I was nine years old, wandering through the front door of our home after school. On the table in the foyer, beneath an oil painting of ocean waves building beneath troubled skies, the first thing I notice is the latest Life magazine. The cover? A large glossy black-and-white photograph of girls my age, wearing a similar type of narrow-waisted cotton dress.
The photographer captured the instant these girls held slender arms over their faces as uniformed law enforcement officials in Birmingham fire-hosed them against a red brick wall.
It was May 1962. Bull Connor arrested 959 young people that day, ranging in ages from 6 to 18. Children my age, blasted by high-pressure hoses, slid down blistering sidewalks.
My mother recalls that I picked up the magazine, fell back on the living room couch and burst into tears. Why would anyone, much less police, attack children with lunging, teeth-bared dogs?
Sixty years later, this intransigent racism continues. In the middle of a global pandemic everyone holds cameras in their phones. Vicious images of bigotry were captured, streamed, and shared across the world.
I received a text from our college-age daughter. She will be late getting home. Near Lansing’s Old Town, she bumped into a Black Lives Matter march and feels called to join in.
I couldn’t blame her. She had held her fist to her mouth as we observed the televised video of George Floyd’s nine-minute murder. Racism had mutated like this virus, never eradicated, and continued to infect and spread. In the first year it exposed the unequal playing field, with Blacks and Latinos suffering three times the loss of life.
Now our daughter wanted to witness her own outrage. My pride tempered my alarm. Was this safe? After three years in college, an illness forced her to take leave and come home before Covid shut down the world. She suffered panic attacks, debilitating anxiety, a mysterious paralysis in her legs. At first her symptoms baffled our family physician. Later, a psychotic episode exploded in her brain, as if she had stepped on land mine long buried. Hospitalized twice, we learned from the psychiatrist that at her age, the final knitting of brain neurons and synapses in the brain can misfire, go haywire. Regular treatments with potent medications and weekly therapy became a part of our household. Only recently had she felt stabilized enough to drive on her own.
Was joining a protest march a wise decision for her right now?
Ok, I text back. Please give updates. No sooner had I sent that, I add another: Whatever you do, do not walk on a freeway.
Ok! she texts with an exclamation mark followed by a yellow smiley face.
An hour passes. My husband and I follow the local news, with a live action video of her march. Mostly youthful faces come into view, in masks, to my relief. We lean in, checking for her oval face on our flat screen.
Another half-hour. No message. My ankles wiggle. Trying to seem like a cool mom, I text: So. How’s it going?
Great!! she texts, with another yellow smiley emoji.
Are you wearing your mask? I text.
She responds with a single thumbs up emoji.
Is everybody around you wearing a mask? I couldn’t stop.
Two thumbs up emojis.
Ok. I say to myself. Stop pestering her. This is a tremendous experience. Escaping the confines of our house. Joining in a mission for racial justice. But my fingers turned white as I clenched my cell phone.
A few minutes later. So. Where are you? Exactly?
After a substantial pause, she texts back a shrugging emoji. No clue.
I gulp. My fingers slip. Stab in wrong letters. Delete, delete, delete. Could you ask someone where you are?
She responds with another thumbs up emoji. Will get back to you.
Trying to camouflage my dismay, given she doesn’t realize where she is. I text: Okay.
But I sit on the lowest step of the staircase, pulling on my tennis shoes, braced for action, something I have learned to do since she’s been ill.
Hi. She texts. Someone said we are walking up the south ramp of Interstate 127?
WHAT? I text. I SAID NO HIGHWAYS. DRIVERS WILL RUN YOU DOWN.
Mom. Relax. The police are here.
WHAT?
It was not a relief that police were present at her Black Lives Mater march. I recalled the April 1968, the day Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King was slain. Outrage engulfed cities. Buildings burned to the ground. Black Americans were beaten and arrested by police. My kind, college-educated grandfather was livid about Dr. King’s assassination. A lifelong Baptist, he never cursed or spoke ill of anyone.
But the day Dr. King was murdered, my older brother whispered, “Guess what I over-heard Papa say?”
I did not know. My brother’s hushed voice scared me.
He leaned in, cupped his hands close to my ear. “Papa said whoever shot Rev. King should be strung up by his balls.”
I wasn’t exactly sure what balls were. But it didn’t sound good. The wide-eyed shock I remember was that of a girl unable to articulate a sudden discovery: Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s assassination evoked rage inside my grandfather. I realized violence brings out the worst in people.
Our daughter finally texts back. Mom. Police are in their cars with flashers. Escorting us. Front and back. She follows with a big thumbs up emoji.
I am stunned, confused, getting tired of thumbs.
Suddenly she continues. Plus, there’s pizza! Followed by a pizza emoji and a smiley face.
WAIT! YOUR PROTEST IS MARCHING UP 127 SOUTH RAMP WHILE EATING PIZZA WITH POLICE DRIVING IN FRONT AND BACK OF YOUR PROTEST?
I linger for what felt like an eternity.
Yeah! she texts. Someone brought stacks of pizzas for all of us and passed slices out of their car. Stop shouting. A smiley face emoji pops up followed by a trio of happy faces.
I grow tired of these smiling faces, too. I bite my lip, close my eyes, rattle the car keys in my sweaty hands.
For months, the entire world had been locked down, cut off from any sense of normalcy. Could I trust her perceptions? Could I trust my own?
I took a deep breath and wished my mother were alive. What would she do? I recalled an incident soon after Dr. King’s assassination. My mother hung up the black receiver of our rotary phone with a forceful thud.
Seeing her furrowed brow I asked, “What was that?”
“Oh, nothing.” My mother shook her head.
“Tell me.”
“It was a bomb threat,” she said, sounding more irritated than afraid.
“What?!” My heart fluttered for the first time. I sat back. Why would anybody want to harm me? This threat felt so impersonal and personal at the same time. Her calm demeanor baffled me.
“But why?” I ask.
“ Some folks feel threatened by our views advocating racial justice in local housing and schools. Now they try to threaten us. Never pay attention to anonymous threats. Besides your great-grandmother always said, ‘Never take counsel from your fears.’”
Now I stare at my cell phone’s smudged screen, scrambled by many rushed letters and emojis. Does great-grandmother’s sage advice apply today?
Exhausted, my eyes blur as I stare down at my phone. I could no longer read words. In their place a frieze surfaced. An array of colorful emojis blossomed and rose. Now, all I could see were comical contours of enthusiastic thumbs, red and yellow triangles of pizza, punctuated by big fat smiley faces. A visual tableau of exuberance and elation rose. We have not seen such joy since her illness began.
I shift out of capital letters. Proud of you, I text. Let us know when you are coming home.
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