Freedom's Children Read Free

The explosion had knocked all that down and everything was broken. The windows were out.
    I looked across to the church. The electric wires were still flashing from the explosion. You could smell burnt rags and gunpowder. People were screaming. The parsonage had collapsed on one side. My father and Mr. Revis rushed over. Reverend was in his bedroom, which was against the outer wall of the parsonage. Between that outer wall and the church was a three-foot walkway. They had put the bomb in that walkway right next to the bedroom wall. A rafter, one of those big ones, went right through the bed. Daddy was saying he thought Reverend was dead. If he had been in that bed when the beam came through, he would have been. But the explosion had thrown Reverend out of bed.
    Reverend got up and came out. He had on an old, long coat, one of those topcoats preachers wear. He did not have a mark on his body, not a drop of blood. That dynamite had blown windows out a mile or more away, but he had no deafness from the sound. He had nothing physically wrong with him. Think about it. The police said eight to eighteen sticks of dynamite went off within three feet of this man’s head. He’s not deaf, he’s not blind, he’s not crippled, he’s not bleeding. That really made me think he had to be God-sent.
    People had come from blocks around to see what had happened. They had sawed-off shotguns and pistols. Any white man who had gone through there probably would have been hurt. The Reverend stood in the middle of this rubble and talked about nonviolence. He said, “Go home! Put the guns away!” I never will forget him singling out one man. “You all get him and take him home. He’s got a gun. We’re not going to be violent. We don’t want that. This is not gonna turn us around.” In the middle of that house leaning over, the sparking electric wires, the police on their way, people gathered with guns and hostility, he gave a sermon.

FRED SHUTTLESWORTH, JR.—BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA
    Fred Shuttlesworth, Jr. was ten years old at the time of the Christmas bombing of his home.
    It was about 9:30 or 10 o‘clock at night. My father was in the bedroom talking with Mr. Robinson. Usually I was sitting next to Ricky watching television, but that time I was in the dining room. I was wearing my red football uniform that I had gotten that day. All of a sudden, BOOM! It was just like a war zone.
    When I saw all that dust and stuff in the air, I knew that somebody had actually tried to kill us. There was this big question mark. Why would anyone want to do something like this to me and us?
    Then the fear came. I began to stutter. I didn’t know why at the time. It was rough because you don’t understand what is happening to you. Some folks are aggressive; some folks are passive and go into a shell. I was neither. I just stuttered every once in a while.
    My uncle and aunt kept us for that year while the house was being rebuilt. He more than anybody else gave me things to read and encouraged me to express myself. I don’t stutter now. But then it was the fear coming out physically.

ROY DEBERRY—HOLLY SPRINGS, MISSISSIPPI
    I remember one incident when I was at my grandmother’s. I was about five or six. She had a Singer sewing machine without the electricity. She would ask me to get down on the floor and pedal the thing for her. We were out in the yard and an old white man who was poor was coming up. My grandmother was preparing food, so it was obvious that she was going to give him some. I said, “Grandma, what does this cracker want?”
    She said, “You don’t do that. You don’t call someone a ‘cracker.’ This man wants some food. He’s hungry.” I remember her feeding him, and that was really the first time I saw a white person come to our house for food. She also used that as an opportunity to teach me something. People are people, even though they’re