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255 f o r t y - o n e Losing the Children iheard Owen Brooks’s distinctive voice even before we stepped into the busy cafeteria. His is a storyteller’s voice. It challenges you to listen, and when I spotted the leonine head at a far table, I was not surprised to see he had an audience. The timbre of his voice was as I remembered it from the eighties, but the wild black Afro was gone now. In its place is a luxurious growth of trimmed salt-and-pepper hair that frames Brooks’s expressive face. When he spotted our tardy arrival, he raised his head and grinned, waving his busy fork toward two empty seats at his table. “Get some food,” he commanded, and leaned forward to continue his story. When we rejoined the table with his coworkers from the Jackson Summer Youth Program, Owen was reminiscing, fueled by the attentive young faces and his own pleasure in narrative. “I grew up in the struggle ,” he was saying. “My sister and I joined the NAACP Youth Council in Boston in 1944, inspired by Mary McCloud Bethune and Paul Robeson.” He looked appraisingly at the young people. “Those were good people.” He turned toward our end of the table and nodded. “Good people,” he repeated. The group rose to return to their offices, and Owen led us down the corridor to a conference room. “We can talk in here.” The tall man smiled and extended his hand to Gloria. “Tracy told me on the phone about you. Looks like he was right. Welcome to Mississippi!” This was my first meeting in nearly twenty years with Owen, and I was eager to hear his assessment of the tumultuous years that had passed. Each of our few meetings had been memorable for me. I was happy that Gloria now had a chance to meet someone who, at age seventy-three, brought so much memory and passion to the table. 256   |   Mississippi, October 2001 “When you and I talked back in ‘84, Owen, I was asking you about Mrs. Hamer’s legacy, and wondering what she would think about the political changes that were finally happening.” Owen nodded. “And I said she would be deeply disappointed that there hadn’t been a real political party created yet that would be interested in people’s lives, not just electoral politics.” He tilted back in his chair, his gaze focused far beyond our room. “She would have been disappointed in 1984,” he said softly, “and what’s sadder is she would still be disappointed in 2002.” “I don’t understand, Owen,” said Gloria. “Back in the sixties there wasn’t a single black elected official in the whole state. Now there are more than eight hundred elected black officials, and one of them is a congressman!” “Mrs. Hamer thought electing blacks would change things. She even ran for Congress herself,” I said. “Was she just being naive?” “No,” he said sharply. “She just had the vision a lot of us had then. A lot of us. And change did come. I would have to be a fool to think I would want to go back to 1963. I am not a fool.” Owen looked at each of us in turn, then leaned forward on the table. “What do eight hundred black officials translate to so far as power is concerned? Who are those black men and women modeling themselves after? And what are they doing to lift the understanding of their constituency?” Brooks’s voice was bitter , and his disappointment was obvious in the look of fatigue he wore. “When they elected black mayors in Newark and Gary, they were going to transform the lives of all the poor people in those cities.” He stared at us. “It didn’t happen,” he said slowly, each word lying like a challenge on the table, “because the white folks stayed right there, and the economic power did not get handed over. That is the reality.” “So electing black officials means nothing?” asked Gloria. “Changes nothing?” “Politicians do the bidding of those that have the power, Gloria, whether their faces are white or black. If you know that these legislators and mayors are black,” replied Owen morosely, “you are heartened, and then you drive across town and you see that power has not been handed over, that the reality of life for the dispossessed, or the hungry, or the poor, [18.216.190.167] Project MUSE...

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