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Back The Great Pretenders
Chapters (55)
  1. Cover
  2. Praise for The Great Pretenders
  3. Dedication
  4. Epigraph
  5. PART I
  6. Chapter One
  7. Chapter Two
  8. Chapter Three
  9. Chapter Four
  10. Chapter Five
  11. Chapter Six
  12. Chapter Seven
  13. PART II
  14. Chapter Eight
  15. Chapter Nine
  16. Chapter Ten
  17. Chapter Eleven
  18. Chapter Twelve
  19. Chapter Thirteen
  20. Chapter Fourteen
  21. Chapter Fifteen
  22. Chapter Sixteen
  23. Chapter Seventeen
  24. PART III
  25. Chapter Eighteen
  26. Chapter Nineteen
  27. Chapter Twenty
  28. Chapter Twenty-one
  29. Chapter Twenty-two
  30. Chapter Twenty-three
  31. Chapter Twenty-four
  32. Chapter Twenty-five
  33. Chapter Twenty-six
  34. PART IV
  35. Chapter Twenty-seven
  36. Chapter Twenty-eight
  37. Chapter Twenty-nine
  38. Chapter Thirty
  39. Chapter Thirty-one
  40. Chapter Thirty-two
  41. Chapter Thirty-three
  42. Chapter Thirty-four
  43. Chapter Thirty-five
  44. PART V
  45. Chapter Thirty-six
  46. Chapter Thirty-seven
  47. Chapter Thirty-eight
  48. Chapter Thirty-nine
  49. Chapter Forty
  50. AUTHOR’S NOTE
  51. Readers Guide
  52. DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
  53. Acknowledgments
  54. About the Author
  55. What’s next onyour reading list?

Tuesday

Liza Jane,

Somewhere there’s a blues song, or there ought to be, “Just got out of the Montgomery jail.”

Police crackdown on car pool drivers nabbed me for being black behind the wheel and having people in the car. When the cop saw my California driver’s license, it was all over but the black eye and the bloody lip.

In jail with me here was an old man named Moses Shaw whose father was born a slave. He and I had the same split lip and the same black eye from the same left-handed cop. Moses told me he had an old Model T out behind his barn that hadn’t run since ’28. He fixed it up and started driving it every day into town picking up people who needed a ride to work. This is his third arrest. He and I came up before the judge on the same day. The judge said he set Moses Shaw’s bail low so Moses wouldn’t be dying in the Montgomery jail and a lot of outside agitators and northern radicals (he looked right at me) bellyaching in the press how Alabama was unkind to their Negroes. He really said that. “Our Negroes,” like we could still be deeded, stamped, delivered. Moses just said “Yes sir” to the judge, polite as pie, and when the judge asked him to sign, he made an X. He tipped his hat to me and Rev Cooke and said “See you round,” and he left.

I was told to leave Montgomery and that the judge and the law wouldn’t answer for my safety if I stayed. My lawyer said if I knew what was good for me, I’d do just like Moses Shaw and say Yes sir to that white judge and get my black ass out of the courtroom. If I was really smart, I’d leave Alabama altogether and go back to California. Another charge like this, and I could go to prison for sure. My bail was high, but Rev Cooke paid it. When we went to get my Ford, all four tires were slashed, the battery was gone, the ignition wires were cut, the front and back windows were smashed into a million pieces, and there was no back seat, not even springs. We just left it and walked away.

Don’t worry ’bout the black eye, Liza Jane. I’ve had worse, and at least my nose wasn’t broken, and I don’t need stitches.

Love,

T