"There was to be a cross-burning in our neighborhood that night".... [View all]

[jodymarie aimee]

I am a writer and rec'd my first award in 2nd grade at St. Stanislaus School in Stevens Point, WI. A golden plaque that stayed up for decades !! Anyway, I came across this piece and wanted to share the beauty of words and this fellow's story. Sadly, hate still exits today.

In the early sixties, my family lived in Alabama, the "Heart of Dixie' or as the state motto says. I was taught to take pride in the fact that our city did not fall to the Union Army during the Civil War: General Lee may have surrendered, but we never did.

One evening my father came home from work at the meat-packing plant and announced that there was to be a cross-burning in our neighborhood that night. A white man from out of town had brought his black wife to live here, and the Ku Klux Klan would not stand for such an affront.

After we'd finished our supper, Dad took down his shotgun and gave it a cleaning. Mom pitched a fit. She didn't think Dad should be involved with this mess:after all, he was a married man with a family. Dad left her crying on the porch as he climbed in his old Dodge pickup and drove off.

Dad came home he next morning after the sun had risen, tired and bleary-eyed. Mom clucked around him like a hen over a lost chick, but pride sparkled in her hazel eyes.

There had been no cross burning the night before, because my father had spent a sleepless night sitting on a porch and waiting, shotgun across his lap, beside a man he didn't know, to face a flock of cowards wearing sheets whom he knew far too well.

"Taking a Stand" by Daniel Harris Sept 2005