My Mother the Cheerleader (6 page)

I
t's important to remember that the Cheerleaders weren't some crazy fringe group. Literally everyone I knew supported segregation. Nearly every elected official in the state of Louisiana had marshaled all available power to block integration. In the months leading up to the beginning of the school year, the state legislature had passed more than two dozen new anti-integration laws. Governor Jimmie H. Davis himself swore he'd go to jail before he'd let Negro kids into a white school.

To my mind it seemed as if the only white person in the entire state of Louisiana who supported school
integration was U.S. District Court Judge J. Skelly Wright. I heard Judge Wright called every nasty name in the book, from “nigger lover” to “Communist spy” to plain old “nut job.” Kids in the neighborhood referred to him as “Go-to-Helly Wright” or “Old Smelly Skelly” or simply “Judge Skelly Wrong.” Whatever he was, Judge Wright seemed to be determined as a mule to let school integration proceed.

Since every single white parent had pulled their children out of my school, Ruby Bridges was the sole student in the building at the beginning. Eventually a few white parents broke the boycott, but in those first few months it was never more than a handful. And no one ever dared to join Ruby Bridges's class. She was taught by a single teacher all by herself for the entire year. None of the regular teachers at Frantz would go near her, so Ruby was assigned to someone new to the school system who was an outsider. Rumor had it that the teacher herself was a Northern agitator, specifically planted by the N.A.A.C.P. I heard some of the ladies gossip that this teacher was
everything from a Communist to a beatnik to a nymphomaniac who specifically liked to have sexual relations with black men.

Since November, big crowds had gathered in front of the building two times a day every week-day—once in the morning when school began and once in the afternoon when school let out. Typically, the crowd in front of the school consisted of the following groups in varying numbers.

 

The Cheerleaders

Rednecks and good old boys (like Royce Burke)

Local police officers

FBI agents

Journalists

High school boys

Random spectators

Neighborhood kids

 

I rode my bike down North Galvez, and the crowd grew thicker and thicker as I neared the school. I arrived on the scene just before eight thirty
A.M
. and stowed my bike between two parked cars near the corner of Alvar Street. I scanned the crowd and breathed a small sigh of relief when I didn't spot Morgan or his Chevy Bel Air anywhere in the vicinity. I passed along the fringes of the crowd, careful to go unnoticed.

Right away I could tell that the CBS television crew had not shown up, because my mother stood toward the back of the group of Cheerleaders, smoking a cigarette with her friend Nitty Babcock. Approximately thirty ladies gathered that day, and no one jockeyed to be at the front of the pack.

Royce Burke and a few of his friends leaned against a pickup truck nearby, eyeballing everything that went on. There was a tremendous amount of eyeballing going on at all times. Whenever an unfamiliar face or vehicle arrived on the scene, everyone took note. FBI agents milled around in their sharp blue or gray suits, taking down license plate numbers and descriptions of suspicious-looking characters in little black notebooks. I wasn't the only one in my neighborhood who kept a Spy Log.

The Cheerleaders always gathered at the same spot on the sidewalk beside the school's main entrance. John Steinbeck later described them as a pack of satanic dogs. But the truth is they were not dogs, satanic or otherwise. They were just a normal-looking bunch of ladies. If you didn't know any better, you'd think they were gathered for a church bake sale or a PTA meeting. A couple of them might be described as naturally mean-looking. Bea Williams had deep lines in her forehead and down the side of her cheeks, which made her look cross all the time, and Jeanette LeFevre had a pinched face and a shrill voice. But other than those two they were an extremely average-looking bunch, except for my mother, who most people said was beautiful.

Most of the Cheerleaders dressed plainly compared to my mother, but almost all of them dressed decently. There were a few housecoats in the group, and several wore their hair in curlers under head kerchiefs in the morning (something my mother would never do in public). Some commentators
noted that the fact that they wore their hair in curlers was a sign the Cheerleaders were low class. In truth, no one in the Ninth Ward could really be described as high class, and it was probably unfair to criticize them for wearing curlers in the early morning. Many of the ladies worked at jobs, so they didn't have much time to take care of themselves before they had to stage their daily protest. When else could they curl their hair?

