"HOME"

"HOME" "Daddy, who is that?" Asked my uncle as we climbed out of his truck in 1971, in rural Mississippi. "I believe that's, Bro Larry." Replied my paternal grandfather from the depth of darkness that November night. I could not see him in the dark. Neither could he see me. We intuited. "Hi, Father Mitch! How're you doing?" I inquired as I rushed into his strong arms, as I had done often as a child. "This old man's alright, Bro. Larry . Come on into the house in the light." This conversation comes to me this morning. I was 20 years old then. I had traveled "down home," for me, "back home," to Mississippi , as part of the "Mississippi 90," we students' self-named, traveling political group, from Howard University, Washington, D. C., in order to poll-watch in the final week of an historic campaign in the Mississippi gubernatorial race of Charles Evers, brother of martyred civil rights leader, Mississippi NAACP President Medgar Evers, now an icon. After incidents involving a short two-gun toting sheriff in Itta Bena, earlier, and another at Money, Mississippi, the same day, involving two, armed, white men who escorted unarmed black men chain-gang-like to vote, in the office of a cotton gin, where we poll-watched, I decided to get on a bus, and to go home to my people! "Don't be no hero! Don't be no fool!" My spirit told me. Take advantage of this time to see your family right now. My spirit craved love, food, laughter, familiarity, family. So, I booked. Later! I got on a Trailways bus and traveled due south to Canton, my birthplace, an area around which most of my people still lived. From the bus stop , an elderly taxi driver (the only one I saw) drove me to Lee Street, to my maternal grandmother's house. She was away, when I arrived, but Daddy Frank, her husband was as happy to see me, as much as he was surprised by me. He confirmed that "Mother" was away, at church, attending a funeral as the cab driver, who also claimed to know me, had said. A little while later, in came "Mother" with her hugs, kisses, tears. She immediately took off her hat, went into her kitchen, and began to fixing and mixing. Doing her thang! Good thing I did leave the stresses of politics for the comforts of "home." Grandaddy, Father Mitchell, died less than a week later, after I had returned safely to Howard U., my parents said. Truly, there is no place like home!