Free Warriors Don't Cry by Melba Pattillo Beals Page B

Mother commanded as she tossed them at me. “Get to the car. Leave without me if you have to.”
    I plucked the car keys from the air. “No, Mama, I won’t go without you.” Suddenly I felt the sting of her hand as it struck the side of my face. She had never slapped me before. “Do what I say!” she shouted. Still, I knew I couldn’t leave her there. I reached back to take her arm. Her pace was slowing, and I tried to pull her forward. The men were gaining on us. If we yelled for help or made any fuss, others might join our attackers. Running faster, I felt myself begin to wear out. I didn’t have enough breath to keep moving so fast. My knees hurt, my calves were aching, but the car was just around the next corner.
    The men chasing us were joined by another carrying a rope. At times, our pursuers were so close I could look back and see the anger in their eyes. Mama’s pace slowed, and one man came close enough to touch her. He grabbed for her arm but instead tugged at her blouse. The fabric ripped, and he fell backward. Mama stepped out of her high-heeled shoes, leaving them behind, her pace quickening in stocking feet.
    One of the men closest to me swung at me with a large tree branch but missed. I felt even more panic rise up in my throat. If he hit me hard enough to knock me over, I would be at his mercy. I could hear Grandma India’s voice saying, God is always with you, even when things seem awful. I felt a surge of strength and a new wind. As I turned the corner, our car came into sight. I ran hard—faster than ever before—unlocked the door, and jumped in.
    Mother was struggling, barely able to keep ahead of her attackers. I could see them turning the corner close on her heels, moving fast toward us. I swung open the passenger door for Mother and revved the engine. Barely waiting for her to shut the door, I shoved the gearshift into reverse and backed down the street with more speed than I’d ever driven forward. I slowed to back around the corner. One of the men caught up and pounded his fists on the hood of our car, while another threw a brick at the windshield.
    Turning left, we gained speed as we drove through a hail of shouts and stones and glaring faces. But I knew I would make it because the car was moving fast and Mama was with me.

6
     
WE sped away from Central High School’s neighborhood and into more familiar streets where we should have felt safe. Mother directed me not to drive straight home but to circle around until we knew for certain that the men from the mob weren’t chasing us. Even though I didn’t have a license and had only practiced driving in the parking lot, she wouldn’t allow me to stop so we could switch places. Her face was drained and her eyes haunted by a kind of fear I had not seen in her before.
     
    Again and again, she urged me to keep moving while she frantically searched the radio dial for word of Elizabeth. We tried desperately to think of whom we could call to rescue her. We couldn’t call the police. We couldn’t call her parents; they didn’t have a telephone. And Mrs. Bates and the NAACP folks were at Central High waiting with my friends.
    As I drove, I couldn’t help noticing that the streets were clogged with cars and people that did not belong in our neighborhood. There were dust-covered trucks full of tobacco-chewing white men, their naked arms and shoulders sporting tattoos. When we pulled into our backyard, Grandmother India was waiting for us with an anxious expression. “Thank God, you made it home,” she gasped.
    “What about Elizabeth and the others? Have you heard anything?”
    “Yes, yes, but let’s get inside.”
    “We’ve got to call the ministers at the church,” Mother said, scrambling up the back stairs.
    “Morning,” hollered our next-door neighbor, Mrs. Conyers, over the backyard fence. “Morning, child. I heard about you on the radio. I think you’all better back off them white people and stay home before we all get