The heat was different from any heat he had known, the air heavy and turgid, the jack pines wavering and deformed as the heat and the air distorted the image. A little while ago the few hundred people behind him had been singing, “We shall riot, we shall not be moved. We shall not, we shall not be moved. Just like a tree that’s standing by the water, we shall not be moved.” But now the singing had stopped, and they walked quietly. The heat seemed to be increasing. Under his suit jacket, his shirt was soaking wet, and a veritable host of insects, apparently attracted by the odor of perspiration, helped to make life even more miserable. The march was led by three men. In the center was the Reverend Marchand Jones, a tall Baptist preacher, deep black in color and possessed of a booming magnetic voice. On his right hand was Martin Carter, his clerical collar wilting, his face pink, his hair still thick but almost entirely white, a transition that had taken place over the past half decade and that made him look somewhat older than his fifty-five years.
