The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial IssueVarious
History
The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue
Various
African Americans -- Social conditions -- To 1964; Civil rights movements; Martin Luther King, Jr., Day; United States -- History
The white-robed rector read the solemn service for the dead, and then
delivered a brief address, in which he spoke of the uncertainty of life,
and, to the believer, the certain blessedness of eternity. He spoke of
Miss Myrover's kindly spirit, and, as an illustration of her love and
self-sacrifice for others, referred to her labors as a teacher of the
poor ignorant negroes who had been placed in their midst by an all-wise
Providence, and whom it was their duty to guide and direct in the
station in which God had put them. Then the organ pealed, a prayer was
said, and the long cortege moved from the church to the cemetery, about
half a mile away, where the body was to be interred.
When the services were over, Sophy sprang down from her perch, and,
taking her flowers, followed the procession. She did not walk with the
rest, but at a proper and respectful distance from the last mourner. No
one noticed the little black girl with the bunch of yellow flowers, or
thought of her as interested in the funeral.
The cortege reached the cemetery and filed slowly through the gate; but
Sophy stood outside, looking at a small sign in white letters on a black
background:--
"NOTICE. This cemetery is for white people only. Others please keep
out."
Sophy, thanks to Miss Myrover's painstaking instruction, could read this
sign very distinctly. In fact, she had often read it before. For Sophy
was a child who loved beauty, in a blind, groping sort of way, and had
sometimes stood by the fence of the cemetery and looked through at the
green mounds and shaded walks and blooming flowers within, and wished
that she could walk among them. She knew, too, that the little sign on
the gate, though so courteously worded, was no mere formality; for she
had heard how a colored man, who had wandered into the cemetery on a hot
night and fallen asleep on the flat top of a tomb, had been arrested
as a vagrant and fined five dollars, which he had worked out on the
streets, with a ball-and-chain attachment, at twenty-five cents a day.
Since that time the cemetery gate had been locked at night.
So Sophy stayed outside, and looked through the fence. Her poor bouquet
had begun to droop by this time, and the yellow ribbon had lost some
of its freshness. Sophy could see the rector standing by the grave, the
mourners gathered round; she could faintly distinguish the solemn words
with which ashes were committed to ashes, and dust to dust. She heard
the hollow thud of the earth falling on the coffin; and she leaned
against the iron fence, sobbing softly, until the grave was filled and
rounded off, and the wreaths and other floral pieces were disposed upon
it. When the mourners began to move toward the gate, Sophy walked slowly
down the street, in a direction opposite to that taken by most of the
people who came out.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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