Death of Innocence : The Story of the Hate Crime That Changed America (9781588363244) (47 page)

With my health causing such difficulty, I was beginning to feel a certain urgency in getting my story told. That is why I was so pleased that, by the summer of 1999, a draft of the play was completed and edited.
The State of Mississippi v. Emmett Till
would open the fall season for Pegasus Players, a Chicago theater company. Lester and I met with officials of the company to sign the agreement. Before the first word had even been written, Arlene Crewdson, the artistic director, had said she wanted the play for Pegasus, knowing the significance of the story and the impact it would have as a dramatic presentation. Everything was coming together and I was so excited about sharing my story with live audiences. David told me that opening night would be my night.

“Well, well,” I said, after signing the contract. “Looks like we have a show.” And I was so happy that we did.

On the second night of rehearsals, Gene and I were invited to come to
talk to the cast members about my story. We were only supposed to be there for an hour but, my goodness, it was so wonderful to talk with all those actors who would become the people who would bring the story to life. I mean, we just talked and talked for four and a half hours. I guess they had to make up for that rehearsal time.

There was so much press attention leading up to the opening. Television, newspapers—every major media outlet in Chicago did stories. Some did more than one. For me, this was a good chance to help people understand the important message I wanted to come out of all the effort.

Opening night, September 7, 1999. Everything was in place. There were 265 seats in the theater. Producers had to set up extra chairs so that everyone who wanted to see the play that night could do so. I believe my whole family must have been there in that theater. Gene and I came in after everyone was seated. Since I was in a wheelchair, we had a special place in the rear of the theater. Only David and a few production people knew we were back there.

I had never watched the actors perform during rehearsals. I had wanted to see the play unfold the way everyone else would. It was so moving. The part where the “Mamie” character describes what she saw as she examined Bo’s body—oh, God, every sentence was punctuated by gasps and moans from the audience. There were no pictures. But the words had such power. One lady had to leave. David stood nearby and would check on me from time to time. I was fine. I had lived the story.

By the time the play ended, the audience members were on their feet. There was a special encore. The cast began singing one of my favorites, “I Woke Up This Morning with My Mind Set on Freedom.” I wanted to hear the song, but someone escorted Gene and me around to the back, where we waited in the wings. As they finished the song, the house lights went up and the entire cast turned to me and blew a kiss. Well, I’m sure no one in the audience knew what that was all about, because I was out of sight in the wings. But they soon found out. Gene wheeled me out onto the stage. I rose, slowly, from my wheelchair and stepped up to a podium that had been set up there. And, oh, the people just showed me so much love. I cried, and had to gather myself before I could speak.

I told the audience how much I appreciated their response. How blessed I felt to still be around to appreciate so many people who had appreciated Emmett and my lifelong efforts to share his story. But the work was not over, I said. There was so much still to be done to prevent that kind of horror from ever happening to even one more child.

I acknowledged Gene, my life partner, who for forty-two years had been with me every step of the way. If not for him, I said, I didn’t know
where I would have been. I thanked him for being so strong and so brave even at times when I couldn’t be. Then, I looked for David Barr. I said that it felt a little alone up there, without my writing partner. I finally saw him standing way in the back of the theater.

We stayed in that theater lobby until midnight, nearly two hours. So many people wanted to talk and share their experiences, how the story of Emmett Till had affected them. Even theater critics stuck around. I was told that was very unusual, since critics have deadlines they must rush to meet.

As we were about to leave, I realized that I still had not spoken with David. I asked for him. He had stayed behind in the theater, away from the crowds. But we found him.

“I told you this was going to be your night,” he said to me.

I took his hand, squeezed it. “Oh, and what a night. What a night.”

After that, I must have seen that play on at least twenty other nights. It was extended an extra month. And the news spread with all the press attention we got. The city of Aurora, Illinois, negotiated to have the play staged there that following January.

