I found these old snapshots. Do you want them?”
My father handed me the two black-and-white photos with little ceremony. He’d been going through old family and FBI memorabilia.
The moment I saw the pictures, I was riveted. Transported back in time.
When I was a young child, my family moved to Fort Worth, Texas, in late 1963 just after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. My father, a special agent with the FBI, helped in the investigation, mainly gathering information about the killer, Lee Harvey Oswald, and interviewing Oswald’s widow, Marina. His work became part of the famous Warren Commission that reported to the president and the world what had happened that tragic November day.
So now that Dad had begun consulting on the book Killing Kennedy by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard, he started opening old boxes. He found notebooks full of his interviews, leads, and findings. He also found two photographs he’d taken at a 1965 civil rights rally in Fort Worth. The focus of the photos was a little African American girl and me sitting together, oblivious to skin color, the marchers going by, or the tumultuous world around us.
As I stared at these snapshots in the days and weeks to come, my mind began to weave stories from the images. What had happened at this rally? Who was the other little girl? What had become of the people at the parade, and what were their lives like in Fort Worth in 1965?
Ruminating on these questions, and drawing on my own history as a federal prosecutor and daughter of an FBI agent, this novel came to life. As I lived out the imaginary exploits of the characters, I found myself haunted by a past not as far removed from today as we’d like to believe.
THE MYSTERIES OF OUR NATION
We all love a good mystery. I especially enjoy historical intrigues wrapped around our nation’s past. In Snapshot, the key and the contents of the cabinet are entirely fictitious; however, these elements were inspired by many real unsolved mysteries in our nation’s history. For example, we know that Bobby Kennedy changed the locks on the cabinets in the White House immediately after hearing of his brother’s death. What was he hiding from the newly-sworn-in Lyndon B. Johnson? My father’s old boss, J. Edgar Hoover, was known to keep secret files on politicians, diplomats, the CIA, and even US presidents. There are missing files, innumerable rumors, and no doubt real places where the answers to our historical mysteries are locked away. These what-ifs were fun to explore in this novel, and even more intriguing to consider in real life. And that was just one aspect of this book.
THE STRUGGLES OF 1965
All through the writing of Snapshot, I continued to return to those photos. They became much more than family keepsakes and inspiration for a novel. Looking at those two little girls—one being myself—I couldn’t stop thinking about how innocent they were of the volatile world around them. It reminded me of just how tumultuous this time was. And how close it is to us today.
Our country may be fragmented in its politics, but rarely are Americans in danger of brutality and murder by other Americans for our beliefs. That wasn’t true in 1965, the year my father took those snapshots.
That year there were marches throughout the South to protest acts against voting rights and to push for basic civil freedoms for African Americans. Leaders were brutalized and peaceful demonstrations often turned tragic.
One such peaceful rally for voting rights was held at Zion’s Chapel Methodist Church. Four hundred participants prayed, sang, and shared stories. None were armed.
Twenty-six-year-old army veteran Jimmie Lee Jackson was in attendance. For years Jackson and his grandfather had tried to register to vote, but they were consistently turned away at the registrar’s office on one excuse after another. Though the rally had pledged nonviolence, the police arrived in full riot gear. Streetlights were knocked out, and the brutality began.
Marchers of all ages and even numerous photographers and newsmen were injured. Jimmie Lee Jackson was shot by a police officer as he tried protecting his mother and elderly grandfather as they were being clubbed. Jimmie Lee Jackson’s mother and eighty-two-year-old grandfather received head wounds and were taken to the hospital. But Jimmie Lee Jackson had been shot twice at point-blank range in the stomach. He died eight days later. The state trooper who shot him wasn’t prosecuted until forty-two years later.
The death of Jimmie Lee Jackson strengthened the resolve that change must occur in the South and inspired the famous Selma to Montgomery marches. The first march on March 7 brought six hundred people along the route between the town of Selma and the state capital of Montgomery. As they walked, once again unarmed men and women were attacked by state and local law enforcement wielding tear gas and weapons. This day became known as “Bloody Sunday.”
Two days later 2,500 protesters set out again from Selma but were forced to turn around when a federal district court judge issued a restraining order against the march.
The third attempt began on March 17 when the restraining order was lifted due to the First Amendment’s right to protest. With FBI and National Guard keeping a watchful eye, the marchers walked the fifty-four miles from Selma to Montgomery over a course of eight days.
On March 25, 1965, more than 25,000 people climbed the final steps to the state capital. Such sacrifice and dedication changed the course of American history. Later that same year President Johnson signed the Voting Acts Right of 1965, giving African Americans the right to vote by mandate of federal law.
Of course this was just one of many key turning points in 1965. It was the year Malcolm X was killed and of the American Football League’s boycott of New Orleans after numerous acts of discrimination against its black players. That football game was moved to Houston.
In the surrounding years, the nation endured the assassinations of JFK, his brother Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr. The Vietnam War was taking lives and dividing a nation, the Cold War had people digging out bomb shelters and schoolchildren doing drills in the event of nuclear war, and the hippie generation created a counterculture movement in this post–World War II era.
This was the age in which two little girls, one black and one white, sat together with all the promise of friendship.
THEN AND NOW
We live in a different America today. Yet 1965 was not so long ago, and it should not be forgotten. We have not eradicated hatred over skin color, over birthplace, or over differences in beliefs, race, and culture. Some Americans will never know such prejudice, while other Americans live with it on a constant basis, even today.
These snapshots remind me of that.
Today my life revolves around my family, friends, the law, the news, and writing. Perhaps it’s because this novel involves all those aspects from my present but is also built on our shared and complicated past that Snapshot is my most personal novel to date. My hope is that it will entertain and inspire you, dear reader.
Lis Wiehl
New York, 2014