Sam walked into the city room, improvising on Tom Lehrer:
The land of the WASP Babbitt
Where hating black folks is a habit
And the goyim are too dumb to make a dime…
Jay laughed. “Nothing like a little racial hatred and conflict to put you in a good mood.”
“Conflict we got,” Sam said. “Where’s Charlie?”
“In his office. You think you’re happy. He’s having multiple orgasms. This is a weird business, you know. We really get off on other people’s problems.”
“Good news is no news. There’s quite a crowd out there. I hear NBC is sending a camera crew. The wires are here already.”
“Is it true that Charlie sent a telegram to Martin Luther King saying that if he’d come to Belvedere, he’d get four fire hoses, Jules’s Labrador in full charge, and thirty-nine pages of coverage?”
“Yeah, but he sent a telegram back, THANKS BUT NO THANKS. PEOPLE IN BIRMINGHAM MUCH NICER.”
Mary walked in, shaking her head. ‘Too many people out there. Not enough cops. This could get out of hand.”
“How many do you think are out there?” Jay asked.
“If we had five thousand for the Veteran’s Day parade, then there must be ten thousand now. People are here from all over.”
“And we’ve got an hour until the march starts,” Sam said. Charlie came out of his office. ‘Are you people all set?’ They nodded.
“Sam, you and Mary will be in front of City Hall. Roger and Joe Rosenberg will be walking with the marchers. So will McChesney. Jay, you take City Hall.” He looked at Mary. “You’ve been over at Reverend Johnson’s house?”
“Yes.”
“How many marchers?”
“About two hundred. A lot from the city, about thirty from the county chapter of SANE, and kids from the community college. There’s Reverend Smilie from the Episcopal church, Rabbi Gwertzman and that new young priest from St. Theresa’s, Father Heath. I hear Father Carmody is apeshit about his being there.”
“If Christ asked Father Carmody to help carry the cross, he’d say he had to do the bingo.” Jay snorted.
“What’s the mood at City Hall?” Charlie asked Sam.
“Well, Mayor Swarman has locked himself in the can. They are all shitting in their pants. They don’t know how to handle this.”
“That’s what I thought.” Charlie sighed. “How about the cops? What happens if things get out of hand?”
“They got the auxiliaries out, but those guys are meatheads. All they’ve ever done is football games.”
“No state troopers?”
“They’re supposed to be on call, at least that’s what Chief Grimes says. The city cops are pissed at the troopers, since it was the state police who got the line on the kids who set the fire.”
“The marchers are the best organized group around,” Mary told the editor. “Don says they’ve got forty of the students and some community people trained as marshals. Some of them have been in the South. And there’s some pretty big guys.”
“How about the crowd?”
“Right now it’s quiet. It’s hard to tell who’s supporting the march, who’s curious and who might make trouble. At least there are police barricades along the route. My worry is that somebody could get trampled, with that crowd out there.”
“All right, keep in touch. Rosenberg will have a walkie-talkie. Get to him if you need to contact us fast.”
Jay, Sam and Mary walked out of the Blade building and headed up Main Street towards City Hall. The building was a squat, three-story structure into which a WPA architect had incorporated a frieze cribbed from the Parthenon. The naked, sword-brandishing warriors had been a scandal when the building was new, but nobody paid them any attention now, except teenage boys who made crude remarks while the girls giggled.
Spectators were lined up eight to ten deep along the street, and the three had to elbow their way through knots of people to get to a clear spot on the sidewalk in front of City Hall. As they were standing and talking, an auxiliary policeman walked up to Jay.
“All photographers have to stay behind the barricades.”
“Says who?”
“Mayor’s orders.”
“I’ve got a police press pass. I’m staying here.”
“It’s the mayor’s orders.”
“This is not Red Square. If he wants me out of here, let him arrest me. Then he can answer to my editor.”
The policeman frowned and fingered the buttons on his jacket. “Wait a minute.” He disappeared into the building, and in a minute he was back again. “OK, you can stay.”
