Freedom Summer - Bruce W. Watson [109]
On the evening a bomb hit Vicksburg’s Melody Lounge, Fran learned not to tell her mother the whole truth about Mississippi. “You haven’t a thing to worry about,” she wrote home that night. “Vicksburg is a very quiet town.” And with each class, Fran was learning that not all children are charming. During her afternoon chorus, two boys insisted on croaking like frogs until Fran blew up at “the little darlings.” Another girl did daily “Jekyll-Hyde transformations,” racing around the room, threatening other students. But Mississippi’s saddest lesson taught Fran how Jim Crow crippled every black child’s confidence. Thrilled by her students’ creativity, she was dismayed to see so many kids throw their paintings in the wastebasket. She took them out and put them on her classroom wall.
Freedom Summer’s makeshift logistics had bounced Fran around Vicksburg. In mid-July, the community center was condemned. Fran and her colleagues packed their supplies and moved two blocks to the Freedom House, where their classes had to compete with voter registration. Next, Fran had to leave her host home. The woman there had grown terrified of retaliation. Fran moved into a larger home with antique furniture and even china, all proudly tended by the black woman Fran would forever call “Mrs. Garrett.” The match was ideal. Mrs. Garrett, a rotund woman with thick iron gray hair, was a retired teacher with ample advice for a beginner. Every evening, after Fran came home from a long day of classes, Mrs. Garrett sat and talked. Talked about her grandmother, who when freed, got down on her knees and hugged her children, thanking Jesus that “my babies can’t be sold away.” Talked about teaching in Vicksburg’s black schools, with few books, few resources, just empathy and common sense. Talked about what to do with a history book decades old and whitewashed with lies—“Well, you just read the book and then you give them the right information.”
The next day, Fran started teaching American history. Opening the 1930 text, she read, “The history of America really begins in England.” “Now,” she said, “what might be wrong with that sentence? ” A hand went up.
“Well, lots of people came here who weren’t from England.”
Fran smiled. And what other countries might Americans have come from? Her students began touring the globe.
“France? ”
“Yes.”
“Italy? ”
“Certainly.”
“Germany?”
They moved on to Mexico and South America. Fran was impressed with their geography, but couldn’t help wonder. After they tried China and India, Fran asked, “Well, what about Africa?” The classroom fell silent. Finally, a little girl raised her hand.
“Does that count? ”
Fran had to blink back tears. “Yes,” she said softly. “Yes, that counts.”
A few days later, Fran wrote home again:
Sometimes I feel I’m not doing much, but . . . I still feel our real hope of success is in the children. They can’t avoid fear, being intelligent, nor resentment, being human. But I hope the stimulation of the Freedom School and the examples of determination set by Negro workers will save them from the apathetic “What’s the use? ” attitude which oppresses and binds people more than the law ever could.
On Thursday, July 23, Fran found Vicksburg’s Freedom House “in a dither.” All afternoon, people ran in and out, straightening, cleaning, preparing. Martin Luther King was coming. He was due around 6:00 p.m. The day before, King had shared coffee with COFO workers in Jackson, then canvassed