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9 The Terror Continues During the short drive to jail, I tried not to think of the constant threat of being taken deep into the piney woods and raped by God-­knows-­how-­many crazed racists. I thought about what Bob said—that it was safer in jail— and hoped that he was right. I desperately wanted to follow what we’d been instructed to do, which was “cooperate, not capitulate.” So I shoved those dark thoughts back in my mind and visualized a day when these policemen would be black because we had gotten the locals out to vote. A few days after we got out of jail, I wrote this letter for my roommate in San Francisco to type and mail to my friends and family list. From a June 1965 letter to supporters: Dear Family and Friends, On Monday, June 28, 1965 at 11:00 a.m., I was at the residence of Charles Nettles. I looked out the window and saw a Lane Butane truck [KKK] parked by Antioch Baptist Church. There was a white man by the truck holding a large stick in his hand. There were a large number of Negro children in front of the church, so I ran across the road to see what was happening. Some of the little girls threw their arms around me and I hugged them and told them to go on home. Then I went on into the church. Most of the SCOPE staff was sitting in the front pews. Mayor Albritton was there with several policemen and posse men with guns. I sat down with the others and they asked me my name, age and whether or not I was a paid staff member. I replied no to the last question. Then they asked us to get in the police cars. Eighteen arrests were made at this time. When we arrived [at the jail] they asked us to line up. The boys were asked, one by one, to put their hands against the wall while a policeman frisked them for concealed weapons. The Terror Continues / 113 While we were standing in line in the dirty, dark, humid Camden jail hallway waiting to be booked, I watched in horror as they slammed eighteen-­ year-­ old Don Green into a metal wall after they searched him and pulled out a small pocketknife from his orange sock. Don was booked on a concealed weapons charge while the rest of us were terrified into silence. When they frisked me, taking extra time through the breast and pelvic area, I left my body and felt my mind float above me on the ceiling. I dissociated so thoroughly that I didn’t come back to myself until we were all crowded into one holding cell. For a short time we all stayed in the one cell. There were five white girls (me, Connie Turner, Ann Nesbitt, Judy, and Sherry), one white man (Mike Farley), and fourteen black men.1 I didn’t see the black women, in­ clud­ ing Ethel. After a while they asked all the “colored” men to step out. They put them in a large cell across the hall from us. Then they took Mike Farley, the one white man, into a cell one away from us girls, on the same side. I remember being afraid for the black women and girls who had been driven over to the jail, but it turned out that they were released without booking. Some worked in white homes and their employers wanted them at work and away from the bad influence of “outside agitators.” When I called out for Ethel that first afternoon, she didn’t answer. She was my big sister, the one who always had an answer for every situation, but she wasn’t here with us now. They didn’t arrest any of our leaders; they wanted us to feel scared and alone. Although I was only in jail overnight, I didn’t have any idea how long I would actually be in or what was going to happen next, so my mind ran wild. Fear of rape by cattle prod gripped my body. The constant noise of slamming cell doors and filthy conditions inside the jail kept us on high alert. Black trustees and white guards leered at us and tried to grab us if we got too close to the bars. We were deprived of privacy and a functioning toilet. My renewed attempts at singing free­ dom...

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