Several women held signs on wooden sticks that read
WE
WANT
SEGREGATION, GOD BLESS JIMMIE DAVIS
, and
READ YOUR BIBLE—INTEGRATION IS WRONG
! Others carried light wooden crosses or small Confederate battle flags. Bea Williams frequently brought a Negro baby doll in a tiny wooden coffin that she'd prop up on the sidewalk so Ruby Bridges could see it as she walked up.

The group's leader, Ada Munson, always stood at the front and led the chant: “Two, four, six, eight, We don't want to integrate!” Every morning the ladies brought articles from local newspapers in which they were mentioned. They'd begin the day
by reading the articles aloud like a bunch of actresses poring over reviews of a stage performance.

On that morning Ada Munson held a copy of the
Jackson Daily News
, a newspaper from Mississippi featuring an article with the headline “Woman Throws Egg.” She read highlights aloud to the group. “A Negro truck driver stopped at a traffic light in front of the William Frantz School in New Orleans on Friday, and a white woman threw an egg at him.” A few of the ladies laughed. “The egg missed the Negro's head and smashed against the roof of the cab. The Negro man glared and drove away. The egg thrower was one of the Cheerleaders, Mrs. Antoinette Lawrence.” A few of the ladies gave a small round of applause for Antoinette, a petite brunette who giggled, gave a little wave, and said, “Oh, stop.” Ada Munson continued reading. “‘I don't think the niggers are equal to whites,' said Mrs. Lawrence. ‘Their heads are too hard to learn what our children can. We are going to win this fight. Let them niggers try to keep coming. I've got plenty of eggs.'”

My mother stood in the back of the group, not really listening. I overheard a snippet of her conversation with Nitty Babcock.

“And I'll give you just one guess where he's taking me for dinner tonight,” my mother said.

“Hell, I don't know, Pauline, just tell me,” Nitty replied.

“It's no fun if you don't guess.”

“Pauline, you are acting like a twelve-year-old child. Just spit it out.”

My mother allowed for a dramatic pause and then blurted it out.

“Commander's Palace.”

“You're lying.” Nitty giggled.

“Honest,” my mother replied, holding up her hand as if swearing an oath.

“I've always wanted to go dere.”

“Don't think I haven't.”

“What are you gonna wear, sweetheart?”

“That is the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question. I couldn't sleep a wink last night trying to decide between my little blue cocktail dress and my orange
number with the floral print. You know, the one that has the nice sloping neckline.”

“You've gotta go wid da cocktail dress.”

“You think so?”

“Oh, yeah. It's real nice.”

“I'll bring the bag with the baby pearls along the handle.”

“That's perfect. Do you think he's really met John Steinbeck?”

“He hasn't just met him,” my mother corrected. “He's his friend, for Christ's sake. They're practically best friends. He's had dinner at the man's house with Mrs. Steinbeck on many occasions, just like regular people.”

“Lord, I wonder what people like dat say to each other.”

“Why, they're just people, Nitty. He had a regular conversation with me, just like he was talking to anyone. I mean, he's obviously more refined than most people around here, but it's not like he's from Mars or something.”

“How you gonna do your hair?”

“I haven't a clue. I was just starting to go through my magazine collection this morning to get some new ideas when I had to rush on down here like a fool. I just hope Corrine can come up with something sophisticated for me. Last time I asked for ‘sophisticated,' she made me look like Mamie Eisenhower. I swear I came out of there looking like a cocker spaniel…”

Suddenly my mother stopped talking as something caught her eye in the distance. I followed her gaze to see Morgan's Bel Air pull to a stop and park not too far down the street.

M
organ got out of his car, locked the door, put on a pair of sunglasses, and walked toward the front of the school. At first I thought he might just walk up the front steps and go inside. Instead he took a position on the sidewalk directly across from the Cheerleaders and gazed around at the crowd. His face revealed nothing; he just seemed to be observing. I'm not sure why, but my mother instinctively drew back and quickly slipped on a pair of sunglasses.

