“I don’t understand,” I said, “How she any different from us?”

Looking back on those days, the crisp autumn days of 1952, I marvel at my innocence. Innocence is something that never comes back once it’s gone.

“How is she, Anna; don’t forget the verb,” Momma corrected me, “And she just is. She’s white.”

I fall back into those days, with the steady rhythm of the African-American vernacular that my mother beat out of me. But I can never regain my innocence, the purity of heart that I lost in the October of 1952.

“So?” I asked, “Penelope is just like me and Gabby.”

“You can’t hang around her anymore and that’s final,” Momma said abruptly, “Now I have to go, Anna. I can’t miss the bus. Be good in school.”

I watched my mother, dressed in her white, carefully pressed uniform, walk to the corner of the street and get on the bus. It was still dark outside, but Mrs. Williams, the white lady my mother worked for, wanted her at work before she even opened her eyes. I once asked Momma if she ever thought about doing anything other than being a maid. She looked me straight in the eye and said, “No.”

An hour later, I walked to that same corner and got on the bus, headed for school. My best friend Gabby slid into the seat next to me.

“Your mama give you the same speech ‘bout Penelope?” I asked her.

“Sure enough,” Gabby answered, “I ain’t listening though. If I see Penelope, I’m gone talk to her.”

I looked out the window, trying not to answer. I couldn’t disobey Momma.

“What? You ain’t got nothing to say?”

I shrugged as the bus sputtered past the park.

The day we first met Penelope had been the rainiest of the year in Birmingham, Alabama. She was huddled under the pavilion in the park, and Gabby and I ran under there to take shelter from the jets of rain.

“I’m Penelope,” she said, reaching over to shake our hands.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but that was the first time a white person ever extended a hand to me.

Over the next few rainy hours, we formed a bond stronger than any we had known before.

It was six weeks later, six marvelous weeks of playing in the park every day after school, that I noticed the stares. The three of us could do anything, and at first, I thought the white and black men alike were our admirers, marveling at the might of three nine-year-old girls. Then I noticed the contempt in the white men’s eyes and the fear in the black men’s. It confused me. I didn’t think to be scared.

The bus rolled up to the school, and Gabby and I joined the hoards of children scrambling out of the bus and towards the classrooms. We hurried towards the fourth-grade building, black clouds beginning to break over our heads, just as they had on that fateful day two months ago.

As I sat at my desk, the school day beginning, my mind was back in the park. The day before, my papa had come strolling into the park, his eyes full of the greatest fear I had ever seen.

“Papa!” I shouted when I saw him, running into his arms.

“Anna, Gabby, what you doing?” he asked us.

“We be playing, Papa,” I answered, “This is Penelope.”

I eyed the white men standing over by the fence, their eyes trained on us.

“Come on home, sweetie,” Papa said, “You can play at home.”

“Can Penelope come too?”

The minute I asked it, I knew I had done something wrong. Papa looked at me with the saddest eyes I’d ever seen. He didn’t have to answer.

When we got home, Momma and Papa had a long discussion. Then Momma came out and said I couldn’t see Penelope anymore. I had spent all night wondering why. And I had asked her why, and she had said that we were too different. But I still didn’t understand.
After school that day, Gabby and I started to walk to the park, like we always did. But Papa, who was a janitor in our school, stopped us and announced that we had to go straight home.

At home, I sat waiting on the front step for Momma for what seemed like hours. The light turned to dark and she still hadn’t come home. When Papa called me in for dinner, I went inside.

“Where Momma at?” I asked.

“She be at work, Anna,” Papa answered.

“Why didn’t she come home at six like she do every day?”

“I don’t know,” Papa said. For just a moment, I saw a shadow of worry cross his face.

Momma came home two hours later, three hours later than she normally did. She pulled up in a car, nicer than any I had seen on our side of town for a long time. I ran out of the house to greet her.

“Thank you, Mr. Williams,” Momma was saying.

“Remember what I said, Bessie,” the gruff man, still in the car, answered.

“Yes, sir,” Momma said,  “I’m sorry, sir. It won’t happen again.”

“See that it doesn’t.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you again for taking me home.”

The man rolled up his window and drove away, leaving a cloud of dust in its wake.

“Why that white man mad at you?” I asked Momma the moment the car was gone.

“His name is Mr. Williams, Anna,” Momma answered, “Why aren’t you in bed?”

“I was waiting for you, Momma.”

