Page 43 of Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Book
No three lines he’d ever read had left such an indelible mark. Isaac couldn’t help but remember a comment an uncle had made at a cookout years earlier about a rich, white ancestor way back in the past. When Isaac had asked his father, he was told the uncle in question was a prankster who liked to tell tall tales whenever he drank. Now Isaac wondered if the story might not have some truth to it. On a hunch, he had used a bit of Christmas money to purchase a DNA kit. When the results came back, he wasn’t surprised to find that he was of African, European, and Native American ancestry. Then Isaac linked his DNA results to the digital family tree he’d created using names pulled from his family Bible. His parents had both come from large families, and hundreds of matches began to appear—a web of cousins all over the state of Georgia. Some he knew. Others he’d heard of in passing. Most names were completely unfamiliar. One name was Beverly Underwood.
Isaac recognized a single name on Beverly Underwood’s family tree. When he entered that name into a blank space on his own, the DNA matched and the site accepted the man as an ancestor. The forefather he and Beverly Underwood shared was the man who’d “saved” Troy, Confederate general Augustus Wainwright.
Isaac spent hours following the Wainwright branch of his tree back in time—first to Jamestown and Plymouth, then hundreds of years back into Europe and Britain. None of the other branches on his tree went back further than 1830. As much as it amused him that he was now eligible for membership in the Mayflower Society, Sons of the American Revolution, and Sons of the Confederacy, it made Isaac furious to think that so much of his family’s history had been stolen—erased by the very people who had so carefully documented their own. But it was one empty space that haunted Isaac more than the others—the one right besideAugustus Wainwright.The unnamed Black woman who was the matriarch of their family.
Who was she? Where had she been born and where had she gone? How did she come to give birth to a Confederate general’s child? How many more had she had? Isaac thought of Sally Hemings, whose relationship with Thomas Jefferson was often whitewashed as romance. How do youfully consent to sex with a man who owns you? When saying no isn’t an option, how can it ever be anything other than rape? And yet Augustus Wainwright’s blood flowed through his veins. Isaac looked for something to redeem him. Some sign that the man had given the world something other than a gaudy gold courthouse and a statue of himself.
Isaac’s search was in vain. Months of study uncovered nothing to suggest that Augustus Wainwright had been anything but a monster. He found plenty written about Wainwright’s plantation, known as Avalon, with its beautiful big house that some historians argued was the inspiration for Tara. And Wainwright had been a handsome man in his youth—everyone agreed on that. But the rest read like a horror novel. Augustus Wainwright made most of his money trading slaves, not cotton. It was said that many of those slaves were likely his own children. During his time in the Confederate Army, he had personally ordered the massacre of fifty Black Union soldiers who had been forced to surrender. After the war, he’d rebuilt his fortune by exploiting newly freed people who had nowhere to go. At least part of that fortune was used to fund the local branch of the Ku Klux Klan. He paid almost nothing for the courthouse that was built in the center of Troy, having cheated his suppliers and forced Black laborers to work for a pittance. By the time he died, most of his money had gone toward gambling and prostitutes. His one legitimate son had hated Wainwright so much that he was known to get sloppy and piss on his father’s statue every year when the old man’s birthday rolled around.
Over time, that piss-stained statue became a touchstone for the town—a monument to a past that had never existed. Just as Wainwright knew it would. The general may have been a sociopath, but he wasn’t stupid. Far from it. He’d learned his history better than most. He knew that the people history remembers are those who build monuments out of marble. And he knew that an image carved into stone would be the only thing later generations would ever see—and the words etched beneath would one day be accepted as fact.
Yet history is full of unintended consequences. When commissioning hisstatue, Augustus Wainwright inadvertently did one good thing. He stole an inscription for his monument that would inspire a town. Wainwright himself hadn’t lived by it—and he certainly hadn’t died by it. Letters between family members suggest he stumbled drunk into an outhouse behind a brothel and drowned in the cesspit. But long before he knew anything about him, Augustus Wainwright’s great-great-great-great-great-grandson had taken those words to heart. Isaac Wright refused to bow before tyrants.
The day he decided on a course of action was the very same day Isaac told his family he was gay. He’d had no doubts about his sexuality since middle school, but he’d always figured it would be prudent to wait until college to come out. He hadn’t applied to any schools south of the Mason-Dixon Line. He wanted to put some distance between him and Georgia. But whenever he looked at that blank space next to Augustus Wainwright’s name,safesimply didn’t feel like an option. The truth had waited long enough.
