Nobody Said Amen (3 page)

Relieved and grateful to have him home safe, she brought her young veteran into the social swim of the synagogue and the country club, eager to have him meet the young men and women who could relaunch him into the community. “He’s very high-strung,” she confided to her husband that night as they were retiring. “He’s been through a lot.” But fatigued by the daily struggle to keep Eli Dairy running through the long war when all the young men had been gone, his father was ailing now. Ted watched with distress as proud Irving Mendelsohn’s strength seemed to be betraying him. “Help me, Teddy.” The words were so needy that Ted became more and more involved with Eli Dairy. In his first letter to Max Miller after returning stateside, he wrote of his dilemma.

Max,

The wandering Jew has returned to the family and to the South that still won’t hire Teddy Wilson. I’m trying to pass the buck of Eli Dairy to a younger cousin who likes it here, but my old man is a hard case who believes in tradition, responsibility, loyalty, early bedtime, and the separation of the races. Not sharing much of that, I’m not getting much traction. As to the separation of the races, that’s now a no-man’s-land where conversation dies. So keep my seat warm, but I won’t be able to use it until something changes.

Teddy

Irving Mendelsohn died late in December, and Max received another letter from Ted.

Max

Life gets in the way of life. So much to tell you when we get together. Arriving with my sweetheart, Julia, and will call you from Grand Central. Dust off the chair.

Ted

In the Spring of 1951, Julia Berg and Ted Mendelsohn were married in the living room of Max and Maggie Miller. “Your wedding present is a year’s subscription to
Newsweek
,” toasted Max with great ceremony. “Oh, and something I almost forgot to mention. Kilroy here is getting the Washington beat, no shabby beginning.” He grinned at the wide-eyed couple. “
Newsweek
thinks you and Washington will be a great fit, Teddy. We’re planning on keeping you real busy. And that should keep your bridegroom close enough, Julia honey, so he can pick up the groceries on the way home!”

For four years the Mendelsohns reveled in the excitement and glamour of the postwar capitol, only retreating to the quieter Maryland suburbs to replant their burgeoning family in a greener soil. The Kilroy of
Yank
magazine became the now bylined Ted Mendelsohn of
Newsweek
, leading the frantic bifurcated life of the commuter. Dogged and determined to create the nest that Julia had dreamed of since leaving Atlanta, he seemed to be constantly racing home for picnics, birthday parties, parents’ nights, and Little League games, all the demanding small-town happenings that seemed to overspill from the family calendar. Julia was radiant, intimately involved with the warp and woof of her kids’ lives. But the world of the newsroom was beginning to tremble with a new urgency of a “cold war” abroad and a roiling civil liberties conflict where charges of “Communist sympathizers” were erupting from Senator Joe McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee. When Ted found the names of friends and colleagues on “black lists” that made them unhireable, his eagerness to get actively back on the scene and in the field became ever more at odds with his insulated life in the suburbs.

Max was nervously alive to the tremors, goading his reporters to “dig harder, dig deeper, and dig faster. You’re getting paid to keep us in front of the news, not sucking hind tit!” Max’s demands became the frantic focus of Mendelsohn’s life, and Mendelsohn’s idyll on the outskirts of the world skidded to an end. As segregation was being challenged in the schools and in the public accommodations of the South, as pray-ins and sit-ins exploded, and as the right of blacks to vote in elections were being asserted and denied, Mendelsohn’s bylines ricocheted from the Carolinas, Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia, and back to Washington, where the Senate was still debating whether to pass anti-lynching legislation.

Briefly back at home, he found Laurie to be shy in his presence and Richard unfamiliarly cool. Julia tried to be welcoming, but her exasperation at the changes in the normal routines he had forced on their lives could not be hidden.

“What has happened to you, Ted? What is happening to us? You missed Richard’s father-son banquet at the temple. Again. Last time it was sit-ins in Tennessee. This time it was Little Rock. Where the hell will you be when Laurie graduates? Damn it. It’s not fair!” She sat, desolate, on the edge of the bed, next to his half-empty Valpack. “It’s not what we planned, sweetheart.”

He nodded. “I know that, Julia. I feel like I’m tied to a runaway train. I’m on the cusp of something that I feel I’ve got to cover, to understand. It’s why I do what I do, darling. Why I’m not peddling milk. Why I’m a journalist. History is not waiting for me, and I find myself running like mad.” His voice broke. “Looking like a stranger to my daughter and missing father-son suppers with my kid, whom I adore. Feeling guilty. And not knowing what to do about it.”

