Chapter 7 #3
The room stirred again, more uncertainty and doubt moving through the crowd. But Jackson just smiled, his expression unwavering.
“Farmwork is tough. And it’s not for everyone,” he acknowledged, then paused briefly. “But there’s another option. Not all the work will be farming work…” He stopped. “There will be factory jobs.”
“Factory? What, for flowers?” a puzzled voice shouted from the back.
“Yes, I want to start a seed business in Gee’s Bend.”
“What do you need us for?”
“If you have land, I need it. And your support.”
The whispers escalated to a chorus of questions and objections. Sensing the need to restore order, Mayor Edmund rose from his seat, his arms outstretched, attempting to quiet the rowdy crowd. But they refused to be stilled.
“You expect us to just give you our land?” a man asked, his voice piercing through the commotion.
Luke stood abruptly and yelled, “Hey!” His sudden outburst startled the room, momentarily tempering the unrest. “Hear him out!” he shouted, his face reddened, fists clenched.
Jackson looked at Tibb, who had already swiftly moved to guide Luke back to his seat. But Luke was not undeterred. “The least you can do is listen to what he has to say,” he shouted over Tibb’s shoulder.
“The least we can do is keep our land,” a man said firmly.
“Is that what you expect? For us to sign over our land to you?” another man chimed in.
“Yes and no,” Jackson said, leaning forward—still calm, still resolute. “Mr. Tidwell, you own fifteen acres across from my farm. It’s been overgrown for as long as I remember. What do you plan to do with it?”
Mr. Tidwell adjusted his wire-frame glasses and crossed his arms over his chest. “I reckon nothing. But I ain’t selling it or giving it away, that’s for sure.”
“What if I told you that you didn’t have to,” Jackson said, cutting the tension like a knife, “but you could be helping the community and making some money at the same time?”
A hush fell over the crowd like a blanket.
“There’s nothing to keep the younger generation here. They go away to college and they don’t come back,” Jackson said, his voice gaining momentum as he unveiled his vision. “We need industry and tourism here if we are to survive.”
“Tourism? I don’t want a bunch of tourists poking around here,” a voice protested.
“Whether we like it or not, we need those tourists and their dollars,” Jackson asserted firmly, meeting the gaze of each skeptic in turn.
“And we’ve always had it, thanks to the quilts.
Two years ago, the first Airing of the Quilts Festival brought in over ten thousand visitors from all over the state and the country.
They ate at your restaurant, Mr. Bush. They stayed at your cabins, Walt.
The festival was a success, bringing in so much revenue here—but what if we can do more?
More money for the roads. More money for the library.
More money for our parks. Ensure tourists return and our people stay. ”
“That’s good for you, but what’s in it for us?”
Jackson stretched his body taller. “An industry,” he said, his voice carrying across the gathered crowd. “Something else this area can be known for. The flower farm cooperative will bring over one hundred jobs to Wilcox County. And that’s just to start.”
“More tourism means more crime.”
The crowd got riled up again, but this time they quickly grew silent, hanging on his every word.
And so was I. I didn’t mean to linger. After every question, I kept telling myself that I needed to leave, that I was leaving Camden altogether and that none of this mattered to me.
But I couldn’t move; my feet were glued to the spot where I stood, and I couldn’t tear my eyes away.
In that moment, I wasn’t sure I admired anyone more.
Jackson stood strong, his shoulders squared, unshaken against those who opposed him.
He had a vision, a purpose. He knew who he was and made no apologies for it.
He knew what he wanted and made no apologies for that either. I envied him.
“So, what’s your plan?” someone asked.
“With your land, I aim to expand the farm and cultivate more flowers for their seeds. That’s where the jobs will come in.
Not just planting, but harvesting, packaging, shipping, marketing, promotion, sales.
We will establish ourselves as leaders in the flower-seed industry.
This will create sustainable employment opportunities right here. ”
For once, the objections were subdued. The crowd listened intently. I didn’t need to grasp every detail of Jackson’s proposal to recognize its potential. It was a good idea, and one worth exploring. I think they knew it too.
“Expanding will mean greater profitability in the cut-flower business,” a man said, not in doubt but as a statement of fact. “You stand to really profit from this.”
Jackson smiled, and it was electric. “I’m prepared to sign over my farm to the cooperative,” he said, triggering gasps. “All of the money will be shared among those who contribute their land. I believe wholeheartedly in this project, and I’m ready to lay all my cards on the table.”
“If we were interested, what would we have to do?”
