The Cruisers Read Free

sometimes ran guest editorials or cartoons. Ashley was smart and hip. Usually she published stories about the school’s activities, such as sports, drama programs, and upcoming events. But once in a while she would run something that would shake things up. Once she ran an interview with a guy on trial for selling drugs who said that crack should be legalized, and once she did a piece saying that schools should be open at night for homeless people to sleep in.
    “If we’re supposed to be peacemakers I guess we’re neutral,” I said.
    “Can we just kill Alvin and then start being neutral from there?” LaShonda asked.
    I could see that peacemaking wasn’t going to be as easy as it seemed.
     
THE PALETTE
    Guest Editorial
    We believe that it is our sacred duty to our brothers of African descent to continue teaching them our ways, including our religion, our principles, and our civilization. Why, go to a Northern city, such as New York, and you will see the black inhabitants of that city lying around in a most unseemly way. Often they will inhabit the worst quarters of the city and behave in a way that would not be tolerated below the Mason-Dixon Line.
    In many cities whose newspapers rally behind the abolitionist banner we find Negroes being loud and boisterous on the streets, going into and out of places where alcohol is sold, and acting in as heathen a manner as they did on their native African shores.
    We believe that we must protect the Negro race from those who, in the name of freedom, would turn them loose in an uncaringsociety and expect them to compete against white men.
    We believe we owe it to these visitors to our shore to continue bringing them along, civilizing them as we give them opportunities for honest labor and the fruits of our fair country. To this end and this end alone, we owe it to ourselves to break the treaty with the Northern states and to do our duty as Southerners.
    —Alvin McCraney and the Sons of the
Confederacy

CHAPTER THREE
Free Speech on the Menu,
with a Side Order of Knuckle Stew
    W e were supposed to be planning our negotiations between the Union and the Confederacy but ended up talking about what Alvin had written.
    “We have to make a move on that dude. He’s talking about freedom of speech and stuff but what he’s really dealing with is race,” Kambui said as we sat in the lunchroom. “He’s putting out his little piece in
The Palette
and then cracking up on it. I think he needs a serious beat down.”
    “Who we beating up?” Cody Weinstein came to the table and threw a leg over the back of a chair.
    “Alvin,” Kambui said. “You see what he wrote in the school paper?”
    “Yeah, I saw it. Why don’t you just go to Mrs. Maxwelland say you object to the piece,” Cody said. “She’s got to go for it.”
    “Culpepper is on Alvin’s side,” Kambui said. He had his toothpick working big-time. “I told him about the article and he said it was about freedom of speech. I don’t think we should let him get away with it. What you thinking, Zander?”
    “Let’s have a meeting with Alvin,” I said. “If this is supposed to be about the Civil War, then we need to deal with the issues. Race was part of that whole thing.”
    “That’s what Alvin’s saying, man.” Kambui was getting mad. “But you should have seen how the guys on the soccer team were reading the piece in the lunchroom and cracking up.”
    “How did people deal with that stuff before the Civil War?” LaShonda asked.
    “The South said they had a constitutional right to have slaves,” Bobbi said. “And they did.”
    “You can’t have a constitutional right to own somebody!” LaShonda said.
    “The Confederate states thought they had it and that it was guaranteed by the Constitution,” Cody said. “That’swhy they went to war. Did you ever read their Declarations of Causes of Secession that Mr. Siegfried assigned?”
    No, I hadn’t. I didn’t really know anything about the Civil War except for