Jaylen Greene gave the dedication speech. He was a junior at Fort Valley now, with a 3.8 GPA, and planning to apply to law school.
“My great-grandmama used to say that the truth is like a seed,” he said. “You can bury it, but you can’t stop it from growing. Somebody just has to water it.”
He looked out at Caleb Miller in the third row in his deputy’s uniform.
“Somebody kept a notebook,” he said. “And that was enough water.”
After the service, we had supper in the fellowship hall: fried chicken, collard greens, macaroni and cheese, and sweet potato pie made from Hattie Greene’s recipe, which her granddaughter had found in a recipe box in the farmhouse on Cypress Creek.
I ate two pieces. Aunt Lorraine ate three and swore she’d only had one.
Back in Atlanta, I hear cases on the twenty-first floor of the Richard B. Russell Federal Building, wear my robe, manage the docket, listen to counsel, and strive for fairness as before.
