… his
hitchhiked ride, a good guy, a guy in pick-up truck, an almost new 1961 model,
who picked him up after dark just south of Richmond, left him off right off
Highway 61, just outside of town, early that next blazing hot afternoon after
that good guy had tooled that pick-up about fourteen hours straight with only a
couple of pits stops. As he ambled toward the center of town figuring to get a
little lunch at the bus stop before heading out on the bus to head west some
before he picked up the hitchhike trail again he noticed, he clearly noticed
that he was in the colored section of town, or what seemed like it. All kinds
of shacks, run-down and worst, junk cars, or worst, the latest, maybe about a
1949 Hudson from what he could see, litters of little black children playing in
front of decayed yards filled with debris,
and a feel of poverty, not ground-down, groveling poverty but just the
poverty of the poor, the poor who have been poor for a few generations and
don’t know any other existence. As he passed the rows of shacks some residents
gave him short looks, not hostile but more like “whitey, what are you doing
here in this section of town, you must be a stranger.” Others just went about their poking around
business.
These
stares (or indifferences) kept up until he hit the edge of the colored section,
or what seemed to be the edge, when he thirsty, thirsty as hell, by this point
stopped in a store, one of those old time country-type stores, a store out of
some William Faulkner Mississippi novel, he thought, filled with colored folks,
and one white man behind the counter. He approached the counter, asked for a
Pepsi, cold, ice cold, and large. The white man behind the counter (who turned
out to be the owner, and who he would hear of a couple of years later in some
televised news report as the leader of that town’s White Citizens Council) said
this -“boy, where do you think you are, Boston?”, this here is a nigra store
and no whites are served here. By rights I should have you thrown out of town
but since you are a stranger I will just tell that if you want a Pepsi, or any
damn drink, you will have to go to my store over in town a couple of miles from
here up this same road, right next to the bus station which I hope you plan to
be using.” He left without a word, but still thirsty as hell.
After
walking what seemed like an eternity, now with white stares coming from all kinds of shacks, run-down and worst, junk
cars, or worst, the latest, maybe about a 1949 Hudson from what he could see,
litters of little white children playing in front of decayed yards filled with
debris, and a feel of poverty, not ground-down, groveling poverty but just the
poverty of the poor, the poor who have been poor for a few generations and
don’t know any other existence, he reached the downtown bus station, and Mister’s
grocery store next door. He went into the store, now filled with white folks,
and with a white man behind the counter, approached the counter and asked for a
Pepsi, cold, ice cold, and large. In reply the white man said the following-“We
don’t take with white folks trading at the colored store so if you want a
Pepsi, or any damn drink, you’ll have to get it at the bus station-on your way
out of town.” He left, again without a word.
He entered
the small bus station, stepped up to the clerk’s counter, bought a ticket to
New Orleans, and then asked for a drink of water. The clerk pointed behind him
and he went and got that precious drink of water, a drink at the “whites only”
drinking fountain not the “colored only” one that his new found instinct told
him that he should not use…
…and thus
james crow in the flesh. And Mississippi goddam too.
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