Speaking Truth to Power Read Free Page A

cleared, but we needed more room still. The press corps made up the next layer of spectators. Mostjournalists were not about to give up their seats, and Senator Biden did not request them to.
    “Fine, we can put them in the back as well,” Biden said.
    But my family did not travel across the country to sit in the back of the hearing room. And they paid little heed to Biden’s suggestion.
    “Now, there are two chairs on the end here, folks. We must get this hearing moving. There are two chairs on the end here. We will find everyone a seat but we must begin.” The instant smile had completely vanished.
    “Now, Professor Hill, at the risk of everyone behind you standing up, would you be kind enough to introduce your primary family members to us.”
    “I would like to introduce, first of all, my father, Albert Hill.”
    “Mr. Hill, welcome,” the chairman said.
    “My mother, Erma Hill.”
    “Mrs. Hill.”
    Four of my sisters were there—the eldest, Elreatha, and JoAnn, Carlene, and Joyce. I introduced them too.
    “I welcome you all. I am sorry?”
    “My brother, Ray Hill,” I interrupted, limiting my introductions to my “primary” family members, as the senator had requested. I forgot my sister Doris and deliberately omitted my nieces and nephew, Anita LaShelle, Lila, and Eric.
    I had simply said that I needed their support. Some I had expected; others I was surprised to see. With less than forty-eight hours notice, twelve of them had come to Washington, D.C., to be present on Friday morning at the opening of the hearing. My parents had arrived from Tulsa with my sisters Elreatha and JoAnn. My sisters Doris, Joyce, and Carlene and my niece Anita LaShelle had flown in from California. My niece Lila had come from New York. When I first told my family of the hearings, I did not know who would be able to make the trip to Washington on such short notice. They all had jobs and would have to take vacation time to attend.
    My family was as relieved as I had been when they were allowed intothe hearing room. Like me, my family had watched Thomas’ opening statement from a hotel room. And like me, they had little information about when I would appear. As soon as they were notified, they had hailed three taxis for the trip to the Russell Building. As I greeted each of them, I felt despair and humiliation that we should be brought together under such painful and public circumstances. Even at the age of thirty-five I wanted my family to be proud of me. At the same time, I wanted to protect them—especially my parents, who were both approaching eighty at the time of the hearing. This event placed them squarely in harm’s way, and I could neither help feeling responsible nor shield them from what was happening.
    At that moment when I hugged my mother, I felt the gravity of the situation most intensely. For the first time during the ordeal I wanted to cry, but my desire to show her my strength moved me beyond the tears. As difficult as it was for me to have my family there in the midst of the turmoil, their presence gave me courage. I could read the determination on their faces.
    W hat I know of my family story goes back two generations on my father’s side and one on my mother’s. They came from Arkansas, North Carolina, and Texas, traveling to Indian Territory and Oklahoma to escape the racial hostility of those states. But what they and even their descendants found was merely a different, sometimes less violent, brand of inequality.
    Like my parents, my grandparents and great-grandparents were farmers. The latter group all began as slaves on farms in the South. My mother’s father, Henery Elliott, was born a slave in Arkansas in 1864. His parents, Sam and Mollie Elliott, were separated by sale, before he was born. Henery’s mother and a stepfather, Charley Taylor, were brought together by the circumstances of their status. At the end of slavery, they married and raised my grandfather. Sam Elliott remarried as well, to a