Jay shook his head. “Mayor Swarman could fuck up a free lunch.”
Sam looked at the departing policeman. “What do you expect from a part-time druggist, Nelson Rockefeller?”
“The power of the press,” Mary said.
“Yeah, power.” Jay sighed. “Swarman would piss in his pants if he saw a five-year-old with a crayon.”
Mary looked around at the crowd. The noise level was beginning to rise.
“A lot of men here. They must have taken off from work. I don’t like that.”
“Hey, now, would you look at that,” Sam said. “The fucking South shall rise again.”
A Confederate flag had sprouted among one knot of onlookers. It was a very small flag held by a pimpled adolescent, and it drooped forlornly against the stick. A woman standing next to him held a placard that announced in hand-lettered script, FIGHTING AMERICAN NATIONALISTS. She was heavyset with flesh stacked in rolls beneath a black jersey and a pair of slacks.
“Who the fuck are the Fighting American Nationalists?” Jay asked.
“Looks like one fat broad and three teenage punks,” Sam told him. “With poetic license, I will call them a racist mob.”
Mary walked over to the woman. “Excuse me, I’m from the Blade. Are you representing a local organization?”
The woman pointed to the sign she was holding. “Sure. We’re from FAN.”
“Is this a Belvedere group?”
“FAN’S a national organization. We got chapters all over the country. We’re from the Maryland chapter.”
“How many members does the chapter have?”
The woman smiled, coyly. “Lots, but we don’t reveal our membership.”
I just bet you don’t, Mary thought, but she said, “What’s the purpose of your organization?”
“To keep the niggers from taking over. We got to stop the niggers. This country was made great by white people.”
“Are you one of the officers?”
“Yeah, I’m the vice president.”
“What’s your name?”
The woman looked suspicious. “Why do you want to know?”
Mary smiled and said, politely, “We want to get the names of the officers of the local organizations that are here today.” One thing she had learned, you had to be polite with the nuts. The nuttier they were, the more seriously you had to treat them. Courtesy and rapt attention made them spill their guts. If you got hostile, they’d clam up.
“I’m Sandra Mitchell. With two L’s. Will our names be in the paper?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe a picture, too?”
“Possibly”
“A picture would be nice.”
Mary walked over to Jay. “Make her famous. She needs the publicity.”
Jay went over and took her picture, and Sandra Mitchell — two L’s — fluffed up her hair and smiled.
Mary scanned the faces of the crowd; one man stared back at her with a fierce glare. It occurred to her that she and the other members of the Blade staff could be targets if any trouble started. The newspaper’s stand on the plan — and Charlie’s call for vigorous prosecution of the kids who had set the fire — had angered more than a few people.
She kept looking into the crowd. Some people were obvious curiosity seekers, including housewives gripping the hands of children and kids from the high school. There was one group of young men in jeans and leather jackets who could spell trouble. With so many people, the problem was that if even a couple of troublemakers started something, it could cause a panic and people would be seriously hurt. At least some of the marshals were trained in crowd control.
In a few minutes, the sound of the approaching march could be heard, although the marchers had not yet turned the corner. The song was familiar, and intermittently melodic:
We’ll walk hand in hand, someday-ay-ay-ay-ay.
Oh, deep in my heart I do believe,
We shall overcome, someday.
Joe arrived at a trot in front of City Hall, carrying the walkie-talkie.
“Any trouble?” Mary asked him.
“A lot of yelling, but no real problems.”
The front line of the march came around the corner. Walking side by side, arms linked, were Father Heath, looking seventeen, the Reverend Raymond Johnson, Rabbi Gwertzman, cultivating what Sam called his Haganah expression, and Sister Eulah Hill, her white tunic gleaming in the sun like crusader’s armor.
Behind them came James Washington, Mrs. Wesley Darden, the president of Committee for Sane Nuclear Policy, Loretta Washington and the young woman who had spoken at the first meeting in the church, and several other clergymen. Don Johnson, wearing a green armband that said MARSHAL on it, was walking outside the line of march, his eyes darting every now and then to the crowd. Mary’s eyes followed his, scanning the spectators again. She picked out a few faces: a kid in a motorcycle jacket; a sullen, unshaven man who stood quietly, watching with hooded eyes; a middle-aged man in an Army jacket, watching the march with unusual intensity.
