It didn’t take long for me to tune them out, and my eyes—?and mind—?began to wander again. River. The Tallahatchie. A body weighted down with a seventy-pound cotton-gin fan. I had never been inside a cotton gin, but they always looked scary to me. A huge barnlike building where cotton was processed. Very spooky.
Seventy pounds is a lot of weight. I had picked that much cotton before, and I could never lift the sack. I shivered as I imagined someone binding an object that heavy around my neck, then throwing my body into the river. What if that had been Hallelujah? Or Fred Lee? It didn’t matter who he was, really, because he still belonged to somebody. Somebody who loved him.
By the time my mind drifted from the Tallahatchie River and found its way back to Greater Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church, the congregation had completed their moaning of “Jesus Keep Me Near the Cross,” and the seven-member choir had begun to sing another song about Calvary.
“Calvary,
Calvary, Calvary, Lord!
Surely He died on Calvary.
Don’t you hear Him callin’ His Father?”
About midway through the song, Miss Doll changed the lyrics. “Can’t you hear him callin’ his mother? Can’t you hear him callin’ his mother?” she sang again and again.
Several women removed handkerchiefs from their purses and began dabbing their eyes. Ma Pearl’s eyes bulged as though she might cry as well.
“Scorned and beaten, despised of men,” Deacon Edwards, the thinnest man I had ever seen in my thirteen years, cried over the singing. His words blended into the singing as though they were part of the lyrics. “A dog got a better chance at living than a Negro in Mississippi,” he said.
The choir continued to moan “Calvary,” as several “amens” were murmured among the members.
Miss Doll’s voice got louder. “Can’t you hear him callin’ his mother? Can’t you hear him callin’ his mother? Surely, oh surely, he died in Mississippi.”
Miss Doll could no longer contain her tears, and they came spilling from her eyes. Women began to shout and holler, and the ushers sprang into action. The air around me was thick, and I thought I would suffocate. I had been going to church all my life, and I had never felt “the Spirit” until that moment. I don’t know what came over me, but my body began to tremble and tears gushed from my eyes as well.
Ma Pearl gave me a handkerchief, and I buried my face in it. Even though many others were crying, I somehow felt embarrassed to allow them to see my emotions so openly displayed.
“Jesus, forgive me of my sins, seen and unseen,” came a shout from the back. The voice belonged to Aunt Ruthie.
I peered back, but Ma Pearl’s head turned so fast, I was sure she would snap her neck. Aunt Ruthie, according to her, was what the Apostle Paul called himself: the chief of sinners. The only sin I knew Aunt Ruthie committed was marrying that old slue-footed Slow John, which was both a sin and a shame.
Aunt Ruthie stood, her arms splayed as though hanging on a cross. Her face turned heavenward, tears flowing, she cried out for mercy. Her children, all holding on to her, cried too.
By the time the choir and Deacon Edwards finished, the only dry eyes in the little church belonged to Ma Pearl. And even hers were a little moist.
My body rocked with emotion. Emotion I had never felt before. I remembered how I felt at my first funeral. How I cried because children—?grown children—?cried for their mother. And I remembered how I felt at Levi’s funeral. But something was different this time. This wasn’t a funeral, yet I felt as though it were. Somehow I felt that something worse had happened than what happened to Levi. This boy, Emmett, they say his name was, had only been visiting. He wasn’t like the rest of us—?born in Mississippi, stuck in Mississippi, just waiting for our chance to get out of Mississippi. He’d come here to visit, to spend time with relatives, enjoying good food and laughter, the way I had wanted Aunt Belle to. Instead he made one mistake, and he was sent back home in a pine box.
Sometimes I wished God would give Gabriel a big eraser and say, Gabe, I made a mistake. I should have made everybody one color. So take this eraser, go down to earth, and erase the color. Make everybody colorless so they can all feel special.
As tears streamed down my face and as Deacon Edwards moaned and sang, “‘I love the Lawd. He heard my cry. I-I-I-I l-o-o-o-ve d-e-e-e Law-awd. He-e-e-e hear-r-r-r-d my-y-y-y cry. And pitied every groan,’” I realized I was crying not for Levi Jackson nor for Emmett Till, but for myself, Rose Lee Carter. Because I was a Negro. A person of color. A person who could be killed simply because my skin had a color. And that color happened to be a dark shade of brown.