Praying for Sheetrock

Inspired by his role in the aftermath of the Finch shooting, Alston runs for office against Thorpe; Alston loses, despite Poppell’s help. A new controversy arises when the only black man on the county’s board of education, Chatham Jones, loses his job so the board’s foreman can appoint his white brother. Jones had called attention to a possible scandal in which a private white school may have used funds intended for public schools. The black community grows upset over Jones’ firing; in response, they reinstate the McIntosh chapter of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People). Alston and Grovner—a minister and schoolteacher—lead the organization. They also form the McIntosh County Civic Improvement Organization (MCCIO). Nonetheless, the all-white grand jury upholds Chatham’s dismissal.

Greene describes how community members gather at the local black episcopal church on a hot summer night in 1975. The black choir sings rousing hymns to keep spirits afloat. At the church, political meetings also take place during prayer meetings, which Alston leads. The book introduces Pinkney, an old friend of Alston and Grovner, who has migrated back to Georgia after working as a police officer in New York City; Pinkney was shot while working and now receives disability payments. Due to his personal exploration of America and Europe, people in McIntosh look up to him. Pinkney feels dismayed at how little progress has been made for blacks in McIntosh in terms of race relations: “Little petty stuff that should have disappeared fifty years ago […] it’s still buried inside everyone” (149). He joins Alston and Grovner to become political figures in McIntosh, and the community begins to refer to them as the Three Musketeers. Sheriff Poppell keeps tabs on their meetings through his spies. Pinkney makes remarks about Poppell at a local college, and Poppell threatens to sue Pinkney. Poppell then hires an attorney.

Thomas Affleck is a lawyer for the Georgia Legal Services Program (GLSP), which offers indigent clients in civil (noncriminal) cases free legal representation. Greene also introduces Mark Gorman, who volunteers for a program following his graduation from law school. The program dispatches Gorman to work in a legal office in Brunswick, Georgia for GLSP. Many of these lawyers for GLSP in the 1970s are young, idealistic, pro-civil rights activists—mostly white and from the North—though they clash with their coworkers who are more pragmatic and only want to help the poor. The black and female GLSP lawyers are the first of their kind to appear in many of these rural courthouses. Because these attorneys feel out of place in rural Georgia, they relate to their southern black clients in a way they could not back in the North.

In the summer of 1975, Gorman, Affleck, and another attorney named Ed Zacker are working in the GLSP office in Brunswick. Sheriff Poppell seeks their help to handle divorces and other minor cases in the county; Affleck and his team realize the power of the sheriff. Pinkney, Alston, and Grovner arrange a meeting with GLSP following a rise in racial tensions after Chatham Jones’ firing; the KKK marches in town, and someone even shoots at Alston. This meeting will change the Brunswick GLSP’s mandated divorce cases to one of high-profile, class action suits related to larger racial matters. 

The Three Musketeers and the Brunswick GLSP office compile a history of McIntosh County to build a legal case they can present in federal court. David Walbert comes down from GLSP’s Atlanta office to help with the case. The Brunswick GLSP office also meets with black community members in a local church. Eventually, the GLSP realizes that they need to make discrimination in grand jury selection the focus of their lawsuit, as the grand jury has never included any black people.

To prove discrimination in an electoral process, the lawyers must demonstrate that there is not “equal access” for minorities to get into the system. This will be difficult for lawyers Affleck, Gorman, and Walbert to prove in McIntosh County, because Curry and Thorpe sit on the county commission and black voter registration is high in the county. After combing through data, the lawyers determine they will prove that the McIntosh County Board of Education has been appointed by an illegally selected grand jury that does not represent the high percentage of blacks in the county.

Alston is unsurprised by the lawyer’s findings, but he does find these outsiders’ legal education to be incredible. Of Alston, Greene writes, “And he knew that the white men who had befriended him—the first white friends of his life—were not part of any local power structure […] but were outsiders, hippies, idealists, Yankees” (179). Alston has to use his common sense as an uneducated laborer to determine whether these men are trustworthy; he decides to trust them. The lawyers will put forward a federal lawsuit against the head of the jury commission—also known as the sheriff’s brother—and the board of education.

The Three Musketeers must secure additional black plaintiffs from the community who will sign onto the lawsuit. They organize a meeting at a Baptist church. Afterward, the white lawyers assure attendees that the people have a legal right to bring forth a lawsuit. However, some black residents remain skeptical that Poppell and other powerful people won’t retaliate against them. Alston, Grovner, and Pinkney have financial independence independent of an employer and are thus less vulnerable. These three men also have courage, which compels their friends to join them as volunteer plaintiffs.

The lawyers file the lawsuit on September 9, 1975. Greene introduces Charles Stebbins, the white Darien city attorney who has had very little interaction with black professionals. When the judge presiding over the case is going over the deposition, Poppell tries to enter the courtroom but is told to leave; this dismissal astonishes Poppell. This chapter also introduces the white county attorney, Dan White, whom the other white lawyers describe as fair. The case does not proceed to trial, as the judge orders in favor of the black plaintiffs and mandates that grand jurors be chosen randomly so as to prevent discrimination.

After winning the lawsuit, Alston runs for the position of county commissioner once more. Poppell says that he will garner votes in support of Alston, but Poppell decides to support the other candidate, who wins by three votes. The white lawyers find this loss suspicious. Affleck learns that were some possible instances of electoral fraud, including more than 100 black voters being turned away and a surge of absentee votes for the other candidate. Affleck files a legal challenge, but the judge does not rule in their favor. The lawyers consider other alternatives, such as splitting Darien and McIntosh County into two voting districts so that blacks could freely elect their own representative instead of one appointed by Poppell.

