Mississippi Oak
written by: Jackie Harvey
The heat was the sultry kind – the kind that made a person damp in an instant – typical of Mississippi at this time of the year. Just as it had been all those decades ago.
Martha stood, supported by her walking frame, in the same spot she had way back then. Her memory was beginning to fade. It was becoming more difficult to remember small things, larger things, faces. She had to look hard at her grandchildren or were they great-grandchildren, to call up their names. But that one day – the only other time the massive oak tree had shaded her – was a day she would never forget. It was ingrained in her memory and would remain there until the day she died, which would surely not be far away now.
Why had she left it such a long time to come back she wondered. Now there was no one else surviving who was present that day. No one left who could justify it, excuse it, make her feel she was the only one who thought it wrong.
She stroked the trunk gently with a kind of reverence for what it had witnessed; how its beauty had been abused. She scanned its knots and peered up into its branches. The oak tree had, in the last seventy-five years, grown even more impressive. For those much younger than she, who didn’t know its history, it appeared serene, peaceful. And yet to Martha who was there and who did know, such beauty had a much darker side.
In the stillness she sensed, could almost see, ghosts haunting the shady spot beneath the wide-reaching branches. It was these strong boughs – just the right height – which made it perfect for its deathly role. So many had gathered there. It was like a party, they even took a picnic, and at first for six-year-old Martha that is what she thought it was. She expected, with anticipation, a day of fun. Not so. But her parents, as did so many others, seemed to perceive it as such. Upright, solid American citizens. Staunch Christians, God fearing folk. Why, her teacher was there!
Even at her young age though, Martha knew this wasn’t right – it couldn’t be right. Surely Jesus wouldn’t want this but she was only a child – what did she know? Martha closed her eyes and imagined she was back in time to that day. She recalled that afterwards they all went home as if nothing had happened – well, nothing bad anyway. It was not long after, however, that her family packed up and left Mississippi for a new life up north. The reasons weren’t explained – children back in the early fifties were owed no explanation for anything. They all just left. Maybe she wasn’t alone feeling what happened wasn’t right after all.
As she opened her eyes, welled with tears, she visualised movement beneath the largest and strongest of the branches; a figure whose feet did not touch the ground but swung back and forth in the air. She blinked to clear her eyes and the figure was gone. Gone in reality but the sight of fellow human beings – just of a different colour to the others gathered there – being hung by their necks would never leave her. Pairs of bare-foot prints that led to the tree but would never walk away from it.
Martha turned slowly on her frame and made her way back to where her family waited in ignorance of what once occurred there. She hadn’t told them why she wanted to, felt she needed to, visit the oak tree. Let them think it was just a reminder of the happy childhood they believed she had down in Mississippi. Let them think it was just because of its beauty – nothing else. If only it was simply ‘nothing else.’
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:
Lynchings continued. What a terrible thing to do to another human.
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