Road to Nowhere. Ch5. Mr. Epperson.
Madeline meets a former sharecropper who fills her in on Pine Bluff politics.
ACORN Housing Corp leader, George Butts, speaks at Bank Summit in New York in 1992. Painting by Steve Bachmann. Thanks to Bruce Dorpalen.
1975-1976
I stopped by Walker’s gas station the next day to brainstorm when an old pickup truck pulled in.
“I got a dollar,” the old man driving it called out the open window to Walker. “You got some gas?”
“I got more than that, Mr. Epperson,” Walker said. “This here’s Madeline, the ACORN lady I been tellin’ you about. Madeline, Theo Epperson. You get him on your side, you got most of Ohio Street.”
Mr. Epperson nodded his greeting. His intelligent eyes assessed me as his smile conveyed a cautious friendliness. I smiled back.
“You got a minute, Mr. Epperson?” Walker asked. “Can you fill Madeline in on what you and Thelma are plannin’?”
I was beginning to love my job. I just showed up, and folks had already been making a plan. That was good because ACORN had taught me how to knock on doors and ask folks to join and pay their dues, but they didn’t have enough time to tell me what to do about the issues that people cared about. I was very excited to have found a tight-knit community that already seemed to know.
Mr. Epperson pulled his truck over on the side of the road and got out. He wore old denim overalls, moved kind of slow, slight build with a round face, huge dark eyes with a crinkling around them.
“I don’t know why Walker thinks I got somethin’ to say,” Mr. Epperson said. “I’m just an old sharecropper.
“I got nuthin’ in this life but a shotgun shack down the road a piece, but I got the deed to it. It’s got lights and water but no bathrooms, so I still got an outhouse in the back. City says they wanna come and put a road by my front porch. It ain’t the first time some white folks tried to take somethin’ belongin’ to me or my daddy, and I bet it won’t be the last. Uh, no offense intended, Miss,” he added, tipping his head my way.
“None taken,” I nodded. I was white alright; couldn’t deny it.
“I don’t have a lot of book learnin’,” Mr. Epperson continued, “but I know this much. You best not tell a man whose daddy was a sharecropper, who never got ahead a day in his life, I mean a man like that when he finally owns the deed to a bit of land and a little sad excuse for a home, you best not tell him you fixin’ to come take somethin’ that belongs to him.”
“Sounds like you would be a good speaker for one of these meetings the city planned, Mr. Epperson.”
Mr. Epperson looked bashful but pleased.
“So what’s a nice yankee gal like you doin’ down here in the sticks?” he asked, those crinkly eyes sparkling.
“Lookin’ for trouble, I guess.”
“I see that, yes I do. Well, we just about a match made in heaven, cause the Walkers and me fixin’ to cause some trouble.”
“Honored to be a part of it,” I said. “What you got planned?”
Theo Epperson and Thelma Walker had talked to a lot of people already.
“We got thirty to forty folks comin’ out for Thursday. Ms. Walker and Ms. Creggett will handle the speakin’; they’ve been to college and whatnot, and Ms. Creggett’s a school teacher. Folks pays attention to what she got to say. Ms. Creggett thinks her pastor can win over some of them there advisory group people, leastways the Black folks on there who don’t have to answer to downtown. The pastor’s got a vote, and the funeral home director, and someone from the university. We might get their votes. That’s three out of what look to be seven members. It don’t really matter, exactly, cause they’s just advisory anyways, but everybody’s askin’ the same thing: why you gonna put a four-lane road down through here when it don’t go nowhere?”
“What are you thinking, Mr. Epperson? Why are they doing this?”
“Only thing I can figger is they’re building that white elephant thing up just east of downtown, the convention center. We been fightin’ against that convention center for years, your ACORN folks been helpin’, but downtown’s bound and determined to have it. So, with a convention center up there, maybe they think those folks need a nice throughway that’ll take ‘em from there down through here. I mean, Pine Bluff is dry, so I don’t see no conventions comin’ here nohow, but maybe they want to run them folks straight down Ohio to the city limits, and build ‘em some bars and girlie shows down that way. But ain’t none of this makin’ no sense. Except somebody’s gettin’ paid, and it sure ain’t none of us over here.”
“Mr. Epperson, I haven’t read anything about this street-widening project in the paper since I got here. Has there been any coverage about it?”
“Not that I know about. Seems like they wanted to sneak up on us, and now they have to tell us somethin’, so they let us know at the last minute. They have a meetin’ this comin’ Thursday and another one in December at city hall, and then they’re done. They can claim they let us speak, but they fixin’ to ram it down our throats. What d’ya think? There a way to beat it?”
I shook my head. “Wish I knew. I asked the Little Rock ACORN folks, and they said this is Community Development Block Grant funds, HUD money, but Mr. Walker already knew that. I guess cities get that money to spend in “low-and-moderate income” neighborhoods It’s meant to benefit those neighborhoods, but if the city wants to claim that a four-lane road is a benefit, they might be able to get away with it. Unless we can get a lot of media coverage and blow it up some. There might be a way to get a reporter out to the advisory council meeting.”
Epperson nodded. “Now you talkin’. There’s an election comin’ up next year,” he said. “They probably can do what they want, but they got to worry about how many Black folks gonna be votin’ as the kids grow up, cuz we got more Black kids now than white. Ever’ single city councilman is white, ‘cept Chester Hynes, but he’s just appointed anyways, not sure if he answer to us or to the folks who appoint him. Things is changin’ though, slower here than most places, but changin’. They might start to get worried if we raise some sand.”
I nodded. “I didn’t know any of that, Mr. Epperson. Thanks for the lay of the land.”
“Yeah, maybe neither one of us is as slow as we make out,” he smiled. I joined him.
Mr. Walker, Mrs. Walker, Mr. Epperson, hadn’t met Ms. Creggett yet, but she sounded just as awesome. Things just got better and better on Ohio Street.
“I’ll start door knocking on Ohio Street this afternoon,” I told Mr. Epperson. “I’ll be askin’ folks to join ACORN, pay dues of $10-a-year or a dollar-a-month. I know they’ll join if I tell them you’re a member already.” I waited for a response.
“Walker,” Mr. Epperson yelled. “You join this outfit yet?”
“Naw,” Mr. Walker answered. “But I guess we better if we want Madeline to keep comin’ around.”
“Here,” said Mr. Epperson, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a dollar. “This is my first month’s dues. Does that mean I’m your first member on Ohio Street?”
“Sure does, Mr Epperson.”
“I like that. I want a membership card and a button, just like that one you’re wearing.”
“Here, take mine for now, and looking forward to working with you, Mr. Epperson.”
“Likewise,” he smiled, and got back in his truck. “Stop by my place this afternoon and we’ll figure out some more about Thursday.”
Wouldn’t miss it. I had crossed the dues hurdle, and was on my way.
To Be Continued:
This piece is the fifth of 15 short chapters and the series will continue in two weeks when we add five more chapters.