“So?”
Hallelujah’s brows shot up. “So?” He motioned toward the cotton field. “Is that your land you just picked cotton from?”
“You already know it’s Mr. Robinson’s land,” I said, annoyed at him.
He nodded toward the cotton sack. “How much you gonna get for spending the day in the blazing hot sun filling that thing with cotton?”
“Nothing,” I muttered.
“Because this land ain’t your land,” he said, smiling, satisfied.
I recalled what Mr. Pete had said to Papa before they left for Chicago: A Negro can own all the land in Mississippi and still be treated worse than a hog. “You know that’s why Mr. Pete left, don’t you?”
Hallelujah scoffed. “What good is it for a Negro to own acres of cotton if the white man owns the scales?”
I laughed and told him how I always thought Mr. Pete was rich.
“No such thing as a rich Negro in the Mississippi Delta,” he replied. “Unless you count Dr. Howard in Mound Bayou. But that’s because Mound Bayou was built by Negroes and is run by Negroes.”
“Papa said that all Mr. Pete got for his land was enough to buy a fancy car and drive it to Chicago. He thinks it’s a shame he’s working for Armour and Company, making soap.”
Hallelujah winced. “He’ll make more in a factory in Chicago than he would’ve made growing cotton in Mississippi. But if he was white . . .”
He didn’t finish the statement. He simply stared out at the rows and rows of cotton and glowered.
“You gonna do the play?” I asked.
“No.”
“What’d Reverend Jenkins say?”
Hallelujah shrugged. “Haven’t told him. But he’ll probably agree with me.”
“Just do it,” I said. “Don’t cause any trouble for Miss Wilson.”
Hallelujah gave me a sideways glance. “Did you read the last few lines in that article?”
“I read the whole thing.”
“‘If this slaughtering of Negroes is allowed to continue,’” he read from the magazine, “‘Mississippi will have a civil war. Negroes are going to take only so much.’” He slapped the magazine shut. “Those were the words of Dr. T.R.M. Howard of Mound Bayou. And I agree with him. Jim Crow has muted colored folks in Mississippi for too long. It’s time for us to speak up and be heard.”
“And get shot.”
“They’re gonna kill us anyway. Might as well die a hero.”
“Or a fool.”
Hallelujah dismissed my comment with a wave of his hand. “If there’s gonna be a civil war in Mississippi between colored and white, I’ll be the first to sign up.”
“And maybe the first to die.”
“They can’t kill all of us.”
“Says who?”
“Eisenhower would send troops down here before he let that happen.”
I laughed. “You think the president of the United States cares about Negroes in Mississippi?”
“Abraham Lincoln did.”
I stood and stretched. “Well, I, for one, ain’t ready to die,” I said, yawning. “I want to live. And not in Mississippi.”
“Well, I’m not running. I’m staying. And I’m fighting.”
“Thought you were going to Ohio.”
“I am. But not anytime soon. Like I said, if there’s gonna be a civil war between coloreds and whites, I’m up for the task. If old man Preacher Wright won’t run, then neither will I.”
Maybe Hallelujah was right. Maybe it was time to fight. If Mississippi was willing to have a trial for two white men who killed a Negro, maybe the battle was already halfway won. But of course, there were always people who did what they could to dodge a war—?like Ma Pearl’s brother Elmer, who Papa said refused to fight in the First World War. Uncle Elmer said the fight wasn’t his business, much like Ma Pearl was always claiming the fight between coloreds and whites wasn’t hers.
Was it mine? I wasn’t so sure. I didn’t know if I could be as brave as Hallelujah or Preacher Mose or even Levi Jackson, who risked his life to fight for change.
“I’m proud of you. You know that?” I said, smiling at Hallelujah.
He tipped his hat. “You should be. I’m a man who’s going places. And right now I’m about to go in there and feast on whatever Miss Sweet cooked up for supper.”
I turned up my nose. “Cornbread. Warmed-up speckled butter beans we had at dinnertime today. Fried corn. Okra and stewed tomatoes.”
“Beats the air soup Preacher’s serving up at our place,” Hallelujah said, patting his stomach.
I tilted my head to one side and squinted to keep the evening sun from my eyes. “You been there before, haven’t you?”
“Where?”
“Money.”
Hallelujah shrugged. “A few times.”
“You ever been to that store? The one where they say Emmett Till talked to the woman?”
He nodded.
“You see her?”
Hallelujah turned his gaze from me and stared at the ground. “Twice.”
“She pretty?”
Hallelujah nodded.
“Would you have done it?”
“Whistled at her?”