in spite of Judge Harold Cox’s obstructionism, was making its way through the courts.
At first Doar couldn’t take his eyes off the stitches in my scalp.
“The FBI report didn’t say anything about cuts and abrasions,” he said with genuine concern. “I didn’t realize it was so serious.”
“It could have been worse,” I said.
We drove to Steptoe’s farm, so that he could hear firsthand, in Steptoe’s deliberate way, about the pattern of violence in Amite County.
“Have you ever tried to register yourself?” Doar asked.
“Oh, yes, several times,” Steptoe said, “but they never let me fill out the form.”
Steptoe told him that the only registered Negro in the county had a master’s degree.
“You know, it isn’t possible for all Negroes in this county to have master’s degrees,” Steptoe said. “I only know but one who has a master’s degree, and that is my son. If it takes a master’s degree to pass this test, he’ll be the only Negro to redish in this county. The last time I tried to get Negroes to redish I had lots of trouble,” he added.
“What kind of trouble?” Doar asked.
“Such as threats, such as jail, such as beatings.”
“Have there been killings?”
“Oh, yes, they used to whup Negroes around here all the time,” Steptoe said, his voice becoming slower, deeper, and more grieved. “They’d whup ’em most to death. Some they’d hang up in trees here; the bugs would get ’em. All’s we found was bones.”
“When was this?” Doar looked grim.
“Well, you know, that was five hundred years ago,” Steptoe drawled. “That was way back there.”
Doar stared in bafflement, unsure where the irony was.
“What about the people who are attending the voter registration school?” Doar asked. “Has anyone tried to intimidate them?”
“Oh, yes, there are always threats.” Steptoe was as matter-of-fact as if he were merely stating that dogs bark at night. “E. H. Hurst told some people that if me and Herbert Lee didn’t quit messin’ with this civil rights business, he would kill us hisself.”
I was startled to hear this; apparently Steptoe took the dangers so much for granted he hadn’t bothered to tell me what Hurst had said. I had grown fond of Herbert Lee, a very quiet man who was always ready to drive me around the dusty back roads of the county to talk to people about registering. One evening he had me over to his home for supper to meet his wife and children. Apparently his kindness to me had not gone unnoticed.
“Who’s this Hurst?” Doar asked.
“He lives across the road there,” Steptoe said.
“He’s a Mississippi state representative,” I said. “He’s also the father-in-law of Billy Jack Caston, the sheriff’s cousin, the guy who hit me.”
“Quite a cozy little town you have here,” Doar remarked dryly.
“I’ve known those Hursts all my life,” Steptoe continued. “They’re all a mean piece of work. I once saw E. H.’s daddy knock a colored boy down, step on his head, and rub it in the dirt. Just because the kid was thirsty and cryin’ for water. I whupped him once.”
“E. H.?” I asked.
“No, his daddy.”
“You did!” Steptoe’s courage amazed me.
“Oh, yes,” he said. “I was young then and feelin’ my man, and he ordered me and my brother to head his cattle into the pens. Well, we was already tired from doin’ our own, so we didn’t do it. He jumps off his horse and comes at my brother and says, ‘Nigger, next time I tell you to do something, you’re gonna do it,’ and he raises his cattle whip to strike him. But I steps between and says, ‘Don’t hit him, hit me, he’s too small.’ Well, he come at my head with the whip, but I took it away from him and he got whipped instead—maybe a little worse, ’cause as I was comin’ down on his head I remembered what I saw him do to that little Negro child who just wanted a drink of water.”
“Didn’t anything happen to you?” Doar asked.
“Oh, yes,” Steptoe said, “they tried. They sent and told my father to come on over to their place, but I told him, ‘Dad, don’t go over there; that’s a trap he got set for you.’ So my Dad didn’t go. A few days later he come see my Dad and made ‘tend he was sorry and said he was wrong.”
“Are you taking any special precautions now?” Doar asked anxiously. Being Steptoe was a risky business.
“I maybe ought not to say this,” Steptoe said. “If they get me I don’t care, but we have our guns loaded, and they know this.”
Steptoe lifted up a couch pillow to reveal a concealed pistol. Then he showed Doar a shotgun he kept behind the door.
“The sheriff has been up here,” Steptoe added. “I asked him what he want at my place. ‘Just checkin’,’ he says. ‘Just checkin’.’ But I know he was checkin’ whether he could hide hisself and find a way to bump me off, or kill someone else, whatnot.”
“The sheriff?” Doar looked troubled.
“Oh, yes, here in this county every time a white man beats a Negro or kills a Negro, he gets promoted to higher office. Here in Amite County you don’t know what might happen; you don’t know what might take place. And you want somebody with you who is not afraid to tell what happened to you, if something happen to you. Because here in Amite County they’re afraid to tell who did it; afraid to tell how it happened; ’cause they’re afraid the same thing will happen to them.”
After we left Steptoe’s farm, Doar and I drove over to Herbert Lee’s place to take an affidavit from him. The children were out back by the barn playing hide-and-seek. They cried, “Bob, Bob,” when they saw us and ran up to see the new car Doar had rented in New Orleans. Their father wasn’t home.
On the drive back to McComb, we were both deep in thought. Finally, Doar broke the silence.
“It’s hard to believe,” he said, his voice wavering, “that this is America.”
2
A few days later I was in the Masonic Hall when the phone rang. It was Doc Anderson at the Negro funeral home in McComb.
“There’s a body down here,” he said somberly. “We’d like you to come over and see if you can identify it.”
My heart sank with apprehension.
“It’s a Negro male,” he continued, “short, about fifty. Shot in the head.”
“Where was he killed?” I asked, fearing that I already knew the answer.
“In Liberty.”
The body, still