Julia touched his hand. “I didn’t marry Lowell Thomas. I married you. I love you, but I spend most of my time missing you.” She rose and stopped at the door. “Your kids deserve more than that. Laurie does. Richard does. And so do I. Your job is becoming your wife, and the wife you married is becoming a goddam widow.” As she left the room the phone rang in the hall.

Julia answered. “It’s for you.” Her voice was brittle. “It’s your boss and good friend, Max.” She handed him the phone, turned on her heel, and went swiftly down the stairs.

Max’s voice was brisk. “The tickets for Oxford are at the airport, Teddy. Flight is at 7:40. Fly good and for Christ’s sake keep me in the loop. Oh, and say hi to Julia for me. She was off the phone before I had a chance.”

Everyone stood in the June sunshine in front of the Administration building, a puddle of humanity on the deserted Oxford, Ohio, campus. The talk was muted, people uneasy about what was about to take place. Kids smoked and shifted nervously, edging aside as Ted made his way over to Dale Billings, a young, black SNCC field worker who stood quiet and watchful on the edge of the lawn. “What are they going to do, Dale?”

Dale nodded toward a group of the staff who were carrying chairs from the dining hall into the center of the crowd. “They’ll set up a make-believe lunch counter,” Dale replied, squinting in the bright glare.

“Then they’ll integrate it.” He nudged Ted. “Like I was doing in Washington when we met. But this is about what happens when I do that in Mississippi.” He nodded toward a stocky young black who stepped into the clearing. “That SNCC kid is Jimmy Mack. He lives in the town of Shiloh in the Delta.”

Jimmy Mack held up his arms for silence, and Mendelsohn could hear the whir of the newsreel cameras that had arrived the day before. “This is the way you protect your body.” His voice was flat. “The vital parts of your body are your head, your neck, and your groin. You can protect them best by curling up like a baby, your legs together, your knees pulled up to protect your gut and your privates, your hands and arms shielding your head and the back of your neck.”

Mack bent forward, rolling into a fetal position, his arms lacing across his dark bent head and his hands cradling the back of his head and neck. The girl standing next to the reporter sucked in a deep breath. Mack rose from the lawn and led a volunteer from the crowd into the center. “Let me see you protect yourself.” The student assumed the position, and the young black pulled back his sneakered foot, gently tapping the exposed areas of the supine volunteer. “Your legs, your thighs, your buttocks, your kidneys, your back can take a kick or a billy club. So can your arms and your hands. Your head can’t. Your neck can’t. Your groin can’t. When your companion is being beaten or stomped while lying on the ground, you must protect him or her. You do it by shielding his head with your body. Your back can take it.”

Ted became aware again of the whir of the newsreel cameras. Everything would be recorded for the great spectator public except the nausea and the outrage of having to learn the art of protecting yourself from a Mississippi lynch mob or from American police who were waiting to assault you. When he turned to Dale Billings he saw that the young man was standing, arms folded, watching him.

Ted’s hand was shaking as he wrote in his notebook, seeking the words to convey to Max and
Newsweek
what he felt. When he looked across the tight circle of students there was not a sound. Their eyes stayed riveted on the tableau of a violence that until that moment had existed for them only in grade-B movies and tabloid spreads.

“It’s a nightmare theater. The loveliness of this June afternoon won’t be remembered by the students in the days and nights ahead in Mississippi. The sky is a delicate blue, and the sun-washed breeze is moving gently across the children who are play-acting on the green lawn. But it’s a nightmare theater.”

At the end of the week Ted called Max to let him know he was heading for Shiloh, Mississippi. “It’s going to be a hell of a story,” Max said. Then he added something very un-Max like. “Drive carefully Teddy. I’ve been to the Delta. You can bet your ass they know you’re coming.”

A Trailways bus took them to Memphis, and when they got there Dale Billings, another SNCC field worker from Shiloh named Harold Parker, and Johnny Buckley, a red-headed volunteer from Seattle, joined Ted at the Hertz counter. The Hertz lady was blond and pretty. “Yes, we have a car for you. No, we don’t have any with Mississippi plates.”

Johnny Buckley leaned over Ted’s shoulder and smiled at the woman. “You certain, pretty lady?”

Her eyes flicked from Buckley to the two Negroes waiting beside him. “I’m absolutely certain.” Her voice had altered. “Why don’t you try one of the other agencies? You planning a long trip?”