She looked back at the marchers. The front rows of the group had arrived at City Hall, and Don held up his hand for them to stop. The song came to an end, and in the silence a cry went up from a lone voice, “Go back to Africa!”
A murmur of approval ran through the crowd, but no one else took up the cry. Mary looked to see who had yelled, but the voice had come from far back.
Don started to call out instructions to the marchers. “We’re going to walk in an oval on the sidewalk, two abreast. Stay three feet apart at all times. If anyone wants to enter or leave the building, let them do it. We are not blocking the entrance.”
Two other marshals started helping to ease the large group into the oval, which formed quickly, the marchers going two by two. The training had paid off. The marshals knew what they were about.
“Go home, niggers!”
“Niggers suck!”
The marchers ignored the catcalls, and the crowd did not ignite. The discipline of the marchers had infected the crowd, Mary thought. If it held, they might get away without trouble.
The marchers were moving smoothly now, in an oval in front of the building, and singing again:
Go tell it on the mountain,
Over the hills and everywhere;
Go tell it on the mountain,
Let my people go.
Don was walking outside the oval, pacing the marchers, keeping the line moving at the right speed and making sure there was a proper distance between them so that the police would not have the excuse that they were blocking the entry. He moved with a fluid grace that suggested quiet pride, competence. She looked again at the man with the hooded eyes, but they were opaque; she could read nothing in them. Mary recognized the kid in the motorcycle jacket, who had been ejected from the meeting. He concealed nothing; his features were distorted with pure hatred. The man in the Army jacket had moved closer to the front row, still staring at the march. But the one who worried Mary was the man with the hooded eyes; she sensed, rather than saw, violence there.
The marchers had come to the end of another song, and they kept walking, their voices trailing off. They had come for a reason. It was time for something to happen. The Reverend Johnson stepped out of line to talk to his nephew. Mary moved closer to hear them.
“Are you ready?” Don asked.
The minister nodded. He motioned, and Rabbi Gwertzman, James Washington, Father Heath and Reverend Smilie stepped out of the line and joined him.
“Is this the delegation?” Mary asked.
“Yes,” the minister said.
“You’re going to demand to see the mayor?”
“Yes, it’s our right to see him.”
The four men started up the steps of City Hall together, followed by reporters and the NBC crew.
“Nigger lovers!” came a shout, again, and another murmur ran through the crowd, this one, Mary thought, angrier than the last.
As the men approached the door, a policeman stepped in front of them.
“May we pass please, Officer?” Rabbi Gwertzman said.
“The mayor can’t see you.”
“This is a public building. Surely you do not intend to keep us out,” Father Heath said.
“Wait a minute.” The policeman grunted. He went into the building and reappeared, accompanied by a corpulent, morose man in a wrinkled brown suit.
Sam, standing next to Mary, groaned. “They’ve sent the asshole.”
Dave Fardin, administrative assistant to Mayor Swarman, used his bulk for passive aggression. He was the ideal buffer between the mayor and the citizenry. Pleas, demands, complaints and insults fell against the flesh of Dave Fardin and they were ingested, as if by some carnivorous Jell-O, and never heard from again.
“Mr. Fardin, we must see the mayor,” Reverend Johnson said.
“He’s in conference.”
“We will wait.”
“He’s going to be in conference all day.”
“Who’s he in conference with?” Mary asked him.
“I don’t know.”
“If I quote you on that, you are going to look really dumb, Dave.”
“I’ll find out,” he said.
“Didn’t the mayor know these people were coming?” asked the AP reporter.
“The mayor doesn’t meet with anybody unless they have an appointment.”
“We have been calling his office continually to inform him we were coming,” Rabbi Gwertzman said. “We were assured he had received the messages.”
