Shattered Glass in Birmingham: My Family's Fight for Civil Rights, 1961-1964

13. Family Time

152 13 Family Time Although Dad poured his energies into civil rights concerns with intense missionary zeal, he sometimes paused to catch his breath. His work and travel meant that for long stretches Mom by herself had to tend to five children , including a young infant, take care of the household needs of a growing family, and try to manage the stress and anxiety of being an outsider in a foreign land. As feelings of ostracism and exclusion clouded our individual minds, we grew to rely on each other for comfort and security. As children, although we each enjoyed time spent with friends, we o#en felt most comfortable with each other and with Mom. At home. During the fall of 1962, as the tensions of Dad’s work seemed to ease a bit, he began to spend more time with the family. On a few occasions during our time in Birmingham, the whole family joined Dad at Alabama Council meetings, where we met some of Dad’s colleagues and experienced the black culture from which segregation laws sought to exclude us. The daily routines of school, homework, and household chores set a steady beat of normality to cushion the occasional staccato counterpoint of threatening phone calls and harassment, with less frequent cymbal clashes of jarring news of civil rights abuses, violence, and crisis. My first experience with the power of music in the civil rights movement came during an Alabama Council meeting I a
ended with my parents. I had heard marvelous gospel singing by the choirs of black churches we had visited . At the time I thought of such singing as religious expression, not political . During a council meeting at Talladega College, before and a#er speeches that seemed boring to me as a thirteen-year-old teenager, the all-black student choir led rousing renditions of both religious and political songs. Old Negro spirituals from the days of slavery couched freedom to come with God’s kingdom in a message that I now realized had been an appeal for the family time 153 end of slavery. Folk tunes and newly composed civil rights anthems roused the audience to an emotional release that sent chills up my spine. Hearing the choir sing “Oh Freedom” and “We’re Marching On to Freedom Land,” I began to understand why civil rights activists relied on singing to inspire people to support the movement. “We Shall Not Be Moved” showed the defiant spirit necessary to stand up to angry white mobs, police batons, and paddy wagons. The choir reached an emotional peak with a passionate rendition of “The Ba
le Hymn of the Republic,” which connected the civil rights movement to the abolitionist campaigns of the Civil War era a century earlier. Just when I thought the singing could not get any more powerful than this, the first notes of “We Shall Overcome” brought us all to our feet. Black and white members of the audience crossed arms and held hands with their neighbors in the pews. Hearing the words of resolve and hope—the optimistic vow that the movement would succeed despite oppression and suffering— tears ran down my cheeks. We shall overcome, We shall overcome We shall overcome, some day Oh, deep in my heart I do believe We shall overcome, some day We’ll walk hand in hand . . . We are not afraid . . . Black and white together . . . Oh, deep in my heart I do believe We shall overcome, some day.™ Shortly before Thanksgiving, one of Dad’s friends offered to let us use his co
age near Mobile Bay for a holiday respite. Dad clearly needed a break from the tension, and we all looked forward to a few days apart from the routines of school and home. There would be no ringing telephones, no hate calls or threats. We piled into the Ford station wagon, with our dachshund, Spitzy, and a bassinet for baby Mark. During the long drive, the radio played “Sugar 154 shattered glass in birmingham Shack” by Jimmy Gilmer and the Fireballs so o#en that we kids could all sing along word for word. As we neared Mobile Bay, the narrow toehold that linked Alabama to the Gulf of Mexico, we saw strange gray clumps of something hanging from tree branches. It looked like long gray beards. “What’s that?” we asked. Mom said: “That must be Spanish moss. It...