"If You Have Come To Help Us . . . Go Home!"

“If You Have Come To Help Us . . . Go Home!” Maria Varela I looked down at the speedometer. It hovered at 115. My 1957 Packard hunkered down and propelled the three of us down Mississippi Interstate 55. Glancing to the side I saw the two-toned ‘67 Chevy with its white occupants trying to pass us . . . yet again. The barrel of a long gun poked up between the two men in the front seat. It seemed like an eternity since we had left Memphis and got on the Interstate. Earlier that day, we (an older black woman and her daughter) had left a Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) gathering at Highlander Center in Tennessee. We were on our way to the Mississippi Delta. Traveling in an integrated car in daylight had left us all a little tense. When we stopped for gas in Memphis that evening, I thought that the cover of darkness meant the worst of the journey was over. Then I turned from the gas pump and saw the white male occupants of the Chevy staring at us. It was the fall of 1964: open season on civil rights workers. The Packard moved effortlessly up to 120 mph. It ran as if made for this speed: not a shake or shimmy. My companions were deathly quiet. I closed my mind to thoughts of danger: gunfire from the pursuing car, a collision, a flat-tire, a blown rod, or what would happen if the Chevy managed to pull in front and stop us. It was a moonless night and my eyes were glued to the black strip of asphalt that stretched before us. One thing I knew for sure; I would sooner risk pushing the car to the end of the speedometer than stop on this desolate stretch of road in the far northern reaches of Mississippi. Up ahead we saw a semi-truck. The lack of any traffic since Memphis had made the pursuit lethal. If I could stay with the semi perhaps the pursuers wouldn’t make their move. We were now at 125 shooting down the road trying to catch up to the tractor -trailer. As I pulled alongside the truck, the Chevy was on our tail. It was a delicate maneuver, slowing the Packard enough to allow me to slip in front of the semi, yet going fast enough to shake off the Chevy. Once in front, the trick was to stay close to the semi so the Chevy could not come in between. The truck slowed way down and so did we. 67 Then the trucker tried to pass us. I sped up, staying as close to his front bumper as I dared. The Chevy tried unsuccessfully to move ahead of us both, but finally fell back behind the semi. We hovered close to our ‘guardian’ semi for another few miles. The panic welling in my throat was held at bay by my companions’ silent composure. Signs to the Batesville exit emerged. I shot back up to 125 and made the exit with neither truck nor Chevy in sight, cut the lights and floated down the exit ramp into welcome darkness. The semi and the Chevy roared over us into the night. There was not a word spoken as we continued through Batesville on our way down to the Delta. The terror gradually subsided. Finally in small murmurs, with a few tenuous chuckles, we dared to believe it was over. I thought that the Packard Company must have been God’s chariot maker. The Roots of Resistance How did this young, naive, middle class woman, a product of 16 years of Catholic education, end up working in the Civil Rights movement and living in the South for nearly 6 years? My roots of resistance ran deep into the rich soil made up of family, spirituality and personal identity. Growing up, we moved so often, (five times by the time I was nine), that I would joke I was from a ’52 Pontiac station wagon. Our family became our tribe, nation and state. My father was a Mexican national born in the state of Zacatecas. During the Mexican revolution his father brought the family across the...