http://www.publiceye.org/racism/white-supremacy.html
The Aftermath.
It’s 1966. It’s a warm quiet evening in a small town
of Tennessee. Too quiet. You been hearing about a potential KKK riot and shut
down for the night. After all, you are an African American family of 5. Your
wife and children are sleeping in the bedroom soundly. Your wife has had a day;
Janice wasn’t allowed to purchase groceries from the local market thus equaling
no supper tonight… again. And then after having to stand and wait 2 hours for
the bus to finally come back around
(the bus driver purposely drove around the block at least 3 times; and
each time he threw up a very rude middle finger), a man in the “Whites Only”
section spat in her face when she was boarding the bus. The children had it
just as bad; Little Lucy had to endure being called horrid and disgraceful
names; Emilia’s hand was brutally smashed in between the school doors; and
Edward –poor Edward—was told by a group of degenerate boys that he and his
family would be dead by morning. Now, all of these trouble you—naturally—but
it’s the last one that catches you off guard; how can they be so---- [tr1] CRASH!! The
sound of glass breaking stirs you out of your thoughts. Then you smell smoke.
The thought Oh God no anything but that! Ran through your mind. My family! You
dash through the kitchen into the hallway. You notice that there’s smoke
emitting from the back
bedroom door. You’re in shock; you can’t move your body. Are they dead? Did
they get out perhaps? You begin to doubt God and you become very angry. How can
He take everything from
you? Where did you go wrong[tr2] ?
“Papa!!! Papa, help us please!” Screams Little Lucy from beyond the
door. You lurch forward, slamming yourself through door, and breaking into the smoke - filled room. Blinking
the smoke out of your eyes, you see your son stomping out the blaze and your
wife holds blanket around the girls’ noses and mouths with frightful looks
among their faces. You pull the girls out into the hallway. You go back inside
the room and begin to drag your son out when another cocktail smashes into the
room, setting everything ablaze. Grabbing Edward by the collar, you haul him
out of the room, through the wash room and out the back door, safely into the
yard with the rest of your family. Now, watch the house that your great
grandparents built burn. Watch the memories that you shared with your family
turn into ash. Watch[tr3] as all of the little savings you had stored up burn.
Your wife’s wedding dress, your mother’s china, your father’s pocket watch,
your children’ baby pictures: gone. This is the life of Timothy Campbell.
“Papa,”
whispers Little Lucy, “Who… who did this? And why? He couldn’t begin to figure
out how to sugar coat this one. In fact, he didn’t want to. He desperately
wanted to sit his daughter down and tell her that whoever did this would suffer in the Devil’s
house. That he was an uneducated man who didn’t have a clue about life. And his
wife knew this by the look that stained her face; Janice grimaced and shook her
head. He could almost hear her say, “Stop it, you’ll give them nightmares.” But
how could he stop the rising, angry lava that threatened to spew from his ears?
All he could do is try. He took a deep breath and exhaled. They weren’t in the clear yet. The
people-more like beasts- were still lingering around the house somewhere. To
his left, in his perphial vision, he saw a group of men whooping and chanting,
jump into a green Ford pickup truck. As they left a man threw another cocktail
into the yard where it exploded.
“EVERYONE GET BACK NOW!,” screamed
Timothy. His wife grabbed ahold of Little Lucy and Edward grabbed Emilia and
ran towards the outer part of the property. Timothy did his best to stomp out
the fire. He did nothing but harm himself; he ended with feet burned and shredded
with glass. Realizing his attempts were ill-fated; Timothy hopped away from the fire back to
his family. On his way, Timothy saw a black shadow burst from among the weeping
willow trees: Emilia. She ran full
throttle, crashing into her father, arms wide and a face full of tears.
He braced himself with his good foot and wrapped his arms around her.
“Ssshhh, s’okay. Everything is going
to be A-okay, Angel.” He whispered those semi-comforting words into her ear
“But, yo—you’re hurt!” Emilia cried into his shirt. She sobbed louder and all
he
could manage was to give
her a comforting pat. He glanced up to see the painful expressions of family.
Little Lucy stood behind her mother sobbing the painful woes into her mother’s
night shirt. Edward tried to look composed but in the end, fell to his knees
and broke down by his mother side. And his wife just stood there with a blank
expression.
“Janice…”, Timothy spoke in a hushed
tone. She was already spooked; there was no need for raised voices.
“My wedding ring”, Janice said
blankly. “I took it off to wash the dishes and left on the counter.” A tear
formed at the corner of her eye and trickled down her face.
His heart sank. They saved with
every tooth and nail they had to buy that ring. And she loved that little gold
band. She wore it with love, passion, and pride. And it was burning along with
the rest of the house
As dawn approached, the
family watched their entire house crash and burn. Fire trucks pulled to the
scene and squad cars followed behind. The firefighters jumped from the truck
and gathered the hose. The police men lazily removed themselves from their cars
with a look of distain upon their face. They so didn’t want to be here.
A separate group of fire fighters
rushed towards the family with first aid kits and gurneys. As the family was
being treated, a police officer walked
up to the family.
“I wish I could say good evening to
y’all, but I don’t think that’s quite right.” He spoke in ways that hide his real meaning: I’m sorry
your house burned down but you know we can’t catch the people who did this,
right?
Timothy nodded his head in reply. He
already knew. This wasn’t a situation that could be fixed. He couldn’t go to
court to see the men that did this be put in jail. Justice didn’t prevail for
the Negro population.
The family watched as the fire fighters
stomped out the remaining embers of the remains of their small 2 bedroom home they once shared. The
tears started once again. All of a sudden they saw a fighter rush toward them
with a grin on his face.
“Now I know you’ve lost a lot but I
believe you may find a little bit of hope.” The fighter opened up his gloved
hand, shining in his palm was a gold band.
Tears spilled from Timothy’s eyes
uncontrollably. He couldn’t believe it; Janice’s wedding band had survived
unscathed. He reached out and gently took the band from the fireman’s hand. He realized
that there were good people in this world. That not every white was born to
hate the blacks.Timothy looked into the young man’s eyes and whispered
something he thought he would never say to a white man: “Thank you”.
The fireman smiled, nodded his head, and turned back
to the
scene. Timothy removed himself from his gurney and wobbled over to his
wife’s gurney. As he approached, a look of confusion swept across her face.
“Timothy… what are y-”, was all that she was able to
manage before Timothy took her left hand and replaced her beloved crown. She
glowed with awe and love for her husband. Their children rejoiced in extreme
happiness despite the night that they had. A family that
fought to live; that fought to prove to those men that they couldn’t tear them
apart. God had blessed them with the strength to fight. They would get through
this hellish hour.
It was true; justice didn’t prevail for the Negro. But
God did.
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