By Ben Jones Rappahannock News Writer This is the

By Ben Jones

Rappahannock News Writer

This is the true story of two heroes. Max and Joe.

It was the spring of 1963 and a beautiful spring it was in North Carolina. The magnolia, the honeysuckle and the wisteria perfumed the dogwoods, the azaleas, the lilacs, and the crabapple blossoms. In Chapel Hill, the campus of the University was in glorious full bloom. But down on Franklin Street, the main drag, there was tension among the blossoms and fear among the flowers.

As our civil rights march moved toward the business district, some angry hecklers shouted racist epithets and held placards that said things like “Segregation Now and Forever!” and “No Race Mixing!” Yet to come in that watershed year was the death of JFK Yet to come were the murders of Viola Liuzzo and Cheney, Goodman and Schwemer. Yet to come was the church bombing in Birmingham. Yet to come was the March on Washington and Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. But in the past few months there had been increasing violence around the sit-ins and marches by our determined band of demonstrators in Chapel Hill. The old ways die hard.

I understood the dangers better than most because I was no “wild eyed outside agitator from up north” but a white southern country boy raised in the strict segregation of the times. I had come to believe, though, that no American should be denied a hamburger in a public place because of the way the good Lord designed him. Nor should he or she be denied to vote. Or denied equal job opportunities. These seem like obvious notions now, but there was a wall of defiance to those ideas on that beautiful spring day 38 years ago.

This was the biggest demonstration yet, about 350 people. We were mostly white students and young black townspeople, but there were a significant number of faculty members, clergymen, and even a few business folk. The tension eased as we sang and chanted slogans.

Yes, there were heroes in those days and I saw two of them that day. Our demon