Ta’leesha Till

Ta’leesha Till is a nine-year old fourth-grader from Jackson, Mississippi, whose family just migrated to San Diego, California from the Hospitality State. In the Tills’ former neighborhood on Farish Street, one student out of five is homeless. By law in Mississippi, an education merely has to be “adequate.”
In San Diego, Ta’leesha holds out to Reverend Stephen Bentham, the pastor of a shelter named The Settlement, a small picture that she carried with her 1700 miles West, a drawing of a child standing by a river. Orange curlicues of ink signify music. “Wade in the Water”, the youngster sings from the old spiritual with the coded message about freedom and emancipation.
What the child understands full well is that Reverend Steve decides who stays at the shelter and who can’t. And hoping for the best opens the heart. So she believes. 
Today, Ta’leesha’s mom Deeana and her dad Lester have brought the gifter youngster and her brother Rahem to downtown San Diego, on the trolley. What the family needs is a place to stay for four days while their broken car is fixed.
Since they arrived in San Diego, the family has been sleeping rough in their 1992 SUV at a City designated Safe Overnight Parking Zone. Local residents want the homeless out of their neighborhoods. Meanwhile, the Tills’ disabled vehicle has been towed away from the Safe Zone. The trek from Mississippi has fried the SUV’s water pump and scorched the radiator. And cars have to be drive-able to park at the regulated lot! So where else can the family of four settle in for four nights? The cheapest motel will cost their savings. 
Ta’leesha has been squeezing onto the front seat at night, threading her legs under the steering wheel. Rahem curls up with his parents on the folded-down rear compartment.
Both Ta’leesha’s parents have found temporary job in San Diego. And a junkyard in Barrio Logan offers salvaged auto parts on the cheap. More to the good, Ta’leesha’s uncle Tyrone is a Machinist’s Mate berthed off Coronado Island. The Navy mechanic can repair the car’s cooling system, saving the cost of labor.
Ta’leesha’s river portrait touches Reverend Bentham. A yellow sky blazes down, hot as brimstone and embers. How fine to wade in the azure water. Materials close at hand inspired the budding artist’s colors. And the minister recalls farmed red-rows of soybean bushes rippling in the purple rain. One summer when he was a seminary student, the future pastor has been sent to Mississippi to serve as a teacher’s aide. Like Ta’leesha, the young students in the Mississippi Delta also created their own rainbow palettes.
Ta’leesha’s artwork conjures shotgun houses in The South drawn with red salvaged pigment, huts straight and narrow as rife barrels. Such rural scenes from the back-country farmland were created by the children of fieldworkers on cardboard, not canvas or construction paper. As a paintbrush, any type of fur could serve to daub on images. Scapped tins of house-paint substituted for store-bought art supplies.
These youngsters from the Mississippi Delta, these lucky few, were enrolled in a summer program to help them graduate from high school and enroll in college perhaps. Such was Ms. Evers’ vision: a haven to build self-esteem so that they could advance.Personal, matter-of-fact, that was how Ms. Evers talked. Not from a book. She had made the summer program happen herself, without grants or public funds.
“Folk like you,” Ms. Evers addressed her accomplice from theology school, the pale novice sent South in God’s name, “our dusty road rarely meets. Yet, my youngsters need conversation to mingle and grow. Let them practice with you.”
Negotiating worlds, traversing the distance back and forth, crossing with grace. Silence is not wise, always.
Consider that back in Mississippi, Ta’leesha’ mom drove a tourist bus to sites that commemorate equal rights. A bullwhip hangs from a scaffold at many monuments. Downtown Jackson, Mississippi is a vacant shell. Whites have fled to the suburbs. Ta’leesha’s dad used to work at a warehouse that distributes food to the poor. A co-op that depends on convict labor allocated from Parchman Prison.
At The Settlement, Pastor Bentham turns to the Till family, as he places Ta’leesha’s picture on his busy desk.” You all must be starving. Let’s get something to eat!” 
And as the minister leads the way to the shelter’s cafeteria, the girl’s song runs through his thoughts.”Wade in the water, children. Wade in the water. The Holy Spirit brings us home!” Young as she is, could the youngster explain the double meaning? Walk in the water and be baptized. Walk in the water to throw bloodhounds off the scent.