“Sign over your land to the cooperative,” Jackson replied calmly. “It remains yours, in your name—you’re just giving us permission to farm it. I already have commitments for a few acres, and I’m seeking more.”
A woman standing next to me whispered, “That doesn’t sound too bad.” I saw similarly open expressions on other people’s faces.
Jackson concluded, “Thank you again for giving me the opportunity to speak with you today. I know you may have more questions; I’m going to hang around to answer them. You are also welcome to stop by the Flower Farm. Thank you.”
As the last of the applause faded and the crowd scattered, a sense of optimism lingered in the air. Jackson’s vision had sparked something. I headed out, hoping to avoid Jackson and Walt. Outside, snippets of conversations floated around me.
“It’s so good to see that he was able to make something of himself,” a woman said. “You know…after everything that happened. That poor boy, losing his mother like that.”
Another woman simply nodded in agreement as if that minor detail didn’t matter, a dropped penny on the ground.
My steps slowed, my ear turned up. Because it wasn’t minor to me.
It was significant in ways that those women—with their fancy shoes, expensive-smelling perfume, and probably perfect childhoods—could never understand.
The woman continued, “No telling what would have happened to him had he stayed longer in foster care. Thank God his uncle went and got him.”
Something frayed inside me. Because suddenly, something about Jackson clicked into place, something I hadn’t understood before.
I hadn’t given much thought to his upbringing, the things he’d been through.
We are a copy of those who come before us, and our experiences shape who we are.
His life had been anything but simple, losing his mother so young and bouncing through foster care.
How does one process such a loss, such a fragmented upbringing?
Jackson and I had more in common than I’d imagined, and that settled within me as I approached Jackson’s Station.
I knew then how Jackson knew me. He saw things I’d never realized were so visible.
Because he knew all too well that there was more to a person than what was presented on the surface.
That a person is more than hair, eyes, fingers, and skin—the things other people see.
He knew to look deeper, even into a stranger, to pay attention to what a person doesn’t say or do, to watch.
The streets bustled with life as the crowd from the town hall spilled out, their voices rising in the evening air.
The temperature had dropped. A dog barked in the distance.
A line had formed for Jackson’s Station, and as I glanced toward it, I smiled at the memory of my daily lunches with Walt.
A pang of sadness hit me as I realized I would never see him again.
A group laughed, and I turned my attention to them.
In the process of shifting my gaze, I noticed, through the restaurant’s window, that its wall-mounted television was turned to the news.
The screen showed divers emerging from a body of water; then the camera panned over to a ravine with sharp, jagged rocks. My stomach dropped.
A chill swept over me as the unmistakable image settled in my mind.
I knew those rocks.
And then the ticker scrolled across the bottom of the screen: South Carolina prison bus found. Guards and prisoners presumed dead.
Presumed dead.
The words hit me like a fist. My knees hobbled, and I had to brace myself from crashing to the ground.
Time folded in half. My vision blurred, the world swirling like looking through a kaleidoscope that had gone wrong.
Sounds grew muffled and then disappeared.
I was outside my body, watching, feeling the terror crawl through my veins.
I didn’t know what to do. But my feet knew—knew to run, to flee; knew that when I came back to myself, I needed to be as far away from people as possible, that I was no longer safe anywhere.
I ran as fast as I could, up the hill past Jackson’s Station, past the church, and around the corner of a large white house.
My heart raced as my legs carried me in a frantic sprint, every step pushing me further away from the reality that had unfolded on the screen.
There was no one chasing me, no voices calling my name.
Not yet. Still, I ran as if I could outrun the truth.
Sound, when it returned, rolled in deep: a familiar man’s voice.
“Leigh! Are you okay?” Jackson’s voice cut through my haze of panic and exertion. He appeared beside me in an instant. His strong hands gripped my shoulders, grounding me as he leaned in to meet my gaze. Where had he come from?
“Why are you running? Did something happen?” He pulled me in closer, tucking me into his chest, and his gaze darted back and forth between me and whatever he thought was chasing me.
I gasped for air, my chest heaving, shaking my head in disbelief. “No, I…I…” My voice broke over every word.
I had lost the ability to be, to breathe, to think, to speak. The enormity of what I had seen and my sprint had hollowed me out. Jackson’s hands braced both sides of my cheeks, his face inches from mine, his eyes searching for answers I couldn’t give. “Leigh…tell me what’s wrong.”
In that moment, amid the chaos of my emotions and the world spinning around us, a strange clarity pierced through the fog. I knew what I had to do.
“I changed my mind,” I whispered, my voice barely audible above the din of the street. “I want to come work with you.”