Fardin was silent, his most effective technique.
“We are not leaving until we have a personal meeting with the mayor, and get assurances from him about the urban renewal plan,” said Reverend Johnson.
Fardin said nothing.
The four members of the delegation turned and walked back down to the sidewalk.
Sam said to Mary, “Oh, that asshole Swarman. Now the shit is going to hit the fan.”
The delegation walked up to Don.
“We’re not leaving,” James said.
“That’s right,” Don said. “Are your people ready?”
James nodded, his face grim and set hard.
Don held up his hand, and six of the marchers, all students trained in nonviolent protest, walked out and sat down in the street. Six others followed them.
“Christ, the niggers are sitting in the fucking street,” came a cry. The students began to sing, drowning out the cries from the crowd.
Just like a rock standing in the water, we shall not be moved.
Another line of marchers went out and sat down. Don said to the four members of the delegation, “You’ll be the last, OK?”
Police Chief Grimes walked up to the Reverend Johnson.
“These people are illegally blocking a city street. If they don’t get up, we’ll have to arrest them.”
“I understand,” the minister said. “If you tell the mayor to meet with us, our people will get up.”
“I can’t tell the mayor what to do.”
“I strongly urge you to advise him then,” said Rabbi Gwertzman. “If this situation gets out of hand, he’s going to be blamed.”
The crowd was getting noisier. Grimes looked out at it apprehensively. All the marchers were now gathered in front of City Hall, and the crowd jammed all the side streets leading up to it. If there were a disturbance, people would undoubtedly be killed or injured.
“If those people aren’t off the streets in five minutes, I will have no choice but to arrest them,” Grimes said, and walked away.
There were more shouts from the crowd, vying with the singing of the marchers for dominance. People were pressing closer to get a better view, and some of the city policemen had linked arms at the edge of the sidewalk to keep people from spilling over into the street. The whole area in front of City Hall had become a caldron of sound. Jay, who had been absorbed in photographing the scene, came up to Mary and said, “If the crowd surges, get up to the front door and through it, quick. People could get trampled here.”
We shall overcome, someday
Kill the niggers
Back to Africa
Oh, deep in my heart…
Suddenly, the wail of a siren split the air, and Mary looked around and saw that the police van was moving down the street. It pulled up in front of the building, near where the students were sitting, and a dozen uniformed officers jumped out. They walked over to one student, and two policemen put their arms under his shoulders. He did not resist but went limp in their grasp. They carried him to the wagon. There were cheers and boos from the crowd. Officers picked up each student in turn, carrying him or her off to the wagon as the din continued. When the students were all in the van, the driver turned it around slowly and drove off in the direction of the police station.
Mary looked at Don. He had been watching all this calmly, showing no emotion. She admired his coolness. Her own hands, she discovered, were shaking. The noise did not abate. The whole scene seemed something out of a madman’s fantasy. People in the crowd were screaming, but at least they seemed to be getting their energy out that way. So far, things had not gotten out of control, but they were on edge, she knew. She looked at Don again; if he was worried at all, he did not show it. He was looking around, sizing up the situation. Then he lifted his hand, and another marshal nodded. Fifteen more students went out and sat on the street, arms linked together.
Sam, standing close to Mary, had to yell to make himself heard by the police chief.
“Where are you going to put them all, in the kindergarten gym?”
Grimes shook his head, gave an angry glance at the second-story window in City Hall. Then he headed off towards the front door.
“Swarman better get the fuck out here, or he’s going to have a riot on his hands,” Sam said.
“Maybe Grimes can talk some sense into him.”
In a few minutes the siren sounded again, and the van returned, backed up by another one. The policemen moved in again. They moved to the side of a young white girl who was sitting with her arms linked to a black student. They jerked her arms away, roughly, lifted the girl and half-dragged her to the wagon.
“Oh, you’re hurting me!” she yelled, and one of the SANE members screamed out, “Cossack!”