Momma walked up the steps slowly. Her movements were slow, labored.

“Go get ready for bed, Anna.”

When she came to tuck me in ten minutes later, I asked her again why Mr. Henderson had been angry with her.

“It’s nothing you need to be worried about,” was all she said.

Yet worry I did. I hadn’t liked Mr. Williams’ gruff tones. Momma should’ve given him a lesson in manners, as she so often did for me. Yet, she hadn’t. She had just bowed her head, saying “yes, sir,” “I’m sorry,” and “thank you, sir.” Why did she have to act like that? She didn’t act like that around any other adults. If I had asked her, I knew she would have told tell me that it was because Mr. Henderson was white. I didn’t understand why that made all the difference, yet it did. In the dark, he hadn’t looked any different from us.

It was a downtrodden Gabby that met me on the bus the next day.

“What’s wrong?” I asked her.

“Mama was fired. White lady tell her to get out and never come back. Said it’s ’cause her daughter hang around with people she ain’t supposed to.”

“Was your mama mad at you?”

Gabby shook her head, “I ain’t sure. Not really, I guess. She just cried.”

My heart filled with fear. Would I come home to find Momma crying, cast out by Mrs. Williams?

“It’s not fair. I hate that woman.”

“Don’t say that, Gabby. Momma say it’s not good to hate.”

“Tell that to the white people. I hate them.”

I watched my best friend as her heart, pure as gold, began to harden.

We didn’t go to the park that afternoon. We went straight home.
That night, when Momma came to tuck me in, I asked her the question that had been bugging me for days.

“Why are white people better than us?”

Momma sat up slowly; a dark shadow had fallen over her face.

“They aren’t better than us, Anna,” she said slowly, “We’re both the same. Some of them just think they’re better than us.”

“Why?”

“Well, honey, a long time ago, white people saw black people for the first time, and they were scared because they were so different,” Momma said slowly, carefully, “The white people had things our ancestors didn’t have, guns and ships. So, they exploited them. They used them as labor and built all their wealth on them.”

“They didn’t think that was wrong?”

“Some of them did. But most of them convinced themselves that white people were better than colored people, and that it was natural for our ancestors to serve them. They said it was for our own good. It became so engrained in them, passed down from generation to generation, that they just can’t help being prejudiced.”

“Gabby’s mama was fired,” I told her.

“I know, honey,” Momma answered.

“Gabby say she hates white people.”

“If we fill our hearts with hate, Anna, there won’t be room left for love. By hating them, we’re letting them change us, degrade us.”

“I know,” I said, “But it’s not fair.”

“I know it isn’t.”

“Was Mr. Williams mad at you ’cause of me and Penelope?” I asked.

Momma looked at me long and hard. Slowly, she nodded.

A few days later, I saw Penelope. Gabby had decided she was never going to the park again, but I couldn’t resist. After school, I walked to the park for the first time in a week, and there she was, standing under that very same pavilion. I walked up to her, slowly.

“Where have you been?” Penelope said, running up to greet me as soon as she saw me, “I’ve missed you so much.”

“I missed you too,” I answered, “Momma wouldn’t let me come here this week.”

“Why?”

I shrugged, “There been a lot of chores to do at home.”

I didn’t want to tell her that it was because she was white and I was black. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings.

“Where’s Gabby?”

“She couldn’t come.”

“That’s too bad, because I brought something for both of you.”

Penelope pulled two dolls out of her bag. They were beautiful. Their hair was as real as mine; their eyes were like fine almonds. They were better than any dolls I had ever seen before.

“Thank you so much,” I said softly, my hands holding my new treasured possession.

Penelope reached over and hugged me. Her arms were soft and warm, her body small yet precious. She was smiling from ear to ear.

“I wish you were my sister, Anna,” Penelope said.

“Me too.”

“Make sure you give that one to Gabby.”

“I will.”

We played with those dolls on the warm grass under the autumn sun. We played for hours. We were still playing when the white men came.

“What do you think you’re doing?” a man shouted.

We looked up, too late. A white man, his face red with anger, dragged Penelope to her feet. Another man grabbed me and threw me away.

“You can’t play with her, girl,” the first man shouted at Penelope, “She’s dirty! She’s not like you. I’m gonna tell your papa about this.”

He dropped Penelope into the grass and turned to me.

“Now, you–”

I grabbed the two dolls and I ran. I heard him shouting things at my back, but I was running too fast to hear. I never saw Penelope again.

