Death of Innocence : The Story of the Hate Crime That Changed America (9781588363244) (41 page)

When my display finally was unveiled, the teacher made the announcement to the class, “Well, Mamie Carthan has taken back the first seat, first row.”

For me, there was a compelling lesson in my experience, and what it said about the drive I always had to succeed at everything. It was a lesson that would become so important to share over the years. We should never rest on a single success. Good was not good enough. Better was just another step along the way. I taught my kids to want to be the best, the best
they could possibly be. Each child has to figure out what that means on a personal level. I was there to provide the guidance. But the key was to keep working, keep striving, keep pushing on. After all, how will you ever be sure you have achieved your very best if you stop trying? Never be satisfied. Never settle. If you believe that the horizon is the finish line, then you will keep moving forward. Success is perpetual motion. It was a lesson I had learned at home. It was a lesson that echoed in those days in Mississippi during the trial. We can never stop.

As a teacher, I knew my kids would have to have a sense of determination, the will to succeed. Many had natural ability. That was obvious. But some needed a little help. Some needed a little more. My mother had always been there to help me. She pushed me. She pushed so hard, in fact, that she got me to do the pushing myself. That’s what I wanted for my kids. They had good parents to do all the things parents are supposed to do. But some still were in need. That’s how I saw my job, my mission: to serve that need. I would become a parent as well as a teacher. I taught as a mother might. I nurtured, I disciplined, I cared. My class, in effect, was my extended family.

And I would learn so much about helping myself through the help I would provide to others.

Over the years, there would be so many difficult questions I would confront concerning the loss of my son, my only child. Of course, there were the questions about the murder and the social and legal issues that were raised. But there were deep personal things that also would take a long time for me to resolve. One was the sense that so much was cut off with Emmett’s tragic death. After all, it is through our children that we achieve a certain immortality. Through our children and our children’s children, we leave something of ourselves that lives on forever. So I’ve had to adjust to a life without promise of future generations. It has been a terribly difficult thing to consider, and I would get reminders all the time. But in getting the reminders, I have been blessed to have had the chance to consider just how my promise really has been fulfilled. And that answer has come from something much greater than me. I prayed so long for guidance, and my prayers were answered. God told me, “I have taken one from you, but I will give you thousands.” The words just came to me, quietly. Words of great comfort to me. A revelation can be like that. Not always like the thunder we hear in movie versions of the Bible. But more quietly, like a whisper. It’s just there in your awareness, as if it had been there all along, waiting for just the right circumstances for you to notice.

So, I came to know what was revealed to me, to experience it, to live it,
for so many years to come. I have left something of myself in all the children I have touched.

In a way, it was hard at times even to think about having a normal life. In a way, it was important to try.

In 1960, the same year I started teaching, Mama and Papa Spearman were planning to move into a new home. Mama had been involved from the ground up. First she had picked out the lot. There were three choices together on a South Wabash Avenue block, and they were building pretty fast, so Mama had to make the selection without delay. I went with her, of course. One lot was next to a lady who didn’t want to have any children nearby. Well, Mama always had children nearby. There was a long line of kids coming through Mama’s place, so that wasn’t going to work. Another lot was next to a lady who came right out to greet us. “Hi, neighbor,” she said. She had heard that Mama was going to buy in that block. As it turns out, she was a member of Mama’s church and was so friendly that she basically made the choice for my mother. That lot would need some work, though. Mama insisted that the builder remove the seven cottonwood trees from the backyard. She wanted a garden and needed that space. After a whole lot of to-and-fro, they worked it all out. By the time the house was built, though, something had happened. There was an urgent call. Mama was in tears asking me if I could help her out with some money. Papa Spearman had changed his mind. After talking it over with his nephew, Rayfield, he decided that the new house would not be a wise move, so now Mama had to figure out how to keep from losing her down payment. That’s when we stepped in. Whenever Gene found out Mama needed something, he would always be there for her. He had no reservations whatsoever. So we wound up taking over everything. We worked with Mama to sell our two-flat apartment building to Elder George Liggins from her church, and we bought the house that Mama built. The one that would have such a nice neighbor, such a nice garden. The one she had wanted so much for her own.

