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DUBOSE SAT ON THE BED in her plain room and surveyed the brittle and worn furnishings that looked like they had been here since the South had seceded from the Union. She had been in hundreds of such rooms in over a dozen of states ever since joining the Legal Defense Fund. They all looked and smelled alike. The only difference was in the last few years the hotels where she stayed also contained white people.
As she had told Jack Lee, this case had been made known to her, and DuBose had found it to be a golden opportunity. Her superiors at LDF had concurred, and she had taken the first available train from North Carolina to Freeman County, a name she found sardonic at best.
She undressed, put on her nightclothes, washed her face, and wrapped her hair in a silk cloth. She took out a photo from her wallet and gazed at the young couple captured there before putting it back. This was her ritual; she had several of them to sustain her, especially in foreign lands like this one.
Then she stood at the window and looked out over Carter City. She had traveled throughout the Deep South litigating cases to further the cause of freedom and equality for her race. She normally came into town with a contingent of other lawyers. She was not used to partnering with strange white men who had never lifted a finger to help the cause to which she had devoted her adult life. Jack Lee seemed sincere and willing, but she really didn’t know him. She would have much preferred that he had withdrawn from the case. But Lee had not backed down, and she seemed saddled with him.
That’s a bit harsh, Desiree. The man was beaten up and he could easily have turned tail and run for it. Give him some credit for that.
But Edmund Battle was a highly experienced trial lawyer and a tough opponent, and he had the full weight of the Commonwealth of Virginia behind him. If Lee faltered? If he couldn’t handle the pressure of what was coming? Which was not simply a legal trial, she well knew. The publicity around this case would be immediate and unrelenting.
She moved away from the window, sat down at the small desk, took out a legal pad and pen, and began making notes. She had her standard strategic plans and checklists, but each one had to be revised to meet individual conditions on the ground.
I’m a battlefield officer without a uniform. No, that’s wrong. My uniform is my Black skin.
In short order, she covered several pages with notes and thoughts. Then she laid down her pen, and her mind turned to something that the entire country was starting to focus on.
In November America would elect a new president. The men running for the country’s highest office were conventional candidates, with one exception: George Wallace represented the American Independent Party, a far-right collection of people and policy platforms that were designed to carry America directly back to the past, where only whites enjoyed any rights and freedoms. DuBose could not believe that he would win, but his campaign was gaining momentum and his rallies were raucous affairs. Thousands of Americans filled the venues and expressed their undying loyalty for the man who they earnestly believed would lead them to their version of the promised land. This was not only the case in the South, but with working class folks in the North and Midwest.
DuBose had heard Wallace speak. He was a fiery orator who could rile up a crowd far more effectively than the likes of Richard Nixon, Hubert Humphrey, or Eugene McCarthy, the other men in the running. Robert Kennedy also had had that effect over his supporters; DuBose had seen that firsthand. But he would not be president now. While the two official candidates would not be decided until August, according to people DuBose trusted, it seemed that Nixon would be the Republican candidate and Hubert Humphrey would represent the Democratic Party.
She was not terribly excited about either man, although Humphrey had vowed that, if elected, he would continue Lyndon B. Johnson’s support of the Civil Rights movement. But she would prefer either of them over Wallace and his message of white supremacy and division.
DuBose and all the folks she respected were terrified that even if Wallace didn’t prevail in the election, he would do well enough that the eventual winner would need to pacify Wallace and his followers by agreeing to some of their demands. And with the momentum for Civil Rights possibly stalled, the American people might slide back to old ways that would once more entrench Blacks in a second-class status.
However, Howard Pickett’s being dispatched here by the Wallace campaign was the real reason DuBose had come to town. She and the man had had quite a few battles over the years, long before Wallace threw his hat into the presidential ring.
Pickett was arrogant, racist, and transactional, lacking empathy for anyone or anything that could not help him in some way. And the fact that he was here told DuBose that they sensed an opportunity in Virginia. Still smarting after the Loving case allowed Blacks and whites to finally marry, they would assuredly rejoice to see a Black man go to the electric chair for killing an elderly white couple, no doubt hoping it might compel enough Americans to turn against the effort to make Blacks fully equal with whites.
And it’s my job to make sure that does not happen. So here we go again.
She turned out the lights and got into bed. Then she stared at the ceiling as she thought over tonight’s events.
She had very much liked Pearl and Miss Jessup. Straightforward, good souls caught up in a legal nightmare. She assumed that the evidence against Jerome had been trumped up, as it often was with defendants of color, but she was not drawing any firm conclusions before viewing the facts. She knew that Battle would not have signed on to prosecute this case without good grounds to do so. Whether those grounds were factual or fabricated, she didn’t know yet. But regardless of guilt or innocence, it was part of DuBose’s task to make certain that whatever happened, it would not negatively impact her strategic mission of eventual racial equality.
She next turned to Jack Lee’s family. His mother, despite what Jack had said about her grief at Dr. King’s and Robert Kennedy’s murders, seemed like a typical racist.
She clearly didn’t want me in her house. And she was nearly apoplectic when she thought her precious son might be dating a Black woman. As if.
She had liked Frank Lee, who seemed down to earth and had the same occupation as her beloved father. But even he was clearly uncomfortable around her. And his plea at the end—for her to make sure his son did not die?
Well, Jack Lee was a grown man who could make his own decisions. DuBose had suffered the loss of many she cared for at the hands of racists. It was not her job to keep Jack Lee safe.
As she closed her eyes, she concluded that much of this case would probably unfold like many of the others she had handled.
But something told her that there would be differences, too.
Possibly profound ones.
With this troubling thought DuBose finally fell asleep, in another strange, uncomfortable bed, in another foreign, discomforting place.
CHAPTER 29
ALL RISE,” SAID THE BAILIFF. “The Circuit Court for Freeman County, Virginia, is now in session. The Honorable Malcolm T. Bliley presiding. All those with business before the court draw near and you will be heard.”
Jack stood, as did Edmund Battle and his two associates, and all the spirited public spectators in the pews. The front rows were occupied by—at least it seemed to Jack—the full force and credit of the local and statewide media. All these journalists had their notebooks and sharpened pencils, and full pens, and agile news reflexes ready to forge masterpieces in print.
A moment later the doors opened and in walked Howard Pickett. Every head in the place turned their attention to the millionaire man who firmly had George Wallace’s ear. He surveyed the room like a reigning king looking over his court with mocking interest, before he took his seat in the back, so as to keep everything in front of him.
