March Forward, Girl

March Forward, Girl

Juvenile/YA herstory
"After what felt to me like an eternity, we heard the Klansmen
rejoicing; they had completed their task and were saying to each
other, 'He won't ever look anyone in the eye and whisper under his
breath again. This uppity nigger has gone wherever they go when they
die.'"
Melba Patillo Beals, who would go on to be one of the Little
Rock Nine, the courageous teens who integrated Central High School in
1957, was only five when the incident described above took place. She
and her grandmother were in church. Suddenly the doors slammed. Six
men in KKK sheets and masks lynched a black man in full view of the
terrified congregation. Although her grandmother covered her eyes,
she could hear everything. Remembering the victim, Mr. Harvey, as a
nice man whose son she had played with, she desperately prayed for
someone to do something. After the left the church, passing the
strung up corpse, the nightmare continued.
"That night and many nights afterward for a long time, I could
see Mr. Harvey's feet hanging down and the rope stretched over the
rafter, and I imagined his face in my mind. I didn't talk to anyone
about this because Grandma told me that if I said anything to anyone
about seeing Officer Nichols with the Klan, they would come get us and
hang us too. I thought I would never forget that scene as it replayed
in my head."
In her memoir, March Forward, Girl, Beals describes the world in
which she grew up. It was a world in which the KKK could lynch a man
in church and get away with it. The city officials and police
officers mandated to prevent violence were often members. It was a
world in which violent whites could do anything they damn well pleased
and get away with it. (When she was eleven she was kidnapped and
nearly raped at a KKK event.) It was a world in which even the most
dignified blacks had to kowtow to even the most vulgar whites, a world
in which separate but unequal was the law of the land, a world in
which a little black girl couldn't touch pretty things in stores while
white kids could touch everything to their hearts' content...
March Forward, Girl is very well written. I do, however,
question the juvenile designation. The lynching and near rape scenes
have me seeing it as more fitting for the upper part of the YA age
group. Read it very carefully first if you're planning to give it to
anyone younger.
Actually Go Forward, Girl is an excellent read for adults.
Being ignorant of history can doom us to repeat it. Sadly there are a
lot of people (including ones in high places) who believe that a
return to segregation will make America "great" again.
On a personal note, we're at the point in winter where, at least here
in Penobscot County, Maine, people are growing weary of cold weather,
shoveling, and ice under foot and under wheel. If you believe in
forcasting by rodent you'll be expecting an early spring since old
Puxatawny Phil didn't see his shadow on the designated date. If you're
realizing the lack of peer reviewed research behind that method you
aren't putting the shovel away. Let's face it. The weather is beyond
our control. We could get slammed with a blizzard in April. However,
if you want to add an anticipatory touch of spring to your interior
decor you'll be delighted to know that my daughter, Amber, has started
posting spring crafts on her blog:
Http://amberscraftaweek.blogspot.com.
A great big shout out goes out to my crafty daughter, Amber.
jules hathaway



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