Free Sources of Light by Margaret McMullan Page A

in tear gas smoke, billy-clubbing one another before their first day of classes. My mother and I watched it all on TV and we both knew that this marked the beginning or end of something, though we weren't sure of what.
    In a televised address to the state of Mississippi, President Kennedy said to us, "If this country should ever reach the point where any man or any group of men, by force or threat of force, could long defy the commands of our court and Constitution, then no law would stand free from doubt, no judge would be sure of his right, and no citizen would be safe from his neighbor."
    Governor Ross Barnett addressed the state too, saying, "We must either submit to the unlawful dictates of the federal government or stand up like men and tell them 'NEVER!'"
    It took three or four U.S. marshals just to get James Meredith to his first class the following day, a class that happened to be Colonial American History.
    None of the business with James Meredith especially interested other kids at my school because it was all happening up in Oxford, which might as well have been Mars—plus all the girls in my class were now wearing bras, all, that is, except me. Mary Alice had started something and every girl at Jackson High School wanted to be like Mary Alice McLemore.
    Even though she had already agreed to get me one, my mother said she could not understand what my rush was. Besides, she said, she was teaching all day every day that week, and she had a "slew" of faculty meetings every afternoon and she couldn't get home until after the stores all closed. So she asked Willa Mae to please walk me into town and take me to get fitted.
    ***
    Willa Mae knew where to go, but I didn't. I had never been downtown with Willa Mae before. At home Willa Mae was the boss of me. At home she didn't have to call me Miss Samantha either. She drank iced tea or water not from a mayonnaise jar like other maids but from one of our own drinking glasses, and she shared our bathroom.
    Downtown was different. Because she was black, Willa Mae wasn't allowed to go into the white stores without me. Because she was black, she couldn't try on hats or use the restrooms. Because she was black, she couldn't say
Yeah
or
Yes, Bob.
She had to say
Yes, ma'am
or
Yes, sir,
or
Yes, Mr. Smith.
Because she was black, she might have to step off the sidewalk to make way for a white person and use separate waiting areas and drinking fountains marked COLORED .
    These were the rules. Right or wrong, this was just the way things were. Even though I had been taught that everybody was a human being and that everybody had the same rights because we lived in America and equality was what America was all about, I still had to follow rules.
    Already I was in the habit of taking Perry's Pentax with me most everywhere I went. It was fast becoming my camera. I had adjusted the strap and it fit around me just so. I took pictures of all the stores that sold candy, talcum powder, Moon Pies, and bubblegum. Then finally, we got to the window with the mannequins wearing girdles.
    Willa Mae came into the store with me and sat in a chair beside the door, waiting, as a big-bosomed saleswoman helped me find the right size and fit.
    First I tried on a white bra over my shirt. The saleswoman frowned and said that it would be impossible to judge the fit that way. Willa Mae sucked her tooth and said something like, "If there's nothing to judge, you can't judge."
    The saleswoman looked at Willa Mae, smiled, then led me into the changing room, insisting on staying as I took off my shirt. She said so much depended on
how
I put a bra on.
    She said you were certainly
not
supposed to snap it on, then twist it around and pull it up the way I saw my mother do every single day. The saleswoman showed me how you were supposed to bend and carefully put yourself into the thing, assuming you had something to put in.
    I did what she told me to do and when I stood up straight, she said, "See?" The fit was no