“Why do you say ‘black’ instead of ‘Negro’？” I asked.
He squinted against the sunlight. “It’s a strong word,” he said after a moment, as if that was all the explanation that was needed.
I tried to imagine referring to Louise as “black.” I didn’t think she’d like it. “Couldn’t it be seen as insulting?” I asked.
He surprised me by nodding. “Yes,” he said. “So I’m careful with it. I won’t use it with most of the folks we see. But I personally like the feel of it. The strength of it.”
We walked in silence for a while. I carried the packet with our canvassing paperwork and voting rights pamphlets, and I kept my gaze cast down on the road, not wanting to step in one of the ruts and twist an ankle. After a while, I spotted a small cluster of houses up ahead, maybe an eighth of a mile or so. Finally. A goal.
“I thought I knew how to do this, after all the role-playing and everything we did during orientation,” I admitted, “but it felt so awkward, talking to Mrs. Dawes about registering. They’re working so hard and it’s got to be the last thing on their minds. Plus, I just kind of popped the conversation on her. No buildup. No camel stories.”
He didn’t crack a smile. So serious, this guy. “We have to help them see that it needs to be the first thing on their minds to make their lives easier,” he said. “Think about the Dawes family. How would being able to vote help them?”
“This road,” I said. “This road is a mess.”
“That’s for sure,” Win said. “This doesn’t even qualify as a road. What else?”
“Electricity?”
“That would surely help. And you’re on the right track. You and I know that the right to vote will mean a better life for their kids in the future, but people need to see the concrete ways it can change their lives right now. Roads. Electricity. Plumbing. A decent minimum wage, that’s an important one. Huge.”
“They could vote Negroes … Black people … into office,” I said, trying out the word. “They could have better schools.”
“Now you’re cookin’ with gas,” he said. “You can see why white folks are afraid of Black folks getting the vote. They think they’ll lose power. Right now Blacks are dependent on the white man and that’s the way the white man wants it.” I heard anger behind the words.
“It shouldn’t be an ‘us versus them’ thing,” I said.
“Tell that to your white neighbors.”
For a moment, neither of us spoke. “You had a whole different way of talking to her than you do right now,” I said finally. I was awestruck by Win, the way he had two sides to him. He was like a chameleon, able to match whatever environment he was in.
He almost smiled, but not quite. Except for when he was talking to Mrs. Dawes about the camel, and occasionally when we sang freedom songs, I didn’t think I’d seen a smile out of him. “It helps to connect to people, talking their language,” he said.
“I don’t know how to do that,” I said.
“It’d be weird coming out of your mouth. You just be you—a well-intentioned rich white girl—and let me be me.”
I stopped walking. “That’s not fair,” I said, surprised and suddenly angry.
He stopped, too. Looked me in the eye from behind his horn-rimmed glasses. “No, I guess it wasn’t,” he said finally.
“That’s how you really feel, though?”
“Look, I’m part of SCOPE because of Dr. King,” he said, starting to walk again. “I met him through some friends and he said I was needed here. When Dr. King says he needs you, well, you do it. Whatever he says. But the longer I’m in this fight … this battle … the more I think it’s got to be a Black battle. So … there’s noble intentions here, I know that, and I know you’re here out of a good heart, right?”
I nodded.
“A good heart and wanting to do the right thing and make a difference and I’ve got to … I have to put my own … values … aside and do what I promised Dr. King I’d do. ‘Just give Hosea and me this summer,’ he said to me. So … Ellie…” My name came out of him slowly. “I apologize. It doesn’t matter if you’re white or Black or rich or poor or in between, we’re here to do the same work.”
“Yes,” I said. “We are.”
* * *