Six days later, the hand-drawn map landed them on the campus of Atlanta University. The lawns were stiffly manicured. The young men and women who walked along the paths in the grass carried books and walked with erect posture. Marble statues adorned the grounds. Neat brick-and-mortar buildings saturated the area.
As they walked around campus, many students flung quizzical looks at them. John looked at his brogan boots, and the tan corduroy pants and shirt he’d worn for weeks. He looked at Douglas, who’d been wearing the same clothes for weeks, too. All the possessions they owned in the world were in the overstuffed haversacks on their backs. John had convinced Douglas to hide the rifle so as not to frighten the students and staff. They were like fish out of water and knew it.
They stumbled onto a directory next to a pedestal that held up a statute of a Negro man holding a book. John read quietly, “Science Department, Humanities Department, Admissions …”
The University was started in 1865 and chartered two years later as a university with the assistance of the Freedmen’s Bureau; its purpose was to provide a college education to male and female Negro students as a means to increase Negro upward mobility.
“Let’s try this one,” John said, pointing to Admissions. “We need to find Merman Hall on Whitehall Street.” He looked at Greeny and said, “Come on.”
They walked up the wooden stairs. John pointed a finger at Greeny to tell him to stay put while he and Douglas went inside.
John opened the single massive oak door to the school. Douglas entered first. The Admissions office was to the right, in a long corridor that stretched the length of the building from right to left. Highly polished wood floors continued under doors that led to other offices, and one door that looked wide enough to have an auditorium behind it. A bespectacled Negro man sat at a desk.
“Hello. My name’s Dean Lucien Fairbanks. What can I do for you boys?”
John told him that they were looking for a Professor Bodie. After a long period of silence, Fairbanks said, “Well, I’m afraid that’s impossible.” He paused, then added, “Professor Bodie is no longer here.”
“Could you tell us where we can find him, sir?” John asked.
“With the good Lord,” Fairbanks said, looking up. “It’s been in the newspaper. He was killed; they say he was lynched.” He shook his head in disgust and added: “His body was found a few days ago with a Bible in his breast pocket.”
John and Douglas were still, eyes bulged and jaws slack.
“You boys look like you just saw a ghost.”
“Did the paper say anything about a page missing from the Bible?” John asked.
“Yes. Why are you asking?”
John took page 1,241 from his pocket, unfolded it, and said, “I think this is the missing page.”
Dean Fairbanks looked at the Bible page for ten seconds with eyes that didn’t blink. “Where’d you get that?”
Douglas and John took turns telling him about how they stumbled upon the preacher in the woods a few weeks ago and how they saw a small boy place the Bible in Professor Bodie’s breast pocket.
“But how did you get the missing page?”
“I ripped the page from the Bible because a passage on the page was circled in red,” John replied, then handed the paper to Fairbanks. “You can keep it.”
“You should talk to the law about this,” Fairbanks said, after folding the page and putting it in his shirt pocket.
John wanted no part of it. The last thing he wanted was for his name to be in the paper. Although Billingsly was way in the rear and had been parked there for some time, John couldn’t afford to take any chances with Billingsly finding out his whereabouts.
Douglas agreed.
Fairbanks looked at John and Douglas; his eyes settled on John as he asked, “You want to try course work at the University?”
The question stunned John. He could read and write and understood complex sentences, but he had no real education beyond the age of ten. Much of his education was based on his discipline to learn, often done heuristically.
After John did not respond within a few seconds, Fairbanks looked at John and asked, “How old are you, son?”
“Seventeen.”
“How much schooling have you had?”
John told him the extent of his education. And Fairbanks in turn told John that many of the students enrolled in the University didn’t have a diploma.
John nodded.
The University had benefited from money from the Freedmen’s Bureau to help Negroes’ educational advancement, and private donations also poured in during Reconstruction. “Look,” Fairbanks said, “We want as many of our colored folks to get a college education as can. We have financial assistance and tutors that can help you. You may not finish with a degree, but having this education could help you down the line.”
John turned to Douglas and looked at him blankly, as though he was lost in thought. He recalled from time to time that he’d stand in Monsieur Billingsly’s study and stroke the spines of the plenitude of books on the shelves. He knew he wanted more knowledge.
“Excuse me, sir,” Douglas said, “I need to say something to John.”
Douglas told John he should do it—it could help him with the bigger life he had dreamed about. But John’s need to find Cousin Riley, who may not even exist, overrode anything else that would abort his mission.
John broke the huddle with Douglas and returned to Fairbanks. “Thank you, sir. That’s really kind of you, but we need to be moving on.”
Fairbanks didn’t press the issue. Looking at John and Douglas, he said, “Where’re you going from here?”
“We trying to get to Mount Hope, Alabama,” Douglas said. “Heard of it?”
“Can’t say that I have. But I know it’s a ways to the Alabama border. How’re you getting there?”
Douglas marched in place, then added, “Unless we find another means.”
Fairbanks looked at their brogans, then at them. “The weather’s turning soon. Your boots look fine. You have socks?”
“Yeah, we have socks,” Douglas said.
“Wait here. I’ll be right back.”
John turned to Douglas and hunched his shoulders as to say he didn’t know what Fairbanks was up to.
Fairbanks returned in two minutes. “Here,” the man said, handing ten one-dollar bills to John and the same to Douglas.
“Gee, thanks Mr. Fairbanks. Why?”
“Let’s just say it’s an early Christmas present.”
Douglas expressed his gratitude, too. He widened his smile and said, “Thanks.”
“Farewell,” Fairbanks said.
They collected Greeny and left.
k
Fairbanks later told the local sheriff about the missing page, deleting John’s identification. The sheriff determined it was the missing page that had been ripped from the Bible that was found in Professor Bodie’s breast pocket. The Atlanta Constitution, under the leadership of publisher Henry Grady, would later publish an article about how the much discussed missing page from the Bible was found:
Two young colored male itinerants witnessed a Negro man’s execution in Shelby Woods by a gang of outlaws. They only found out that they had witnessed Professor Bodie’s lynching later when they went to Atlanta University to talk to him upon the suggestion of a friend in Raleigh, NC. At Atlanta University, they encountered Dean Lucien Fairbanks who told them that Professor Bodie was found dead in the woods, that a Bible was found in his breast pocket, and that a page was missing from the Bible. The itinerants told Dean Fairbanks that they had ripped out a page of the Bible because someone had circled in red the verse about how servants must obey their masters—a stale reference to slavery and how the Negro man must understand his place in society.
We understand that it is painful for many Southerners to see their world turn topsy-turvy after the War. Although the War ended over two decades ago, too often the ghosts of the War are resurrected through vile, ritual forms. We believe Atlanta begs for a new South, one that endeavors to treat our neighbors kindly. The denizens of Atlanta, of the South, must not lick their wounds from the War by attacking the colored man. As the War fades into the past, the new South must strive to be first in industry, first in citizenship, and first in humanity. We should all try to hasten the day to bring these worthy goals to fruition.
The Constitution received a lot of hate mail, but Grady didn’t care. His mission was to help build a new South, in part by convincing the North to invest financially in the South.