Freeze This Frame: Following a Tribute to Henrie Monteith Tredwell

Abstract

Freeze This Frame: Following a Tribute to Henrie Monteith Tredwell Charlene Spearen Last night at the Koger Center, a place gleaming a confluence of lights and glass, high performance, ballets and strutting symphonies, I hugged history, watched one tear move from eye to cheek to chin. This beautiful woman, confounded by possibilities, for some reason in 1963 did not hide, did not whoop and holler, or clench her fists. Instead she embraced racial memories and prayer, and with grace stepped into the field of wanting equal rights, equal rights to attend this only‐for‐whites university. Henrie Monteith kicked the dirt of you shall not enter, shall not ask why. Clumps went flying with each gentle placing of one foot in front of the other, a steady rhythm like notes from a high‐pitched‐praise‐Jesus song. Ignoring fear, dread, her numbing fingertips, jeers working like the violin's bow sawing this way and that, her tiny God‐given body entered the sea of people, a pack of barking dogs, then pushed with all her might a mighty oak door. On this day, the Horseshoe's wind began to sing. Now she asks the question, What about the next generation? I was told the university has dug into its soil, a dirt heavy with tales of injustice. It has made a garden for Henrie and her two brother‐students, a victory garden of sorts. Roses and tall Iris bloom alongside the pesky dandelion. One is ready to seed, and the spring breezes will lift high the cottony‐fuzz. It carries a code that is waiting to be cracked open. Note © 2014 Association for Religion and Intellectual Life