Muriel (1969)

I was a member of that feisty group of my generation who looked at the world and demanded to know “Why?” And when those in charge shrugged and said, “Why not?” we raised the level of our discontent by saying, “Unh, unh!” Like the rebellious of every generation, I was horny with idealism, had little patience for authority and foolishly believed that throwing my body in the path of injustice was enough to stop it. Of course, that didn’t happen. What did happen was that those of us who discovered who we were alongside black people from Georgia, Arkansas, Mississippi and Alabama began to create the kind of world we wanted to live in.

What I didn’t know at the time was that we are often most vulnerable when we’re about to get what we want. Many of us were worn out by the effort to protect our beloved community from the daily assaults in the South and the indifference everywhere else. And then in the summer of 1965, I discovered that fatigue is a hothouse for fear. There were massive demonstrations in Jackson, Mississippi, around an issue I can’t recall. Several hundred arrests were made. And because of overcrowding at the city jail, most of us were confined temporarily in a huge field house where rock concerts were held. We were separated by race and told not to cross a chalk line, dividing the building in half. White policemen positioned themselves around the field house and stiff-armed their nightsticks menacingly.

There had been a time when nothing could have prevented us from crossing that line. We believed that no matter how often we were threatened, jailed, beaten or even killed, we could still summon up whatever was necessary to get us through an ordeal. And if a few of us didn’t have the strength to make it through on our own, someone was always there to offer support. But this time, none of us moved. I could feel my own reluctance in the muscles clenching in my back and in the slouch creeping into the shoulders of others whose spines were usually straight as corn stalks. I had faced physical danger before. But when I reached for the strength to push me across that chalk line, I felt my willpower hanging by one frail nerve. I had always been willing to put my body at risk, but my inability or refusal to do it then frightened me more than the police ever had.

I kept to myself, taking refuge in the fact that my weakness was in good company. But there was no comfort in the company. Every look or glance we exchanged was an indictment of our failure to act. And as we watched the cops use their nightsticks to flex themselves into various poses of power, it became clear to me that our bodies had failed us because they had spent too much time in harm’s way. It had made us too much and not enough. Not woman or man enough for our own good. Too white and not black enough.

And then, a few people on both sides of the chalk began taunting the police. They crossed the line and were followed by the rest of us. The police moved in quickly with clubs and tear gas. But our delayed reaction did not redeem the old faith in our bodies. The damage had been done. And I remember how exhilarated I felt when a cop drove the palm of his hand into my back with the full force of his shoulder behind it.

I was released after five days with the effects of the tear gas still burning my eyes and throat. When I left the South a few months later, my view of making change was moving away from what I could do WITH people who had the least and toward what I could do TO people who had the most. By the end of the 1960s, it was understood, at least among the people I knew, that if one were truly a threat to those in power, an attempt...