Lesson 23:No More Cotton Blues

I could hear the principal lecturing him for ignoring the
rules and telling him in no uncertain terms that coloreds could
only use the pool during off-hours. I felt a fire burning inside
me. I wanted to run across the street and tell the principal to
leave the boy alone. But I was afraid of what would happen to
me if I did. So I kept quiet and went on my way.
The Letter
My brother was really happy to see me. He was wearing
a clean white jacket and looking just like a proper cook. While
he finished making dinner for the Johnsons, I raked up a huge
pile of leaves, straightened out their tool shed, and hosed down
the family car, a shiny black Ford. Then Kermit and I sat on the
back porch and ate. Mrs. Johnson gave us leftovers. I liked her,
but I didn’t like not being allowed to eat in the kitchen.
The cicadas were singing their hearts out. Georgia twilight
made everything look better than it really was, but it also
seemed to promise a change in the air. I took out a piece of
paper from my back pocket and unfolded it. Kermit came down
the steps and sat beside me. “What’s that” he asked.
“A letter from Uncle Eugene,” I said. “It came yesterday.”
Uncle Eugene was my mother’s brother. He grew up on a farm
just like me. But when he was only sixteen he slipped off one
night aboard a freight train. He was determined to make something
of himself.
He ended up in Atlanta and tried his hand at all sorts of
businesses. Eventually, Uncle Eugene opened up his own movie
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