“What?” I asked, eager to know what he thought my strange utterance meant.
“Stars can’t shine without darkness,” Hallelujah repeated. “You’ve got to have some darkness to know what light is. If every Negro who could leave packed up and left, the struggle wouldn’t be the same.”
I frowned, indicating that I still didn’t understand.
Hallelujah pointed at the church. “Your aunt in there . . . she owns a beauty shop, right?”
I nodded.
“What if she had stayed here, in Mississippi, and opened a shop?”
“White folks would find a way to sabotage it, like they do your aunt Bertha’s store, perhaps?”
Hallelujah nodded. “Perhaps. But I’m willing to bet,” he said, staring intently toward the illuminated windows of the church, “if she had been able to open a shop here, in a place where our people are shunned and oppressed, it would have made her feel even more accomplished than she already does.”
“Stars shine brighter in the darkness,” I said quietly.
Hallelujah crossed his arms over his chest and nodded. “Dreams have more meaning when you have to fight for them,” he said. “That’s why folks like my father choose to stay. They know they have a right to be here, and they’re willing to do whatever it takes to make those rights equal.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 23
WHEN I WAS LITTLE, WATCHING A TEENAGE AUNT BELLE grow into womanhood, I thought she was the toughest, bravest person I knew. Papa was certainly right about her having grit. Unlike Mama and the rest of my aunts, Aunt Belle was never afraid of Ma Pearl. Aunt Ruthie told me once that she had the same opportunity as Aunt Belle—?to go to Saint Louis and become a beautician. She said every time Great-Aunt Isabelle came to Mississippi, Aunt Ruthie would do her hair. And every time, Great-Aunt Isabelle would say to Ma Pearl, “Sweet, you need to let me take this girl back to Saint Louis. I’ll send her to beauty school so she can get licensed to do hair and make a decent living for herself. She won’t need much training with all the talent she already got.” And every time, Ma Pearl refused, even when Great-Aunt Isabelle suggested allowing Aunt Ruthie to be trained as a chef rather than a beautician. But the vocation didn’t really matter. Aunt Ruthie said that Ma Pearl was too suspicious of Great-Aunt Isabelle, convincing herself that her spinster sister-in-law made her money running a brothel rather than a boarding house.
“She ain’t go’n take my daughter to the city and ruin her,” Ma Pearl had said.
So Aunt Ruthie ended up marrying Slow John instead and became a punching bag rather than a beautician, a chef, or “ruined.”
When Great-Aunt Isabelle saw the same talent in Aunt Belle, she asked Ma Pearl again to let her take the child back to Saint Louis with her. Again, Ma Pearl said no. At age nineteen, Aunt Belle—?who had hidden away half the money she earned caring for various white women’s children and ironing the shirts of various white women’s husbands—?packed her bags and caught a train to Saint Louis without Ma Pearl’s blessings. Yes, Aunt Belle had grit. Which is why I was so surprised to see her sitting, doubled over on the sofa in the parlor, her head in Monty’s lap, sobbing so hard that her body quaked.
Monty, rubbing her back, looked as if he, too, might cry any minute.
The trial for the two white men who had killed Emmett Till was over. And just as Hallelujah had predicted, the jury had set them free.
For as long as I live, I don’t think I’ll ever forget the looks on Aunt Belle’s and Monty’s faces when they walked through the front door. It was as if they had returned from a funeral. In a sense, I guess it could’ve been considered a funeral, seeing how hope had died that day.
“It was all a farce,” Aunt Belle said, her voice choked and garbled with tears. “The whole trial was just for show. They never planned to convict those men.”
Monty said nothing. With his eyes cast downward, he only nodded and rubbed her back.
Aunt Belle raised her head and wiped her face with the back of her hand. “Did you see them kissing? Did you see that evil devil and his wife stand right there in front of a camera and lock their faces together for all the world to see? Like they were having a private moment in their own bedroom?”
Monty sniffed back a sob and answered hoarsely, “Yeah, baby. I saw.”
“If anybody did any flirting in that store,” Aunt Belle said, her teeth clenched, “it was probably that little tramp herself.”
“Calm down, baby,” Monty told her. “Don’t make yourself sick over this.”
“I’m not making myself sick. That mockery of a trial just made me sick.” She sniffed and said, “And those two murderers smoking cigars like they just had babies? Disgusting.”
“Cheering and clapping like they had won an election,” Monty said icily.