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4 Choosing a Mate each summer during my student days at Alabama State, i worked in the president’s office to help pay my expenses for the coming year. The summer of my junior year, 1953, i went home to Selma for the fourth of Julyholiday,whichwasonaSaturday.onthissojournhome, as always, my family would have a picnic. on this particular outing two very good friends of the family, Dorothy and Johnny brown, brought a friend of theirs to the picnic. Sullivan Jackson was a new dentist in Selma who had recently arrived after completing Meharry Dental School that May. We were introduced as “Dr. Sullivan Jackson , meet Miss Richie Jean Sherrod.” We spoke and moved on, never a second thought on my part, though maybe somewhere in the recesses of my mind i may have thought, “He is cute, but probably married with six children.” My attention turned to my family and the softball game, and when the picnic was over i went home to relax before returning to Montgomery on Monday. The next afternoon, however, the telephone rang and the voice on the other end was Sullivan Jackson. He mentioned meeting me at the picnic and how hot it was and wondered if i would like to go for a ride for some cool air. “oh, by the way, my sister and her husband, who i think you know, will also be along.” i thought, “Why not?” as i 18 / Chapter 4 really did not have anything to do and it was hot. i asked my mother for permission to go and because she knew his sister, she readily gave the go-ahead. He arrived with his sister Matilda and brother-in-law evans olds, as well as another young lady, a very good friend of mine, Mary emma brown, the sister of Johnny brown, who had brought Sullivan to my family’s picnic the previous day. Later i discovered he was not married and we started dating. He would come over to Montgomery and take me out to dinner, which i greatly appreciated as another welcome break from the Alabama State food. He even brought one of my evening dresses over to Montgomery from Selma for me to wear to a campus spring dance, although my date was with another man! i graduated from Alabama State in 1954 and our lives started to change. “Sully,” as i was beginning to call him, was focused on building a dental practice in Selma while i was determined to find a good job after completing college. As with many relationships in flux, problems and disagreements develop . Sully and i broke up. i decided to go on with my life, wash that man out of my hair, as the song goes. oneafternoonmydearchildhoodfriendMargauritecametoSelma to see me and to attend a meeting with her husband. With them was a childhood friend of her husband’s, Rev. Mose Pleasure Jr. Although Mose was born in Mobile, he and Howard Creecy had grown up together in new orleans just as Margaurite and i had grown up in york. After introductions and being filled in as to who Mose was and his excellent lineage, we all went out together. Mose was working with Martin Luther King Jr. as the executive secretary of the Montgomery improvement Association, a new organization that had been formed as a result of the Montgomery bus boycott. This was the struggle to be able to ride Montgomery public transit without having to stand, or sit behind white riders. This is the movement Mrs. Choosing a Mate / 19 Rosa Parks, a black woman, generated by refusing to give up her seat and move to the back of the bus for a male white rider when she had paid the same fare to ride. on that day enough was enough for Mrs. Parks! History was made that day and many of us were aware of it. Sully found out i had gone out with Mose Pleasure and supposedly had a heart attack! He was admitted to Good Samaritan Hospital in Selma, and his physician, Dr. William b. Dinkins, who was also my cousin, called me and asked that i come to the hospital to see him and cheer him up. The next day Sully was abruptly released from the hospital . i began to wonder if Sully had really had a heart attack or it was all an attempt to get me back. if it was, it worked! it took us some time to sort out all...

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