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Neil Haran
Dr. DeNicolo
Honors 1000
13 October 2016
The Journal of Emmett Williams
December 8th 1916
Last night I dreamt, yet again, of the colored school where I spent my childhood. A
recurring thought, it seems. That small wooden house in the segregated community of my
Louisiana town; seven windows. Two tables. A stove. One door. One way out.1 Too many minds
for the two teacher to adequately fill. Progress, they called it when it was built. To know how
to read and write, that would be what we needed to achieve equality, this was the part of our
history that would somehow guarantee our humanity, they said. But knowing our ABCs never
seemed to spell out humanity in the eyes of our oppressors. Educated or not, we were all the
same under the white gaze. I knew this better than most. As a child, my teachers had called me
gifted in school because I could read and write extremely well despite not having access to the
same materials as the white children. This caught the attention of the white woman whose house
my mother worked in, Mrs. James. She was awful nice, teaching me English lessons while my
mother cooked and cleaned- permitting that her husband wasnt home, of course. He did not hold
such open views towards colored people and education. Thanks to Mrs. James, my grammar was
not the same as the other kids. Instead, it was closer to that of the white children. My mother
told me I must practice my grammar- maybe one day I could speak my way out of this town,
as she often reminded me. I was proud of it at first, as any child would be. Reflecting upon it

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today, I now realize that what was really being celebrated was the death of my blackness. It
seems our notion of moving forward was not so different from the white mans after all.
November 13th 1917
Church was the same sanctuary today that it always had been. I let the voices of the choir
overwhelm me. There was an energy there, for Church was one of few places where we did not
have to constantly check our surroundings, where we could let a culture of our own thrive.2 I
noticed a young boy who lived just down the street from me in the third row of the pews, a rare
smile plastered across his face. I envied those days, when I was still an ignorant boy. Times were
simpler when the weight of the world, and knowing that my people did not have equal access to
it, did not rest upon my shoulders.
November 15th 1917
I was awoken this past night by my nephew, his panicked whispering more urgent than I
had ever heard. Thundering steps from down the narrow dirt road rattled the window panes. I
quickly stumbled out of bed, putting on whatever clothes I could find. Making my way to the
window, I peered outside. The visceral, gut-wrenching reaction that rose up in my throat
confirmed what I saw: a lynch mob, just two houses over from ours.3 The sun had long since
disappeared, but the full moon threw the scene into relief. Three bodies were dragged from the
house into the white crowd. Unable to tear my gaze away, I could hear their piercing shrieks,
drowning out my nephews cries. I kept on hearing them until they no longer existed. I do not
remember how my nephew or sister-in-law tore me away from the window. I do not remember
falling back asleep. I do know this; their cries have not yet left my ears. Three burnt and beaten
bodies hung from the tree the next morning.4
November 21st 1917

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I sat in church today. Those four walls have started to feel less like a sanctuary and more
like a cage. The choir did not inspire me today, its somber sound passing from one ear to the
next. I looked to the third row of the pews. Three people were missing today. There was no
young, smiling boy.
November 30th 1917
I made the decision to move to the North today. I had heard rumors. A good friend had
received a letter from his sister, she told him it was a better land for colored people like us. There
were jobs to be had in plenty. She personally worked in a meat packing company, Swifts,5 but
suggested that he read The Ford Manual. A copy was included with the letter. It seemed almost
too good to be true, promising 34 cents a day, plus a daily share of profits!6 I plan on purchasing
a ticket to Detroit as soon as possible. I know it will be difficult work, harder than my current job
as a schoolteacher, but the events I wrote about previously have weighed too-heavily on my
mind. I must get out of this town, or it will certainly be the death of me.
December 1st 1917
I still have nightmares of looking out the window and seeing the mob. In my sleep, they
chase me instead. They chase me all the way to Detroit. I try to get into Fords factory to find
solace, its doors are locked shut. As they finally lay their hands on me I wake up in a cold sweat.
I recall a speech I once read by Ida B. Wells. She called lynching color line murder.
The speech was inspiring, searing words against the horror of lynching. But she concluded with
something strange. She said, The only certain remedy is an appeal to law.7 Remembering that
boys smiling face, I am beginning to doubt how certain the relief that law provides might be.
Has anything really changed?8
June 3rd 1918

