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Resisting the magnetic compass pull
to home, we set off
Deep South in search of the country
beyond New England snows,
traveling together down whole
highways of pain and
wide deltas of grief,
marking the spot where Dr. King's
life bled away,
in a Memphis motel so sweetly named
Lorraine, and where a tour guide's passion
foretold what lay ahead, and, wandering, wondered
just what I would learn if Beale St. could talk, as we moved
on to Graceland, where a certain someone with
gyrating hips seemed to lack the grace
to give credit where credit was
due, hips at rest now,
midst plastic flowers and chlorinated fountains,
so onward, onward we pressed
past the "devil's crossroad" of Rt. 61 and Rt. 49,
where the blues were born, that a people's
suffering might flow through harps
and guitars, preserved now forever in a museum
in Clarkesdale, where Big Mama Thornton
finally set Elvis right, with the real deal "Hound Dog,"
right here in
Mississippi, nightmare lynch mob state
of my youth, whizzing by through
big bus picture windows, the soybean fields,
the catfish farms, the vast flat fields, the sharecropper shotgun
shanties, now collapsing onto themselves, right
next to those cotton gins of injustice,
and then we found a place called Mound Bayou,
where ex-slaves built a dream that Mr. Milburn
Crowe described, a dream shattered but still
alive, and the road ran on
to Jackson, supreme
capital of indifference, whose large gold
dome cast shadows on
hovels that not even one fellow
citizen should live in for a day, and amidst it all
there was Hollis Watkins, who taught what no
history book can teach, and helped us,
hands joined, sing our way to the meaning
of a Movement, recounting, between
militant melodies, his 55 days in Parchman, maximum
security, death row,
with a voice that still spoke with a calm
resolve to see justice done, and some
even returned to ask, "Can I
hug you?" before hurtling down to
New Orleans, to music in the street,
to creole cooking, to elegant iron balconies wrought by slaves,
and bales of cotton rolled up ramps to paddle boats called
Natchez and River Queen, place which pushed the blues to the unconquerable,
throbbing big four beat of jazz, thence the music of a nation,
from this city which defies
all categories, as if it was washed down here by the mighty
Mississippi, somehow getting snagged on the shoreline,
or maybe just a great bubbling gumbo
cooking under southern
sun. Whew! And, why are we going back to Mississippi,
some one whined? Personal business, I thought to myself,
three boys killed a lifetime ago, two from my city, one from
my school, the whole business of
which needed to be tracked
to its source, tomorrow,
in Philadelphia, Miss., and so I relented to video movie,
"Meet The Parents," while I napped, preparing perchance
to meet the killers, or their friends, or townsmen. Waking
without an alarm, with only the loud ring of pure
anticipation, we made straight to Shoney's,
for classic southern breakfast
to fortify us for trek ahead, and found ourselves
held hostage for several hours in
classic Klan plot to discourage further
pilgrims' progress,
but history's pull was stronger,
and there we were on same highway
where they were stopped, the blinding lights of death
in their rear view mirror, before they were
completely disappeared. Suddenly there was the
courthouse, and the sheriff's office, just
across the street from the charming old soda
fountain store and quaint five & dime of
this small southern town,
so genteel and so murderous,
bent over forever by the burden of its past
oh, look away, look away, away down south
in Dixie,
and we heard an aging editor say, that is, we heard
the barely audible Mr. Deerman say,
the heavy breathing, the accent, the tears collecting
just below the wells of his eyes, we heard him saying, with
effort, "There hasn't been a day
in 36 years that I haven't thought of those
boys," and later to me privately: "Would you like me to take you
to the spot they were killed?" And, if a pin had
dropped, the whole library where we gathered
would have exploded, and then we saw the ancient
headlines, how the story played out, but this time
we already knew the ending, and
the clock was running, so back down
to Meridian we rode, and I turned slowly
to check for headlights, so no one would
notice, and now we had to find Obie Clark's
funeral home, because he alone could guide us
to James Chaney's grave, and
with him leading, off we went, deep into the
countryside, over bridges no 26,000 lb. bus would
sanely cross, but they held that day, which was good,
because it was so important to get
there, to a small church plot,
nearly empty but for a lonely massive stone, and there we
were before it, as Mr. Obie Clark, holding his
grand-daughter's hand, told us how the grave had been placed here
because the "home church" was just too afraid, how the original
smaller stone had been thrown in the woods, how the
eternal flame had been destroyed,
how the massive new stone has been erected only
to be pushed over, how his picture was shot out, how a steel beam was
put in to hold it up, all this in the last few years, how the man who
pulled the trigger walked free for so long, and then he read
the inscription, and told us why it was important to remember,
in a quiet voice, all while holding his granddaughter's hand,
yes, here was James Chaney, age 20,
and Rufaro led us in a chorus of "We Shall Overcome,"
and we placed stones on the grave as if to say, "We were here, James Chaney,
you are remembered," and climbed quietly into the bus, which sped off
to Selma...to Alabama dead ahead,
where we walked over the Pettus Bridge, ah, so much easier this
time round, no police dogs or mounted police, and into the
tiny Voting Rights Museum, where Ms. Bland frightened us
Ôtill she made us laugh, and Rev. Reese who marched
arm-in-arm with King, described what happened on
"Bloody Sunday," when they stopped Americans
from walking where there feet could carry them, and we rolled
along their march route to Montgomery, with only
Nicole Angueira noticing the spot where Viola
Liuzzo was killed, and there we saw the great
memorial to all those slain, and stood by the waterfall
which whispered of waters rolling down like
justice, and the water was cool, but we had promises to keep,
and the road led us on to Birmingham, or was it Bombingham,
and we sat in the church where four little girls
died, saw another museum, and park sculpture
that spoke to the aesthetic beauty of
historical remembrance,
and the next day we pulled into Atlanta, to Dr. King's resting
place, to his old neighborhood, and to the
Ebenezer Baptist church,
and now the trip was over, or perhaps just
beginning. There had been boundaries crossed,
between states and time zones, between past and present,
and back again, until who could say which was which,
for while we traveled, Mississippi voted down a new
flag, James Chaney's case was re-opened,
and Birmingham was choosing a new jury to
try a few more old men who once made a
bomb that ended four young lives, and, upon our return,
a frontpage New York Times article greeted us with
news that the blues were dying in the delta land
of its birth, in Clarksdale, so
we went in search of the country beyond
New England snows, in search of history,
found a road, found people, found a country
beyond our imagination, found history on
the loose, saw things, and were moved
by much more than a bus.
Then we flew back into blue week.
April 25, 2001