More trouble brews when Mayor Gene Sumner of Darien gets sworn into office in 1976 and promptly fires the seven black residents employed by the city. Because this mass firing occurs after the discrimination case and Alston’s election bid, black residents in McIntosh believe it is an act of retaliation. As others start to feel threatened and fight back against their changes, Alston begins to realize what an impact he’s made. Alston proposes that the black community boycott the white-owned businesses of Darien.

Hundreds of black residents flock to Darien’s city hall—as they did after Finch’s shooting—to demand that the men who were fired be rehired. The white lawyers who provide support at the scene in city hall recall that they’d never seen anything quite like it. The demand works; the seven men are rehired that same day. Alston, Grovner, Pinkney, and others celebrate at the only black-owned gas station in town, but they notice the sheriff’s deputies patrolling suspiciously outside of the station. The black men in the station pull out their weapons. One of the white lawyers says, “I came to realize […] that one of the principal reasons for relative peace between the races was that both were equally armed and each side knew it” (202). The black men escort the white lawyers back to Brunswick to protect them from Poppell’s forces.

Nonetheless, Alston proceeds with the boycott of white-owned businesses. Their list of demands grows to include hiring more black employees in McIntosh County businesses and proportional representation of black residents in city and county positions. The community believes the boycott feels right in line with their religious creed, as they had prayed for leaders, and they had received leaders in the form of the Three Musketeers. The boycott makes people like Thorpe uncomfortable, as they want to please everybody—black and white. Participation in the boycott is high. White business owners write an opinion piece in the local paper separating themselves from white politicians and urging black residents to end the boycott. 

Greene opens the chapter with a story about a Harvard graduate forced to first read the US Constitution in English and then the Chinese constitution—in Chinese—when he returns home to vote in Georgia. This quip shows the effect of discriminatory methods invented to keep black voters out of the ballot box in the South. Greene follows this quip with a seemingly contradictory quote from Williamson, the white publisher of the Darien News: “There’s never been a time that the black people didn’t control the elections. We are practically fifty/fifty. Voting as a bloc is what makes it powerful” (210). However, the white GLSP lawyer, Walbert, challenges this position, stating that there’s not much power in choosing between two different white segregationists—people who advocate for separate public spheres for black and white people.

Meanwhile, the boycott ends, and the county commission concedes to one of the black community’s demands, which is to form a biracial committee to preside over hiring in the county. Unsurprisingly, the commission doesn’t follow through on their agreement. The black community and the GLSP lawyers launch two different voting rights lawsuits to tackle the core power structures in the county: The NAACP v. the City of Darien and The NAACP v. McIntosh County. Greene introduces Dot Googe, who ran the Keystone Motel and serves as a clerk for the city council. Googe conveys her anger over the voting rights lawsuits, which she believes is unreasonable in part because the town has a black person on the city council. She feels miffed at what she perceives as the lack of respect that the GLSP extends to the council when they come to town.

Lawyer Dan White represents McIntosh County, and lawyer Stebbins represents the city of Darien. White agrees to comply with the county lawsuit and divides McIntosh County into five voting districts. The city refuses to settle, as Stebbins maintains that there is no overt discrimination in the voting process. The city uses the existence of Chester A. Devillers—the only black man on the city council—as an excuse to state that there is no discrimination in the voting process. The GLSP lawyers claim that the system is flawed because white officials either handpick black people—like Thorpe and Curry—or because black elected officials must be eminently more qualified than anyone else on city council—such as Devillers—to be elected. The judge presiding over the case against the city ultimately dismisses the lawsuit. Following the loss, the GLSP lawyers appeal their case to a higher court, taking the case to the US Circuit Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. The Fifth Circuit rules in favor of the black community and reverses the lower court’s decision. Ultimately, the city agrees to divide the district into two voting districts.

We shift to the next election, when Alston is running yet again for city council. He’s nervous, unsure of whether he’ll clinch a victory. Alston wins, and he is jubilant about his place in history. The black community celebrates at a local club.

Over a three-year period, the GLSP lawyers have thoroughly shaken up McIntosh County. There are other outsiders coming into McIntosh County around the same time. Other law enforcement begin targeting Sheriff Poppell and similarly autocratic sheriffs in other Georgia counties. While Poppell oversees an illegal marijuana shipment on the waterfront, a group of undercover government Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) officials rush toward him. Poppell and the DEA exchange gunfire. Poppell claims to be enforcing the law instead of being on the side of the drug smugglers. A local musician, Vic Waters, believes Poppell and writes a song about the night known as “The Saga of the Great Sapelo Bust.” A former police detective, Doug Moss, states that Poppell has been smuggling drugs long before the commercial drug trade. When a grand jury convenes to discuss drug indictments against Poppell and his friends, they find there is insufficient evidence. The DEA says of Poppell, “The old fox got away again” (239).

The sheriff manipulates county juries to thwart the FBI and DEA’s efforts to prosecute him. The FBI and Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) focus on federal law to take down Poppell. Greene reintroduces Bill Kicklighter, a GBI agent investigating Poppell. When a truck carrying Snickers crashes inside Darien city limits, Mayor Sumner offloads the candy bars to stores in Darien. In 1977, Mayor Sumner becomes indicted for theft, and Alston suspects that Poppell—who dislikes Mayor Sumner—is partly responsible for the indictment. Meanwhile, by 1975, the four-lane highway running through McIntosh, I-95, has finished construction. Far fewer tourists travel on Highway 17 through Darien, and the local economy—including the illegal activities in the clip joints—suffers. However, McIntosh remains.