The Night The Church Burned

Every June 17, I can't help being thinking about the horrible night that my home church burned. Not just mine; there were 19 others that burned as well. At least that many. My church was Mt. Zion Methodist. It was summertime, the hot season. I remember it well. In some ways, it's like yesterday. Time stands still, about some things. Especially here in Mississippi. That night, Mississippi was ablaze. Folks not from here stoked an already roaring fire True, they got burned by it, but a lot of us here did too. It was just them getting burned that seemed to make it important. 
My name is Rose, and I am one of the remaining churchgoers who were attacked that fiery night, by narrow-minded men filled with hate and fear. But they wanted US to be afraid.
They were men of power, at least here. The sheriff, the bank president, a minister or two; those who owned and ran the town. We all knew who they were, even as they hid behind white masks. 
It wasn't any different than any other church gathering,, for most of us. We were here to celebrate, and to sing, and to give thanks and worship. 
We had heard that a special guest of some kind or other hadn't shown up. But there wasn't really time to give much thought to that, because in what seemed like a flash, windows were being broken by flaming torches thrown thru them. We heard gunshots, men yelling. We scattered, trying to get out of the old church building before it was engulfed in flames. The smell of burning flesh, people screaming as they were set on fire. The men who attacked us, they actually grabbed church members, doused them in gasoline and struck a match to them. Some of them actually laughed about doing it. They hurled racial slurs at us while they did it. I myself am glad that I will never understand the kind of person who could do that. 
I was blessed, myself, that I only had a burned arm and leg, a few cuts and bruises, at least as far as physical wounds go. But I lost family and friends in the fire. There isn't a price tag you can put on the cost of that. 
Over that night, the whole church burned to the ground. It smouldered for days. 
It was only later that we learned that there were other churches that were done like we were, too. 
Freedom Summer, that's what they call that summer of 1964, now. That, and some project or other. 
I forget the name....but I'll never forget the summer, long as I live.

The Day The Booms Happened

 I will never forget it as long as I live. It's actually been fifty years now. I just can't believe it. Neither can my older sister, Hattie. Woodbine is having a remembrance ceremony this year, and those of us who are eyewitnesses are going to give our personal accounts of what we saw and felt that horrible day. By the way, my name is Melissa. On the day it happened, a Wednesday in 1971, I was a 16 year old, working as kitchen help in a local diner. We were starting to get busy, as the lunch crowd was coming in. It seemed like just another day, until the first boom happened. It was at 10:53 am. The sound was loud and startling enough that it silenced the entire cafe in a second. I could feel the vibration from the force of the first boom. At first, no one got up from the tables, or said anything. Then the second boom happened. It was horrible, because then we all knew that whatever was happening wasn't over yet. People, the men, mostly, started getting up to leave the diner to see what was going on. I was still in the kitchen, trying to concentrate on my job. By the time the third boom happened, most of us, customers and help alike, were headed towards the cafe door. At this point, I hadn't heard a single person say anything about what might be causing the booms. We all knew that whatever it was, it wasn't fireworks. It also wasn't anything good. 

I kind of froze for a moment, right there in the street in front of the cafe. It was because it had dawned on me the direction that the explosions had come from. Hattie! I told myself that it couldn't possibly be that! But all the same, I put on my worn straw hat , with the calico ties, and started off down the road with the others that had left the cafe. 
My sister Hattie was 19, then, and a single mother. She had a toddler daughter, now. She had gotten a job some months back at a chemical plant here in Woodbine. She worked in a plant that made magnesium flares. She said she was told that it was to help the war effort in Vietnam. I remember that she'd been tickled pink over getting that job. It was better hours and better pay than any job around here, at least for people like us. She didn't really say too much else about it, at the time. The jobs at that plant were considered plum jobs; everyone said so, then. Looking back to that time now,  those of us who are still here in Woodbine see how wrong we were.
Before we could get very far towards the plant itself, we were stopped by law enforcement. There was a huge fire, they said, and they were trying to put it out, as well as help any survivors. The first count of dead was 24, which was quickly upped to 35. That was actual dead; there was not even an estimate given at all about how many people were injured. 
At this point, all I could do was hope that my sister Hattie was alive. 
I stayed right there in the road where they made us stop and wait for hours. I wasn't about to leave until I heard something about Hattie. 
We could see smoke and haze everywhere, saw planes flying around, heard distress sirens. In all that time, we heard nothing about any survivors. 
No death toll was given past 35, but we all knew that it was higher than that now. 
Time passed slowly, standing there and waiting, that day. I worried about Hattie, and my other relatives and friends that worked at that plant. I worried about Hattie's little girl, Ellen, who would be an orphan if anything happened to her mother. 
I tried to think the best, but it was real hard, right then.
Finally, at about 4 o'clock that afternoon, we were told about the explosion at the plant that Hattie worked in. It had destroyed the building. All survivors were at a local hospital, with limited resources, at best. 
My sister was one of those, a survivor, I eventually learned. She was severely burned, and her painful injuries took a long time to heal from, but she did. My family felt fortunate to still have her with us. Others weren't so lucky. 
Hattie wants to attend the 50 year remembrance ceremony, but she wants me to tell our story. She never really will talk to people about it. Can't really say that I blame her. So I will tell my account of the day that the booms happened, for both of us.

 (FYI: I had written this for a flash fiction contest, but even after I paid the entry fee, they didn't accept it as an entry, so I wanted to post it on my blog. I hope any readers enjoy. )