Prelude

On May 18th, 1954, a sunny and otherwise perfect day in the southern states of the United States of America, the day was completely ruined for hundreds of thousands of citizens, who opened their newspapers and read what was plastered across the front page of every newspaper in the nation.

Dateline: Washington D.C., May 17, 1954. "In a unanimous decision of the United States Supreme Court, concerning Brown VS the Board of Education, Topeka, Kansas, the following announcement was made:

"Segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children. The impact is greater when it has the sanction of the law, for the policy of separating the races is usually interpreted as denoting the inferiority of the Negro group. A sense of inferiority affects the motivation of a child to learn. Segregation with the sanction of law, therefore, has a tendency to [retard] the educational and mental development of Negro children and to deprive them of some of the benefits they would receive in a racially integrated school system"

Accounts then followed, describing how the Supreme Court also instructed the federal district courts to require the local school authorities to develop and carry out plans for integration "with all deliberate speed". In southern papers, it was pointed out, often in larger type, that this decision, only affected the segregation of public schools and did not abolish legally sanctioned segregation in other public areas. In northern papers, the follow-on stories proclaimed that it did declare that permissive or mandatory segregation that existed in twenty-one states was unconstitutional.

One citizen who read the newspaper that day was William Jefferson Pruitt, a middle aged man who, until this date, had not distinguished himself in any way, shape, or form in the tiny community in which he lived, called Catfish Hollow. Pruitt was a white man who had two children. Those children attended the Catfish Hollow Public School, one of two schools in the town of about three hundred population. The other school didn't have a name.

When it sank into Pruitt's head that, according to the paper, when school started up again in 1955, there would be children with dark skin going to school at the Catfish Hollow Public School, instead of that other school where they now went, he was enraged beyond measure.

In that reaction, he was not alone.

Pruitt's mood was foul after reading the newspaper, so he did what many men in the community did when they were in a foul mood. He immediately went to the porch of the General Store, meeting other men who had read the paper and were equally motivated to "discuss" the catastrophic announcement. Pruitt's mood got worse.

Sometimes, when men gathered at the General Store, action was taken, and Pruitt wanted to see action taken. But, on this day, while all the men who gathered there were upset about the court's decision, the vast majority of them had what, to them, were bigger problems. Primary among those problems was growing enough tobacco and cotton to make enough money to keep the wolf from their door and feed their families. And, by and large, the men who gathered there were law-abiding men. They didn't like what had happened, but it didn't appear that there was much that could actually be done to counter the court's directive to integrate the Catfish Hollow Public School.

They couldn't even take out their anger on any of the black citizens of Catfish Hollow at that particular time. That was because no black citizen was foolish enough to show his face in town that day.

William Jefferson Pruitt, however, decided to do something about it. He was alone in that decision, at least in the town of Catfish Hollow, and because this story is about that town, we will disregard what happened elsewhere, at least initially. Suffice it to say that, if Pruitt had known that the court's order wouldn't actually be obeyed for at least ten more years, he might not have done what he did.

But, of course, he didn't know that. He thought that his precious Liza Jean might have to sit next to a dirty little nigger boy in school, the very next year.

He began drinking around ten in the morning, and stayed at it until after dark. His alcohol-fogged brain worried at the problem without any answer coming to mind. Then, when he realized he'd lost an entire day of farming because of the situation, he decided to prepare his tractor for the next day's work by filling the gas tank. It was while doing that that the answer came to him.

By the time that answer came to him, the five gallon gas can in his hands was only half full, the rest having gone into the tractor's tank. Looking around blearily, he saw another five gallon can, this one containing kerosene, and he topped off the gas can with that. Then he set off for the Catfish Hollow Public School.

Chapter 1 »