Don’t worry about the black eye? What about the Montgomery judge who could send him to an Alabama prison? A judge who would not look kindly on an outside agitator. I envied Coralee and Ruby their faith in God, that they could ask God to protect someone they loved when they were powerless to protect him. What did I have? Here’s looking at you, kid, I murmured over and over whenever I thought of Terrence and feared for the danger he was in.

For the next two weeks, even if he couldn’t drive, be part of the action, he certainly knew how to witness and write. Terrence’s Challenger stories read like verses of “The Ballad of Moses Shaw,” complete with photos. Terrence was on hand to record when Moses Shaw got arrested again, but this time his Model T “got lost.” Next he hitched a pair of mules to a wagon and used that to haul people. Arrested again, this time for driving an illegal vehicle on the city streets, his wagon came back as kindling, and his mules hadn’t been fed in days. The sense of civic engagement, excitement, danger, and endurance in Montgomery bubbled off the pages. Terrence published a stirring story describing when one hundred fifteen people (fourteen ministers in addition to Reverend Cooke) were indicted by a grand jury on an obscure 1921 law that forbade boycotts. He recorded in colorful detail people, often in big groups, going joyously to the courthouse to turn themselves in for breaking that stupid law, a civic parade that became a celebration, a sight that uplifted and solidified the cause.

Terrence’s letters were more personal. He described at length homes he had been invited into. Meals he had shared. Music he had heard. Church pews he had sat in. Cafés where he’d had sweet tea. Bars where he’d had cold beers. The people he had met and come to know.

Staying with the Cookes is like putting on a pair of glasses and all sorts of things come into focus that I didn’t see before. When I tell people here that my father was from Alabama, they’re so courteous, so warm that it feels like I’ve been adopted, even though I tell them I don’t know nothing about him. People here have taken me to their hearts in a way I can’t explain, except that

Well, honey, I just came back to the page after dinner, and I’m just going to have to let it go at that. I can’t explain.

Love, T

That night, I couldn’t fall asleep, and when I finally did, in my dreams a shadowy figure appeared, old, stooped, his back to me, walking down a dusty road in a landscape I did not know. I called after him, but I didn’t know his name, and he did not heed my voice or turn around.

Chapter Thirty