Chapter 28
Twenty-Eight
Monday morning dawned, and I lit out of my hotel room first thing, returning to the church and finding Jo Ann.
The news of the boycott had leaked over the weekend, and The Montgomery Advertiser led with bold headlines: Extra Police Set for Patrol Work in Trolley Boycott.
Fear settled in my stomach, the mix bitter and noxious, for the safety of the boycotters and the movement.
Far from the boycott being a secret, the white citizens of Montgomery were now aware of the plan, and the police had become involved.
I handed the paper to Jo Ann. “Are you worried about it?”
Jo Ann scanned the article before snapping it shut. “Nope. It works out even better for us. Maybe it got out further to those who didn’t know about it. Now they know we’re serious.”
And she was right. They were serious.
The first yellow buses trundled by, empty of riders, as they took their usual routes, trailed by motorcycle police escorts. The thought was to prevent any interference from protesters, but their presence aided our cause, as it scared off anyone thinking of riding.
The word spread like wildfire, and the Black citizens of Montgomery heeded the call.
On foot, by car, and some by cabs running fares of a dime, the population stayed off the bus.
With over 75 percent of the riders being Black, mostly maids and other workers heading into town for their jobs in the morning and back home in the afternoon, this boycott would demolish the bus company’s bottom line.
I didn’t see Gabby that morning, as she had school to teach, and part of me felt disappointed without her presence, so I recorded stories. I interviewed the people walking, gathering their hopes and chronicling their ambitions for the boycott.
“Why are you walking all this way?” I asked Tucker Mallett as he shuffled, stooped with old age, gray running through his short hair and leaning heavily on his cane.
He paused, dabbing his head with a handkerchief, thinking. “Because I’m a human. I had seven children, all of them grown. I pay my fare and should be able to sit where I please. I’ll walk in the rain, the snow, whatever I must do if I have to.”
“What do you hope will happen at the end of this?”
“That we get what we were promised: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
Most of my interviews went the same way. People were excited, defiant, and determined to improve their lives.
All day long, the buses ran empty.
All day long, the phones rang, relating the news.
People had stayed off the buses, and only one arrest was made.
They had done it! The joy carried with me as I made my way to the Holt Street Church that evening along with two thousand other Black people, jubilant over the day and their success.
The packed sanctuary was filled almost to the rafters, and the rest of the crowd poured outside, listening to the speaker.
Small clutches of police officers stood at the edges, surveilling the activities for “our safety.” Again, they weren’t needed, as people carried themselves proudly.
I was standing off to the side, scribbling notes, when someone tapped my shoulder.
“Jimi, did you see?” Gabby wrapped me up in a hug, her embrace strong and warm and lasting a second longer than was appropriate. Her perfume engulfed me. “I don’t know about you, but it’s like I can feel it working. I can feel the presence of God on our side.”
Even as the ministers came to the pulpit, reporting the success, I couldn’t stop thinking about that hug or her hands on my shoulders from the day before. I knew I shouldn’t read too much into it. It was the Deep South in 1955. A hug was just a hug and wasn’t anything more.
Except I had many reasons to believe it was. With every passing hour, I hoped that I wasn’t misinterpreting her signals; I was increasingly desperate to come right out and ask.
Instead, I focused on the events, writing them all down for the article later, the energy infectious, vibrating with the vigor of two thousand souls.
When a minister asked if we should continue the boycott, the “Yes!” rolled through the building, echoing up into the atmosphere, the sound of a people united.
The one-day boycott had been a success and would continue. I got on the phone with my editor John and extended the trip. He wanted me to stay on the story for as long as it took.
We dug in from there.
In the months ahead, I would forget to be an observer, caught up in all the volunteering and organizing, often working alongside Gabby for long hours into the evening.
When she wasn’t running the phone trees, other meetings took up her time.
Some she brought me to, always managing to save me a seat.
Her energy and commitment to helping others reminded me of Rohan, who had been gone just over forty years by then.
Gabby was a helper, expressing her love for the world through service.
Gabby and I attended an ice cream social after the meeting on Monday night. We walked a little way, quietly, eating the sugary, sweet treats and enjoying the crisp evening air.
“Did you ever think it would get this far?” I asked, taking another spoonful of my rocky road.
