"This weekend, however, Ellis Earl was in luck. Mr. Foster had given him the leftovers from a surprise afternoon for his class. Ellis Earl wished the food could hold them over until Monday. But with eleven people in their house, a half loaf of bread, a half empty jar of peanut butter, two chocolate moon pies, and a package of Stage Planks wouldn't last until even the next day."
The year is 1967. Ellis Earl, narrator of Linda Williams Jackson's The Lucky Ones, is growing up in a rundown shack in the rural South. Eleven family members sleep in its three rooms, some on pallets on the floor...
...that is until his oldest brother and his pregnant wife drop off their four children, not knowing when she'll go into labor. Four more mouths to feed and very little to feed them with. Enough beans and corn bread to satisfy everyone is a rare luxury.
Ellis Earl's father is dead. His mother cleans houses and does laundry for white folks when work is available. His older brothers try (and usually fail) to find work every day. His older sister, Jeanette, only fourteen, stays home to cook, clean, and take care of the youngest children so that their mother can work. Ellis Earl plans to stay in school and become a lawyer...
...even though none of his older siblings have gone beyond sixth grade.
But there is some reason for hope. A Black lawyer, Marian Wright, had gone to Washington DC to tell the Senate about the extent of poverty and hunger in the Mississippi Delta and invited them to come see for themselves. Senator Robert Kennedy decides to take her up on her invitation.
Kennedy's poverty tour was also part of Jackson's personal history. A baby then, she lived in a home much like the ones that he visited. She portrays a poor Black family of that time to show today's kids a more nuanced picture than that provided by contemporary media.
"We were more than starving children with extended bellies, raggedy clothing, and dirty faces. We were children who rode to school in station wagons. We were children who received hot meals when we got there. We were children who were encouraged to explore our world through books.
We were children with hopes and dreams."
When I read The Lucky Ones I discovered that Jackson had written two earlier volumes centered around her family history during a tragic year: 1955. She wondered what her family lived through back then. She wanted to put out a book about the Emmett Till tragedy from the perspective of a Delta native. So she took Toni Morrison's advice and wrote the book she wanted to read.
When we meet Rosa at the beginning of Midnight Without A Moon she, younger brother Fred Lee, and cousin Queen live with their grandparents. Her grandmother, Ma Pearl, rules the place with a feared black switch. Rosa yearns to join her mother and stepfather up North.
Rosa's best friend, Hallelujah, is the son of a minister who has strong opinions on civil rights. Needless to say, Ma Pearl is not a big fan of the family's spiritual leader.
Violence against Blacks is escalating in Mississippi. Men are shot in broad daylight in front of witnesses for the crime of registering to vote. Then a teenage boy from Chicago visuals relatives in the Delta, Emmitt Till, is missing. Two white men have kidnapped him from his grandfather's house. His body turns up in the Tallahatchie River, weighted down by a cotton-gin fan. After a farce of a trial the killers go free.
A Star Full Of Stars starts off months later. A lot of people are outraged by Till's killers going free. They feel that unless they fight back Blacks in Mississippi will never be safe. Hallelujah and his minister father are squarely in this group.
But not all Blacks are. Ma Pearl thinks race relations were fine until NAACP troublemakers started coming down from the North.
"Colored folks just oughta stay in their place. It'd keep us out of a whole lotta trouble. One Negro do something, white folks get mad at everybody."
When Hallelujah and some of his friends decide to make signs and have a march in their little town of Stillwater Rosa is torn. As much as she believes in the cause, she wa knows the real dangers of being involved. Mr. Robinson, the white man for whom her grandparents are sharecroppers, has said that any of his workers starting trouble will be kicked out of their shacks. And whites can even kill Blacks and suffer no consequences.
All three of Jackson's fine books bring horrific events of the not so distant past to life for for younger readers through vivid, engaging narratives.
On a purrrsonal note, after a couple of days I could devote pretty much to writing I'm spending three days volunteering with Upward Bound, sorting out which Clothes Room garments we'll take over to the dorm for the summer residential program. Eugene and some of his colleagues are on campus rebuilding a road. (Jules)
They are gone all day. (Tobago)
A great big shout out goes out to the Outward Bound very busy staff and Eugene's crew.
Tobago and Jules Hathaway
Sent from my U.S.Cellular© Smartphone
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