were white boys. Jo recognized some of them from previous pickets or actions or meetings. Some of them were sitting on the cream-and-orange plaid couch. Others sat on folding chairs that had been set up around the edge of the room, with their feet planted on the floor and legs spread wide. Jo and Shelley found places toward the back of the living room, by the door. “In case we need to make a quick getaway,” Jo said. She watched Shelley smile and lean against the wall, and pull away as soon as her shoulder touched the knotty pine paneling. Jo knew, from experience, that the walls were sticky; that everything in the house seemed to have been lightly coated in spilled pop.
“Okay!” called Doug. “Now, more than ever, it’s important for us to stay the course and not back down. We need to show the rest of the country, the rest of the world, that they can kill our president . . .” He gulped, and his voice, which had been trembling, got steadier. “. . . but they can’t shake our commitment to civil rights, or slow the wheel of progress. No matter what.” This prompted murmurs of assent, nods, and a smattering of applause. “We’re going to talk about the action we’ve got planned for this coming Saturday at Woolworth.
“Now, last week we only had about seventy-five people show up.” His voice became louder and more aggrieved. “There are twenty-four thousand people on this campus. What does it say that only seventy-five of them can be bothered to stand up for racial equality?”
“That you aren’t very good at your job?” Jo heard someone mutter.
“I want every person in this room who’s planning to be there Saturday to commit to bringing at least two new people with them!” said Doug. “And I need someone to volunteer to type up the flyers!” His eyes, small and close-set underneath his high forehead, moved over the room, finally arriving at a woman in a corduroy jumper, who sat perched on the couch in a manner suggesting she was trying to keep as much of her body away from the fabric as possible. “Marian, how about you?”
Marian nodded.
“Moving on,” said Doug. “We need to talk about the bigger picture. Summer’s going to be here before you know it. The Freedom Rider Coordinating Committee is asking for new riders,” he continued. “The rides begin in Washington, D.C., and end in New Orleans.”
“Or jail,” someone muttered.
“Many universities have had students participate,” Doug continued. “It would be great if the U of M could have a representative on one of the buses.”
A dark-haired white fellow with heavy stubble and dark-rimmed glasses raised his hand to ask if arrests showed up on your academic records. “Is going to jail going to keep me out of medical school?” he asked. The crowd offered competing, contradictory answers about how an arrest for civil rights activism might affect one’s future.
Jo stood close enough to feel the warmth of Shelley’s body, listening as the boys discussed the putative consequences of riding a bus and registering voters while their less fortunate, poor, and Negro counterparts were being beaten by cops or set upon by dogs or shipped off to die in Vietnam. She and Shelley and the other girls who had come stood quietly until, finally, Doug deigned to acknowledge them with a smile that displayed his overbite.
“Hey, you know what? If a few of you gals want to get dinner started, there’s spaghetti and sauce in the kitchen.”
* * *
“So that’s the movement.”
“I can’t believe that,” Shelley said, with a disgusted roll of her eyes. She and Jo had left the meeting and were walking through campus in the twilight, moving fast, with the empty paths providing fresh air and space to complain. “I can’t believe he expected us to make copies and make them dinner!” A few steps more, and Shelley said, “I can’t believe we did!”
Jo made a noncommittal noise. She’d washed her hands, but she could still smell jarred tomatoes and oregano underneath her nails.
“Are you planning on being a politician?” Shelley asked.
“Who, me?”
“Yes, you,” Shelley said, and playfully bumped Jo’s hip with her own. Jo felt herself smiling. “You’re all commanding and committed.”
“That’s the only time I’ve ever spoken up in a meeting. I care about the world, but I don’t want to go into politics.”
“So what, then?” asked Shelley. “I can tell you’re a gal with a plan. What’s your major?”
“English,” said Jo. Her face,