Parting the Waters by Taylor Branch Read Free Book Online Page B

everywhere I go in the South the Negro is forced to choose between his hide and his soul,” Johns replied. “Mostly, he chooses his hide. I’m going to tell him that his hide is not worth it.” The judge soon dismissed Johns with a warning that he would bring trouble on himself if he persisted.
    The Klan burned a cross on the church lawn that Saturday night, but it did not prevent a large crowd from assembling to hear what Johns would say. He went on at some length contrasting the murder of Negroes with the “lynching of Jesus,” making points at the expense of each set of killers and victims, and he concluded with a prediction that violence against Negroes would continue as long as Negroes “let it happen.” When he finished, the crowd that spilled into the street fairly hummed with mixed dissension and determination.
    Unexpectedly, the white judge called Johns at home the next week to express his regret over the cross-burning. He wanted to discuss certain of the references in classical history that Johns had cited in his courtroom. Then he asked if there was anything he could do for Johns personally. Perhaps there was, said Johns: he had heard that the judge owned a copy of the memoirs of Union general William T. Sherman, which, if true, was a rare possession for a white Southerner, inasmuch as Sherman had burned much of Georgia and South Carolina, but in any case Johns would like to borrow the book. The judge laughed and said he would be happy to send it over. Then he asked to speak frankly, and confided that he had insisted the police allow Johns to deliver his sermon, arguing that it would cause less trouble to the community to let the man talk than to stop him. This remark incensed Johns, who invited the judge to attend his sermon the next Sunday. The judge sent Sherman’s memoirs but did not show up. Johns preached on the topic “When the Rapist Is White” and heard no more from the judge, but he returned the book.
    These and other sermons further complicated the internal politics of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. Some members who were upset by Johns’s pronouncements on race pretended to like them but worried out loud that his “antics” with the fish would undermine his endeavors. Some reconsidered the fish and would have happily bought some if only Johns would quit preaching such dangerous sermons, while others were proud of his courage in the race sermons and blamed the political timidity of other members for driving the preacher into odd pursuits like the fish. Johns, of course, saw his two campaigns as part of the same larger truth, but few others did. He resigned two more times early in 1952.
    Both resignations related not to politics but to minor changes in marketing techniques. One came when Johns began storing his Sunday wares in the church itself, for the convenience of his Dexter customers. From the pulpit, he would append to a tour de force sermon some remarks on his bargain prices and the quality of the produce in the basement. Sales increased, but a number of the members believed that Johns had crossed the threshold of defilement. In particular, some of the leading women of the church were incensed. This put Johns in serious trouble, as women made up the majority of church membership. They also provided nearly all the initiative for regular church functions, from music and meals to flowers, and the matriarchal tendencies in Negro society magnified their actual power far beyond their auxiliary listings in the church roster.
    The second, decisive incident occurred when Johns and Rufus Lewis actually drove onto the campus of Alabama State College with a truckload of watermelons. In so doing, they violated the home territory of leading church members, opening them and their church to ridicule from colleagues who were riveted by the sight of the learned Vernon Johns selling watermelons on a campus that was the spearhead of Negro advancement and prestige in