Sources of Light by Margaret McMullan Read Free Book Online Page B

the
Clarion-Ledger
under a headline that read "Local Professor Addresses All-Negro Crowd." There she was, my mom, standing in that auditorium at Tougaloo, her mouth open and her hands raised in the air as though she were speaking to a crowd of hundreds.
    "Your picture's in the paper," I said. "That
should
be good."
    "No," my mother said. "Not good."
    Neither one of us said anything else. My mother just put her hand over her mouth. There was another, smaller photo. I looked closer. In the bigger photo my mother looked as though she were convincing a crowd of something even though she was just talking to a few people about art. I was in the smaller picture, the one with the few people there clustered together. I looked closer at my tiny figure, the only white person. I couldn't help but notice how tightly Tine's old shirt fit across my chest.
    This was way after what had happened in Montgomery, when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man, and even after the bombings, fire hoses, and police dogs in Birmingham, where Bull Connor unleashed the KKK on a group of Freedom Riders on Mother's Day.
    I, for one, did not want to get involved in any of that. I just wanted to fit in to this place just as we had fit in to all the other towns we had lived in, go along like everyone else, do whatever it was we were supposed to do, let whatever was supposed to happen happen. I intended to live my life staying out of the way.
    But white teachers weren't supposed to teach black students. White people weren't supposed to be among so many black people. Now all of a sudden my mother and I had jumped onto the pages of the local newspaper known by some as the
Klan-Ledger.
We were officially involved.
    I ran back inside and got Perry's Pentax, adjusting the strap to fit better around me. If they had a picture of us at Tougaloo, I would take pictures of this. I took pictures of the garbage in our yard and the words splattered on our front door. Willa Mae came and the two of us finished cleaning up the yard while my mother set to work scrubbing down the front door.
    Inside, when we finally ate breakfast, the phone rang. When I answered, I heard breathing, then a man's voice say, "Watch your back."
    "Do I know you?" I asked, but the caller hung up.
    Before I could tell my mother, the phone rang again. I picked it up on the second ring, ready to yell, but it was my grandmother. "Please remind your mother that women here should appear in print only three times in their lives: when they're born, when they get married, and when they die."
    "I'll tell her."
    "I imagine she's getting ready for school, so I won't bother her." I looked at my mother, who was still staring at the paper. She hadn't even turned the page. "When are you coming to visit?"
    "I don't know," I said. "Soon."
    "Good. I'll make all your favorites. How are you all doing on peaches?"
    I opened the kitchen cupboard and saw the jars of my grandmother's pear and peach preserves, the cloves hanging, suspended in the sugary juices, just behind my grandmother's careful script. It was like having her there with us, stored away.
    "Two jars left."
    "I'll put away more." She stayed on the line. "I'm worried. Should I be worried?"
    "I don't
think
so."
    As soon as we hung up, I heard someone at the front door. I thought of the man's voice on the phone, the one who said "Watch your back." Before I could say,
Don't open the door!,
my mother opened the door and ran straight into Perry's arms. I looked at them together. When had this started? Since when did they hug like that? My mother buried her face in his neck and Perry whispered something into her ear. Even though I liked Perry, I felt queasy.
    "This is all your fault," I said. "She wouldn't've even gone to Tougaloo if you hadn't told her. You took pictures. Now I bet my mom is going to lose her job."
    "I didn't take that picture," Perry said quietly into my mother's hair.
    "What are you talking about?" I said, pushing them apart.
    "I never