Death in the Delta: Uncovering a Mississippi Family Secret

CHAPTER ELEVEN: Silencing of a Community

113 SilencingofaCommunity July 2006 Both black people and white people in the Deep South were so fearful of each other, so intimidated by the potential for power struggles to erupt into violence, that the safety they found in their own numbers contributed to a hardened code of silence. My family began to suppress the truth the moment it became known. Mr. Evans told me that the black community shut down for days, fearful to mention the shootings to one another. Even on the plantations , the races may have worked side by side and interacted freely in the course of a day’s work, but they kept their business to themselves. Gathering together took place on Sundays at church where, after the service, black families shared a meal, talked shop, gossiped while the children played games in the churchyard. Then and even now, churches were the social hubs of rural black life. When I returned to Asheville, I was plagued by a sense of loss—that had Simon survived, I might have had a chance to meet and know a third uncle. He was a good man, according to his family , affable and, I gather, somewhat charismatic. We might have shared common interests and the tender connection of blood relatives. Trying to imagine what his funeral was like, I read the book Passed On: African American Mourning Stories by Karla Holloway. From her research I put together a picture of what might have happened after Simon and David were shot. First, their bodies would have been taken to the homes of their mothers for a wake or “settin’ up” because it was important for families and friends to chapter eleven silencing of a community 114 see the dead men for the last time. Churchwomen would bring in food—fried chicken, turnip greens, sweet potato pie, cake. Later, because there was seldom a way to embalm the body, black morticians would take it “out to the garage, place him on a couple of straight boards and wrap him in muslin. Then, we packed newspapers into the pine coffins that we put together and buried him without further ado—it only cost us about fifty dollars.” Sometimes the bottoms of the coffins were hinged so that the body could be dropped into the grave and the casket reused. The burials would have occurred before the funerals took place, Simon’s at Southdale Missionary Baptist Church. On Sunday, when workers were free to go to church, they would have gathered together. Inez and Rose and their father and mother, along with Simon’s mother, would hear a cathartic sermon rousing the congregation to lament the loss of two young men to white aggression. There would have been movement, dramatic gesturing , speeches, and songs. And the minister might have taken the opportunity to incite the congregation to have hope, not to give up because the world in which they lived was full of evil. He promised them they would see a better place in heaven. In a letter from King Evans dated May 31, 2006, he wrote, “Negroes survived in this country because of a deep and abiding faith in God. We believe the scriptures and know that, ‘Vengeance is Mine, saith the Lord’ and that someday they will face the righteous judge and will get His reward. This belief is true for the black person who feels that God will justly reward him for his obedience and the white man for his treatment of blacks. Unfortunately, our government and laws supported this system that made it lawful to mistreat fellow human beings.” After the service, there would have been talk about what happened . Rumors and angry words would not move outside the community there. It is quite possible that a traveling minstrel, like Muddy Waters, who lived in Rolling Fork, might have stopped by at the end of the day and struck up a bluesy tune or two. When all returned to their plantation homes and prepared to resume their work in a new week, the story would not be talked about again. silencing of a community 115 At my grandmother’s home, silence about the incident took another form. After Dr. Goodman came to the house to see Tom and bind his wound, and after Sheriff Crawford took Dad into custody, the family probably framed a story they could live with, attributing the killings to self-defense. Quite...