“No, but I’d hoped so. It’s good we’re still going—not giving up the fight.”
“It is,” I said, “but it’s a shame we have to fight at all.”
“That’s true, but what else would we do? Imagine the free time,” Gabby said, laughing.
“I don’t know, have a life?” I said. “Who knows what life would be if you could thrive instead of merely survive?”
“I don’t know, Jimi. That’s a rich fantasy I can’t afford to have.”
I stopped short, the ice cream pooling in my bowl. “I’m surprised at you, Gabby. Imagination is free. Come on now, you must know what you’d want if you could have anything.”
“Anything?” Her eyes were full of a ferocious longing. It wasn’t the first time I’d wanted to share my gift. But in that moment, oh, how I wished I could.
“Anything.”
For a second we stood there, eyes locked, the fantasy of what “anything” could mean filling the space between us. She was the first to break, resuming our stroll down the block.
“I have to be practical,” she said with a little laugh that was more sound than feeling.
“Practical?” I wrinkled my nose. “What fun is that?” I didn’t know why I was pushing it so, but at that moment, it became vitally important for me to understand what she wanted. Not for her students or for the people involved in the boycott, but for herself.
She hesitated. “Okay, I’ll tell you but you can’t laugh.”
“Why would I laugh?”
“Because it’s impossible,” she said, exasperated.
“Only if you never do it,” I said.
“Hmm,” she said thoughtfully. “That is true. Well, if I could do anything . . . I’ve always dreamed of being in the movies.”
“The movies? Like an actress?”
She nodded fervently. “I love them. Acting, too, the whole pretending that you’re someone else.”
I hadn’t expected that. I knew from experience that being someone else was overrated, but I was curious. “Why not simply be you?”
She grinned. “Don’t you see, Jimi? That’s the beauty of it.
I’d get to be me and anyone else I wanted.
I’ve always liked acting. Playing with my sisters outside after church.
Pirates, fairies, goblins, anything we wanted, and it didn’t matter that we were little Black girls in Bessemer, Alabama.
We were whoever our minds could be. I went to school to be a teacher because it’s respectable, but I went to the theater and plays.
We’d put on Shakespeare—Taming of the Shrew, Macbeth, Hamlet.
One time, I was Ophelia.” She gazed into the distance, the ice cream dripping off her spoon, the memory playing.
“I can hear the applause now. Much better than what we typically get around here,” she said, gesturing as an empty bus trundled by, lumbering into the distance.
“I’m sure you could do a play here once all this is over.”
“I guess I could,” she said, “but if we’re talking about dreams, being in movies would be the biggest one I could get.”
“Well, you’re pretty enough to do it—talented too. I can see it in the way you command a room.” I squinted down at my bowl. “I could see you lighting that screen, the audience caught up in your glow. Lost in your storytelling.”
Gabby blushed. “You writers with your flattering words.”
“So that’s it then. You become a Hollywood actress and grace the silver screen. What else?”
“Oh, why, after a fabulous career with an Academy Award or two, I’d travel the world, seeing all there is to see.
” She paused, a distant look in her eye as if gazing into the future.
“Did you know I’ve only been to two places?
Georgia and Alabama. I read all these books about all different cities—even countries—but I’ve never gotten the chance to see them.
I want to do more than just read about it. I want to experience it.”
Desire bloomed like a rare orchid within me. I could imagine traveling with her, experiencing the world once more and through her eager eyes. I could afford it, but would she want to go with me if she knew how I felt?
I licked my lips, sweet from the ice cream. “Where would you go if you could?”
“I can show you better than I can tell you.” I held her bowl while she dug into her purse and came up quickly with a bundle of postcards, tied with a string.
I fanned them out, then flipped through the stack.
They were old, one side blank for addressing, the other brilliantly colored, depicting vibrant scenes from the locations—a man surfing on the ocean, a food stall at a market in the afternoon, and a woman dancing in the street—all moments of beauty captured on the cards.
They were from all over—from Havana, Bangkok, Cairo, and Casablanca to Manila and Honolulu, Hawaii—over fifty in total.
“You want to go to all of them?”
“As many as I could,” she said, laughing.
“How’d you get these?”