driving while black.....in mississippi

He was hot and tired. He had started his day early, waking up in Memphis and continuing on to Charlotte. It was May and hotter than usual for a spring day. Felt more like July, sticky and thick. Kind of rubbed off on your mood and made you feel slow, but anxious at the same time.

As usual he was pulling two trailers, heading east through Mississippi on US78 past small town after small town, counting mile after boring mile and minute after boring minute, impatient to get out of Mississippi. Driving through Mississippi always gave him an uneasy, restless feeling. He always had the feeling that if something bad, something unjust were to happen, it would surely happen in Mississippi.

He laughed a little to himself. Once he crossed out of Mississippi, he would just have to start playing this uneasy game with himself again. Only difference would be, the game and the feeling would be called Alabama. The game was a little easier, but it was still Alabama.

And things truly hadn't changed that much in either place.

So on he drove. He came upon Fulton, not too far from the Mississippi/Alabama state line. Fulton had a scale house. All truckers had to stop there, cross the scale and make sure their trailers weren't over the allowed weight. So he got in line and waited his turn. No big deal, he had done this literally thousands of times. Sometimes you are overweight, but when you drive for a major freight company like he did, your company paid the fine and you drove on down the road.

The guys they really gave a hard time to were the independents. Mom and Pop companies who owned a couple of trucks and had to stretch a dollar as far as it would go. Sometimes you had to drive over the weight limit. Sometimes you drove with a broken brake light or no seal on your trailer. You did what you had to. They would pull those guys over because that's when they found the stuff the bad guys were hauling. But the major freight companies, it didn't pay to harass them, just give them a ticket and keep those guys moving. It's the way the business runs.

So he went over the scales in his big shiny truck with his companies big shiny logo on the side, pulling his two trailers that were under weight, everything maintained above and beyond the standard. Nothing to worry about. Just keep on driving to Alabama and that much closer to home.

But the DOT worker in the scale house looked at him sitting in his truck, made that slow eye contact and drawled over his little microphone for him to "pull on out back, boy." So he did.
He did, all the time wondering what was this all about.

When he pulled out back he noticed all the trucks waiting to be inspected for their alleged infractions were different from him as they were all independent truckers. But really they were all the same as they all shared the same skin color. Oh, except for one Hispanic driver and another guy who looked maybe Asian.

What happened next is the DOT worker strode up to his truck, asked for his paperwork and proceeded to quiz him on what he was carrying, where he was going and so on. He was perplexed and irritated as he had been doing this for fifteen years, driving through thousands of scale houses and never had this happen. Especially when the DOT guy said: "where you from boy? You don't sound like you from anywhere around here. You from up North boy?"

He asked Mr. DOT what the sound of his voice had to do with why he was being detained. The DOT guy retaliated by officially putting his truck out of service. breaking the seal, opening the back and inspecting the freight. Mr. DOT felt that the two skids in the back of the trailer were touching each other and that definitely was a violation. He was unable, however to recall which violation.

Mr. DOT then told him to stay right where he was and made a phone call. A few minutes later the local sheriff pulled up in his cruiser and an intense conversation ensued. He called his corporate office and notified them of his "out of service status". They expressed their extreme confusion as why this was happening and told him to keep them advised.

After hanging up with his office, he watched the conversation between Mr. DOT and the sheriff who really didn't belong there for any reason he could see. He had a real uneasy feeling come over him. He decided he might be best off with a "witness" and called his girl. Sure, she was way off in another state, but at least she would be on the line and could hear what may or may not happen. They talked and he told her what was going on. He told her about this bad feeling he had and if anything happened to not let it go.

They talked for a while longer and hung up with his promise to call every few minutes. That's when Mr. Dot and the Sheriff decided to talk to him again. They interrogated him about why he sounded so different (different from what?), as if they were trying to provoke him into doing something foolish. Inside he was boiling with emotion. Outside he presented calm. He called his office again. He walked around his truck. Each time they approached him, he kept his hand near a knife he carried just in case.

This went on for over four hours. Interrogation, taunting, questioning. Clearly, they wanted him to break. To openly attack them in some way that they would feel justified to retaliate. This wasn't the first time they played this game. They were skilled at this ugly baiting and clearly enjoying themselves. Except they couldn't achieve the results they were hoping to glean from this encounter.

Finally they told him to go. No explanation as to why this occurred, what his infraction was, what perceived law he supposedly violated. They released him as if they owned him and were now setting him free.

He continued down US78 on to Alabama, angry, humiliated, seething with what he would have like to have done, and knowing how foolish and futile that would have been. On to Alabama, perhaps to more of what he encountered driving while black in Mississippi.

Perhaps this sounds like something that happened in the 1960's or 1970's. No. It was in May, 2007. It happened to my husband while I was on the other end of his cell phone. It was unbelievable to me, chilling that this still happens. But the truth is, it does.