“Several weeks,” Ted said. “Thank you. I’ll check the other agencies.”

She watched them move to the other rentals. “No, sir. No car with Mississippi plates.” “No, sir. No car at all.” The cool blonde stood, arms crossed, as Ted returned to the Hertz counter. “Ma’am, I’d like to rent a car with Tennessee plates.” Deadpan, she reached for the form and filled it out. Without a word she pushed it toward him and held out a pen for him to sign with. As he thanked her, a small smile flitted across her face. “Y’all will find the car parked across the road in space 49.” She paused just a moment, leaned back on the counter and crossed her arms again. “It’s a yella Chevy. Bright yella, with Tennessee plates.” With a dimpled smile, Buckley said, “Thank you, pretty lady.” She looked at the engaging redhead and her eyes were clouded. “Y’can’t fool ’em, y’know.” When Buckley and Ted picked up the keys from the counter, Dale and Parker were already out the door.

The neat geometry of the Delta unfolded as they moved at 55 miles per hour into the heartland of Mississippi. Dwarfed cotton plants stretched in symmetric rows almost to the horizon, the dark soil between the rows cartwheeling like black spokes as the Chevy moved down Highway 49. Next to Ted, Dale Billings stretched his legs under the dashboard, looping his arm carelessly over the back of the seat. The attitude of repose was deceptive, for his eyes were quick and alert, scanning the road ahead and behind for any vehicles. “Take it easy,” he cautioned. “The car traveling toward us could be the Highway Patrol who move up and down this route.”

Ted’s eyes moved once more to the mirror, once more to the road ahead and the approaching vehicle, and then to the shivering needle of the speedometer.
You can bet your ass they know you’re coming.
For the first time he began to feel the tension in his neck. It was a Ford pickup truck. The two white men in farmers’ straw hats studied their license as they sped past, one craning his neck to see who was inside the Chevy. As Ted read his mirror, the man next to the driver turned and watched them. Dale saw the Ford grow small in the distance. “They’re gone, Ted. But watch your speed.”

Watch his speed! Christ, he’d never monitored his speed so carefully in his up-till-now long life. He was getting a stiff neck watching his speed.

“Doesn’t matter a hell of a lot whether you going fifty-five or sixty-five,” said Parker from the back seat. “If the Mississippi Highway Patrol arrests you and says you were going eighty-five, you were going eighty-five.”

“So why am I breaking my stiff neck going fifty-five, Dale?”

Dale Billings laughed. “Okay by me. Go eighty-five and we’ll get there quicker.”

“Maybe,” said Buckley.

A Negro kid was sitting next to him, and he was driving down Highway 49 in the Mississippi Delta. It was a new feeling, edgy, uncomfortable. Did Dale feel as exposed as he did? Safer if he sat in the back? So approaching cars wouldn’t notice? Ted was ashamed to think this way. Christ, he couldn’t take his eye off that damned rearview mirror! He tapped Dale’s knee and stepped on the gas. “Joe Louis said it, Dale. You can run but you can’t hide.”

Dale laughed. “Look at that country out there, Ted. Good for running, terrible for hiding!” It was suddenly very clear. He couldn’t work down here this summer if he was going to be running scared. His story was right here—young kids moving into “who knows what” to try to register black Americans so they could vote. They were all silent now. Just watching. And he had work to do. When they reached Clarksdale, Dale made the decision for him.

“We’re getting close to Klan country, Buckley. You get up here. I’ll hunker down in the back with Parker when we’re approaching Shiloh so it looks like it’s just two white guys in the car. When you see the Kilbrew gas station on your right, Ted, take the next left and you’ll pass the Sojourner Chapel. Jimmy Mack said we’ll meet there at seven tomorrow night.” Dale’s eyes swept the car. “Meanwhile, get to know the families you’ll be staying with.”

Ted Mendelsohn breathed easy for the first time since he’d left Memphis. He had brought the wheels they’d need. Now the baton had been passed.

On Sunday, right after service, Jimmy Mack had come up to Percy and Rennie, bursting with the news. “They’re arriving tomorrow, Mr. Williams. Driving in from Memphis. Can you believe it, Sister Rennie? And I’m hoping the journalist can stay with you. He’s an older man than the students, I don’t think he’ll be a bother. Has kids of his own up in Washington, D.C. Got to know him a little at the orientation.” Jimmy had run out of breath then, looking expectantly at Mr. Williams. “Is it still okay with you?”