Journey of a Cotton Blossom. Jennifer Crocker-Villegas
for more while silently praying it was over. Mr. Kingsley uttered something that was barely audible. Joseph thought maybe his mind was playing tricks on him, but he could have sworn that while Mr. Kingsley was slumped over there, through his wheezing, he’d uttered, “Sorry, boy.”
One can’t help but wonder what might have triggered Mr. Kingsley to lash out like this in the first place. Was it that he could just sense the dormant rebellion and strength in both Joseph and that rose vine? Mr. Kingsley’s character and personality were so weak that he could not handle anything that challenged his authority, whether it be a plant or a person. Neither Joseph nor the once-stunning rose vine was weak: both had a strong desire to grow however they pleased.
This was not just any spring day in Clarksville, Mississippi; no, this was the spring of Joseph Dove. This was the day he started to blossom into a strong, independent young man. This marked the day he started to allow himself to bloom into what he was always meant to be. All that anger and drive he had held within himself would someday help him to join one of history’s most noble struggles for civil rights and equality.
Joseph, for the first time, thought, I will be free!
8
Joseph Dove
After that day in the garden, Joseph refused to be known as Joseph Kingsley anymore. Of course, he could not voice this to anyone in the Kingsley home. He did not have liberties such as personal choices or opinions in the Kingsley household—or anywhere in much of the South. No; if you were colored, you were expected to just put your head down and do as you were told.
Racism was bad in the South, but it actually grew in Mississippi during the 1940s. For far too many people, voicing opinions or trying to make personal choices was literally a life-or-death situation. Joseph had changed his name to Joseph Dove, but only in his own mind. He liked to wait till he was alone just so he could hear himself say it out loud: “Joseph Dove.” Oh, what a nice ring it had when he said it out loud. It excited him how it rolled off his tongue so eloquently.
A few months prior, Joseph had found an old letter that talked of his birth mother. It even listed her name: Claudia Dove. What a beautiful name, he thought. He had never before heard of her or known anything about her. No one in the Kingsley household ever spoke her name. Even though Claudia could have offered so much more love to Joseph than the Kingsleys could ever muster, they were disgusted by her and believed her to be less than human. With the letter in hand, Joseph now possessed her name and a location where he believed she might be. He had a new mission—to find his birth mother.
After Claudia had been vilely raped and given birth to Joseph, Mr. Kingsley had sent her away due to her speaking about what had happened. He couldn’t chance the possibility of even one person believing all the “lies,” as he put it, she was spreading. Even though slavery had been abolished long ago, that was not the reality for many in the Deep South. No one was truly free. The lack of educational opportunities, combined with poverty, racism, and unadulterated hatred, kept African Americans enslaved to these rich white folks. It had been easy for the Kingsleys to sell Claudia to a man in Doddsdale, Mississippi.
Jim Oscar Westridge was a cotton plantation owner and a United States senator. This sounded like it might not be too bad of a place to be sold to. Assuming for a moment that the sale of a person could ever have a silver lining, this might be one. Senator had a nice ring to it, but Joseph would soon find that this couldn’t be further from the truth. The only thing that was ringing over at the senator’s house was hatred, bigotry, corruption, and an evil that saturated everything.
The letter Joseph had discovered a few months earlier was not a letter at all but a bill of sale listing his birth mother’s name along with where and to whom she had been sold. This was all the information Joseph needed, because he was finished with all of this plantation life and the malicious treatment he had received since he was old enough to form memories. He knew deep down in his soul that treating a human like that wasn’t right. He had made up his mind that he was getting out of there.
Joseph had big plans for himself and his mother. He was going to travel to Doddsdale, get his mother, and take her off that plantation. They would get a home of their own and live together happily ever after. Isn’t that the dream: to live in a peaceful place full of love and acceptance, free from hatred, with no one beating you or raping you, no one monitoring and controlling all your actions, no one screaming at you or breaking you down to the very core of your soul and existence, where everyone in the home is treated as an equal? Isn’t that everyone’s dream? It was Joseph’s. How nice it must be to enjoy a more simplistic dream of getting an education, getting married, and living happily ever after. Even though Joseph did occasionally fantasize about those things, he and many others did not have the luxury of making those dreams their main focus. Some were consumed with prayers and dreams of surviving another day; others dreamed of and prayed for death.
Over the years, Joseph had come in contact with a little bit of money here and there, and if you save, money slowly adds up. People would drop money out of their pockets or handbags while enjoying a spot of intoxication at one of the Kingsleys’ famous soirees, attended by the most prominent and wealthiest of the South. They would dance and mingle in handcrafted gowns and luxury suits tailored to perfection. They loved to be seen and to boast about their money through lavish things. They would often stand around and marvel at how the poor were able to live without all these possessions.
“Poor things. How could they ever be happy? Bless their hearts.”
Although these statements sound endearing, in the South they are nothing more than insults. There is no true concern or care in these sentiments.
Joseph could not grasp how they needed these material things to make them seem happy. This troubled him. Many of the people Joseph encountered at these parties had such deep, embedded misery. They muffled it, for a moment, with the shiny new objects they purchased for themselves. Joseph noticed that shiny things easily distracted them, just like a parakeet with a sparkly spoon. Parakeets love shiny objects.
Shiny objects and arrogance were the only shallow pieces of happiness these people could grasp. Their arrogance was manifested in a manner of grandiosity. They had manipulated themselves to believe that they were superior to others, including Joseph. They clearly lacked greatly in a little department called morality.
Joseph thought that, having all this money at their disposal, surely they would never miss or even notice when they dropped a quarter, especially while they were rapidly ingesting the finest wines, champagnes, and liquors that money could buy. A quarter was too small to hold significance to these “fine” people. Joseph would capitalize on these opportunities when they arose. The morning after a soiree, he would find the misplaced money and tuck it away somewhere safe.
Joseph had a great hiding place for the money. There was a loose board in his room upstairs he’d found one day while hiding under his bed from the Kingsleys’ shouting. Mr. and Mrs. Kingsley had many of these infamous fights. The level of screaming and abuse was something the worst of quarrelers would shriek at. However, they would not dare fight in front of others. The simple thought of the shame and embarrassment this would bring to the family was unspeakable, even though everyone knew of their verbal brawls. No kind of gossip could slip past these townspeople. The Kingsleys didn’t regard the help and Joseph as people; so, even though Joseph was in the house, they still considered this being alone.
Joseph despised the arguing and fighting. All he had been through had not hardened him. He still had his gift of sensitivity. It could even be argued that this was his greatest gift of all. It allowed him to have profound depth and to show the same compassion to all living beings. He wanted to battle for those that needed help. Because of this, all the reckless fighting greatly upset his tender soul. That was why he always hid under the bed in his room upstairs when their arguments got aggressive.
This day, he ran to his bed and dropped down to his hands and knees quickly, shuffling into his safe haven. As he slid under his dome of protection, a nail snagged his sagging shirt. It was a new shirt, so he knew he was going to be in trouble when the Kingsleys found out. In most families, it was a known fact that little boys and girls alike got holes in their clothes from time to time. Kids could