Fire from the Rock Read online

  Miss Ethel Washington, their English and Social Studies teacher, who was a stern, unsmiling woman with large hips and a tiny waist, got the class quiet and serious with a glance. She was tall and plump, and from what Sylvia could tell, probably close to sixty years old. She had taught many of their parents and a few of their grandparents as well.

  Her black hair, streaked with lots of gray, was pulled back tightly into a bun on her neck. She wore large brown glasses, which fell to the tip of her nose when she asked a question in class, and sturdy brown shoes. Her dresses, made of stiff fabric in various shades of black or gray or brown, never seemed to wrinkle. Sylvia had also never seen Miss Washington wear a brightly colored or a flowered dress. She figured a painted rose or a daisy just might wilt, like one of Miss Lillie’s leftover buds, if it had to lie that close to the body of Miss Ethel Washington!

  Calvin Cobbs, Miss Lillie’s son, didn’t take anything too seriously, and joked around as much as he dared in Miss Washington’s class. He whispered to Sylvia, “Miss Ethel woulda been a good army sergeant!” He chuckled at his own joke. Still laughing, he added, “Forget that—she would have made a good army truck!”

  Sylvia put her hand over her mouth so Calvin couldn’t see her smile. “You better hope she doesn’t hear you!” she told Calvin softly.

  “In old people, hearing is the first to go,” Calvin replied, not even whispering anymore. “There is no way the old bird knows what I’m saying.” He grinned at Sylvia, a look of careless confidence on his face.

  “Please specify the bird to which you are referring, Mr. Cobbs,” Miss Washington said suddenly as she loomed over his desk.

  Calvin shrank in his seat, his tan-colored, freckled face turning an odd shade of maroon. Sylvia shook her head and smiled to herself. Calvin got in trouble for his good-natured joking around almost every day, but he always bounced back.

  “Uh, bird? I was just asking Sylvia if she had heard anything about the integration of the schools,” he explained weakly. Then, turning the conversation to a subject he knew the teacher would like, he asked her, “So, Miss Washington, what do you think of segregated schools?”

  The teacher gave him her over-the-nose-and-through-the-glasses piercing stare, then replied, “Why don’t you ask the Supreme Court of this country what they think, Mr. Cobbs?” He’s in for it now! Sylvia watched with amusement.

  Calvin squirmed in his seat. “Uh, I can go to the library and find out,” he answered weakly.

  “Not necessary. What decision was rendered on May 17, 1954, Mr. Cobbs?” Miss Washington demanded with a glare that dared him to answer incorrectly.

  “Brown v. the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas,” Calvin replied, almost trembling.

  “And what did it say?” Miss Washington continued.

  “Uh, it said that separate but equal schools are illegal.” The teacher seemed to relax a little then, but Calvin had never figured out how to quit when he was ahead. So he asked then, “So how come it’s been three years and we still have segregated schools in Little Rock?”

  Miss Washington glanced out of the window and said nothing for a few moments. The class was absolutely quiet, waiting for her response. Finally she said to Calvin, “If you would stop your foolishness in class, Mr. Cobbs, and apply yourself to your studies, you could become a lawyer like Mr. Thurgood Marshall and help to implement that law.”

  “All I wanna do is grow flowers like my mom and make folks laugh like my dad. I don’t want to change the world,” Calvin muttered. “I should’ve kept my mouth shut.”

  Miss Washington continued. “Actually, I’m glad you brought it up, Mr. Cobbs. As you all know, back in 1954, the school board here in Little Rock said it would comply with the Supreme Court when they figured out how and when integration would take place here in our city. And I know that you’re aware that last year, when twenty-six Negro students tried to register in the white schools, they were turned down.”

  “My cousin was in that group!” Calvin offered. “She ain’t scared of nothing!”

  “That should be isn’t and anything,” Miss Washington corrected automatically. “There’s going to be plenty to be scared of, Mr. Cobbs, if it really happens this time.” She paused and sighed. “Although I think they hoped it would never happen, the school board has finally decided that integration will begin gradually this coming September, starting with the high school students, and adding the lower grades over the next few years.”