Outsiders always drew everyone's attention, and
Morgan was no exception. Royce Burke nudged one of his friends with an elbow and gestured toward Morgan with his chin. They whispered to each other. Two FBI men also took notice of Morgan and made notations in their little black books. A third FBI man wrote down the number of Morgan's license plate.

My mother silently watched him. Nitty noticed my mother's unsettled expression.

“Pauline, what's wrong?” she asked.

“N-nothing,” my mother stammered.

Just at that moment the crowd noise swelled as a black Pontiac sedan carrying Ruby Bridges pulled up in front of the school. Morgan and everyone else turned their attention to the car. The Cheerleaders brandished their signs and, like a mad conductor, Ada Munson started to lead the furious chanting.

Four tall federal marshals wearing white arm-bands took up positions beside the back door of the car, and six-year-old Ruby Bridges emerged from inside. She was a little black speck of a thing dressed in a blindingly white cotton dress. I could never understand why they let her wear those white dresses. With everyone so upset about her brown skin, it just made her skin look that much darker.

Once all four men were in position around her, the group moved toward the school in unison. The crowd grew louder and more unruly the closer she got to the building. I was always amazed at how Ruby managed to maintain her composure. She never cried or even flinched. She just walked right into the school beside her bodyguards and didn't give any indication that she heard or saw all the commotion swirling around her. How do you train yourself not to turn around when everyone's screaming at you? Maybe she was partially deaf, I reasoned.

At the time I wondered how and why she got
picked to be the sole Negro student at our school. I assumed she must've been the unluckiest little Negro girl on the planet. I later learned that the plan to integrate the New Orleans public schools was very carefully orchestrated to minimize public outrage. The Ninth Ward was chosen because it had political advantages for the pro-integration forces. Because our neighborhood was one of the poorest sections of town, it consisted of citizens with the least political clout and therefore the least ability to fight the decision to integrate. The Cheerleaders were well aware of this fact. I had heard my mother grumbling, “Of course they wouldn't dare integrate a school in one of the uptown wards.”

The integration plan called for students to enter the first grade, and then new first graders would be added each year until the entire school system was integrated. Only girls were selected in the first year, to stave off hysteria that the Negro boys might try to kiss the white girls (or worse). In an effort
to block or slow down the integration process, the state insisted that Negro children take an extremely difficult entrance exam to qualify to go to a white school. Ruby Bridges was one of the few who passed.

News reports at the time were too polite to record the ugliest moments outside William Frantz. And it did get ugly. High school boys snarled at her, “Here, nigger, nigger, nigger. Here, nigger, nigger, nigger,” like they were calling out to a cat. One of Royce Burke's cohorts, Clem Deneen, liked to throw paper bags filled with dog poop at her. Royce Burke favored verbal threats. “Tell your mama and daddy we're throwing a party for dem,” he'd say. “A lynching party.”

Perhaps the most hateful piece of heckling came from the relatively soft voice of Antoinette Lawrence. Every single morning she would lean in close as Ruby passed by and whisper death threats at her, saying she was going to poison her food. I later learned that because of Antoinette's threats, Ruby had secretly skipped lunch every day for more than
a month. Her teacher eventually found out what was going on when she discovered a huge stash of uneaten sandwiches rotting in a cabinet in the back of the classroom.

Typically, my mother was just one of the pack, a rank-and-file Cheerleader. She didn't have a unique brand of taunting. She'd usually just join in with whatever chorus Ada would lead. She never carried a sign, cross, or flag. I think she avoided these props because she feared they'd take attention away from one of her matching parasols, handbags, or bracelets. But she always participated. I'd seen her throw eggs and tomatoes and cheer with the same intensity as the others, but not on this day. On this day she just stood in the back with her eyes locked on Morgan.

Ruby and her escorts made their way up the steps amid the chants, threats, and thrown objects. Morgan just watched with a hard expression on his face. After one final crescendo of howls, the front door of the school closed and they were inside the building.