Not long after that, Gene decided he was going to open up his own barbershop. Now, I was a little concerned, because I had only started teaching, we had a new house note to pay, and we also were buying a new car. But Gene wanted that barbershop. He wanted it very much. So I got behind him. I promised I would help. Besides, I figured, at least he still had his job at the Ford plant. Of course, I didn’t figure on Gene taking a leave of absence from that job. I thought he could have managed the shop after three in the afternoon, just like he had worked it out at Polk’s for years.
But he saw it differently and, like I said, I got behind him. I only hoped
we
would not get behind in the process.

Gene found the perfect spot just around the corner from our new home. We called on quite a few relatives to come in and help with the remodeling, to customize the place. And Gene wanted a top-rate customized shop. Somebody came in to lay the tile. We went to the place that sells barber supplies and I started heading over to the section with the reconditioned chairs and things and I turned around and saw Gene talking to somebody in the brand-new, brand-name, up-to-the-minute, top-of-the-line section. He picked the very best of everything for his new shop. Chairs that were second to none. They were called “the Cadillac of barber chairs.” That was all Gene needed to hear. He didn’t drive a Cadillac, but I could kind of see the wheels turning on that one, too. He paid fifteen hundred dollars for a back bar and bought the best face bowls—one for each station he planned to set up. Oh, my God, the man was killing me. Our first note on the house was coming due in April. That was $142.10. The rent on the shop would come due at the same time. That was one hundred and fifteen dollars. I didn’t know what the new car note was going to be yet, and Gene had taken a leave of absence. An unpaid leave. I just swallowed hard and kept smiling. I was behind him all the way.

By the time Gene finished, that shop was sparkling. I mean, it was beautiful. Word spread very quickly that Gene Mobley had opened a new shop. Well, when he got home at the end of that first night, he laid out a stack of money that was almost too big to count. But I managed.

There came a day when Gene had to go in to Ford to talk about his leave. I told him before he left for the meeting to hold on to that job no matter what. But we didn’t get a chance to go into all the details. Later he told me that he had left Ford. I couldn’t believe it. I knew things were going well at the barbershop, but Ford had such great benefits. With just another couple of years, we would have been able to retire with a wonderful health plan that would carry us for the rest of our lives.

I just looked at him. “Gene,” I said, “next time you want to do something like that, think ‘Mamie.’ What would
I
want? Just think ‘Mamie.’ ”

He explained that he couldn’t extend his leave and he couldn’t go back. He was happy at the shop and wanted to devote all his time to that. I accepted it. I could have never stood between Gene and his dream. That would have been the worst thing I could do. And I wanted only the best for him. I took a long, hard look at my husband, and I saw something I really admired. I saw what Emmett might have been, if only he had been given the chance. Gene was strong, he was resourceful and industrious.
He would have made a good father for Emmett. I saw so much of Emmett in Gene. But, then, I was seeing Emmett everywhere. I was looking everywhere for him.

Gene and I settled into our life together. Family was so important. In fact, it was vital. Gene’s brother Wealthy and his new wife, Euthenia, or Lou, as we called her, became such wonderful companions. And, even though we would spend time at the homes of all of Gene’s brothers and would go to the family events hosted by his ex-wife, Dorothy, we felt a special kinship with Wealthy and Lou. Just as Wealthy had become a brother to me, Lou would be like a sister after they married in 1962. She never hesitated to help me with everything, including all that schoolwork I seemed to be doing all the time back then. Evenings, weekends, all the time. She seemed to actually enjoy helping me get through it, partly because we just got along so well, partly because I know she was in a hurry to get to those Uno games. I do believe Lou is the only person who ever beat me at anything.

One night, we were all sitting around talking. Wealthy always was a good conversationalist. I turned to him at one point and said I thought he should become a preacher. He just kind of looked at me at first. And I kept going. Wealthy could become a minister, Gene could become the deacon, Lou could be the usher, and I could become the secretary. Everybody had a good laugh over that one. But I guess that was the way I thought about our close-knit little group. For me, family time was a spiritual experience.

