Before I can ask what he means, he drifts back toward the door beyond the rail.

The hum of voices in the church is like the low rumble before a big high school graduation. People are still squeezing through the double doors at the back, and after the younger men give up their seats to women, the rear of the room swells with bodies, and the balcony creaks from the collective weight of children. I start to offer my seat to a woman standing against the wall, but Annie holds me firmly in my spot.

As we wait for the service to begin, I look to my left and right. The deeply creased faces around me have seen more toil and pain than I ever will. Life here has always been hard. In 1927 the river inundated the Louisiana Delta for miles inland, trivializing the flooding caused by Hurricane Katrina. Raccoons and poisonous snakes filled the trees, while rat-covered logs and rotting cattle floated between the hacked-through roofs serving as islands of grim survival. On the levees near the river, Red Cross camps struggled to treat refugees suffering from pellagra and other maladies. Out here, the only food or medicine arrived on small boats sent by the federal government. Yet still these people refused to leave their land. More than a few of today’s mourners look like they lived through the ’27 flood, and most of them probably remember the 1960s like they were yesterday.

The humming voices drop to nothing as two men wearing suits wheel in a coffin of dull gray metal. After they depart, a tall black man who must be at least ninety walks out to the lectern carrying an ancient Bible. He is the Reverend John Baldwin, a legend in this parish. Probably six feet four during his prime, Baldwin now has the subsident stoop of osteoporosis, but the wise eyes behind his large gold spectacles communicate dignity and compassion.

A hatted matron seated at an upright piano up front begins the service with a hymn I don’t recognize, but none of the black people in the pews need a hymnal. They sing with full-throated passion, tempered by the sadness appropriate to the occasion. After the last chord fades and dies, Reverend Baldwin looks over at another preacher who appears to be a younger version of himself. When that man nods, Reverend Baldwin begins to speak.

“Greetings, brothers and sisters,” he says in a deep baritone ravaged by time and cigarette smoke, “friends and neighbors. My son Richard recently took over as pastor of this church, but today I will preside over the funeral of my good friend, Henry Sexton. I ask you new folks to be patient with me. I’m ninety-two years old, and it takes me a while to say what I mean to, but I can only hope that you find what I say worth the waiting.”

Reverend Baldwin turns his head slowly and takes in the sea of faces upturned to his. Then he smiles with a generosity of spirit that makes many of the whites in the pews smile in return.

“This is more white folks than I’ve preached to since 1964, when the children from the white colleges up north came down to help in the struggle. That makes me happy, despite the sad occasion. People say the most segregated day of the week in America is Sunday, and they’re close to right. But today, in this church, that’s not true.”

Reverend Baldwin looks down at his Bible, but he’s not reading anything. He’s thinking, or perhaps praying. Then he turns around to where the long coffin lies on a bier draped with a cloth to hide the trolley wheels beneath it.

“First I want to answer the question some of my parishioners are asking themselves. Why is that white man lying here, in our church, instead of in the white church down the road? Ain’t that the way it’s supposed to be? Well . . . yes and no. That’s the way it is most times, I’m sad to say. But it’s not the way it ought to be. When a man gets to where Henry Sexton is now, he ought to be where he belongs, and Henry belongs right here. His mother knew that, and that’s why she asked me to preside over his funeral service. And when she asked, I knew this was something I had to do—indeed, I’m proud to do. Why, you ask? Because every member of this church owes Henry Sexton something. What, you ask? What do I owe that white man?

“First, your prayers, brothers and sisters. And your thanks.”

Reverend Baldwin takes out a white handkerchief and dabs sweat from his brow. “Last night I thought about comparing Henry to a hero from the Bible. But that was an age of heroes, if the stories aren’t exaggerated. Being a hero in our time seems particularly hard. Our children don’t even know the names of the martyrs who freed them from the chains of bondage. They know Martin Luther King, and Malcolm X, and Medgar Evers maybe. But ask them who Wharlest Jackson was, or Jimmy Revels, and watch the blank look come over their faces. If it’s not on the TV, they don’t know it. Well, Henry Sexton—the man who brings us together today—is a hero from our time.

“The scripture says, ‘He who lives by the sword shall die by the sword.’ Well, Henry Sexton did not live by the sword. Yet he died by it. Henry never resorted to violence—not until his last day on earth, anyway. And even then, he only did so to save the lives of others. I have preached nonviolence all my life, but that’s not an easy road, I can tell you. I served in the navy during the war against Japan. But I wasn’t allowed to carry a gun, not even in a combat zone. I was a cook, like Jimmy Revels. And there were times, such as when we were being attacked by kamikaze airplanes, that my greasy, shaking hands itched to have a gun in them. But they never did.

“After the Lord brought me home, though, I finally picked up a gun, to defend my family and protect my flock. Henry wrote an article about us, the Deacons for Defense. He must have asked me five hundred questions for that story.” Reverend Baldwin smiles in fond remembrance. “He pestered me night and day. Henry asked what I’d think about when I laid in a ditch all night with a shotgun to keep marauders from burning down our churches and homes. I told him that when I wasn’t praying, I was asking myself the same question my good friend Wharlest Jackson used to ask: ‘How can we change the white man’s heart? How can we make him see that we’re all the same inside?’

“Over the years, I’ve asked myself what made Henry different from other people. One answer is that he spent his younger years in the company of Albert Norris and his family, some of whom we have with us today.”

“Amen,” says a soft voice.

Stretching my neck, I try to see who the pastor might be talking about, but this is foolish. I wouldn’t recognize any of Albert Norris’s family even if I saw them.

“For another,” Reverend Baldwin goes on, “Henry was a musician, and music always brings a man closer to his fellow man, and to the Lord. I’ve known very few men with music in their hearts who hated their brothers and sisters.”

“Hallelujah!” someone calls.

“Yes, Lord!” chimes in another.

“But as much as Henry loved music, that was not his calling.” Reverend Baldwin looks slowly around the room, as though he has all day to speak to this crowd. “Do you know what Henry’s calling was?”

“Tell us, Reverend.”

“Henry’s calling was truth.”

“Praise Jesus.”

“Henry’s calling was justice.”

“Yes, Jesus!”

Annie looks around to find the authors of these cries, but she doesn’t seem disturbed by them in the least.

“When other men reached for swords,” Reverend Baldwin says in a stronger voice, “Brother Henry reached for a pen. And with his other hand he reached for a shovel. And with that shovel, he dug for the truth. You know, the truth isn’t hard to find, if you’re willing to get your hands dirty. Truth waits just under the surface for any man brave enough to scrape a little dirt away. But most people are too afraid or too lazy to get dirty. They’re afraid to ask the right questions. The hard questions. Brother Henry asked the hard questions. And after he got his answers, he took his pen and wrote them down.”