“We have to get away from the bus!” he yelled to Maria. “The fuel tank might explode.” But Maria was so racked by coughing that she seemed helpless to move. He put one arm around her back and the other behind her knees and picked her up. He carried her toward the grocery store and set her down when he thought they were at a safe distance.

He looked back and saw that the bus was now emptying rapidly. The door had at last been opened, and people were stumbling through as well as jumping from the windows.

The flames grew. As the last passengers got out, the inside of the vehicle became a furnace. George heard a man shout something about the fuel tank, and the mob took up the cry, shouting: “She’s gonna blow! She’s gonna blow!” Everyone scattered in fear, getting farther away. Then there was a deep thump and a sudden fierce gout of flame, and the vehicle rocked with the explosion.

George was pretty sure no one was left inside, and he thought: At least no one is dead—yet.

The detonation seemed to have sated the mob’s hunger for violence. They stood around watching the bus burn.

A small crowd of what appeared to be local people had gathered outside the grocery store, many cheering the mob; but now a young girl came out of the building with a pail of water and some plastic cups. She gave a drink to Mrs. Jones, then came to Maria, who gratefully downed a cup of water and asked for another.

A young white man approached with a look of concern. He had a face like a rodent, forehead and chin angling back from a sharp nose and buck teeth, red-brown hair slicked back with pomade. “How are you doing, darling?” he said to Maria. But he was concealing something, and as Maria started to reply he raised a crowbar high in the air and brought it down, aiming at the top of her head. George flung out an arm to protect her, and the bar came down hard on his left forearm. The pain was agonizing, and he roared. The man lifted the crowbar again. Despite his arm George lunged forward, leading with his right shoulder, and barged into the man so hard that he went flying.

George turned back to Maria and saw three more of the mob running at him, evidently bent on revenging their ratlike friend. George had been premature in thinking the segregationists had had their fill of violence.

He was used to combat. He had been on the Harvard wrestling team as an undergraduate, and had coached the team while getting his law degree. But this was not going to be a fair fight with rules. And he had only one working arm.

On the other hand, he had gone to grade school in a Washington slum, and he knew about fighting dirty.

They were coming at him three abreast, so he moved sideways. This not only took them away from Maria, but turned them so that they were now advancing in single file.