Filled with her mother’s faith in her, Joylette goes to college
across town at Hampton, famous for the old oak tree
where President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation
was read for the first time in the South,
declaring that all held as slaves
be henceforward forever free.
Soon a school for them was founded by the tree.
For about a hundred years the Hampton campus
has been quiet, but now students march through town,
demanding that promises of equality finally be kept.
Friends from church tell Katherine about students
who bring homework to the five-and-dime store,
open books on the lunch counter, and pretend to study.
Some are shoved from their seats.
Angry white people knock cups and plates off the counter.
The students get up, wipe up spilled mustard and coffee,
return to their task. Others stage sit-ins at libraries.
When Joylette talks about joining a march for justice,
Katherine shakes her head. I just want you to be safe.
If they put you in jail,
you won’t ever get that job you want at NASA.
It won’t matter that you were marching peacefully.
Joylette touches the corner of her mouth,
which had been cut when she was a child turned away
from a hospital with blood on her brown face.
She won’t promise she won’t protest,
but stands strong as the oak tree
where people gather again with new hope.