For the cast, every night’s performance would be a religious experience. Without question, my story involves a tragic loss. The worst experience a mother could ever have. But there also is the celebration of life, the lessons of a lifetime. For black people, every generation has had its cautionary tale. Emmett Till became that story for an entire generation coming of age in the fifties and the sixties. But that’s not what I wanted for my son. I didn’t want Emmett to become a cautionary tale. I wanted people to know his story and to learn from it. What I wanted them to learn was what I always thought my son should represent. I have wanted Emmett’s name to stand for healing, reconciliation, forgiveness, and hope. It seemed that people were getting that message. The ovations said it all. The audiences were expressing their love. It was love for my son. And what more could any mother want?

March 5, 2000, would mark the thirty-fifth anniversary of Bloody Sunday. As on past anniversaries, there would be a ceremonial march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. But this year would be different. This year would be special. This year, the president of the United States would lead that march along with the Reverend Jesse Jackson, Sr., and so many other dignitaries. This year would be different for yet another reason. I had sat on the sidelines during the civil rights movement, and watched in horror with the rest of the nation as Alabama troopers brutally beat voting rights demonstrators back in 1965. But I would be there
this time. I would cross that bridge. Gene would be there with me. And so would my stepdaughter Lillian.

As we came closer to the event, we became more concerned about Gene. I had noticed that he was having trouble eating. He would hold his fork in one hand and use the other hand to lift that hand to his mouth. I asked him about it and he just said that his hand was heavy. He also was falling more often. Even in our hotel room, down in Alabama, he fell, and he laughed about it. Lillian was there to help him. She was there to help us both, and she really had her hands full. Our biggest fear was that Gene might fall on that bridge. That would not be so easy to laugh off. Not with all those people out there.

There were thousands who turned out for the march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, named for a Confederate general. Many of the people were veterans of the civil rights movement. John Lewis was there. He had been there in 1965, an organizer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. When police charged the demonstrators in 1965 with cattle prods and bullwhips and clubs, John Lewis got his skull cracked. Now he was a U.S. congressman from the state of Georgia, and there were black police officers along the way who saluted him and the congressional delegation that accompanied him and the president, who led them all.

Bill Clinton was at the head of the procession along with Reverend Jackson, Coretta Scott King, and Congressman Lewis. I was not far behind. We had asked for two wheelchairs. Gene and I both needed one, but only one was provided. Gene looked so weak, but he told me to take it and he would walk across the bridge. Lillian would help him. Someone was assigned to push me and they would be somewhere behind in the crowd. Oh, that crowd was packed in there, too. And the security kept things even tighter. I mean, it was so tight, the flies couldn’t even get through.

We hadn’t gotten very far at all when the crowd started closing in around me. There were about two people between me and that front row with Reverend Jackson and President Clinton, but the ends were going faster than the middle. We were getting crushed and my wheelchair kept banging into people, who didn’t look too happy about it. Farther back, Lillian also was having trouble with Gene. In a way, the crowd kind of helped her hold him up. But Lillian wasn’t taking any chances. She pulled somebody in to take Gene’s other arm. Finally, the whole march stopped. Probably to get everything aligned again.

While all that was going on, I spoke up from the crush of the crowd. “Reverend, Mr. President. Would you rescue me? The Red Sea is falling in on me, and I need help.”

When Jesse looked back and saw it was me, oh, my goodness, he just had such a reaction. He got the attention of the president, who parted that Red Sea once again.

“Move back,” President Clinton said. “Let this mother through. Don’t you know who this is?”

Jesse came up with a plan. “Why don’t we send Mother Mobley on first,” he said. “And she can watch the rest of us come across.”

So I crossed over first. Gene and Lillian would follow with everyone else. Gene wanted to be there for me. He wanted to be there with me. Even with all the difficulty, he wanted us to share this moment. And we did. Even with the Alabama River between us, we did.

Oh, and what a moment it was. When I saw that wall of people coming across that bridge, it was just awesome. There was so much power in the peace and unity of the whole thing. I thought back to the images of the original march and the police riot that had broken out. How the marchers had met hate with love, violence with peace. How outraged an entire nation had been to see the bloody confrontation. How the Voting Rights Act had been signed later that year. It was signed in ink in Washington, but, as Bill Clinton would say, “… it was first signed in blood in Selma.”