“That the banner?” Elijah had just arrived at the Cumming house. Usually he only had eyes for Bella whenever she was near, but this time was different.
“Yep,” Isaac said.
“I can’t believe you just dropped this shit on me today. Is there anything else I need to know?”
“You should know that what we’re about to do could put us both in serious danger,” Isaac informed his brother.
“If you aren’t up for it, I’ll help Isaac with the banner,” Bella offered.
“Nope,” Elijah told her. “My brother and I need to do it.”
Chapter 18
The Sound and the Fury
Everything was coming together. All the years of struggle were finally paying off. Lula Dean and Mitch Sweeney stood side by side on a wooden stage at the center of Jackson Square, with Augustus Wainwright behind them. Lula had on a cute coral dress from Ann Taylor that she’d seen the lady senator from Tennessee wear on TV. The members of the Concerned Parents Committee flanked the statue. The only person missing was James Wright, even though Lula had sent him a personal note just that morning inviting himagainto stand next to her and Mitch. A representative from Troy’s Black community would have gone a long ways toward keeping the woke crowd quiet. It was disappointing that James had chosen to abandon Lula in her time of need, but she couldn’t let that get her down. Melody Sykes had made up for it by baking hundreds of cupcakes and decorating them with miniature Confederate and American flags. Her husband, Randy, was holed up at his family’s cabin in the mountains, but letting his wife attend the rally sent a clear message to his supporters: Lula Dean was his pick for mayor.
As the people of Troy trickled into the square, television crews set up their equipment at the front of the stage. Not only was every network in attendance, they’d all sent their name-brand reporters. Photographers from newspapers and websites roamed the crowd, catching folks just as they bit into their Dixie cupcakes. Everyone who was anyone in Troy was there. Even Beverly and Trip Underwood had arrived to watch. Lula couldn’t waitto see that snooty woman’s face when she realized what a terrible mistake she’d made. Beverly had forgotten she lived in the South. Down here, you didn’t mess with history and heritage.
Lula was thrilled to find more of her foes in attendance. The librarian lady, Jeb Sweeney, and that witch Logan Walsh rescued in the woods—they were all there. Nathan had phoned to let Lula know he’d caught wind of a protest, and he’d sent Logan to keep an eye on things. Lula hadn’t thought it was necessary, but Nathan wasn’t a man who liked to hear the wordno. He referred to Logan as his “eyes and ears” and expected the younger man to take his place on the Concerned Parents Committee until all the Nazi business blew over. Whenever Lula seemed unhappy with the arrangement, Nathan reminded her of all the work he’d done to get the CPC up and running. None of this would be possible without him, and she owed him a debt of gratitude.
Still, Lula had been planning to beg Nathan to please send someone other than Logan to the next meeting. His protégé hadn’t been blessed with social skills. James Wright had never been comfortable around him, and Logan had scared a few ladies on the committee when he’d referred to Beverly as a feminist whore.
“He can’t go around town calling peoplefeminists,” Melody Sykes had said afterward. Lula promised she’d have a talk with him, but she still hadn’t found the time.
Lula glanced over her shoulder. Logan was positioned right behind her and Mitch, standing there like some kind of undercover Secret Service agent, with his sunglasses on, his legs apart, and his hands clasped in front of his privates. She couldn’t tell if he was looking at her or not, but she smiled just in case.
“Boy ain’t right,” Mitch had informed her when he showed up to the rally looking a bit ragged. “I slept with one eye open.”
“What’d he do?” Lula wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the answer.
“Asked me to join him for target practice,” Mitch said and wouldn’t say any more.
Lula snuck another peek at Logan Walsh. At least he was on their side, not the liberals’. Then the church bells began to toll the six o’clock hour, and Lula set all her worries aside, closed her eyes, and took a moment to thank the Lord. She’d found the one thing her life had been missing—a calling.Thisis what she was made for.
“How y’all doing today!” Mitch shouted into the mic to kick things off.
A light smattering of applause and a few half-hearted whoops from the crowd followed.
“Oh, come on now, I didn’t drive all the way to Georgia for a greeting like that. Gimme some Southern hospitality!”
The response was only slightly more enthusiastic, but Mitch didn’t seem to notice.
