We Can't Breathe

Table of Contents

We Can't Breathe

January 1967 | Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Epilogue

WE CAN’T BREATHE

THE VOICES OF WE CAN’T BREATHE is a fictional adaptation of Breathing College Air, Chapter 8 of No Fear by Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, PhD.

This book is dedicated to the memory of Martin Luther King Jr and all victims of racism, late or living in the US, for their resistance to injustice and their resilience in humiliation, their rejection of oppression and their reaching out in courage and faith for the betterment of African Americans.

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent over the things that matter.

Martin Luther King

January 1967

Chapter 1

The city has no need of sun or moon, for the glory of God illuminates the city, and the Lamb is its light.

Revelation 21:23

I could hardly concentrate during the history lesson. I looked out the window, at the wind blowing the leaves of the red mulberry tree over the netball arena facing our classroom window and the rain dripping mildly from cold clouds. It would soon be break time, I thought, my mind wandering, still far back at home...

‘Hungozey, maybe you could answer that for us?’

Ooops! Mr Dwight had caught me out. I pardoned his mispronouncing Ngozi. I had to be careful. No use upsetting Mom with ‘bad’ reports sent home. I had been given a final warning. Why did teachers always pick on me?

I had to take a gamble and allow time for one of my cronies to rescue me from the mess I had landed myself in. As I stood up, I looked at the board for clues. There was nothing there to help. ‘Could you kindly rephrase the question, sir?’ I asked, tapping my head with my right hand as if that would help to warm up my brain and aid my memory.

I smiled inwardly. I had succeeded in distracting our teacher. He wore that smug look on his face that read, I’m not buying that. You’ve been caught red handed! Let’s see how you’ll get out of this!

Mr Dwight was not really annoyed, but he was aware that I was a bright pupil and could be performing far better but for my perpetual distractions. I could easily be his best pupil, rather than Bella. He watched me tap my head and ignored my giggling mates. One or two girls used the opportunity to get a quick drink from the classroom fountain at the back, near where I was seated. Another took some trash to the bin, and before scrunching the paper, she showed me the word ‘tributary’.

Mr Dwight got angry at my wasting his time and lashed out. ‘That’s it! You are spending your break time with me.’

Not even in your dreams, you joker! ‘Sir, is it the definition of tributary or examples that you want?’

I saw surprise play over his face. I owed my best friend Pam one. We had many things in common. Like Pam, I had no father. I had lost mine two months before I was born but had two grandfathers who enjoyed playing the role of dad. I still hoped for a live-in dad, though! Pam’s situation was that of an absent father whom she had never seen, but she too had a grandfather who role-played dad to her. Like me, she had no siblings, so our mothers allowed us to indulge in sleepovers during some weekends and holidays. We were more or less like sisters. She lived just five minutes away on the street backing on to mine.

The lesson ended with no further mishaps, and at break time I caught up with my two friends.

‘Where does your mind travel during lessons, Ngozi? Just thank your stars you got lucky this morning. You wouldn’t have been lucky with Mr Alan.’ Pam sounded worried.

More of my classmates came outside but stayed within their own little cliques. We were all Black Americans in my class, with a few African Americans. We were all very proud of our roots, though I was the only one using my Nigerian name, given to me by Grandma Lilee, my dad’s mother. My group usually headed to the music room at break, where we practised African dance steps and songs or sang songs by the Beatles. Bella was the only one amongst us who could actually speak Yoruba, because her Nigerian grandmother lived with her family and taught it to her. I so envied her. I had learned French in my first two years at junior high and had now picked up German in my final year, but what I wanted more than anything else was to understand and speak an African language.

I told myself that if I ever got involved with a man when I was at the right age, he would be an African man. After all, when I was seven years old Grandma Lilee had prophesied that I would go back to Africa!

On the way to the music room, I revisited the recent distraction in my mind. Grandma Lilee Coleman had discovered something about my school. I wondered what. My school, Hilary College for Girls, was an all-Black school, which was normal. I had overheard Grandma yelling at my mother for not ensuring I was in the right school. Their conversation kept playing in my head all through the day.

There was always something happening in my life to distract me. I often wondered how I always managed to top my class of forty without studying at all. I found all the lessons too easy and boring and wondered why some of my friends struggled with their book work. Mom simply told me I was a genius. Was there a school for geniuses?

I thought more about the conversation, once again hearing my grandma scolding Mom with a mild threat. My mother knew Grandma Lilee, though, and knew she would be foolish to not take her threat seriously.

‘Majestice!’ Grandma had screamed at Mom, ‘I don’t care this time how you are going to move heaven and earth, but Ngozi is coming out of that school. She doesn’t belong there!’

‘You are overreacting, Mother. Take it easy, please.’

‘Majestice, you know me well! You know I don’t like shouting. You are an only child, and I know what it took Olivia Thompson, your own mother, to get you so highly educated. You owe that to your own daughter. Or I will march into the school myself! When I next visit this house, Ngozi will be in the class that befits her brain. It is the sacrifice she has to pay to become someone in life. Please!’

That overheard conversation kept me awake every night and prevented me from concentrating in class all this week. I could not discuss what I’d overheard with either grown-up as it was considered extremely rude to eavesdrop. I didn’t want to be thought of as an eavesdropper! I wasn’t.

‘What’s going on, Ngozi?’ Bella stopped me in my tracks now.

Pam stood beside her, peering into my eyes. ‘Tell us what is happening?’

I sighed. ‘I will, but not all of it today. I heard Grandma Lilee and my mother arguing over something. This is the first time I’ve heard them quarrelling with one another. It’s so worrying.’

‘Oh,