Freedom Summer - Bruce W. Watson [115]
On the edge of the Delta, Chris found Crenshaw a “very violent town.” Its rickety storefronts and wooden sidewalks reminded him of an old Western; its stereotypical sheriff almost made him laugh. “I been deputy the past four years,” the sheriff told Chris, “and I ain’t never had to shoot a nigger.” One Saturday toward sunset, Chris was canvassing with Pam Jones, a black volunteer from Baltimore, when a dark Chevy cut them off. Several men with bulging T-shirts piled out. Chris tried to stay calm, but the usual taunt—“Communist!”—plus the one that triggered bad childhood memories—“Nigger lover!”—brought his feistiness to the surface. What did they mean, he had “no business here”? he shouted. Americans could go where they wanted, couldn’t they? Fingers were pointed, fists clenched. Faces were jaw to jaw. But after more shouting, the men sped off, leaving Chris feeling cockier than ever.
Back in Batesville, Stokely Carmichael told Chris to expect a spike in terror. The summer project had been more successful than whites expected, Carmichael said. And the Freedom Democrat challenge was a serious threat. The Klan and Citizens’ Council would surely rise to meet it. “The whole state is beginning to tighten up,” Chris wrote home. “In the last week people have been shot at in the daytime on the streets of Greenwood and a mob attacked two Civil Rights workers there.” August, he concluded, “will see more terrorism.” At Robert Miles’s home, the tear gas bomb was followed by a nearer miss. One midnight, volunteers were in the kitchen eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches when a spark flashed outside. Bullets whizzed by the window. One volunteer crawled to the bedroom to drag the two boys to the floor. A few days later, coming to the courthouse, Chris found a dead rattlesnake nailed to the front door.
By then, Chris was living in Crenshaw, “operating a Freedom Outpost in the Delta.” Frequenting black cafés, gathering locals at the Masons’ hall, he was signing up Freedom Democrats “in droves.” Chris had learned not to challenge whites, not even when they called him a “trashy motherfucker” and threw another volunteer to the street. Never lonely, rarely discouraged, still amazed to be in Mississippi and making history, Chris lived for the friendship of blacks who soon knew him by name, greeted him everywhere, even laughed at his jokes. One evening he saw a local black girl slug three white men and run off. It made his day.
On the last afternoon in July, the streets of Philadelphia buzzed with rumors. The talk spread at gas station pumps, in the aisles of the A & P and Piggly-Wiggly, in the post office, where three faces stared beneath the word MISSING. The FBI had grilled Sheriff Rainey! Agents offered him $30,000 to talk! They offered Deputy Price a million bucks and the town constable “enough money to last him the rest of his life!” As rumors multiplied, the FBI again invaded downtown. Sunglasses glinting, agents stood outside the courthouse, returning each hate stare. Something was about to happen. Or something already had.
This much was true—FBI agents spoke to Price and Rainey that Friday. The stocky sheriff later boasted of how he’d handled the Federal Bureau of Integration. Yes, he had met agents, Rainey said, but if they wanted to see him again, they had better “come with subpoenas.” Behind his bluster, however, agents knew the sheriff was scared. Fearing that COFO’s suit against him might lead to a polygraph test, the sheriff had been inquiring about immunity from prosecution. On Friday, when agents came to his office, Rainey listened as they laid out evidence of his bootlegging. If convicted—when convicted—he faced fines, jail, and huge back taxes. But if he told what he knew about the disappearance, the FBI would “take care of him” to the tune of thirty grand. Rainey told the agents nothing. Down the hall, agents