A Most Tolerant Little Town by Rachel Louise Martin

Author:Rachel Louise Martin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2023-06-13T00:00:00+00:00

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One day, Bobby was sitting in the library near three white boys; among them was Robbie Moser, Assistant Principal Juanita Moser’s son. One of the boys—not Robbie but one of his comrades—said something insulting to Bobby. Robbie pretended he didn’t hear. When Juanita Moser learned of the exchange, she told her son to apologize to Bobby for not standing up for him, but Bobby was so on edge that when Robbie came up to him in the hallway Bobby thought the white boy was trying to start something. A teacher intervened before they turned to fisticuffs, and the two worked out their misunderstanding.

Then one morning in late March, Bobby crossed paths with John Harber, the school’s janitor. The older man blocked Bobby from entering the toilets.

You shouldn’t be allowed to use the restroom that the white men use, John Harber told the boy.

Bobby shoved the white man out of his way and continued on to class. That might have been the end, but somebody told John’s son, senior Roy Lee Harber, who was home sick that morning. He came to school to confront Bobby.

What did you say to my father? Roy Lee asked. He told the East Tennessee Reporter he thought he should probably have been insulted by Cain’s response, but he was not sure. “I never can understand his talk—he just babbles a lot of stuff,” Roy Lee sneered.

Then Bobby reached into his pocket for his knife. A teacher stepped in and took both students to D. J.’s office. Because no physical contact had occurred, the principal talked to the boys and then released them. “We have a lot of spontaneous combustion around here,” D. J. told the Reporter. “It’s spring.”

The campaign against the Hill also continued. Another dynamite attempt happened in mid-March. The charge failed to fire, but, as Horace Wells wrote, “the murderous intent was there just the same.” The bombers had left the weapon outside Alvah Jay McSwain’s home. The bomb was a concrete-sealing-compound can filled with thirty sticks of dynamite removed from their paper wrappings, crumbled into smaller pieces, and then packed tightly inside. The detonator and four-foot fuse were attached through a hole in the side. Just after midnight, a white man’s car had stalled in front of the McSwains’ home. The Black men guarding the Hill intercepted him and pushed his car toward downtown. The police surmised the man had probably set the bomb but had not had time to light the fuse before the Black men came.

Alvah Jay McSwain dropped out of Clinton High School on May 3, just fourteen days before the school year ended. After almost twenty years of fighting, Wynona and Allen McSwain were through with Anderson County. They wanted better for their family, better than bombs and harassment and isolation. The couple had heard how the Allens enjoyed life in California. And in January 1957, their daughter Una—just a few years older than Alvah Jay—had relocated there with her husband, who was stationed at a base near Barstow.

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