Racial Harmony - An Old Freedom Rider Tries To Relive Ebony And Ivory But Finds 'Whites Need Not Apply'

Vicki Batten was an old Freedom Rider - on the busses to Montgomery to march with Martin and Ralph across the Pettus Bridge in Selma.  Ah, what a heady time! she remembered. More like a camp jamboree than serious business until, of course they were set upon by Bull Connor's dogs, beaten like tramps by his thugs, thrown into jail with nothing but bread and water. 

'I would never have had it otherwise', she said, reminiscing about those times, the halcyon times of racial integration, ebony and ivory, black and white, arms linked singing 'We Shall Overcome'.  She still wore an amulet given to her by a young black boy, a gri-gri he had been given by his former slave grandmother, given by her grandmother as she was loaded aboard the slave ship taking them to America. 

'Dis keep dem evil sprits gone fo' evah', the boy said to Vicki as she set off on the long march for freedom.  'Now Olodumare is wif you'. 

She had tears in her eyes as she remembered that day, that boy, and the sun rising over the Pettus bridge, the stink of the tannery on the far banks of the river, the solidarity, the camaraderie, the brilliant, unalloyed hope for a better future. 

She and her classmate were on their way up to Poughkeepsie for their Vassar reunion.  It had been many years since she had visited her old school, and she was filled with fond memories of girlhood, first love, and the intimations of her professional calling.  When visiting professor Harold Bloom read from Blake's The Tyger, she was moved to tears and knew at that moment that her life was to be dedicated to beauty. 

'Do you think Felicia will be here?' Vicki's classmate asked as they made the final turn onto the campus, already festooned with welcome Class of 19___banners, white tents put up in the quad, caterers already fussing with tablecloths and silver services. It was a beautiful May day, and the weekend promised to be a memorable one. 

Felicia had been Vicki's first love and the two were an item during a year together - strange, unique, and a curiosity since those were the days when that kind of love was far more undercover and not supposed to exist, especially not at such a high-toned campus like Vassar. 

'A flirtation', snapped Vicki, hoping that she would not have to be reminded of her sexual dalliance under the covers at Stratham House; but the thought had crossed her mind.  What would she say to her after so many years? especially since Vicki had gone on to marry, have children, and lead a quietly traditional life - except of course for Selma. 

To her surprise and pleasure, Felicia was at the reunion and even more surprising, she too had been in Alabama during the time of civil protest. Now she was in a different political place, a different emotional country, and far from Selma, but she had been moved by the same integrative spirit at the time.

Now, the paths taken by the two former lovers had diverged significantly after the Freedom Rides.  Vicki had followed her heart and joined the civil rights movement, but for one reason or another meandered into redistributive wealth, climate activism, and world peace.  She had never once lifted her nose from the grindstone, and was as passionately committed to these existential causes as she had been for the black man. 

Felicia on the other hand had turned the corner, looked at her sexual and political dalliances as youthful fantasy, and become a corporate lawyer who was proud that she had defended both Amazon and Microsoft in famous anti-trust cases. She came to the reunion dressed to kill, all Armani and Arpege, a fashion plate looking like a well-tailored Catherine Deneuve, desirable but aloof. 

Vicki felt shabby standing next to her.  A life of social commitment did not pay well nor was it expected to.  Money was the root of oppression, racism, and climate denial; but still and all, she wanted to look like Felicia and in fact be like Felicia who warmly invited her to their summer home on Nantucket or their winter place on St. Bart's. 

Vicki had heard about Felicia, Amazon, and Microsoft - the Vassar Alumnae Magazine literally gushed with pride over her achievements - but Felicia had heard nothing about Vicki.  A life in the trenches meant keeping your head down. 

'When this shindig is over' said Felicia, warmly embracing her old friend, 'we must have lunch'.

Other than that fortunate, happy occasion of meeting Felicia again, the reunion was a routine affair. Quiche, chardonnay, girl talk, chatter about children and grandchildren, a few noteworthy alumnae talking about art, the human genome, chips, and rare earths, but nothing more.  Vicki was glad it was over, thinking more about her coming lunch with Felicia than the affairs of her classmates. 

'Why are you still in that rat's nest', asked Felicia when the two met a month later at the Four Seasons.  'As corrupt as can be. BLM LaShonda whatever in prison for fraud and embezzlement. Your inner cities sinkholes, rabid, disgusting....Oh, I'm being too forward, aren't I, darling?'

Felicia, however forward and intemperate her remarks, had hit the nail on the head.  When Vicki thought to reup her allegiance to the cause of racial justice and made overtures to the Black Women's Social Caucus, Washington's most prominent civil rights non-profit, she was met at the door, shepherded through metal detectors, frisked and asked to empty her pocketbook. 

'Sorry 'bout that', said her host. 'Can never be too careful these days'.  On the walls of Letitia James' office there were no photographs of King, Abernathy, Rosa Parks, or even Malcolm X, Rap Brown, and Stokely Carmichael, icons of the black cause, heroes of the movement. "We don't do that shit no mo'" said Letitia. 'Them's history and we's the present'; and from that moment on Vicki knew she didn't belong.  Better not to mention Selma, Bull Connor, Montgomery or any of the rest of it.  

'What did I tell you?', Felicia said when she and Vicki met again.  'Not that you've spent your life for a lost cause', Felicia went on, 'because of course you did what you thought was right, but still and all in all, you were barking up the wrong tree'

A pause for reflection.  What had started off as a happy, unified, collegial, and happy event - blacks and whites together, singing in unison, arms locked, embracing, and just happy to be together - had become a racially divided, racist, identity-flaunted nightmare.   How did this happen? 

'Is Harold Bloom still alive?', Felicia asked.  Vicki was unsure but after checking found out that he wasn't.  How she had been impressed by him, by Blake, and by the deliberate parsing of those few, spare lines of Tyger! Was it too late to return to the fold?  Of course it was.  She should have retired years ago, but hung in there. 'Sunken costs', said Felicia.  Too much invested regardless of the innocence and yes, ignorance of the investment. 

Florida beckoned.  Vicki knew that she should not be thinking condo in 'The Free State', the fascist state, but she was tired of northern winters, slush, and potholes.  She would have preferred to go out in a blaze of glory, the signing of another civil rights bill perhaps, something to mark her efforts; but she couldn't shake that niggling comment of Felicia - she said sinkhole but she really meant shithole - and decided that a Tampa beach would be the anodyne appropriate for a tired warrior. 

Felicia was in the news again, arguing corporate interests before the Supreme Court. Vicki was happy for her, Frost's the road not taken Vicki's fate, but let bygones be bygones.  Those camp songs on the Freedom Rides were something, weren't they?