A Change Gonna Come

There is a ledger in the North Carolina State Archives. Bound in leather. Column after column of names. It is titled Johnston County Permanent Registration of Voters, 1902 to 1908.Every name in it is white. That was the point.Smith Brooks had sat on the Smithfield Board of Commissioners. Mack Sowell would sit on the Selma Town Council. Between them: ninety-two years. Two names. And everything Johnston County built to keep those names from being closer together.This is A Change Is Gonna Come.