  “Are they gonna shut down our schools and make us all go to school with the white kids?” Reggie asked. He sounded concerned. “I like the fact that Dunbar and Mann are just for the colored kids! They don’t want us and we don’t need them.”

  “No, Mr. Birmingham. This process may take years. Next week we will start the selection process for those of you who might choose to be among the first, the proud, maybe even the famous. But it will not be easy. The white establishment does not want you there. It will be difficult, maybe even painful, and probably dangerous. I want you to go home tonight and talk to your parents. After much discussion and prayer, if you and your family wants to be considered for this, I want you to let me know. We are slowly compiling a list of possible students to present to the school board. Only the best and the brightest will be chosen. Will you be among them?”

  “I know I don’t want to be on that list,” Sylvia heard Reggie say.

  The bell rang then, and Sylvia exhaled as if she had been underwater. Integration! Here in Little Rock. Finally. And she and her friends could be the ones chosen to do it. What a terrible, horrible, wonderful decision this would be.

  Monday, January 7, 1957-afternoon

  Some of the students in my class don’t like Miss Washington because they think she’s mean, and others are just plain scared of her. She hardly ever smiles, and she looms over students like a grizzly bear over its prey, almost growling sometimes when we sound stupid. I wouldn’t want to be trapped in a cave with her, but I’m not afraid of her, and I know she’s tough on us so we can make it in a rough world.

  She tells us all the time that we have to be better prepared than the white children so that we can compete for jobs and opportunities. She told us she refuses to send incompetent, unprepared Negroes into a world that expects us to mess up in the first place. So she drills us constantly—grammar and vocabulary, states and capitals, continents and constellations, even the United States Constitution.

  Every single one of us-even Calvin Cobbs-can recite the Gettysburg Address and long passages of Shakespeare. We can spell and define every single one of the words on Miss Washington’s famous one-thousand-word list, and can probably conjugate irregular verbs in our sleep. When she’s teaching, she beats on the blackboard with her yardstick, and roars at us to learn and remember and recite. So we do.

  And it’s still just January. I don’t tell my friends, but I like her challenges and her demands. Although I don’t know how I’ll be able to afford it, I want to go to college. Miss Washington has never said she thought I was smart or anything, but I notice that she expects for me to have the right answers, even when other students get stuck.

  Miss Ethel Washington also talks to us about real things-like how to survive in a segregated world. I think she may have gone through some terrible experiences in her life—something to make her so stern and formal and unsmiling. I wonder what she really thinks of all this talk about integration.

  Miss Washington has also taught me to love poetry. I know dozens of poems by Paul Laurence Dunbar and Langston Hughes, as well as Walt Whitman and Robert Frost. She once posted one of my poems in the main hall during a parent open house event. Even though I didn’t think the poem was that great, I was really proud. Mama cried, because the poem was about her.

  MY MOTHER’S GARDEN

  She tends us like hyacinths-

  Delicate sprouts, fragile buds,

  Determined we will bloom.

  Fiercely she rips the weeds

  from around us—

  N
o ragged, uncultured

  piece of greengrowth

  would ever dare to approach us.

  We are carefully mulched in the winter

  with composted piles of hard-swept dust-

  to protect us from

  winter storms or sudden rains or

  frosty unseen chills in the night.

  In the spring

  we bloom with smiles and sunshine,

  we flower into tall, healthy blossoms,

  and we dance in the gentle soft rains of her love.

  Sylvia Faye Patterson

  MONDAY, JANUARY 7, 1957—EVENING

  How was your first day back to school, DJ?” Sylvia asked as she sat on her bed to start her homework.

  “Pretty good! All the kids thought my bandage was really neat, and it didn’t hurt me at all,” Donna Jean replied.

  “So you were the center of attention?”

  “Right where I like to be!” her sister replied, a look of victory on her face.

