Turn Me Loose (5 page)

the sound of the north and schools and books

every time he opened his nigger lips.

The prosecution said he was only speaking

on equality and freedom, but what I heard

when he flapped his black gums was

“poor white trash, lick our union boots

and watch us do to your wives and daughters

what the slavers done to ours.”

… everybody knows about
     Mississippi Goddam
.

—
NINA SIMONE

 

Byron De La Beckwith

There was a time

when being a white man

on trial in Mississippi

was like swapping lies

in the barbershop or at a church picnic.

Looking across at the Judases

that helped find me guilty

the third time

was like looking at a souvenir postcard

of a lynching

only it's me playing jump rope

with the tree

and the Christmas morning faces

in the crowd

is all carpetbaggers and Jews.

Myrlie Evers

Dying can't compare with living

with death and loss grief and anger.

Standing up for truth and justice

is much harder than marrying silence.

Climbing out from under the heaviness

of hate is the hardest thing I've ever done.

Surviving a husband is something I prepared for.

I practiced and practiced being strong enough.

Surviving Mississippi took Fannie Lou Hamer

strength, something I didn't ever think I had.

after Thomas Sayers Ellis

You got old plantations

We got shotgun houses

You got sprawling verandas

We got a piece a front porch

You got beautiful gardens

We got cotton fields

You got Ole Miss Law School

We got Parchman Prison

You got Gulf Shore beaches

We got river banks

You got debutante balls

We got juke joints

You got bridge parties

We got dominoes and spades

You got mint juleps

We got homemade hooch

You got your grandmother's china

We got paper plates

You see a proud history

We see a racist past

You don't remember lynchings

We can't forget

You got blacks

We got the blues

You can own the land a woman calls home

but not the warmth in it or the stars above it.

You can own the food she feeds her family

but not the love that prepares it.

You can own the well from which she pulls

her water but not the thirst it quenches

You can fill all the libraries with your version

of facts, call it history, and still not own the truth.

Thelma De La Beckwith

After that first harvest,

they took to the streets

and chanted “after”
him

there'd be
no more fear

but it took them forty-five years

to grow back their spines

after their so-called civil rights lions

were slaughtered like lambs

I look at this new one standing here

shameless and shiny, faking humility

and confidence, an educated mongrel

peddling false hope

But even though he won, the victory is ours,

because it took them forty-five years

to rebuild their backbones

all those years to unshackle their fear

forty-five years to raise another
boy

man enough to send home   in a box

Plenty of rich folks wants to fight.
Give them the guns
.

—
WOODY GUTHRIE

 

Willie De La Beckwith

I never understood colored folks.

They ain't got no more than we got.

Hell, most of them got less than nothing

but every time I see one, they are smiling

I don't hate them as much as I hate

those big ass grins on their face.

When I see one of them grinning, it's like

they are laughing at us for being white

and still poor, for believing we had something

in common with the real bosses.

We stood by while the rich used blacks

like they were little more than dirt floors

to walk on, but we were too dumb to know

we were just their rugs.

Myrlie Evers

imagine byron

sitting down to eat, using

his cotton shirt sleeves

as substitutes for

napkins, clutching a steak knife

—no unleavened bread

enjoying blood that

drips from every single bite

of his final meal

imagine before

he lays down to sleep, ready

to meet his maker

he gets on his knees

and confesses all his sins

in time to be saved,

but when he looks up

at God's burnt brass face he thinks

he has gone to hell

Myrlie Evers

For every ten Beckwiths

defending the right to wave

the Confederate flag

there's at least one Kennedy.

For every racist governor

and flaming cross

there's a white Catholic priest

dodging bricks, wiping off spit,

bleeding from the temple

in the thick of a march.

For every hundred southerners

teeming with hatred

there's a set of kind blue eyes

full of hope, there's a young heart

unafraid of change and a reason

not to fear or pity them all.

Myrlie Evers

prepare closed minds

with patience. peel ripe

distrust with smiles.

stir in generous portions

of kindness and willingness

to do the work.

add commitment and determination.

massage out doubt and fear.

blend in a drop of daddy's blood

and two of mamma's tears.

season with hope and change.

let sit for a generation.

distill as a salve. rub deeply into

your children's hands, feet and hearts.

now vote.

Charles Evers

If you knew him after Alcorn and the war,

before history books, before that bullet,

before becoming the field secretary,

back when he was just an insurance man,

you would've known how bullheaded he could be.

He knew Mississippi polished and perfected ugly

but also that she had something beautiful to offer

her sons   our freedom.

He didn't sell us a waiting game like a preacher

and only promise our rewards in the hereafter.

We shall all be free. We shall all
     be free
.

We shall all be free some day
.

—
GUY AND CANDY CARAWAN

Myrlie Evers

When I was able to see beauty in a world

littered with scars

when I discovered stores of memories

that a bullet couldn't quit

when I watched a son grow into his father's face,

his laugh, his walk

I saw how faith could be restored.

And was finally able to imagine

that before he fell in love with guns

before he lost his mother

and his childhood

before he needed a reason to hate

to feel threatened

to push back against imaginary walls

collapsing in on him

like August heat and no fan

I imagine before all that, little Byron was good.

He was clean. He was innocent.

And I finally understood

that trouble don't last always.

If Mississippi is to love her elephant self

she needs a memory as sharp as her ivory tusks

with as many wrinkles as her thick thick past.

If she forgets, she need only reach back,

caress her keloid skin, and run her fingers across

the Braille history raised on her spine

or the bruised couplets around her supple neck.

For Mississippi to love her elephant self,

she need only open her blue/gray eyes and move.

Move, as if she carries the entire weight of history

and southern guilt on her massive head.

Move, in any direction, as long as it is forward.

For Mississippi to love her elephant self,

she must ask for, extend, and receive

forgiveness.

But she must never ever ever   forget.

The epigraph in “Humor Me” is taken from the poem “The Social Order,” by Andrew Hudgins, in
The Glass Hammer
.