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In a few months time it will be a year since I have moved to the city. Fords Factory
work is monotonous, but fulfilling. I am lucky to have moved when I did. Anyone can see that
even the most educated of blacks are not welcome. They only hired us because all the white men
had moved out for the war. At night, I return to the segregated slums, just East of Downtown.9 It
is not much, but anything is better than back down South.
December 28th 1933
I found this journal lying in a dusty corner of the apartment after many years. Reading
through its old entries, I can assure my past self that his hope was misplaced. I have long-since
been fired from Fords plant. As soon as they could find English-speaking white people, we were
fired and replaced.10 I found another job as a schoolteacher, but that damn manuals promise of a
new, free world was not for everyone. The memory of the lynching that I sought to escape, even
after all these years, is never far off my mind. The Black Legion killed a man just a few days
ago, it wasnt even the one they were after. When the murderer was asked why he shot the man
he told the newspapers he just wanted to experience what it felt like to kill a nigger.11 People
like that remind me that every morning I wake up on a plantation. This plantation might better be
called America. As long as I am here, all I can feel is the weight of my chains. Chains that, no
matter what manual I might read- no matter what city I travel to and level of education I achieve,
will never be shed.12

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NOTES
1

See Fultzs Teacher Training and African American Education in the South 1900-1940, page
196.

See Maffly-Kipps An Introduction to the Church in the Southern Black Community.

See Masons Lynching (Overview), for a detailed explanation of lynching throughout U.S.
history.

Image titled Lynching, depicting a body hanging from a tree after being lynched.

See "Letters of Black Migrants: "But It Is a Fine Place to Make Money."

See Ford Motor Companys Helpful hints and Advice to Employees to Help Them Grasp the
Opportunities Which Are Presented to Them by the Ford Profit-sharing Plan page 7.
7

See Wells-Barnetts Why Is Mob Murder Permitted?

See Spillers Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: An American Grammar Book, page 68.

See Martelles Detroit: A Biography, page 86.

10

See Martelles Detroit: A Biography, page 88.

11

See Martelles Detroit: A Biography, page 129.

12

See Wildersons Red, White & Black: Cinema and the Structure of U.S. Antagonisms, pages
1-17, for a description of the unchanging nature of black suffering from the advent of the
Middle Passage to present day.

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WORKS CITED
Ford Motor Company. Helpful hints and Advice to Employees to Help Them Grasp the
Opportunities Which Are Presented to Them by the Ford Profit-sharing Plan. Detroit,
Mich., 1915. 8.
Fultz, Michael. Teacher Training and African American Education in the South 19001940. Vol. 64. N.p.: The Journal of Negro Education, 1995. 196. Print.
"Letters of Black Migrants: "But It Is a Fine Place to Make Money" (1917)." The
American Mosaic: The African American Experience. ABC-CLIO, 2016. Web. 8
Oct. 2016.
Lynching. [1925] Image. Retrieved from the Library of Congress,
<https://www.loc.gov/item/npc2007012927/>.5
Maffly-Kipp, Laurie F. An Introduction to the Church in the Southern Black Community.
North Carolina: The University Library of North Carolina, 2004. Print.
Martelle, Scott. Detroit: A Biography. Chicago, Illinois: Chicago Review Press, 2012. 86129. Print.
Mason, Patrick Q. "Lynching (Overview)." The American Mosaic: The African American
Experience. ABC-CLIO, 2016. Web. 7 Oct. 2016.
Spillers, Hortense J. Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: An American Grammar Book. Vol. 17.
N.p.: Diacritics, 1987. 68. Print.
Wells-Barnett. Ida B: Why Is Mob Murder Permitted (1909)." The American Mosaic:
The African American Experience.ABC-CLIO, 2016. Web. 7 Oct. 2016.
Wilderson, Frank B. Red, White & Black: Cinema and the Structure of U.S. Antagonisms.
Durham & London: Duke University Press, 2010. 1-17. Print.