  “It helps that Mama is your teacher,” Sylvia said. “I used to like it when I was in her class. I always felt safe.”

  “Is Daddy home yet?” Donna Jean asked.

  “No, he had to work at the brickyard for a couple of hours,” Sylvia told her. She knew he often came home from his second job at Dimming’s Brickyard feeling tired, grumpy.

  “He never talks about that job,” DJ said. “Does he make bricks there, or what?”

  “He sweeps up, that’s all,” Sylvia explained. “Daddy never gets to make or lay any bricks. You have to be in the union for that and Negroes can’t join.”

  “That’s not fair!” DJ exclaimed.

  “So what else is new?” Sylvia replied with a sigh.

  “Are we poor, Sylvie?”

  “What made you ask that, DJ?”

  “Well, we’ve got a really old, ugly car!” Donna Jean laughed. “And we’re always looking for dimes in the sofa cushions so we can buy gas.”

  Sylvia hated their big black 1949 Chevrolet. It had a rounded front that looked like a nose, and a humped back. “That’s because Daddy is so cheap!” Sylvia replied with a laugh. “But you’re right, DJ. The new cars are so much sleeker. Those long fins make them look like they can fly down the road. Our car just plods along like an old donkey.”

  “It looks like a bear,” Donna Jean said, walking around the room hunched over and growling.

  “Daddy complains every time he has to put gas in it that he’s going to go broke if he has to keep paying twenty-four cents a gallon.”

  “Is that a lot?”

  “I think it’s like a full day’s wage. I read in the newspaper that the minimum wage is supposed to be a dollar an hour, but that must be only for white folks.”

  “Do you know how much money Mama and Daddy make?” Donna Jean asked.

  “I’m not sure, but I know that teachers at the colored school make about half as much as teachers in the white schools. And I know that women teachers make less than men.”

  “For real? Is that fair?”

  “Not much seems to be fair these days. At least Daddy gets a portion of the church donations. But when people are going through hard times, Daddy’s pay goes through hard times, too.”

  Donna Jean was about to answer, but Mrs. Patterson called them down to dinner. Their father had come home early, and seemed to be in a good mood. He kissed her mother on the cheek, gave Sylvia and Donna Jean big hugs, and grabbed a piece of corn bread off the plate. He gobbled half of it before his wife had a chance to pretend like she was going to fuss at him. He grinned at his family and stuffed the rest of it into his mouth while everybody laughed.

  “Now you see where Gary gets his eating habits,” their mother teased, laughing with them.

  “Where is that boy, anyway?” Mr. Patterson asked. The mood suddenly darkened, almost as if a shadow had slid across the kitchen linoleum.

  Her mother said nothing, but kept glancing out the kitchen curtains, hoping that Gary would turn the corner with his long legs and swaggering walk.

  “He’ll be here soon, Lester,” she said as she placed the rest of the food on the table. “Maybe he had some extra work to do at school.”

  Her parents were aware that was really unlikely, Sylvia knew. She scooped up a big pile of mashed potatoes and plopped a large pat of butter right in the middle of it. She loved it when the butter melted into the potatoes—she swirled it around and watched the colors and flavors collide. Besides, she figured that playing with her food was preferable to bringing up the subject of the integration of Central High School right now.

  Mr. Patterson prayed a long time before the meal, asking the Lord to keep his family safe in these difficult times. Nobody said much as they ate, but each person at the table kept glancing at the door, waiting for the next shadow to fall.

  It came with a thud and a curse. Mrs. Patterson stifled a scream when they heard an object hit their front porch. Sylvia thought it sounded soft, but heavy, like a large bag of fruit. The curse came as they ran to the door—three white boys ran down their driveway, cackling and shouting as they jumped into a black ‘56 Ford and sped away.

  When Sylvia’s father opened the front door, there lay Gary, curled like a bruised animal. Both his eyes were swollen and puffy, his nose was bleeding, and Sylvia saw cuts and bruises all over his head and arms. He held his arms tightly around his chest. Mrs. Patterson, once again calm in the face of calamity, didn’t lose her composure.

