Permission to Speak Freely

6

PEOPLE FEAR JUDGMENT

How very little can be done under the spirit of fear.

—FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE

COLEMAN COUNTY SITS just under two hundred miles southwest of Dallas in the-middle-of-nowhere, Texas. On a scorching summer day in 1960-something, Jerry Harvey sat on his in-laws’ porch playing dominoes on a folding card table. The temperature peaked at 104 degrees. Only a small fan, periodic wind gusts, and some cold lemonade mitigated the heat. But Jerry was nonetheless enjoying his game of dominoes, occasionally looking down at his feet to see fine grains of dust blowing across the deck and disappearing between the gaps in the floorboards.

Jerry’s father-in-law cut into the peace of the Sunday afternoon by suggesting that the family take a trip ...