Let Them In

Let Them In

Gerald Jackson hurried towards his home, situated in the 'Black' part of the neighbourhood. He kept his head down as much as he could to avoid all the arrogant glares of the white people walking past him, as well as to avoid the setting sun. The year was 1963, almost nine years since the Civil Rights Movement had begun back in 1954 with the Brown v. Board of Education incident's resolution. Still, most of society had not changed. The blacks were still segregated and looked upon as animals by the white 'masters'. Things felt like they were never going to get better. South Carolina was not exactly a pleasant place to live in as just a week ago, a black citizen had been clubbed to death by a white man for no reason and got off scot-free. The outrage had been huge...but nothing had been done about it.

Gerald looked at both sides of the road briefly, then sprinted across it as quickly as possible. Halfway through, he noticed a little white girl playing with a wagon and crossing the road with it. It was a nice scene and he hoped that his children could one day play like that without any troubles or theft from other white children taught to despise them. He was violently jerked from this thought when he heard the sound of an accelerating engine and saw the front of a Chevrolet Impala barrelling down the road towards the little girl and himself. Gerald's first thought was to leap out of the way to safety himself and to abandon the little girl. After all, the whites had given him nothing but abuse and misery, trashing his workplace and home. Why should he help one of theirs? That was when he realised that was exactly why they segregated the community. The whites did not see them as one of theirs, did not see them as humans. To stop this thought, he would have to see everyone as equals.

Gerald sprinted towards the little girl as fast as the wind and scooping her up into his arms, jumped to the sidewalk seconds before the Impala whizzed past them and crushed the wagon into a mangle of plastic. The Impala did not stop and just continued down the road, oblivious to the fact that it had almost killed a young kid. Gerald heard a shout and looked up, only to see a large boot slam into his face. He rolled off to the side in agony and glanced up to see a large man wearing a white singlet pick up the girl and ask her something, before giving Gerald another strong kick to the stomach. "Don't you dare touch my daughter you dirty dog!" The man seethed with hatred and malice evident.

The man turned around and stormed off with the girl in his arms, muttering angrily the whole time. Gerald groaned in anger and pain before picking himself up and glaring at the ungrateful father once and turned to storm back to his house, with some children mockingly laughing at him. Gerald kicked his house door open in fury and walked into his tiny home he shared with two other black families. All the people Everyone in the house turned to look at him in surprise, except his mother, who simply told him off angrily like it was a normal occurrence in the household, "You rip that door off and I'm going to throw you out into the white neighbourhood." Gerald sighed and carefully closed the door and sat down on the old, pale yellow sofa, where the old television set showed some black Jazz musician playing some tunes on a saxophone. "You better get ready boy, we're leaving at eight." His mother said in an annoyed tone without looking away from the television.

"Leaving...where?" He asked, thoroughly confused at the same time noticing that everyone in the house was all dressed up. His mother turned to glare at him. "You silly boy! To Washington D.C. for the March for Jobs and Freedom. Randolph has been yammering on about it for the past month." Gerald's mind finally clicked. Philip Randolph, the 'leader' of the Civil Rights Movement had been calling for a March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom for better rights for the blacks and his family was participating. Gerald had never been so excited and nervous in his life. On one hand, this could change the whole relationship between the blacks and the whites. On the other, he had never met anyone in Washington D.C. and the whole march could be met with riot police and dogs, as well as white supremacists and end up being a failure. Nevertheless, Gerald practically sprinted into his room and flung clothes out from the closet and quickly got ready. By eight, his mother and him had arrived in the local park, by then packed with people, mostly blacks. Hundreds of buses were driving into the park to pick them up and every bus would be crammed full of people before whizzing off into the unknown road ahead. The blacks were talking about how this march would give them better rights, but Gerald could sense the tension in the air. He knew that deep down, every single one of them was praying that nothing bad would happen on the way there and during the march itself. In fact, he himself was doing so, while occasionally eyeing the white policemen stationed around the park itself to prevent any crimes. He had learnt many times that they were never to be trusted. Soon, it was Gerald and his mother's turn and both boarded the cramped and tiny bus and squeezed into a seat, while more unlucky commuters were forced to stand for the eight hour journey. When the bus literally could not fit anyone else inside, it drove off to the highway.