Sit Down Marie!: Eugenia Fortes at the Hyannis Port Beach

Teaching Reflection by Maggie Nolan Donovan

Early elementary school teacher Maggie Donovan transcribed this story told to her by Eugenia Fortes, and shared it with students in her classroom. A teaching reflection follows the story.

In 1945, Eugenia Fortes refused to leave segregated East Beach on Cape Cod. In 2004, the beach was renamed in her honor. © Bill DeSousa-Mauk

Eugenia showed Marie all around the house. It was a big house, and Eugenia knew every corner. She often stayed here when the family she worked for was away.

She had been waiting for weeks for Marie to arrive for her first visit to Cape Cod. She had the day well planned. First the house tour and then a walk to the beach just down the road. They wouldn’t stay long — it was too hot — but Eugenia wanted Marie to enjoy the shining sands and blue waters of Nantucket Sound.

Marie and Eugenia had met when Eugenia boarded in Boston for the winter to take a job there. They both lived in a house for young African American women because they were not allowed to stay in white boarding houses or at the YWCA. Marie was a college student from Ohio. In the years since, Eugenia and Marie had stayed in touch. They had always dreamed that Marie would come to Cape Cod.

When they reached the Hyannisport public beach that perfect summer day [in 1945], they paused at the edge of the sand to choose the best spot for sunbathing.

Then they spread their blankets and stretched out. Marie wiggled her toes in the sand and breathed the salty air. The ocean stretched calm and sparkling before them. Eugenia felt happy inside. Her friend seemed so taken with how beautiful everything was. She sighed, closed her eyes, and let the sunshine spread over her.

“Excuse me.” A deep voice right beside them roused the friends from their daydreams. They looked up startled to see a police officer staring down at them.

“We’ve had a call at the station from one of the neighbors here. This is the white side of the beach. You need to move over there to the colored side.”

Marie and Eugenia stared at the man in amazement. Then Marie scrambled to her feet. Eugenia reached up and grabbed at the hem of Marie’s skirt. She gave a hard tug on the cloth.

“Sit down, Marie!” she commanded.

Marie looked at the policeman’s red, nervous face. Then she looked at Eugenia’s brown, determined one. Eugenia’s eyes almost shot sparks, they looked so angry. Her arms were folded, and her back was straight.

She was sitting up staring at the ocean. Marie sat back down.

Eugenia never looked at the police officer but she said in a clear voice, “This is a public beach. We’re staying right here!”

Marie glanced up at the man. His face was sweaty and his hands were shaking a little. Marie glanced at Eugenia. Her face was calm and her eyes never left the water.

So, they sat. No one said anything. After a while, the man gave up and walked away. Marie was hot and thirsty. She started to feel a little hungry too.

And she was worried that the police officer might come back, or that the neighbors might gather.

“Why don’t we go back now, Eugenia,” she suggested. “You made your point. I’m hot. Didn’t we plan to just stay a few minutes?”

“We’re not going anywhere,” Eugenia replied.

And so, the two friends sat and watched the sun drop lower and lower toward the horizon. Not until the first star shone in the evening sky did they get up and leave the beach.

Teaching Reflection

Groups of tired children with their parent chaperones drifted back to the grassy hill where we were meeting before riding the bus back to school. We had just spent three hours at the Roger Williams Zoo in Providence, Rhode Island. We were hot, thirsty, dusty, and generally worn out, though we’d had a lot of fun. Two groups were still lingering inside, and those of us sitting and waiting were getting restless. I had asked the children to sit, since the hill was next to the parking lot where countless school buses were pulling in and out. For a while they remembered, but then one or two started to pop up and move around. “Sit down,” I reminded them, and they did, but someone else would pop up. “Sit down,” I kept repeating. After a few reminders, the seated children took up my words. “Sit down!” They scolded their fidgety classmates.

Among the chorus of “Sit downs!” I heard a voice say, “Sit down, Marie!” There are no Maries in our class, but those words have been spoken many times as children acted out the story of Eugenia Fortes and her friend Marie. Now the children on the hillside all began to say, “Sit down, Marie!” to each other. It became a group activity. Someone would jump up, everybody would shout together, “Sit down, Marie!” and the person would sit back down fast to be replaced by one or two others who, in their turn, were told to, “Sit down, Marie!” The minutes flew by until the missing classmates returned. Then they were quickly taught, “Sit down, Marie!” before we boarded the bus.

On the long ride home, I mulled this new activity over in my mind. This memorable phrase, spoken on a segregated beach on Cape Cod 60-something years ago, had become part of our classroom vocabulary, serving both as a directive and a group activity. It belonged to us all, and when the children gleefully shouted, “Sit down, Marie!” all those standing promptly sat down. No one had waited or changed the activity by refusing.

The weight of history was tangled in those words and the ritualized action that accompanied them. It seemed to me that both the language and the actions of Eugenia Fortes had been internalized by these children who so strongly identified with the spirit of her story. “Sit down” is the spirit too of Rosa Parks, of all those who sat in at lunch counters, of African American children who sat at their desks in school and studied as all around them white classmates pulled their desks away, of Freedom Riders on Greyhound buses. And I believe these 1st-graders feel heir to that spirit and are welcoming it into their lives.

As a confirmation to this idea, some children riding in the back of the bus began to sing, “If you miss me from the back of the bus…” and everyone took up this favorite song and sang with gusto. We traveled to the music of our own voices raised in the songs of freedom all the way home.

© Maggie Nolan Donovan. Printed with permission.