This set the crowd off again, and the noise level intensified. Once again, the wagon was filled with marchers, and the van turned away and drove off. When it had gone, Don raised his hand again, and more people walked out to sit in the street. The howl of the crowd was frenzied. The policemen were being moved, by inches, into the street. Some of the people were angry, some curious, some, now, trying unsuccessfully to get out.
Mary’s eye caught Father Heath, standing on the sidewalk, swaying back and forth. Then he walked out, very deliberately, and sat down in the street.
Sam, next to Mary, half-yelled in her ear, “Gwertzman’s next. He can’t stand being outdone by the Catholics.”
The rabbi walked out and sat next to the priest.
“He was a pompous son of a bitch before. Now he’ll be impossible. A fucking hero of the civil rights movement.”
“Sam, the line. It’s giving!” Mary yelled.
One policeman fell to his knees as the line was breached and the wall of people poured into the street. Two young men — one of them the boy in the motorcycle jacket — charged the sitting students. He raised his fist to strike one of the Negroes, but a marshal, the size of a football tackle, stepped in front of him and absorbed the blow. Two policemen grabbed the young man and dragged him off. The policeman who had been standing by City Hall moved quickly across the street to try to force the crowd back. Mary held her breath. She thought the policemen might be simply swept away by the mass of humanity. But the line held this time, and they were able to force the crowd back a few inches. A woman fell and would have been trampled except for another woman and a man who dragged her to her feet. The noise was so intense that Mary could feel her temples throbbing.
Then the door of City Hall opened, and Chief Grimes walked out. He went up to Don, the two spoke briefly and Don nodded to him. The officer turned around and went towards the building again, and Don raised both hands in the air. The singing stopped, and the noises of the crowd quieted somewhat. All eyes were on the slender young black man with his hands in the air.
“The mayor will see us,” he shouted.
A cry of triumph went up from the marchers, and another chorus of boos and catcalls and cheers from the crowd.
“And we will tell him that we will be back tomorrow and the next day and the next, until justice is done!”
The people sitting in the streets got up, and the marchers burst into a spontaneous chorus of “We Shall Overcome.” There were more cries from the crowd, but Mary sensed that the flash point was past. Many people were already starting to leave, frightened by the realization of how dangerous the situation had become. The police line was holding.
Mary caught Don’s eye then, and he flashed her a broad grin and the old Churchill V for victory sign. She grinned back at him and waved, and then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw a movement.
She turned. The man in the Army jacket was beside her, and as the arm flashed out from under the jacket, she saw the gun. She lunged for it but was not fast enough; the explosion rocked through the street. She felt herself pushed aside as four policemen grabbed the gun at once and wrestled the man to the ground.
She looked up and saw Don fall; the grin was still on his face as the impact of the bullet hit him, whirled him around. She never knew, afterwards, how much of the scene she remembered from actually seeing it and how much came from the photograph Jay took, freezing the moment into an image that would run on the front pages of most of the newspapers in the country the next day. He had thought he was shooting Don’s victory sign, but it turned out to be something else.
A chorus of screams and cries echoed down the street.
“No, God, please, no!” she cried as she ran over to him. He was lying, face up, on the street. Loretta was kneeling next to him, sobbing, “Donnie, Donnie!” and his uncle was kneeling too, ripping open his shirt and trying to staunch the blood pouring from a gaping hole in his chest.
“Doctor, we need a doctor!” Mary called out, trying to make herself heard above the noise, and a man from the crowd elbowed his way through, knelt down and pressed his hand against Don’s chest to cut off the flow of blood from the artery. Some of the students had crouched down behind cars, not sure whether more shots would be fired; others, understanding what had happened, were weeping. Policemen were pushing back a crowd of curious onlookers.
The expression on Don’s face was one, still, of puzzlement. He looked around, as if he was trying to sort out what the commotion was all about. He looked right at her, then, and she saw comprehension forming in his eyes.
“Hang on,” she said. “Oh, Don, hang on! The ambulance is on its way. You’re going to be all right.”
He shook his head slightly.
“Not,” he said, “not the South.”
And then his eyes rolled out of focus, and he died.