“November Sun”

A 1946 Florida Short Story

The November sun in Florida was still bold enough to feel like July elsewhere. It beat down on the sugarcane fields outside Mims, where Samuel Carter worked rows longer than his patience. He had survived the war—Italy, '44—only to return to a country that celebrated his service with handshakes from white officers overseas and closed fists back home.

 The U.S. flag patch on his old Army jacket had lost its color, but Samuel hadn’t forgotten why he wore it. Freedom meant something different in Germany than it did here.

The election had just passed on November 5th. White newspapers called it peaceful. Black folks called it what it was: a reminder. In Georgia, a Black veteran named Maceo Snipes had been killed that summer for daring to vote. Everyone in town whispered that Florida wasn’t far behind.

Tonight, Samuel meant to be bold.

He walked the dusty road toward the small church lit by kerosene lamps—the only polling site where Black people would even be shown a ballot. His wife Clara waited on the porch in her Sunday dress, though it was just a Tuesday. She placed her hand on his chest.

“You don’t have to do this,” she whispered, voice trembling like the palmettos in the wind.

“Yes, I do,” Samuel answered, steady. “What’s the point of surviving a war if I can’t survive my own country?”

He stepped inside the church. Every head turned—not in judgment, but in pride. Men, he fought beside in quiet battles at home nodded silently. The older women hummed “Lift Every Voice and Sing” under their breath.

When Samuel reached the ballot box, his hand hesitated only for a single heartbeat. Then he marked his vote—small, quick strokes of a pencil that felt louder than dynamite.

Outside, a truck engine revved. Bright headlights cut across the church windows. The singing stopped.

The night riders had arrived.

Deacon Miller spoke with calm authority: “You go out the back. Your family’s waitin’.”

Samuel squeezed Clara’s hand as they crept behind the building. “We run together,” he said.

No one slept that night.

But no one died, either—because the entire community kept watch, men holding tools that doubled as weapons, mothers ready to shield children with their own bodies.

Dawn finally broke. The riders were gone.

Samuel stood in the amber light, thumb brushing the ink still staining his fingers.

“I lived while Black,” he said, chest rising with pride.

“And I voted.”

The November sun climbed higher—still bold, still burning—just like him.