Melody. That’s a gift, too,” Mommy said, and then turned to Yvonne. “Speaking of hard work, how was your second year at Tuskegee?”
“Yes, Vonnie. Did you study all the time?” Melody asked. Mommy had gone to Tuskegee, and this year Dwayne had applied and been accepted. Melody knew that her parents hoped all their children would graduate from Tuskegee one day, too.
Yvonne shook her head so that her small earrings sparkled. “There’s so much more to do at school besides studying,” she said, reaching for more gravy.
“Like what?” Poppa asked, propping his elbows on the table. Melody held back a giggle when she saw Big Momma frown the same way Mommy had, but Poppa paid no attention.
“Well, last week before finals a bunch of us went out to help black people in the community register to vote,” Yvonne said. “And do you know, a lady told me she was too afraid to sign up.”
“Why was she afraid?” Melody interrupted.
“Because somebody threw a rock through her next-door neighbor’s window after her neighbor voted,” Yvonne explained, her eyes flashing with anger. “This is 1963! How can anybody get away with that?”
Melody looked from Yvonne to her father. “You always say not voting is like not being able to talk. Why wouldn’t anybody want to talk?”
Daddy sighed. “It’s not that she doesn’t want to vote, Melody. There are a lot of unfair rules down South that keep our people from exercising their rights. Some white people will do anything, including scaring black people, to keep change from happening. They don’t want to share jobs or neighborhoods or schools with us. Voting is like a man or woman’s voice speaking out to change those laws and rules.”
“And it’s not just about voting,” Mommy said. “Remember what Rosa Parks did in Montgomery? She stood up for her rights.”
“You mean she sat down for her rights,” Melody said. Melody knew all about Mrs. Parks, who got arrested for simply sitting down on a city bus. She had paid her fare like everybody else, but because she was a Negro the bus driver told her she had to give her seat to a white person! But that happened eight years ago, Melody realized. Why haven’t things changed?
“Aren’t we just as good as anybody else?” Melody asked as she looked around the table. “The laws should be fair everywhere, for everybody, right?”
“That’s not always the way life works,” Poppa said.
“Why not?” Lila asked.
Poppa sat back and rubbed his silvery mustache. That always meant he was about to tell a story.
“Back in Alabama, there was a white farmer who owned the land next to ours. Palmer was his name. Decent fellow. We went into town the same day to sell our peanut crops. It wasn’t a good growing year, but I’d lucked out with twice as many sacks of peanuts as Palmer. Well, at the market they counted and weighed his sacks. Then they counted and weighed my sacks. Somehow Palmer got twice as much money as I got for selling half the crop I had. They never even checked the quality of what we had, either.”
“What?” Lila blurted out.
“How?” Melody scooted to the edge of her chair.
“Wait, now.” Poppa waved his grandchildren quiet. “I asked the man to weigh it again, but he refused. I complained. Even Palmer spoke up for me. But that man turned to me and said, ‘Boy—’”
“He called you boy?” Dwayne interrupted, putting his fork down.
“‘Boy,’” Poppa continued, “‘this is all you’re gonna get. And if you keep up this trouble, you won’t have any farm to go back to!’”
Melody’s mouth fell open. “What was he talking about? You did have a farm,” she said, glancing at Big Momma.
“He meant we were in danger of losing our farm—our home—because your grandfather spoke out to a white man,” Big Momma explained. She shook her head slowly. “As hard as we’d worked to buy that land, as hard as it was for colored people to own anything in Alabama, we decided that day that we had to sell and move north.”
Although Melody had heard many of her grandfather’s stories about life in Alabama before, she’d never heard this one. And as she considered it, she realized that on their many trips down South, she’d never seen the old family farm. Maybe her grandparents didn’t want to go back.
Melody sighed. Maybe the lady Yvonne mentioned didn’t want to risk losing her home if she “spoke out” by voting. But Yvonne was right—it was hard to understand how that could happen in the United States of America in 1963!
Poppa was shaking his head. “It’s a shame that colored people today still have to be afraid of standing up or speaking out for themselves.”
“Negroes,” Mommy corrected him.
“Black people,” Yvonne said firmly.
“Well, what are we supposed to call ourselves?” Lila asked.
Melody thought about how her grandparents usually said “colored.” They were older and from the South, and Big Momma said that’s what was proper when they were growing up. Mommy and Daddy mostly said “Negroes.” But ever since she went to college, Yvonne was saying “black people.” Melody noticed that Mommy and Daddy were saying it sometimes, too. She liked the way it went with “white people,” like a matched set. But sometimes she wished they didn’t need all these color words at all. Melody spoke up. “What about ‘Americans’?” she said.
Yvonne still seemed upset. “That’s right, Dee-Dee. We’re Americans. We have the same rights as white Americans. There shouldn’t be any separate water fountains or waiting rooms or public bathrooms. Black Americans deserve equal treatment and equal pay. And sometimes we have to remind people.”
“How do we remind them?” Lila asked. Melody was wondering the same thing.
“By not shopping at stores that won’t hire black workers,” Yvonne explained. “By picketing in front of a restaurant that won’t serve black people. By marching.”
“You won’t catch me protesting or picketing or marching in any street,” Dwayne interrupted, working on his third helping of potatoes. “I’m gonna be onstage or in the recording studio, making music and getting famous.”
Mr. Ellison shook his head, and Melody knew there was going to be another argument, the way there always was when Dwayne talked about becoming a music star.
“Don’t forget,” Daddy said, “when you graduated high school early, we agreed that you’d work in the factory until the summer was over, and then go on to college. I couldn’t go to college, and now I’m working double shifts at a factory so you can! You could study music in college!”
Mommy was nodding. Melody knew that her parents were disappointed whenever Dwayne talked about skipping college. She saw Dwayne stop eating to look down at his plate—not at his father—and she felt bad for her brother. Melody hated when they argued. So when her brother looked as if he might say something, Melody interrupted.
“Daddy,” Melody said. “Dwayne can sing and write
