My brother and I were born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi, during Jim Crow. In 1961 my brother got involved with Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement. He became a Freedom Rider. At that time I had no idea what a Freedom Rider was.
I was only thirteen, but my brother was nineteen, and this became a very serious movement for him. The Freedom Riders were involved in the integration of the interstate transportation system across the South. And wherever there were the ‘Colored Only’ and ‘White Only’ signs in the bus stations and in bathrooms and restaurants, they would challenge them.
This was very dangerous for them, because the Ku Klux Klan did not want this to happen. So they were getting beat up and arrested. They got hosed down. The buses they rode got bombed.
I loved my brother, and I always wanted to do everything he did. But I was too young for all that, so my friends and I got involved by doing sit-ins locally. Now, this was fun for us, because it gave us the opportunity to walk into restaurants and shops that we had never been in before.
For instance, there was a restaurant in our neighborhood that we used to go to almost every day after school. On one side it said COLORED ONLY, on the other side it said WHITES ONLY. Well, the colored side was kind of small. It had a counter and a couple of booths and a jukebox – we could put a nickel in there and hear our music.
If we wanted to get something to eat, there was a window with a doorbell, and we could order sodas, and hot dogs and French fries on paper plates.
But as you were standing at the window, you could see into the other side. It was big, with lots of round tables covered in beautiful white tablecloths and place settings. White people were seated and being served dinner.
And this was just how it was. Like when my mother would take us shopping for school clothes, before we left the house, she’d say, “Barbara, go use the bathroom.”
I was like, “Mama, I already used the—”
“Go use the bathroom again.”
I didn’t understand that, until one day we were downtown in a store. She had picked out a few items. I had to use the bathroom, and she got very upset with me because she had to put those things back. We had to leave that store and go to a side street where there were colored businesses, use the bathroom, go back to the store, and start over again.
And while we were in the store, she had to know my sizes, because they would not allow us to try on clothes or shoes, and so if we bought something that was too small or too big, they would not allow us to bring it back.
When we left the store, Mama would grab my hand, and I’d say, “Mama, I’m a big girl, you don’t have—”
“Shut up, gal.”
When a white person would approach us, Mama would pull me off the sidewalk into the street to let them pass by – they didn’t want to brush up against us.
So I did understand what was going on, and how we were being treated, and that it was wrong. But I didn’t understand what the civil rights movement or the Freedom Riders could do about it.
This was our life. This was how it was. This was what we accepted, you know? One day several years later, I was walking home from downtown with my friends, and as I was coming up my street, people sitting out on their porches started yelling, “Barbara, Barbara, you need to get home! Your mom got sick, and she was taken to the hospital!”
I’m like, “Hospital?” We never went to the hospital! Mama always had home remedies. I ran home, and I tried to find someone to take me. But I couldn’t find anyone, so I ran to the hospital.
When I got there, Mama was sitting in the waiting room of the emergency room with the friend who had brought her there, and she was very distraught. She looked like she was going to pass out. She was clammy, and she had a cold paper towel on her head.
She said, “I’m trying to keep from vomiting again.”
Her friend told me, “She vomited a washpan-ful of blood.”
I’m like, I can’t believe that. A washpan is big.
So I said, “Well, how long have you guys been here?” And he said, “We’ve been here since two o’clock.”
I looked, and it was about five thirty.
So I went up to the desk, and I said, “You know, my mama’s been here since two. She needs to see the doctor. She needs to lie down.”
The young lady said, very rudely, “We don’t have a bed for your mother, and there are other people here who need to see the doctor first.”
All I could do was go and sit down and wait with them. As I’m sitting there, I’m seeing people being called up to see the doctor. Now, some of them might have been there before me, but most of them came in after, but they were being called first. They were all white.
So about nine thirty or so, they called Mama. I was glad. I thought, She can lie down, and she’ll see the doctor.
So we’re waiting in the treatment room for the doctor, and the nurse came in with a wheelchair.
She said, “I’m sorry. We’re going to have to put your mother outside the door for a while, because we have someone else who needs to see the doctor.”
I was like, “No. My mama’s been here since two o’clock. She needs to see the doctor.”
Well, I was a teenager, so they ignored me. But when they went to get her up, she vomited, and she almost filled that room with blood. So now nurses and doctors were coming from everywhere. She needed blood transfusions. They took her up to the fifth floor.
We went looking for her, and, as I was passing by a treatment room, I heard a burst of laughter coming out. I looked through the little crack in the door, at the doctors and nurses, and I said, “That’s where Mama is,” because no matter what was going on, even if she was sick, Mama always had something funny to say or do to make you laugh.
We were waiting to go in and see her, but the doctor came out, and he said, “It’s very late. We’re trying to get her admitted. Why don’t you all go home and come back tomorrow?”
I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to see Mama. I wanted to hug Mama. I wanted to say “I love you,” because we were a family who never said that to one another. I never remembered saying that to my mama. But he wouldn’t let us in, so we left.
The next morning we came back, and she was critical. We were outside her room again, waiting to go in and see her and say “I love you.”
The doctor came out, and he said, “We’re preparing your mother for surgery,” so we couldn’t go in. When they rolled her out on the stretcher, I could see just a glimpse of her face between their bodies. Her eyes were swollen and red with tears, and I got this big, hard ball right in the middle of my chest.
We went down to the second floor to wait for her to come out of surgery, and we waited and waited. Finally the doctor came out, and he said, “I’m sorry. Your mother didn’t make it.”
That ball in my chest just burst out of me. I started screaming, “You let my mama die! YOU LET MY MAMA DIE!”
I cried, and I cried, and I cried. I cried for days.
But it was at that moment that I realized what that civil rights movement was all about. I realized why my brother and the Freedom Riders were challenging the ‘Colored Only’ and ‘White Only’ signs, why they were riding the buses, and why we were doing sit-ins and protests.
Because this was our struggle, this was our fight. This movement was about equality and freedom. This was a fight for life and death.
This story is cross-posted from The Moth’s latest book, Occasional Magic, for a special edition of HuffPost UK’s Life Less Ordinary blog series.
Life Less Ordinary is a weekly blog series from HuffPost UK that showcases weird and wonderful life experiences. If you’ve got something extraordinary to share please email ukblogteam@huffingtonpost.com with LLO in the subject line. To read more from the series, visit our dedicated page.
This story is cross-posted from The Moth’s latest book, Occasional Magic, for a special edition of HuffPost UK’s Life Less Ordinary blog series. You can buy the book here, and listen to Barbara tell her story live here
Life Less Ordinary is a weekly blog series from HuffPost UK that showcases weird and wonderful life experiences. If you’ve got something extraordinary to share please email ukblogteam@huffingtonpost.com with LLO in the subject line. To read more from the series, visit our dedicated page.