Nobody Said Amen. Tracy Sugarman

Chapter Two

      A Trailways bus took them to Memphis, and when they got there Dale Billings, another SNCC field worker from Shiloh named Harold Parker, and Johnny Buckley, a red-headed volunteer from Seattle, joined Ted at the Hertz counter. The Hertz lady was blond and pretty. “Yes, we have a car for you. No, we don’t have any with Mississippi plates.”

      Johnny Buckley leaned over Ted’s shoulder and smiled at the woman. “You certain, pretty lady?”

      Her eyes flicked from Buckley to the two Negroes waiting beside him. “I’m absolutely certain.” Her voice had altered. “Why don’t you try one of the other agencies? You planning a long trip?”

      “Several weeks,” Ted said. “Thank you. I’ll check the other agencies.”

      She watched them move to the other rentals. “No, sir. No car with Mississippi plates.” “No, sir. No car at all.” The cool blonde stood, arms crossed, as Ted returned to the Hertz counter. “Ma’am, I’d like to rent a car with Tennessee plates.” Deadpan, she reached for the form and filled it out. Without a word she pushed it toward him and held out a pen for him to sign with. As he thanked her, a small smile flitted across her face. “Y’all will find the car parked across the road in space 49.” She paused just a moment, leaned back on the counter and crossed her arms again. “It’s a yella Chevy. Bright yella, with Tennessee plates.” With a dimpled smile, Buckley said, “Thank you, pretty lady.” She looked at the engaging redhead and her eyes were clouded. “Y’can’t fool ’em, y’know.” When Buckley and Ted picked up the keys from the counter, Dale and Parker were already out the door.

      The neat geometry of the Delta unfolded as they moved at 55 miles per hour into the heartland of Mississippi. Dwarfed cotton plants stretched in symmetric rows almost to the horizon, the dark soil between the rows cartwheeling like black spokes as the Chevy moved down Highway 49. Next to Ted, Dale Billings stretched his legs under the dashboard, looping his arm carelessly over the back of the seat. The attitude of repose was deceptive, for his eyes were quick and alert, scanning the road ahead and behind for any vehicles. “Take it easy,” he cautioned. “The car traveling toward us could be the Highway Patrol who move up and down this route.”

      Ted’s eyes moved once more to the mirror, once more to the road ahead and the approaching vehicle, and then to the shivering needle of the speedometer. You can bet your ass they know you’re coming. For the first time he began to feel the tension in his neck. It was a Ford pickup truck. The two white men in farmers’ straw hats studied their license as they sped past, one craning his neck to see who was inside the Chevy. As Ted read his mirror, the man next to the driver turned and watched them. Dale saw the Ford grow small in the distance. “They’re gone, Ted. But watch your speed.”

      Watch his speed! Christ, he’d never monitored his speed so carefully in his up-till-now long life. He was getting a stiff neck watching his speed.

      “Doesn’t matter a hell of a lot whether you going fifty-five or sixty-five,” said Parker from the back seat. “If the Mississippi Highway Patrol arrests you and says you were going eighty-five, you were going eighty-five.”

      “So why am I breaking my stiff neck going fifty-five, Dale?”

      Dale Billings laughed. “Okay by me. Go eighty-five and we’ll get there quicker.”

      “Maybe,” said Buckley.

      A Negro kid was sitting next to him, and he was driving down Highway 49 in the Mississippi Delta. It was a new feeling, edgy, uncomfortable. Did Dale feel as exposed as he did? Safer if he sat in the back? So approaching cars wouldn’t notice? Ted was ashamed to think this way. Christ, he couldn’t take his eye off that damned rearview mirror! He tapped Dale’s knee and stepped on the gas. “Joe Louis said it, Dale. You can run but you can’t hide.”

      Dale laughed. “Look at that country out there, Ted. Good for running, terrible for hiding!” It was suddenly very clear. He couldn’t work down here this summer if he was going to be running scared. His story was right here—young kids moving into “who knows what” to try to register black Americans so they could vote. They were all silent now. Just watching. And he had work to do. When they reached Clarksdale, Dale made the decision for him.

      “We’re getting close to Klan country, Buckley. You get up here. I’ll hunker down in the back with Parker when we’re approaching Shiloh so it looks like it’s just two white guys in the car. When you see the Kilbrew gas station on your right, Ted, take the next left and you’ll pass the Sojourner Chapel. Jimmy Mack said we’ll meet there at seven tomorrow night.” Dale’s eyes swept the car. “Meanwhile, get to know the families you’ll be staying with.”

      Ted Mendelsohn breathed easy for the first time since he’d left Memphis. He had brought the wheels they’d need. Now the baton had been passed.

       Chapter Three

      On Sunday, right after service, Jimmy Mack had come up to Percy and Rennie, bursting with the news. “They’re arriving tomorrow, Mr. Williams. Driving in from Memphis. Can you believe it, Sister Rennie? And I’m hoping the journalist can stay with you. He’s an older man than the students, I don’t think he’ll be a bother. Has kids of his own up in Washington, D.C. Got to know him a little at the orientation.” Jimmy had run out of breath then, looking expectantly at Mr. Williams. “Is it still okay with you?”

      Rennie had looked at Percy, knowing he would do the Christian thing. And of course he had. As for her, if Jimmy Mack had asked her to do it, she would have anyhow. So on Monday Ted Mendelsohn had arrived with Jimmy Mack, and Percy had told him, “You are very welcome in this house.” And Rennie had said, “You can share our granddaughter Sharon’s room, Mr. Mendelsohn. She don’t take much space.”

      “Mr. Mendelsohn is my father, Mrs. Williams. Please call me Ted.” And it was done. “’Course Percy still calls him Mr. Mendelsohn and he calls Percy Mr. Williams,” she told Jimmy later. But from the get-go, he was Ted to her and she was Rennie to him. She couldn’t help laughing, watching Sharon. The way that baby was carrying on with that white man! Ted Mendelsohn never did seem strange to Sharon.

      By Friday morning the rest of the summer volunteers for Shiloh were arriving, so Ted rose early, eager to move outside to get the feel of the neighbors about their coming. Rennie was outspoken and scornful of the two black teachers on the block. They had told her, “You shouldn’t let that Communist stay at your house.”

      “I tol’ them he’s just a vetrin like my Percy. He’s got kids. He ain’t no Communist. He’s a reporter.” And when the electric company had come around and told her if she didn’t get the Communist out of her house, they’d have to tote up her back bills and she wouldn’t like that, Rennie told them to go read their Bible and study up on charity. “They all just scared folks, Ted, and they ought to be ashamed!”

      Mendelsohn wondered how many others were like the teachers and the electric company. And how many Rennie Williamses there’d be to run interference for him. It was important to know because tonight was the first meeting at the Sojourner Chapel.

      From behind her cracked glasses, Rennie Williams watched the tall reporter gathering his notebooks and camera, gulping the coffee she had warmed on the little stove. She smiled at the spectacle as he moved across their tiny living room, his head bent because the ceiling was very close.

      “Hi, Sharon baby!” he called, and Rennie’s little granddaughter came running, laughing, clasping his legs in her chubby arms. Rennie grinned, shaking her head. She’d never thought the ceiling was low before. But so much was new in her thinking since the white man had arrived. Mendelsohn squatted, taking Sharon’s hand and then blowing on it to make her giggle. When he rose he paused at the screen door and called back to the kitchen. “I’ll pick up the corn meal and hamburger meat, Rennie. I’m going cross-town near the grocery. See you later.”

      “Thank