, they participated in the hunt and brought their prized dead snakes to lay out in front of the café for the judging ritual. The man with the biggest snake would have bragging rights until the next year and would get free beer all evening.
Two of the men were in stiff competition—their snakes were longer than 10 feet. One of them, Mr. Jimmy, was a bit louder than the other men in expressing his excitement to win although they all were yelling and bragging about their kill. Grand Vann said it was nothing unusual, but the police happened to be riding by just at that time.
The two burly White police officers stopped their car in the middle of the street, but not one noticed them because they were focused on the dead snakes. The policemen left their car, without turning it off, in the middle of the street; they walked up behind the crowd of 30 or 40 men. They shined their flashlights at the men, which caught their attention. Within seconds, you could hear a pin drop.
One of the policemen asked, “What you boys think you doin’, disturbing the peace?”
Nobody said anything.
They continued shining their flashlights in the men’s faces, pushing them aside as they made their way to the steps of the café.
Looking at Mr. Jimmy, one of the officers asked, “Boy, didn’t you hear me?”
“Yes sir,” he responded.
“Is this your snake, boy?”
“Yes sir.”
He then made Mr. Jimmy lie down on his stomach on the concrete with his face pressed into the snake. He pulled out his billy club as the other officer put his foot on Mr. Jimmy’s back while telling him and the other men that they would not tolerate disorderly conduct in their town, not even in the colored section.
The piccolo had stopped playing and no one was laughing or talking.
Grand Vann said they were making an example of Mr. Jimmy.
He lay on the ground with his face pressed into that snake and the police officer’s foot on his back for a long time. When the officer finally removed his foot from Mr. Jimmy’s back, the other one hit him hard across his head with the billy club. We were told that blood splattered on those standing near him as Mr. Jimmy cried out in pain. The other men groaned in horror, as did Grand Vann, covering her mouth to quiet her anguish while she prayed, “Come by here, Lord, please come by here. Lord, we need you right now, right here.”
Walking backward, the officers slowly returned to their car, as if daring the men to say or do anything, and drove away.
Some of the ladies rushed out of the café and began wrapping Mr. Jimmy’s head in towels to stop the bleeding. Then, some of the men carried him home.
Mr. Boot didn’t announce a winner of the snake contest for that year. In fact, people turned in early that evening and he closed the café before 10 o’clock.
Grand Vann said any confrontation between Negroes and the law always made her think about poor Lena Baker, a Negro woman in Cuthbert who killed a White man.
She said, “Although it was about 15 years ago, it is still fresh in my mind. I knew Lena and her family; they didn’t live far from here, over on the corner of Cherry and Second Street, across from Miss Fluellen’s store. She worked for Mr. Knight, who owned a mill near downtown, and there had been whispers that he would keep her locked up at the mill many nights against her will. Although she had children and needed to go home, he wouldn’t let her. I guess he thought, like a lot of White folk, that he owned her.
“But one night when he wouldn’t let her leave, she fought back. He was going to beat her with a metal pipe, she said, but she grabbed his gun and shot and killed him. She said it was in self-defense, that he would have killed her if she hadn’t protected herself. The law saw it differently and said she murdered him in cold blood, and the jury of all White men agreed. She went to the electric chair in a matter of months. We saw firsthand just how the justice system works for Negroes. They talk about swift justice; that had to be a record for the electric chair.
“I get sad every time I think of the day Lena was executed,” she continued, seemingly to herself. “Perkins Funeral Home had to go all the way to Reidsville Prison to pick up her body. Mr. Perkins said he arrived at the prison and was standing next to the hearse waiting to be directed to come in to get the body when Lena got his attention from the prison window. He said he nearly fainted because he expected her to already be dead or at least to be strapped in the electric chair. She beckoned for him and, reluctantly, he walked closer to the building. She dropped a note from the window and asked him to give it to her three children. He said he could barely control himself emotionally. Unable to speak, he said he just nodded his head as he picked up the note from the ground.”
“Did he give the note to her children?” I asked.
“He said it was the hardest thing he’d ever had to do. The second hardest was bringing her body back to Cuthbert. So tonight, Lord have mercy, when those police officers beat Jimmy, I know nobody out there considered reporting it because who would believe the police did anything wrong? Besides, who would they report it to? ‘They were just enforcing the law’ would be the response, if they even bothered to say anything at all.”
After a brief silence, she said, “Let’s get some sleep; tomorrow is Sunday.”
I barely slept that night. I was haunted by thoughts of Mr. Jimmy being beaten and Lena Baker dying in that electric chair.
After getting dressed on Sunday morning, I kept waiting for kids to walk by the house as they always did on their way to Sunday school at Payne Chapel AME Church so I could join them for the three-block walk. I didn’t see anyone. It was getting late and I was afraid to walk alone for two reasons. I didn’t want to walk where those huge snakes had been laid across the sidewalk, and I also didn’t want to step on any blood left from Mr. Jimmy’s injury. The thought of the beating and all the blood made me tremble with fear.
Grand Vann’s house, the café, and the church were on the same side of the street, so I decided I would zigzag to avoid walking in front of the café. I crossed the street in front of Grand Vann’s house, ran the first block without looking in the direction of the café, then crossed back and walked the last two blocks to the church. I did the same thing on my return after the church service, even though Grand Vann was now with me and said there was nothing to fear. Other kids also were walking with us. But the image in my head wouldn’t let me get close to the café. In fact, I never again walked on the sidewalk in front of the café and never ate another ice cream cone from there.
Someone told Grand Vann on the following Monday that Mr. Jimmy had to be taken for medical treatment because his head was swollen so badly.
Although I returned to Albany by the middle of August, we called Grand Vann once a week and I always asked her how Mr. Jimmy was doing.
“He’s about the same, poor man,” she would say.
“What does that mean?” I’d ask.
“He’s not able to walk steady and is having problems speaking clearly. It’s like he’s had a stroke.”
When Grand Vann visited us at Thanksgiving, she told us that Mr. Jimmy was paralyzed and that he would never be able to care for himself again. He was now living with his sister and her family over in Alabama.
Throughout the Thanksgiving weekend, Grand Vann kept saying how much we need the Lord.
CHAPTER 6
We still needed the Lord on Tuesday morning in the Camilla jail. As we were getting “dressed” before they brought in breakfast, Benny came on the corridor with his bucket and mop and made an announcement that took me, and others, too, I guessed, by total surprise.
“Well, little ladies,” he began, with his chest stuck out, “I guess y’all have smiles on your little faces ‘cause today is visitation day.”
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