I stayed in jail two days while all of McComb talked about the “New York Negro” who was too stubborn to pay five dollars in court costs. I would have stayed in jail longer, but without my knowledge, Jack Young, an attorney for the NAACP, came down from Jackson and paid my fine and I was free.
The next morning I resumed the citizenship school at Mount Pilgrim Church.
By the following Tuesday, five people were ready and willing to go to the courthouse. They returned all smiles. Nothing had happened. But later that day we received word that the whites of Liberty had held a secret meeting where they drew up a list of “uppity” blacks and vowed to kill me if I came to town.
4
The situation in Liberty was so tense, I didn’t press anyone at citizenship classes to volunteer. But about a week later Curtis Dawson, a dependable man whom Steptoe vouched for, and Reverend Alfred Knox, a powerfully built farmer and part-time preacher, said they were ready to register. If they had the courage, others would follow their example. Dawson picked me up at Steptoe’s, and we drove to the Liberty courthouse, where Preacher Knox was supposed to be waiting. We didn’t see him on the lawn, so we parked and looked around. We found him outside the post office, where he felt less conspicuous. We were walking back to the courthouse when suddenly three men strode across the street and blocked the sidewalk.
A big, burly man grabbed a fistful of my T-shirt and demanded, “Where do you think you’re goin’, nigger?”
“To the courthouse.”
“Like hell you are,” and he slugged me on the side of my head with the blunt end of a folded jackknife. Blood spurted from my scalp and ran down my face; I fell to my knees and threw up my hands to protect my skull.
“Leave him alone,” Alfred Knox cried, reaching out to help. “Let him be.”
“You stay out of this, uncle,” one of the other men warned.
He clobbered me again on the top of the head and my face slammed the sidewalk. For a moment I felt as if my soul had ascended and I were a disembodied spirit hovering above with a bird’s-eye view of my own beating. I watched what had been my body on the ground tuck up its legs and try to protect its groin. A man bent over the curled form, kicking and punching it until he was winded. Finally, he stepped back.
“Nigger,” he panted, “you’re leavin’ town.”
I watched the three men walk away.
Then I was back in my body, with a stabbing pain behind my eyes, while Alfred Knox pressed a large handkerchief to my head until the bleeding stopped.
“Come on,” he said, helping me to my feet, “you’ve had enough for one day.”
I stood as still as I could, waiting for the nausea to pass.
“No,” I said. “I want to see the sheriff.”
We crossed the courthouse lawn to the office of Sheriff E. L. Caston.
“I’ve been assaulted,” I said. “I want you to swear out a warrant.
“Do you know who?”
“It was Billy Jack,” Curtis Dawson volunteered.
“Billy Jack, you say?”
“Do you know him?” I asked.
“He’s my first cousin.” The sheriff put a hand up to his mouth to hide the smirk on his face. “If you want to waste your time filin’ a complaint, go see the county prosecutor. I can’t help you.”
“Can I use your phone?”
“Can’t help you there either. I’d advise you to get out of town and forget the whole thing.”
Dawson, Knox, and I left the sheriff’s office to the sound of snickers and a burst of laughter.
“What was so funny?” I asked as we stepped outside.
“You know those other two men?” Dawson explained. “One of them was Billy Jack’s brother, and the other was the sheriff’s son.”
“Nice.”
I found a phone booth across the street and asked the local operator to call the Justice Department; it seemed she couldn’t make the connection. There was nothing to do but return to Steptoe’s farm and lick my wounds. I wasn’t about to let the black people of Liberty and McComb see me covered with blood.
When he heard our car rattling up the dirt drive, Steptoe came out of the barn carrying a pail of milk. He took one look at me and grimaced.
“Bob, is that you?”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m not hurt that bad.”
Unconvinced, he patted my shoulder, gazing at me with troubled eyes.
Two of his daughters came out of the house, saw my blood-soaked shirt and started screaming. They ran to their father, clutching him and crying, “Do something! Do something!”
Steptoe helped me off with my shirt and wrung the blood out, which made the girls gasp and cry harder. Then he led me to the kitchen, washed me off with a wet cloth, found a change of clothes, and drove me to the office of the only black doctor in McComb, who stitched me up while Steptoe wiped my face with his handkerchief.
Early the next morning, Steptoe approached me as I was dressing and looked apprehensively at the three bandages on my scalp.
“Bob,” he asked with deep concern in his voice, “where are you goin’?”
“To Liberty.”
“Bob, you can’t go back there.”
“I have work to do,” I said. “There are people who are counting on me to help them register, and I need to see the county prosecutor.”
“The people will understand,” he said, “and the county prosecutor won’t help you.”
“It’s something I have to do.”
“Bob, listen to me. I know those people. Don’t go back there. They will be expectin’ you today. They will kill you up there today. Don’t go.”
“If I don’t go back,” I said, “I’m finished. They’ll figure they’ve won. The people want to register; they’re counting on my help.”
“I don’t want to see you dead.”
“Look, don’t worry. If anything happens to me, someone else will take my place.”
“I feel like you’re one of my own kids,” Steptoe said with tears in his eyes and his voice choking. “You’re just that close to me.”
“I know,” I said, putting my arms around him. “I’ll be back.”
In Liberty I told the county prosecutor I wanted to swear out a complaint against Billy Jack Caston for criminal assault. He looked at me as if my brains were oozing out from under my bandages. Then he explained that no Negro had ever done anything like that around there and that all I would probably accomplish would be to get myself killed, but he agreed to file a complaint and call the justice of the peace.
N. T. Bellue, a tottering, toothless old gent with watery eyes, showed up an hour later. When I told him I had filed assault and battery charges against Billy Jack Caston, his tobaccoless pipe nearly fell out of his mouth.
“I want a trial,” I said. “I’ve got witnesses.”
“You’ll get one,” he grumbled, tapping his cane for emphasis, “as soon as I eat my lunch.”
Two hours later I brought Curtis Dawson and Alfred Knox into Liberty. Pickup trucks lined the town square; an angry crowd milled around on the courthouse lawn; the second-floor courtroom was packed with men brandishing shotguns to ensure that the niceties of southern