DOTSON
RADER
whole thing to get yourself together inside, I think I would be catching
a fix each night, or trying to get a piece like the end of the world. But
the Movement, the Movement gives you a place."
Anne lives in Erie, Pennsylvania. She is seventeen years old, preg–
nant and a Christian. In that .order. She lives with her parents (her
father
is
a laborer at a paper mill) in a small frame house in a section
of town that hugs the land between the .downtown commercial district
and the polluted lake, an area rapidly deteriorating, populated in vague
racial patterns by working-class blacks and whites.
When Tom and I came to see her, Anne was sitting out on the
fr.ont porch on a chain swing next to her mother. We introduced our–
selves and then Anne introduced us to her mother. The mother said
nothing, stood up and walked inside, slamming the screen door.
We went into Anne's room. It was small, very neat. Posters of
Huey Newton and Allen Ginsberg (in an Uncle Sam hat) were over
the bed, and a p.oster in Day-glo red and green spelling LOVE. Tom
and I sat on the bed, Anne across from us on a straight-back chair,
looking very lovely, delicately erotic, her tiny body comf.ortably slumped,
the pregnant bulge of her stomach in outline beneath her yellow
cotton dress. It was Midwestern, that time with Anne, with her flat
speech and patience, her muted anger, her dress and her hair
-
braids,
like I haven't seen braids since the Heidi television special- the
cleanliness of her house and the sense of r.ootedness in the community.
We chatted awhile, and then Tom asked what events had radical–
ized her.
"A lot of things. In school there have been troubles with the Ne–
gro boys, fights between whites and Negroes in the playground after
school. They're discriminated against. That's how it started, 1 guess.
I mean, started me thinking about politics and things."
"Any specific event, anything personal touch off your thinking?"
"You mean like gettting arrested?"
"No, something before you were an activist."
"I'm a Baptist," she admitted, smiling. "I was raised a Baptist. My
father teaches Sunday school. 1 believe in the Lord. The Lord Jesus
said to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and visit the sick. Jesus
Christ told us to give our wealth to the poor. I believe that ... About
a year and a half ago, I took one of my girlfriends to church. We were
having an 'Andrew Week' .. ."
"What's that?" Tom asked. I had never heard of it either.
"... Andrew brought his friends to the Lord to hear the Gospel.
So, during that week, we act like Andrew. We bring our friends to
