I gave what few flyers Cecile had printed up to Sister Mukumbu. She, Sister Pat, Crazy Kelvin, the ladies who served breakfast, and everyone else all knew that Nzila had been arrested. Sister Mukumbu said we should stay with her until Nzila was released.
It was funny how things changed. If Cecile had been arrested when we first arrived in Oakland, I would have called Pa, and Pa would have made sure my sisters and I were on a plane back to New York. Nothing would have made me happier than to leave Cecile and Oakland back then. But we hadn’t gotten what we came for. We didn’t really know our mother, and I couldn’t leave without knowing who she was. I certainly didn’t want to tell Big Ma that everything she had said about Cecile for the past seven years was right. That Cecile was no kind of mother and had gotten herself locked up to prove it. It was bad enough to hear Big Ma supposing out loud every kind of selfish trouble Cecile was tangled up in. Day in, day out, I’d never hear the end of it. And there was no telling Big Ma that Cecile was a freedom fighter, oppressed by the Man. Day in, day out, Big Ma would give my ear a hurting over Cecile.
No. I couldn’t call Pa yet. What if Cecile were released tomorrow?
I thanked Sister Mukumbu for her offer and told her as quietly as I could that we were staying with Hirohito and his mother. I certainly didn’t want Eunice and her sisters to know we were staying at the Woods’ house. Although Vonetta promised to keep her mouth shut, I didn’t think she could hold it in. Anything to make Janice jealous. “Our mother will expect us to be home when they let her out. She won’t be too happy hunting around town looking for us if we’re not home.”
Sister Mukumbu said we would be safer with Mrs. Woods than by ourselves. Sister Pat added, “The Man is still watching the house.”
I asked Sister Mukumbu why our mother had been arrested in the first place. She said the police were really after the two who had been arrested with her. She also said our mother helped to spread the word by volunteering her printing services. “Information is power,” she told me as if we were having a lesson. “Keeping the people informed keeps the people empowered.”
Cecile wasn’t exactly like Hirohito’s father, going around spreading the word and telling the truth. She fussed about printing anything other than her poetry. I didn’t tell Sister Mukumbu that. And honestly, I believed she said that about Nzila giving power to the people to make me feel good about seeing my mother being taken away in handcuffs.
Crazy Kelvin held up his fist and said, “Stay strong, my black sisters. Hold your heads up.”
Vonetta gave him the power sign back, but Fern pointed at him and said, “What’s wrong with this picture?”
He laughed like Fern was a silly little girl. To someone Kelvin’s age, she was just that. A silly little girl. To his chuckle, Fern said, “Good boy, Fido.” Then she barked. “Arf! Arf!”
Vonetta and I were embarrassed and puzzled by Fern calling Kelvin out like he was a dog and then barking at him. I pulled her away.
Fern laughed and hummed her bus song—“I saw something”—and clapped her hands.
After we practiced being led to freedom by Janice Ankton as Harriet Tubman, Sister Mukumbu announced we would do community work. We would take Sister Nzila’s flyers out into the community and ask store owners to display them in their windows. Each of us had to present ourselves to the manager or owner. We were to be respectful and clear: “Good afternoon. We are from the People’s Center summer camp and are participating in the people’s rally. We are asking you to help the people of your community by displaying our flyer for the people’s rally this Saturday.” Older kids, like Eunice, Hirohito, and me, also included information about free sickle cell anemia testing, voter registration, free shoes for the poor, supporting Huey Newton, and changing the park’s name to the Bobby Hutton Park. If store managers said yes, we were to thank them and tape a flyer to their window. If they said no, we were to leave just as respectfully as we came. “Heads up high. Walking tall,” Sister Mukumbu said.
Hirohito was up first. He went to Saint Augustine’s Church and gave his presentation to a priest he seemed to know. Hirohito had it easy. The priest seemed to be only too happy to take Hirohito’s flyer. It figured. The church served free breakfasts and gave away bags of food to poor people. They were, as Sister Pat might say, “down with the cause,” or as Huey might say, “carrying the weight.” Still, Hirohito congratulated himself as he rejoined the group.
I was supposed to ask Mean Lady Ming, but I knew she would say yes to me. I said, “Fern, Mean Lady Ming likes you. Go get her.” I followed behind her but kept my distance. Fern couldn’t remember all of her speech, but what she said was good enough. “Good afternoon, Mean Lady Ming. We would like to put the people’s flyer in your window for the people’s rally this Saturday. Free Huey. Power to the people.” Mean Lady Ming wasn’t rankled by the name Fern called her. Her complaints, all in Chinese, sounded just like her complaints about customers who wanted extra duck sauce or a free egg roll. That didn’t stop her from taking Fern’s flyer and taping it up in the window.
Vonetta and Janice Ankton approached the Shabazz Bakery together. Another easy presentation. The bakery had pictures of Malcolm X and Black Power slogans on the wall. It didn’t matter to either Vonetta or Janice. They both came out of the bakery waving their arms like homerun hitters.
Black, white, Mexican, or Chinese. Big stores, little stores. Some shook their heads north and south, some shook their heads east and west. There were others who, in the middle of our presentations, simply pointed us to the door. In those cases especially, Sister Mukumbu praised us for how well we presented ourselves and for how we left. Respectfully, with our heads held high.
Both Eunice and I went for the harder ones. Stores of the no sayers. Places where we weren’t guaranteed a listen or a smile. We’d both heard no before. The hardened looks of grown-ups who didn’t like kids or black people, or kids who were black, were nothing new to us.
After Eunice’s third no, Sister Mukumbu pulled her aside for a little chat. Eunice had a hip-switching way about her walk that would have gotten me spoken to but good by Big Ma. When the store managers said no, Eunice would say “Thank you anyway” the same way we’d say “Forget you, forgot you” on the playground. Then she’d walk her hip-switching walk on out of their store.
I said I would go into the Safeway store and find the manager. Surely the grocery store workers had seen my sisters and me skipping through the aisles with our basket. I went up to the manager and said in my cheeriest voice, “Good afternoon. I am from the People’s Center summer camp, and I buy dinner groceries at this store.” I threw that one in there for good measure. Just as I was telling him about the rally and how good it would be for the community, he said no and something about it being “against store policy.” But he did look friendly. He did smile and thank us for shopping at Safeway.
I had no hips to swish away with. Instead, my long legs carried me down the produce aisle, past the bread aisle, and out of Safeway. I had been keeping a list of the east-west no sayers and put Safeway at the very top of it. My sisters, Cecile, and I would eat egg rolls, white rice, bean pies, and fried fish before we spent another penny in the stores of the no sayers.