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Though I had never expected to see black people h the streets, I knew instantly what this was about Toin, and the first order of business was jury selection No Negro had ever been permitted to serve on a jury in the state of Mississippi Many of the liberal Yankee newspapers had declared it an outrage They suggested that the White Raiders Trial e to allow one or possibly even two colored men to serve as jurors

We stood at the railing of the veranda, watching the marchers slowly pass It was plain that they had taken a detour froo past LJ’s house Some of them waved or lifted their hats to us

Just e thought we had seen the last of the marchers, another phalanx turned the corner onto Willow

I was a?”

LJ smiled “Yessir, it’s one hell of a crowd”

“Not just the size of the crowd,” I said “Take a look at who’s leading it”

All white?

Not right

LJ squinted to see “Those two old folks at the front?”

Jonah answered for entleman, if I a made, indeed”

Chapter 97

WHEN I WAS A BOY, mya trial

“It’s a presiding day,” she’d say “Let’s go see Daddy scaring the pants off of everyone” And ae’d go to the courthouse

To my child’s eyes the old Pike County Courthouse looked exactly like a church The second-floor gallery where the colored people got to sit was like the choir loft The benches beloere the pews And h altar in the front of the roo like a very strict minister who happened to wield a hammer instead of a Bible

More than twenty years later, here I was, back in the church of Judge Everett Corbett