I didn’t want to go to school. None of us did, not even Bud, who loved his books. They told us that Rain Valley School was integrated—whites and blacks, all learning under the same roof, taught by the same teacher—a white teacher. At Faith Baptist School in California, segregation was law. We were taught in the black building, and they were taught in the white one.

We lived in California until that summer, from down south. We didn’t want to move. Least ways, Mammie and Mama and Papa were reluctant. We kids were as excited as you would be if you heard the news you were going to ‘paradise’, where the rain fell, where there was no drought, and where we would have a place of our own—with air conditioning for summer, and heaters for the winter.