But soon we were out in the country on the other side of Round Hill. We came to a bend in the road and I knew the old cow pasture would come into view soon. I caught my breath when it did. The huge empty field had turned into a sea of cars. They were arranged in neat lines in the middle of the field, but helter-skelter around the border, as though tossed by a tornado. In the distance I could see the throng of people. There had to be a thousand of them. Maybe two thousand.
“Well, that’s damn depressing,” Chip said. He leaned forward from the back seat and tapped my shoulder. “Your town is full of haters,” he said, and I felt a lump form in my throat.
“Who knows where all these people came from?” I felt defensive. “Don’t blame it all on Round Hill.” I knew the truth, though. I knew there were plenty of haters in my hometown. Plenty who complained about letting Black students into my old high school. Plenty of shops and restaurants where they weren’t welcome. I just avoided the haters. They weren’t part of my circle. They weren’t part of my parents’ circle either. Some people hadn’t been happy when my father opened his pharmacy doors to Black customers, but he stood his ground and I’d been proud of him. I hoped that, deep down inside, he was proud of me now for being in SCOPE, and that the only reason he hadn’t supported my decision was because he was worried about me.
We had to park a good distance from the rally itself, Paul jostling the car into a muddy spot between a couple of other Plymouths. We could barely squeeze out of the car doors, but we managed, and soon we were walking on the old country road toward the rally.
“It just looks like a big fair or something,” Jocelyn said.
It did. It reminded me of our annual Derby County Fair. There was even a Ferris wheel on the far side of the field. The crowd was thick, people packed in tightly, the men in white shirts and dark trousers and the women in their everyday dresses. The air smelled of hot dogs and the people stood around talking and laughing, paper cups in their hands. Children ran between them, chasing each other, waving miniature Confederate flags. There was a stage at one end of the field where a man spoke into a microphone, his voice echoing from huge speakers set up along the edges of the field. We headed toward the stage and it wasn’t until we’d gotten closer that I saw what made this gathering different from a county fair. In front of the long stage stood a line of a hundred—at least a hundred—people in white satin robes and pointed hoods. They applauded whatever the man on the stage was saying. His robe and hood were green, shimmering in the waning sunlight. We jostled closer to one of the enormous speakers so we’d be able to hear him.
Paul nudged the man next to him. “Who is that guy?” he asked, pointing to the dark-haired, round-faced man on the stage.
The man looked at Paul as though he’d dropped down from another planet. “Bob Jones, of course,” he said, a hint of pride in his voice. “Our Grand Dragon.”
“Oh, right,” Paul said. “I didn’t recognize him in person.” Paul turned to the rest of us and rolled his eyes, mouthing, The Grand Dragon.
I snapped a few pictures of Bob Jones and listened to what he had to say. It seemed important to know what we were up against. I felt embarrassed that my new Northern friends were witnessing this—that they would think every Southerner bought into the message of white supremacy. I had to admit that from the size of the crowd, it certainly looked like it.
“Do you know, we’re now ten thousand members strong in North Carolina?” Bob Jones shouted. Cheers and applause erupted from the crowd. “We have Klaverns in every corner of the state, more than in all the other Southern states combined!” His face was shiny with sweat. “We travel across the Old North State every night, sharing our message with good, honest, hardworking folks like you, working to preserve our precious way of life!” Another cheer went up from the crowd. I wondered if we should cheer, too, just to protect ourselves. We mustn’t stand out. But not a soul seemed to be paying attention to us.
“I ain’t got nothin’ against the colored man,” Bob Jones shouted. “I’m all for equal rights, but separate rights.” More cheering. “Integration is a threat to your jobs, folks, you know that,” Jones said. “A threat to your very way of life. And if Lyndon Baines Johnson bends to the communists and the Jewish cabal behind the civil rights movement, well he can go straight to hell!”
The crowd loved that, apparently, shouting and cheering and waving Confederate flags. I felt sick. Sort of helpless. How did our little band of freedom fighters stand a chance against so many thousands of hateful people? I thought of the sweet Dawes family, struggling just to survive, and my eyes filled with tears.