Our plan was to outsmart and overpower the man who came to escort the women who fed us. Then pray he had keys that would unlock the thick padlock on the iron door into the mine shaft. I wasn’t exactly sure where the mine shaft led, but this plan offered a glimmer of hope.
The time came, and the guard shouted for us to sit in the center of the room as the two women pushed a cart and distributed bowls of rice and bottled water. Just as we planned, Cynthia made herself vomit, drawing attention from the guard, who motioned for one of the women to help her. When the guard’s attention was on her, Dominique and Brenda sprang for his gun. He knocked them down, tried to reach his gun, but Olivia jumped on his back, pulling him backward and knocking him out. I cranked the lever to shut the bookcase and prevent the other guards from hearing his call for help before his head hit the stone floor.
One of the women who brought us food implored us. No, please. Don’t do this. Our children. She pulled a photo from beneath her robe of two young boys. You don’t understand. He’ll kill them.
I learned later that Matthew Strong used his connections within correctional facilities around Birmingham to release these women on “probation” to earn money and for reduced sentences working for the Sons of Light Ministries. But when they were released, Strong held them hostage, threatening to kill their children if they resisted. She wasn’t lying.
As the man lay unconscious, I took the large ring of keys looped onto his belt and rushed over to the padlock on the iron door. One by one I tried them, with no luck. Then I found a long silver key with two teeth. It clicked, and the lock came off easily.
When I held up the lock, the girls’ faces beamed with excitement. I pulled the heavy door partially open, and a small creature crawled into our room. Florence cried out, voice high-pitched, as she hopped from foot to foot. “Mice!”
I felt a mouse run over the top of my foot and I hop-danced too. Though this was our only option, the girls backed up.
“We have no choice!” I whisper-shouted, motioning for them to follow me into the tunnel. But I paused when I heard a screech and hiss. A mangy cat emerged that looked like one of the strays in the woods. First one, then two, then a half dozen bound through the opening, hissing, clawing, chasing around after the mice.
I backed away, shocked, and disoriented by the melee. When I regained my composure and I rushed toward the door, I noticed a cougar with a brass collar and chain trailing behind creeping into the room.
I shouted, “Get back! It’s a cougar!”
Just then, the cougar lunged for a cat, caught one between its jaws.
Now all the girls were huddled near the entrance, and the bookcase revolved. Two men rushed in, gripping a high-powered hose. They flooded the room, forcing the cats and cougar back through the passage, then turned the hose on us, knocking Cynthia and Brenda off their feet. We crouched down and covered our faces as the water blast stung our skin. Drenched and disoriented, we were dragged into the middle of the room and our wrists cuffed behind our backs. Or rather, everyone but me.
After our attempted rebellion, his men blindfolded me and brought me to a room upstairs, where I waited for hours, reflecting on the fifteen years I spent studying men like Matthew Strong. I understood where he generated his ideas, and how he twisted these ideas in order to erect systems of thought that justified oppression and violence.
I know it really didn’t matter if he justified his actions by imagining himself as a martyr to the cause of freedom for white people whom he claimed had been overrun by minorities. It didn’t matter if he was a sociopath, a master manipulator with an authority-driven system that allowed him to kill without any remorse. It didn’t even matter if I had stopped him.
His ideas were the real enemy.
There have always been men like Matthew Strong and people searching for someone like him to explain the root cause of their misery.
Moreover, I still wonder about the women who might have known his plan and said nothing. Was their silence a greater threat than the ideas used to persuade their husbands, brothers, or sons to embrace Matthew Strong’s mission?
This is how it ends.
When Matthew Strong’s men returned, they wore orange robes with white stars running down each sleeve. They escorted me into the cavern where he’d previously held me and the girls, lifted my arms above my head, and clicked my wrists into manacles chained to the wall. Candles flickered from the top of pikes, which encircled the same oak table where I’d spent so many hours translating the Confessional. Blue, red, and white candles were arranged in the center of the table in the shape of a Confederate flag. There were eleven chairs—five on each side and one at the head. In front of each chair was an empty silver ice bowl.
