The tired, decidedly un-fresh group of Wisconsin college students and their psychology professor drove all night after being denied a hotel room in Effingham, Illinois. It was spring, 1964.
The lone female student in the group was also African American. The snippy clerk at the hotel they’d hoped to check into had told them in no uncertain terms that the hotel “didn’t take Nigras.”
Each licensed driver took a turn driving in the darkness, carefully avoiding doing anything to attract the attention of local highway police patrols. They had been naïve enough to believe they could get a hotel room in southern Illinois, but they had been warned repeatedly about the humorless cops who enjoyed nothing more than harassing righteous people from up north heading to Mississippi to stir up trouble.
As the professor’s ancient car crossed the border from Tennessee into Mississippi, the group was desperate to find a gasoline station with a public restroom. The guys could and did easily run into a wooded area to relieve themselves, but Rayne was afraid to go into the woods by herself. By now they were all painfully aware of “the rules” and they knew the restroom in the dilapidated station they found just before dawn was going to be Whites Only.
Choosing between two unthinkable outcomes, Rayne decided she could not finish the trip into Jackson with urine-defiled underwear and Bermuda shorts. She took a deep breath, muttered a prayer to whatever deity might be listening at this early hour, and ran to the disgusting closet in the side of the building that was marked White Ladies. Looking around in dismay, she wondered what on earth the restroom for Colored Women would have looked like, had they bothered to provide one.
Grateful and truly *relieved* Rayne was now terrified to open the door of the restroom to return to the car. She was right to be fearful. The flashing red light of a black and white patrol car hit her between the eyes as she stepped out into the muggy dawn. Doc was being interrogated by the local constable. He told Doc that there had been a radio alert for a car full of northern meddlers heading for Jackson. One of the other students gestured secretly to Rayne to sneak around the back of the building while he and the others blocked the cop’s vision. She did that while wondering if she shouldn’t return to the restroom instead; her terror was having a bad effect on her sphincters.
Rayne slipped into the far back door of Doc’s car and crouched on the floor, praying that the cop had already searched the car. Eventually, Doc and the boys returned to the car and the scowling, red-faced officer slowly – extra slowly -- drove the patrol car away. It was just in time, too, because Rayne shoved open the car door as her traumatized stomach emptied its contents onto the pavement.
The car was totally silent for the remainder of the trip into Tougaloo, Mississippi. Rayne stared out the window, watching the nothingness of the fields of unknown crops whiz by, processing all that had happened since leaving that peaceful, utopian campus that now seemed eons away.
During the 17-hour trip, Rayne and a red-haired hunk (to her, anyway) from Canada had begun to develop a more-than-platonic interest in each other. Reid was enrolled in the same history class that Rayne attended dutifully and he did not. He showed up for the quizzes and tests, aced them always, and returned to cutting the lectures. They would have barely noticed one another were it not for his fiery, curly hair and her exotic, café au lait looks. The close quarters in the back seat combined with Reid’s natural tendency to protect distressed damsels caused a few sparks to fly.
The ragtag group of disillusioned scholars and their teacher were received warmly by the Dean of Tougaloo College and the same group of students who had spent a week at Ripon College, Rayne’s storybook school. Clearly in need of food, showers and sleep, the visitors were shepherded to their dorm rooms and given trays of food from the cafeteria to take along.
Rayne fell on her back onto the thin mattress and stared at the ceiling. What had she done? How much danger were they in? How was she going to explain all this to her mother?
~To be Continued~
Interesting story---well told!
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