There were a number of us who spoke during the anniversary march and surrounding events. But I will always remember the remarks by President Clinton, who said that the people who had marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in 1965 had set him free, too. Discrimination had limited whites as well as blacks.

Within a couple of weeks after we got back to Chicago, Gene was scheduled for a medical appointment, a biopsy. I always wanted to go with him even for the routine exams, because I always knew the right questions to ask. Gene couldn’t even tell me what his blood pressure was after he came back from the doctor. But he never wanted to wait for me to get ready. And, I have to admit, it was hard to have to wheel me into the hospital, get me situated, park the car, then come back. So I started writing notes for the doctor to send me the information.

The morning of Gene’s appointment, I told him not to leave without waking me so I could talk to him before he left. I heard the bell, and knew it was Abe who had come to take Gene to the hospital. But I fell asleep again. Then I heard the door close and before I could get up to catch Gene, they had driven off.

Within a couple of hours, I got a call. It was my goddaughter Airickca. She had gotten a call from Abe at the hospital. The doctor wanted to see me. But she didn’t tell me why. Not until we were halfway to the hospital.

Now, Airickca doesn’t hold up any traffic. That girl knows how to move a car. But on this day she was not moving fast enough for me. Not after she told me Gene was having some trouble. I wanted her to slide over and let me take the wheel, as I had done when Gene was driving me to Mama’s the morning I got the news about Emmett’s disappearance. I felt that the clock was running and there were so many unanswered questions. Gene’s biopsy was completed pretty quickly. As Abe went to the hospital garage to get the car, Gene wanted to use the washroom. When Gene didn’t come out soon enough, Abe went back in to check on him and found him still in the washroom. He couldn’t move. He had suffered another stroke. He was admitted immediately.

Airickca drove me up to the door and Abe met us there with a wheelchair and he wheeled me to where Daddy was. Gennie looked good, not like anything was wrong at all. But he could not speak. Oh, God. That just sent chills down my spine. I called out to him. He would look at me but he wouldn’t say anything.

I took a deep breath. “Do you know me? If you know me, just squeeze my hand.” I took his right hand and felt no pressure at all. Nothing. I thought he couldn’t hear me. I could see his eyes moving, but I don’t read eye language very well.

Then it occurred to me to move over to the left side. “Daddy, if you know me, squeeze my hand.”

Oh, my God, the squeeze he gave me nearly broke my hand. It was the most reassuring pain I had ever felt. I thought then that Gene was such a strong man, he would beat whatever this thing was. I felt that squeeze and I felt at ease.

So that’s how we communicated for a while there in his hospital room. I would ask yes-or-no questions and he would give my hand one or two squeezes to answer. Is anything hurting? Are you hungry? Things like that.

I wanted him to eat something. He hadn’t eaten since the night before because of the biopsy. He had to be hungry. Very hungry. But the nurse told me they couldn’t feed him just yet. They didn’t know what condition his throat was in, whether he could swallow. So they had to keep feeding him intravenously until tests could reveal what condition he was in. I had to accept that. It was close to one in the afternoon at this point and I stayed on until after midnight, asking questions, chatting away, feeling the connection while Gene squeezed my hand and rolled his eyes.

Abe drove us back that next morning, Friday, March 18. As Airickca wheeled me toward Gene’s room, the nurse came out and rushed over to us. “Mrs. Mobley,” she said, “Mr. Mobley hasn’t closed his eyes all night long.”

Oh, my heart just dropped. I had them rush me in. But, when I looked at Gene, he was looking so pretty. He was clean. It looked like he’d had a shave. I knew he hadn’t but it looked like he had. He just looked good to me, better than I’d ever seen him look. I asked him how he felt and he gave my hand two squeezes. I guess that meant “okay.” I had to remember to ask yes-or-no questions. I asked if he had eaten. He gave me one squeeze for no. That still bothered me, but I accepted what they were telling me.