Freedom on My Mind (1994)

Endesha Ida Mae Holland: Self

Quotes 

• Endesha Ida Mae Holland : I looked inside and I saw Emma Bell, who's a legend in the Civil Rights Movement. I saw her sittin' at a typewriter, typin'. And I had never seen a black woman that could type like this woman could type! You know, she was typin', she wasn't even lookin' down at the paper. So, I said to myself, "Oh, she's typin' a whole lot of p's and q's. She don't know what she's doin'." And I went on inside the office. I was scared to death because Mama had told me, don't go down near that, foolin' with those folks, because she had to live in this town. And inside and the first I did, once I got inside, was to go look over Emma Bell's shoulder and see what she really was typin'. She hadn't missed a word.

• Endesha Ida Mae Holland : When I came back and we went to a fast food restaurant. And somebody said, "let's go on in here." And I said, "Chile, we can't go in here, can we?" They'd say, "Yeah." And we went to the counter and a white man was behind the counter, he said, "My I help you, Ma'am?" And that's when I said - girl, I bought the hamburger, the coffee, the French fries; 'cause, every time, he had to say, "Ma'am" and "Thank you." And never before had I heard a white man, you know, a local white man saying that kind of thing.

• Endesha Ida Mae Holland : It was so beautiful to see people like Miss Luba Belle Dawson and Miss Maghee. They would be walkin' with pride! And there titties would be stickin' out a whole long way in front of them. Mama would say you could see their titties a block before you'd see them. But, they'd be walkin' with such pride! And they'd be marchin' and remember myself tryin' to walk with that heavy step that they used. It looked the earth would catch their feet and hold them.

• Endesha Ida Mae Holland : The Movement was the beginnin' of me findin' myself. I felt that the Movement is the greatest thing I ever seen. And I had a respect for people who started takin' a stand. And made me feel good. And people started lookin' at me.

• Endesha Ida Mae Holland : Whereas, the whole town, to me, was lookin' down it's nose at me, the Movement said to me, "I was somebody." "I was somebody," they said.

• Endesha Ida Mae Holland : Chief Larry was looked on with awe simply because he was the Chief of Police and he had the last word on everything. And, as usual, somebody pushed me forward... As I saw the look on his face, here's Ida Mae's girl up here. He was just stunned! He didn't know what to do! And for the first time in my life, I saw indecision in Chief Larry's face and that made me feel so proud. People started lookin' up to my face, into my eyes, sayin', "That cat is sho nuff tough, isn't she." I wasn't so tough. I was scared on every march. But, I knew that I couldn't turn back. Something would - just wouldn't let me turn back.

• Endesha Ida Mae Holland : I don't know who set the bomb; but, it was probably because of my activities in the Movement, you know. I don't know who... But, there was some people who saw an explosion, like somebody had thrown a bomb into our house. And my Mama was in there and she was in a wheelchair, you know. She couldn't walk. Well, Mama died. Mama died, I remember, she died in the Greenwood-Leflore Hospital a few days later. And my most vivid memory of this time is the nurses, who, I heard one of them say, "I don't want to take care of that old stickin' black woman."

• Endesha Ida Mae Holland : I went to babysit for this white family. And the white woman called me upstairs. I went on upstairs in a hurry so as not to keep the white woman waitin'. She said, "Mr. Lawrence wants to see you." And I looked in the bed and Mr. Lawrence was layin' down among the bed clothes - they were so silky. And, I said, "Yes sir, Mr. Lawrence, what chu want with me?" And he immediately pulled me down into the bed and had intercourse with me. I was 11 years old that day. It was my birthday. It was no reason to run and tell our mother or our father; because, they couldn't do anything about it. But, get killed, if they said somethin' about it. So many times, girls, we girls were talkin' and laughin' about it, you know, never tellin' our parents. But, it happened very, very frequently. But, after I was raped at 11, I started havin' men right and left, you know. So, I was easy - and I walked sassy - and I would cuss. I could out cuss a longshoreman.

• Endesha Ida Mae Holland : I heard there were some outside agitators had come to town to stir up trouble between the whites and the coloreds. And that they weren't going to have anything to do with them. I immediately started lookin' for 'em; because, if they was new men in town I wanted to turn a trick with 'em. I figured maybe they'd have some money.

• Endesha Ida Mae Holland : They started usin' teams. Whites and blacks would go. I think they used the whites, because, blacks had a heard time sayin' no to white folk. We don't care what they would say. So, they used the white women and we would go in teams and we would try to get people to go vote. They would say, "Yes, Ma'am. I'm goin'. Yes, Ma'am. I'm goin', I'll be there tomorrow." And by the time they left, they'd go inside, shut the door, pull their curtains down, and say, "I ain't goin' nowhere!" And the white girl, "I can't understand what happened?"

• Endesha Ida Mae Holland : I got my first introduction to a black person who was writing: Richard Wright. And as I read Richard Wright's book, I kept thinkin', well, you mean black folk can actually write books? Because, I'd always been told blacks had done no great things. They hadn't done anything. We had nothin' that we could be proud of.