Minutes later, they marched in the girls, blindfolded and gagged, and divided them so half sat on one side and the other sat on the other side. Then, the men cuffed their wrists and ankles to their chairs. I could barely tolerate their muffled moans and desperate sobs. I had no idea why I wasn’t blindfolded or seated with the other girls. Did he actually plan on keeping me alive to tell his story? Or maybe he wanted to force me to witness this scene for his own sick amusement.
A video camera rested on a tripod, capturing what was happening in our room. Above the video camera was a TV with a split screen. I peered at the eight squares on the television, displaying eight other rooms decorated like our room. Same type of table, silver bowls, candles positioned in the shape of the Confederate battle flag’s stars and bars. This identical ritual was happening in other plantation homes all throughout the South.
Matthew Strong entered wearing an orange gown cinched with a white rope around his waist like a priest. Draped in front of his gown was a blue stole with white Confederate stars embroidered down the center.
He tapped his index finger on a microphone perched on a lectern.
“Please, brothers. We must begin.”
The men positioned themselves behind the girls seated in front of silver bowls. On split screens, I saw men enter these other rooms with the same priestly garb. Other black women who I had no idea had also been kidnapped entered these other rooms, blindfolded and gagged. One man stood behind each of them, holding up their chins, exposing their necks. Each man held a half-moon blade in his right hand. Matthew Strong flipped open a book on the lectern, looked around the room, then fixed his gaze into the camera.
“Brothers, I welcome all of you to our passage from this world order to the next—a passage from darkness, to light. Indeed, brothers, we are here to fulfill our role as a dedicated few who’ve pledged our lives for the redemption of our people, this nation, and the civilized Christian world.
“The American Negro, through thousands of years of inbreeding in Africa, often in very small circles, has preserved his racial characteristics much more than the European. As a consequence, they are an alien race that is unwilling and, indeed, unable to shed their deficient racial characteristics. Despite the benefits of living in the greatest nation known to man, and even, in some instances, being able to have political rights as we ourselves do, this barbarous character remains.
“All of this has resulted in the Negro becoming a cancer on the nation. Our fathers demonstrated the benevolence of their Christian faith by allowing the Negro to remain inside this civilization rather than be deported to reintegrate into the godless, savage society from whence they previously resided. Our final objective is not the total annihilation of the Negro. But, when the time comes and we must carry out their extermination, we are prepared to act on behalf of our civilization.
“Yet, brothers, we cannot blame the Negro alone for the crisis we face today, even if he is the root cause of this nation’s demise. Look at the dominance of illegals, homosexuals, baby-killers. Look at our politicians’ indifference to the suffering of men who fought for this country. Look at banks preying on poor people. The Sons of Light will lead our nation toward a rebirth. Our national rebirth. This will only happen through leaders who refuse to be influenced by liberal dogmas or by catchphrases and slogans. Our revolution must be led by those with an unwavering sense of loyalty that supersedes personal interest. Our redemption will only happen when we return power to everyday people who do not need dictates from Washington, D.C., about how we structure our society to maintain social order.
“Now we must sacrifice the lamb. Words have been spoken, prayers made. The time has come for us to initiate our movement—a movement greater than any in human history. Gentlemen, please raise your blade and repeat after me…”
I’m numb, my mind so full of desperate energy, I’m seeing the world in high-def—faces of David, Janice, my mother, my grandmother.
Then: a loud bang! bang! bang! snaps me from my haze. Everyone looks around. The men step back from the chairs, faces alarmed. The banging grows louder, closer to our cavern. Men put their daggers on the table and pull guns from their waistbands and shoulder holsters. We see chaos in the other rooms on the TV screen, then more banging from somewhere in this house. Matthew Strong motions for his men to see what’s happening. There are gunshots, then the sound of automatic weapons, the pelting of bullets.
Matthew Strong closes the bookcase, then rushes to the iron door, pushes in his key to open it, glances back at me, smiling, then snatches the bag with the Confessional translation, the map, and all the other damning evidence of his nightmare cause, and pulls the door shut behind him.
The gunshots outside the cavern grow louder, louder.
“Help us! Help!” I shout.
The blasts stop.
There’s the sound of a saw and chopping. An axe head bursts through the bookcase and FBI agents rush into the cavern, wielding steel cutters.