  “Sylvia, take Donna Jean upstairs, then get me some hot water and bandages. Hurry.” Donna Jean, her eyes wide with fear, didn’t object.

  Mr. Patterson, his face a mask of pain and anger, lifted Gary up as if he were a baby and brought him inside.

  “Should I call the doctor?” Sylvia asked as she hurried back down the stairs.

  “Not yet,” her mother said. “Let me see how bad it is.”

  “What about the police?” Sylvia asked.

  “Absolutely not,” her father replied strongly.

  “But, Daddy, you can’t let them get away with this! We have a colored policeman now. Can’t we call him?” Sylvia’s eyes flashed in anger. She remembered a unit her class had covered in second grade called, “The Policeman Is Our Friend,” where a smiling and very white police officer directed traffic and helped little old white ladies across the street.

  “He can’t even issue tickets, and for sure he’s not allowed to arrest a white person. Forget it!” her father said harshly.

  While her mother washed Gary’s wounds with warm water, Sylvia shook her head in disbelief. They had just endured this scene with Donna Jean a few days ago. It was like seeing a bad movie repeated in their living room. Sylvia shuddered, wondering if next it would be her bloody body that her mother would be soothing on the sofa, trying in vain to bandage up the hatred that caused it.

  Gary looked up and said through puffy lips, “I’m sorry, Mama.”

  “What happened, son?” his father asked. Sylvia hovered nearby, hoping she wouldn’t be sent out of the room like Donna Jean.

  “I made a couple of stops on my way home. I needed to talk to people who really know what’s going on.”

  “Why didn’t you just come straight home?” his mother asked.

  “I should be safe in my own town, Mama,” Gary said gently. “I shouldn’t have to be scared to go anyplace I want to.”

  “Such a hardheaded child you are,” his mother said, weeping. “You’ve always been my headstrong, bold baby. But it’s going to get you killed, Gary.”

  “Don’t cry, Mama. I’ll be fine. I promise I’ll be more careful.” Gary reached up to touch his mother’s face.

  “So where did you go?” his father asked. He was pacing the floor again.

  “I stopped by the NAACP office to see if there was any news about the school integration stuff.”

  “No wonder they targeted you!” his father roared. “Why do you hang around those people?”

  “Because when they choose students to go, I int
end to be one of them!” Gary replied with as much vigor as his injuries would allow.

  “Well, this certainly isn’t going to help your chances!” Mr. Patterson retorted angrily. “Even if we decided to let you try!”

  “It wasn’t my fault!” Gary protested. “I was almost home-walking down the street, minding my own business, when those three boys started calling me ‘Nigger’ and ‘Coon.’ One of them was Johnny Crandall. The other two were Sonny and Bubba Smith. They were in a car, but they followed me real slow, yelling and cursing the whole time.”

  Everybody knew not to tangle with the Smith brothers. They called themselves the “Wild Cherry Cough Drops,” and had been known to vandalize cars and steal from the Zuckers’ market. They took great pleasure in driving their ‘56 Ford up and down the streets of the Negro neighborhood all night long. The car had no muffler, so it sounded like a mechanical animal in distress, and a very loud, specially installed horn blared the song “Dixie” so loudly it could be heard blocks away.

  “Couldn’t you just have ignored them, son?” his mother asked tearfully as she bandaged the cuts on his head. “Doesn’t the Good Book tell us to turn the other cheek?”

  “I tried, Mama, but then they started throwing beer cans at me, so I picked up one of the cans and threw it back. It hit Bubba Smith in his eye.” It looked to Sylvia like Gary was trying to smile, but his lip was pretty swollen by this time. “They stopped the car, jumped out, and even though I got in a couple of good punches, I couldn’t stop all three of them.”

  “How did they know where you live?” his father asked.

  “They know, Dad. They know. They tossed me back on my own porch to send a message. They know I’ll never stop fighting for what’s right!”