A Cup of Comfort Courage by Colleen Sell

Author:Colleen Sell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: epub, ebook
Publisher: Adams Media
Published: 2004-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

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Pendle Hill, Wallingford, Pennsylvania, 2001

She asked me to review the story she would read to the class the next day.

“It took me forty years to write it,” she said. Her voice was steady, but her hand trembled as she handed me the pages.

Later, in my room, my hands trembled as I read them.

Time stopped as my eyes fell on the topic of her personal essay. My body stiffened as I read down the page. My palms perspired. My head buzzed. My heart raced. My face flushed. Just as they had forty years ago.

During introductions at the writers' conference, we had been drawn to each other as if to magnets that could coax buried treasures to the surface. We sat side by side for the four-day workshop at the wooded Quaker retreat center. With seekers from across the country, we unearthed gems from the soil of our souls.

Although she and I were seeded in the soil of the same region and grew to maturity during the same era, we had traveled different hills and valleys in the South of our heritage. We had breathed different air and had overlooked from different vantage points the vistas of our territory and our time. In the recesses of our hearts, we had clutched, since birth, partial pieces of a map leading to the buried treasure of our people. And with the wisdom granted to children, we each had known that ours could not be the whole picture. Now, in this unlikely time and place, we would retrieve our maps from their protected sites, smooth their crumpled surfaces, and nudge together their jagged edges.

As my eyes fixed on her account of coming of age in the South as a black female, my memory fixed on my own coming of age there as a white female. Suddenly, it was 1961. …

As she sat staring down racism at a “for whites only” lunch counter in South Carolina, I sat choking on racism's venom in a high school for whites only in Alabama. She feared for her life. I feared for my soul. She was on the outside, wanting in. I was on the inside, wanting out. Threatening men confronted her in Spartanburg. They brandished wooden clubs and demanded that she abandon her seat. Threatening questions confronted me in Birmingham. They brandished tradition's clubs and implied that I should abandon my stand.

From paths separated by race, tradition, and the state of Georgia, we simultaneously reached jumping-off points. Our respective leaps of faith would lead, forty years later, to her passing half the story from her still hand to mine … and to my awakening at 4:30 A.M. to pen the other half:

Woodlawn High School, Birmingham, Alabama, 1961

Would you be willing to have Negro students in your school?

Very unwilling. Somewhat unwilling. Neutral. Somewhat willing. Very willing.

Would you be willing to speak to a Negro student?

Very unwilling. Somewhat unwilling. Neutral. Somewhat willing. Very willing.

Would you be willing to walk down the hall with a Negro student?

Very unwilling. Somewhat unwilling. Neutral.

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