Nothing was more enjoyable to us all than fishing. Now, Emmett had been an avid fisherman and loved going out with Mama and with Wheeler Parker. But the first time I did it was in 1963. I must have spent a hundred dollars on equipment so that I would have everything I needed. Lou taught me how to bait the hook and cast my line. And that was it. I was ready. Caught my first fish and I was so excited. Over the years, Gene, Wealthy, Lou, and I would spend days up on rivers and lakes in Illinois and Wisconsin, talking, cooking out, and catching so much fish: bluegill, big-mouth bass, silver bass, catfish, walleye.
Oh
, we could catch some fish. So much, in fact, that sometimes we’d bring back enough to give to the church. It was always a great time. It gave me a chance to collect myself. And talk. Lou had not lived through our loss and she always seemed as ready to listen as I was to talk. There was no end to my talking about Emmett and all that had happened. Sometimes, Lou would convince me to let it go for a moment, to get into the peace of the environment all around us. And I would.

Fishing for me would become a great need, one that I don’t think I fully understood right away. There is something so refreshing—spiritually
refreshing—about the experience. Being with family. Being so close to nature. I would cast my line and feel connected. A ripple that would go on forever. You could feel the rhythm of the riverbank, the pulse of the ages. It was natural, it was easy. Oh, it was perfection in slow motion. It was at times like those when you could feel your place in the scheme of things, and know that there is so much in the world beside you, and ultimately, that it all is the way it is supposed to be. God doesn’t make mistakes. You come to realize all that when you cast your line and make the connection. Of course, it’s also nice to catch a fish or two.

Every now and then, Gene would kind of give me that look and sigh. We agreed that Bo would have really enjoyed the experience, fishing with us.

We know Mama enjoyed it. Eventually, she would join us on some of those fishing trips. And she was serious about her fishing. So serious, in fact, that it was hard to tear her away from it. Once, we were fishing on the Rock River in Wisconsin and Mama was bringing in a nice catch. As she grabbed at the fish, got it off the line, the hook somehow swung back and caught her arm, tore into a vein. She looked up at Wealthy and asked him to take it out. He didn’t want to mess with it. Much too dangerous. Mama just calmly wrapped a towel around her arm, we asked directions to the nearest hospital, and we got moving, not because Mama was concerned about her bleeding arm, but because she said she wanted to hurry up and get back to catch some more fish. And we did. What amazed everybody that day was that Mama and I were so calm about the whole thing. We never got excited during that crisis. Others have noticed that sort of thing over the years. People have said that Mama and I had ice water in our veins. I think really it was that we had God in our hearts. It is what we have learned, what we have held deep inside us: “Be still, and know that I am God.”

There have been times when I thought that Mama hadn’t prepared me for some of the challenges I would face in life. And there were some things that it would have been helpful for me to know sooner than I wound up learning them. But I know now that, somehow, she taught me one of the most important things I could ever know. It would be there for me when we got the news of Emmett’s death. When I felt something transferring from Mama to me. In a way, what I was feeling was an awareness that I would have to stay composed under the most difficult circumstances I would ever experience. What I felt was God moving through Mama and me. There was a great calm. And, as I would learn, such a strong connection to fishing. The still peace of that riverbank would always be there, and so would God. So Mama had helped me realize so much in the way she lived her life and showed me how to stay calm with
the deep understanding, the knowledge that all things are possible with God. And all the rest? Just details.

It seemed like the whole world was there that day, August 28, 1963. Eight years to the day since Emmett was murdered. The Lincoln Memorial, the park area around the reflecting pool, the National Mall stretching back to the Washington Monument, were jammed with people, speakers and spectators. They had come to Washington, D.C., a quarter of a million strong to demonstrate, to show their support for civil rights legislation. It was summer and it was hot and people were shoulder to shoulder across that west end of the Mall. Roy Wilkins was there. So were many other civil rights leaders and religious leaders and labor leaders and politicians. It was a most impressive lineup of dignitaries. But it was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who stirred everyone that day.