300 Years & Counting 1H KILLS - On The Issues Magazine

PRAYING FOR SHEETROCK: A Workof Nonfiction by Melissa Fay Greene(Addison Wesley, Reading, MA;$21.95 hardcover).The area is called Mclntosh Countyand encompasses Georgia's coastalislands: Broughton, Butler, Queens,Sapelo and Wolf. Humans, numberingabout 7,000, struggle to tameswamp, marsh and forest. The lion'sshare of the area's workers findemployment in the fishing or timberindustries. Most, save a few localdrug dealers, are poor; slightly morethan half are African-American. Manyspeak Gullah.Most Blacks, says Melissa FayGreene, still live in "slave or sharecroppershacks — made out of woodand wind — or in trailers on dirtroads that disappeared into the pinewoods or in simple cinder-blockhouses." Even a decade ago themajority lived "without plumbing,telephones, hot water, paved roads,electricity, gas heat or air conditioning.Their tiny hamlets offered nogoods or services other than a nailedtogether church, a rundownlaundromat, a juke joint, a beauticianworking out of her side porch, apalm reader, and maybe a 'shine'house." Not surprisingly, until themid 1980s not a single African-Americanmayor, council member, countycommissioner, sheriff, judge or grandjury member had been elected orappointed. Furthermore, there wereno Black salespeople, cashiers, bookkeepers,bank tellers, librarians, firefighters, letter carriers, welfare workers,phone company employees orcourthouse staffers to be found. Inshort, reports Greene, "For most ofthis century the Mclntosh CountyBlack people lived much as theyhad since emancipation. They reliedon the Lord, the sheriff andthe neighbors."And therein — in a deep and trustedsense of community, neighbor toneighbor — lay the beginnings of theunraveling of the white Mclntoshpowerbrokers. The "season ofchange," as Greene calls it, began in1972 when a white policeman shota Black man named Ed Finch forallegedly disturbing the peace. Alocal factory worker, Thurnell Alston,along with a preacher and a formerNYC police officer now residing inMclntosh, seized the moment, organizingthe Black community againstpolice violence.Although their victory was shortlived— while Finch was given medicaltreatment at City expense andthe police chief was removed fromoffice pending an investigation, thechief was ultimately reinstated bythe City Council and Finch was rearrestedand served six months in jail— the lessons gleaned from the experiencewere not. For the first time,African-Americans publicly articulateddissatisfaction with the way oftheir world, and began to meet regularlyto discuss the civil wrongs thathad rocked other parts of the U.S.years earlier.Shortly after the Finch debacle, theschool board voted to displaceChatham Jones, the only Black onthat body. Alston and cohorts respondedby starting a chapter of theNAACP and founded the MclntoshCounty Civic Improvement Organization.Meetings were lively, filledwith the songs of choirs begging fordivine guidance, as ideas promptedby newfound anger were debated.The retired NYC cop, SammiePinckney, the most politically savvyof the three leaders, contacted legalservices lawyers about systemic electoralfraud and other improprietiesthat rendered Blacks second class.Voting irregularities were investigated,demands were voiced, andBlacks, empowered by the momentumaround them, began runningfor office. Alston, himself, waselected to the county commissionin 1978.Although Alston served for 10 years— and succeeded in overseeing thecreation of a hospital authority, aphysician-staffed medical buildingin one of the county's most remoteareas, and brought plumbing andelectricity to settlements wherepeople had always used wells andouthouses — he also found himselftempted by the power of hisposition. His ultimate downfall,however, was tempered by thefact that his personal disgrace wasnot met with a return to the past.In fact, by 1989 the tables hadbegun to turn. Not only were Blackmen gaining entree into previouslyall-white arenas, but women, too,were staking a claim to dignity.Evella Brown, an African-American,was elected to the schoolboard; a Black man displaced "alongtime white county commissionerin a racially mixed district;a Black woman runs the tourismoffice; and a Black woman tellerworks in the Darien bank."Equality reached? Of course not.But in prose rivaling the most dramaticand compelling of novels,Greene brings us deep into the gut ofMclntosh County and reaffirms severalold truisms: Power concedesnothing without demand, and thewheels of change grind slowly, butthey grind.— EJ.B.ON THE ISSUES SUMMER 199239