Freedom's Children by Ellen S. Levine

Author:Ellen S. Levine
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US

BERNITA ROBERSON

It was Easter, and nobody went shopping. We wouldn’t spend money with the white man. That’s how we could get to him. He owned all the businesses. So we had no new Easter clothes for two or three Easters. In fact, if you went to church on Easter Sunday and had on something new, you looked out of place.

I don’t remember when the mass meetings started, but I think my father was one of the first who was a part of it in Reverend Shuttlesworth’s church. You would hear about everything that was going on, and you soon get it in your mind that you want to be a part of it. So every Monday night I went with my father.

I have two brothers. My father had talked with all three of us, particularly me, and said that he did not want us to march. Generally I was a good child. I usually didn’t disobey. It was the Thursday before Good Friday, and my mother and father and I were in church. Dr. King made the call for people to join him, and all these people said they’d go to jail with him. You had other people who had been to jail telling their experiences. A friend of mine said, “Let’s go!” I felt like a spirit was telling me to get out there. So I went down and volunteered and said that the next morning I would be a part of it.

As you walked down, people clapped, and you got the sense that all these people were behind you. So many had been before. It was like rotating. Now it’s your turn, and you have to go. My father was an usher. When he saw me get up and go, I think he felt okay. My mother was upset. She thought I was a bit young. I was fourteen and very small. She had all the people in the church praying for me that I wouldn’t get hurt.

I woke up in the morning, and my family had family prayer with me. We started out from Sixteenth Street Church. We held hands and just walked. Dr. King was leading. Most people were older than me. My father stood on the sidelines.

The police stopped us about a block from the church. They gave us a chance to disperse, but I knew what I was going to have to do. When they put us under arrest, we stepped up into the paddy wagons. I looked back at my daddy. He kind of smiled in support because he knew that somebody from the family was going. And it was the baby child.

They carried us to the county jail. All of us were in the same cell. There may have been about fifty people. Then they started taking out the younger ones to move us to Juvenile. As we went out, Martin King was at the door of the cell because he was in jail also. He hugged us and shook all of our hands as we passed him.

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