Free One With Others: [A Little Book of Her Days] by C. D. Wright Page B

Thomas Ellis, of Memphis [until California finally cast him in parts that exposed only a scintilla of his burning mind], whose head cracked along the exact same lines as hers. Exactly along the same lines.
MLN, whom I did not meet, but according to V’s former husband—she put out the word to State Trooper Dwight Galloway assigned to the March Against Fear that he had better not let any harm come to a hair on V’s head. This was sticking-up-for-behind-the-scenes of which there was precious little to be had from any other white citizens and absolutely sum zero to be tallied on the scene.
Ruthie Mae Cochran West, among the kids never allowed to go near the pool until transported there under arrest; who was told by Sheriff Clarence Montgomery they were to be taken to the woods and killed. Who had no idea where they were being taken; whose parents did not know where they were held. Ms. West’s brothers Theo, Leo, Frank Jr., George, and Curtis, who jumped from the long-torn-down overpass from which there were once lynchings [five officially confirmed in the town]. And her father, Frank Cochran Sr., who lost an eye to a beating by some seventy men he knew by name; then was he fired from his longtime job by dint of that same knowledge. Honor due also to Tarlee Babbs, grandmother of RMCW, who brought dignity and stability to everyone in her charge.
Pat Flanagan, who knows the town cold, its best fishing holes and hunting grounds, its public housing and fine homes, its corrupt officials, its anonymous night riders.
Willie Hicks, who works the night shift; who with his wife takes care of his 94-year-old father; who was there, who knows.
Edna Lockhart, who was there, but was too weary, too busy, and possibly too leery to have the conversation; who was reported to have been taken to Mississippi in the dogcatcher’s wagon to be put in detention.
John Henry Watson, who joined a Canadian football league after graduating in 1963, no such opportunities available to him in his native land.
Effie Y. Clay, director of a funeral home, who came by her backbone honestly, daughter of Florence Katherine Clay, who gave sanctuary to the civil rights meetings in the home when she was its proprietor, and posted bond for the Man Imported from Memphis.
Charlene Sykes, retired teacher and social worker, who stood all night holding to the bars after an unprovoked arrest by a widely loathed sheriff. She was younger then she said, and could stand long hours, which she chose over sitting on a jailhouse cot.
Her daughter, Shirley S. Ingram, whom Mrs. Sykes roused from a peaceful summer sleep to talk to me on another line. Who grew up with the Klan. “Everyone knew who was Klan, who was not Klan.”
The late Odessa Bradley, a teacher who stood tall by her kids, and lived just long enough to see the 1969 [Arkansas] March Against Fear observed with pride. This march, led by Sweet Willie Wine, stepped off in West Memphis and plodded the hot two-lane highway to Little Rock [not to be confused with its predecessor, the March Against Fear begun June 5, 1966, by James Meredith, which stepped off from the Peabody Hotel in Memphis and ended some 15,000 strong in Jackson, June 26, despite Meredith having been wounded almost at the outset].
Donnie Bell, who was a magnet and foil in those days for the wild side of V, and who claimed his family, “all country club people,” condemned him to death for being her friend.
I also recall quoting or paraphrasing Sir Isaac Newton, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Francis Ford Coppola, Liam Clancy, Harry Mattison, Allen Ginsberg, Walt Whitman, and who else, William Butler Yeats, of course, V’s first true love.
Shirley Harvell, a force unto herself, who spearheaded a commemoration of the 1969 March Against Fear twenty-five years later and provided me with the sole audio recording of my late friend, made from a telephone interview in preparation for that event.
Patricia Spears Jones, poet of New York, who goes home to see family and is