Gabby looked at me, astonished, when I ran into her backyard panting. Once I had caught my breath, I told her what had happened.

“You be lucky he didn’t hurt you,” Gabby said, “You know what them white people do.”

“I was scared,” I admitted.

I was still holding the dolls, one for each of us.

“Here,” I said, “Penelope wanted me to give you this.”

Gabby took the doll, her eyes shining with eagerness. It was the best toy she had ever held in her hands. But then she took one long look at the doll’s pale skin and its bright blue eyes, and threw the doll in the dirt.

“I don’t want no white doll. Penelope gone think we dirty now.”

“She won’t,” I protested, but Gabby had already turned her back to me.

“I gotta do chores,” she said, “I see you tomorrow.”

I lay awake all night, thinking about Gabby, thinking about Penelope. Just around two in the morning, I heard voices outside, rough and callous, their southern drawls bouncing off the house. Then, a shout chilled my blood.

“Get out here!”

Looking out the window, I could make out the figures of five men, one of whom was carrying a burning stick. In its light, I could see that all of them wore white sheets and hoods.

My door burst open, and a figure darted into the room. I held my breath, my body shaking. Suddenly, someone was on top of me, holding my mouth. It was Momma.

“Don’t make a sound,” she whispered into my ear.

She motioned for me to get out of bed. We crept into my closet and quietly closed the door. Momma, I realized, was holding something. A gun.

In the darkness, we could see nothing, but we heard the entire thing. Over the years, I have put together the scene in my mind, and it has become as real to me as if I saw it with my own eyes.

“What you want?” Papa shouted at the men, “There be nothing for you here!”

“Your girl, we want your girl! She’s going to be an example of what happens to all you who try to corrupt our youth!”

I let out a whimper. Momma covered my mouth and squeezed my hand.

“She just a girl!” Papa answered, “Do what you want to me, but I won’t let you do nothing to her!”

“Have your wish!”

We only had one gun, I realized. Papa had gone out there unarmed.
Momma and I sat, trembling, powerless to stop what was about to occur. As I have said, I did not see what happened, but in my mind, I have seen it all. I have seen my papa’s face as the white men dragged him over to the tree and tied his hands to a branch. The sound of rope hitting flesh is forever engrained in my mind. Papa didn’t cry out the first time, or the second, but the third time he did. It continued for what seemed like hours. They must have hit him forty, fifty times. They left him there, tied to the tree, bloody and unconscious. They turned to the house and threw the stick of fire into the kitchen window. Then they got in their cars and drove away.

Momma screamed for me to get out of the house. I ran outside, where the air was crisp and thick with smoke. Fire had engulfed half our house already. Doors slammed open; neighbors came running. They rushed to get water and to help Momma, who was grabbing everything in the house of value. They ran to the tree; they ran to Papa. They untied him and carried him into the next house down.
I rushed after them, into the room where Papa lay on a kitchen table. His back was an unrecognizable mess of blood and flesh. I barely had time to reach for his hand before a man rushed in, the man who was the closest thing to a doctor we had. Momma was right on his heels. A woman grabbed my hand and rushed me back outside.

That night, I threw pail after pail of water on the fire, until my clothes were soaked and covered with ash and my eyes were burning from the smoke. The fire roared for hours. When it finally died down, all that was left was a black shell of what had been our home.

Hands touched my shoulders, trying to comfort me. They led me back into the neighbor’s kitchen, where Papa was floating near consciousness. Momma’s cries pierced the air, mixed with his anguished moans. I stood at her side, crying.

“Oh, Momma, what did I do wrong?”

“You didn’t anything wrong, Anna. You acted like a decent human being, and that goodness is what scares them the most.”

In the harsh morning light, I walked through the burnt remnants of my home. What had been my room was completely unrecognizable. My bed was a charred piece of wood; my clothes were a pile of soot. My eyes were searching for something familiar amidst the ashes when suddenly, a splash of white caught my eye. I reached down and picked up the doll that Penelope had given me, miraculously intact. Her hair was burnt off in some places; her skin was blackened by soot. Now, she was half-black, half-white.

A little over ten years later, when Martin Luther King, Jr. told us that he had a dream, I thought of that doll. When I saw 250,000 people, 60,000 of them white, marching on Washington, singing “We Shall Overcome”, I thought of Penelope.

I kept that doll for the rest of my life.