Free Four Spirits by Sena Jeter Naslund

the deep sorrow.
    She knew Shuttlesworth was the Survivor. It was Shuttlesworth in 1956 who had risen up from the bombing of his own house. The bomb had been tossed up under the house on Christmas Day, and it had exploded just under the floorboards beneath his bed. He had been in the bed. It was Shuttlesworthwho was truly fearless. Shuttlesworth might have his church in Cincinnati—but so what?—he had toiled long in the vineyard of Birmingham. Shuttlesworth would always have one foot in this city. No, his heart.
    Christine thought of the popular song “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.” She wished she could see San Francisco. She imagined the bay full of sailboats. Of the sea-fight tomorrow. How would it turn out, their struggle for freedom? Like Susan B. Anthony had said long ago about women’s rights, “Defeat is impossible.”
    Christine pictured the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth as a mighty colossus; one foot in Birmingham, one in Cincinnati, he straddled the Ohio River. His stature was a matter of his spirit. The paddle wheel boats and the barges passed between his legs.
    In the flesh, Reverend Shuttlesworth was little and wiry. Not as tall as the shortest of the six boys who stood under the streetlight, smoking and drinking, but he would have no fear of them. She was as tall as Shuttlesworth. Steadily, the sound of her feet on the sidewalk closed the distance between her and the tough boys.
    How Shuttlesworth loved the children! Saw the future in them. Smiled at her three like they were important. He believed in them. His quick mind enlivened theirs.
    And what about her boss, Lionel Parrish, organizer of the night school, handsome as Martin Luther King? (Those pretending to be dragons ought to take their minds to night school. But no, they wanted numb minds, lazy bodies.) Less important, sure, but Lionel Parrish was stamped from the same dough as Martin Luther King.
    Christine pictured rolling out biscuit dough on her metal cook-top table, of taking the mouth of a glass and pressing it into the dough, cutting out biscuits. She liked to think of the ministers all over the South, how now they lifted up their heads, became little Kings, little Shuttlesworths. Ready to encourage if not to lead.
    She imagined Lionel Parrish, part-time minister, full-time schoolteacher—Lionel Parrish—sitting at her own table, a cloth printed with faded fruit but clean and without stain, her tablecloth, on the table, Lionel Parrish eating breakfast, lifting a fragrant biscuit, butter visible at its sides, lifting the beautifully browned, hot, fresh biscuit to his lips. Lionel Parrish had never been in her house.
    Lionel Parrish looked like Martin Luther King, with that smooth, benign face, and Lionel Parrish was fighting his own doubt and fear about something. It was something in himself he sorrowed about, as though he felt ashamed to be proud of his leadership. That sorrow might not have much to do with leadership, with freedom for the people. What did she see behind Lionel Parrish’s handsome eyes? What kind of freedom did Lionel want for himself? Christine wondered. What did King want, for that matter, in his heart of hearts?
    She knew what Shuttlesworth wanted. Victory! Unequivocal victory for her children, for herself, for all the people he knew. In Birmingham, let freedom ring! King might come and go from Birmingham, but Shuttlesworth would always be back.
    One of the boys, the tallest one, detached himself from the group, held out his hand.
    â€œLady, can you let me have a quarter?” he said. He didn’t smile.
    She shook her head no, folded her lips tight in on themselves. Don’t you beg from me.
    Another one reached out and took her arm; he talked with his cigarette waggling in his lips. “Didn’t you hear the man?”
    â€œGet your hand off me.”
    They all shifted around her. She kept walking. They walked with her. She speeded up, and they snickered.
    â€œThis