Freedom Summer

That day in June we stopped in Meridian, I

reached in my pocket for the penny I called

Hope. The Negro barber nodded, Y’all come

back soon. In Longdale the KKK had burned

down Mount Zion Church. We had left the

inferno when Sheriff Price ordered us into

a cruiser for a shortcut to county jail. With

the odor of pee running down my pant leg,

Mickey whispered, Don’t expect that one

phone call, and he was right. They fed us

potatoes, peas, poke salad, and spoon bread.

Our last supper. But once the Klan ambush

was set up, the sheriff fined me $20, and

told us, Git gone for good. Then the whole

thin shimmer of our lives evaporated like

smoke in a fog. Armed with cone-hat con-

viction and long-necked persuaders, the

Klan rode in for last rites to the first rights

of a gaunt trio. Flames licked the car as it

sank under Bogue Chitto Swamp. After

single shots to the heart had taken Mickey

and Andrew, they’d saved three bullets for

me. Freedom Summer is Forlorn Winter at

the tag end of living. And just before they

pitched our bodies into earthen graves on

Old Jolly Farm, I remember that my hand

was in my pocket. I could still feel Hope.