Working

by Robert A. Caro

There was no shortage of dramatic testimony in the transcript of those hearings, but I finally decided to focus on that of thirty-eight-year-old Margaret Frost of the town of Eufala, in Alabama’s Barbour County. I think the element of Mrs. Frost’s story that got to me and made me want to tell it was that she had tried to register—had had a hearing before the three members of the Barbour County Board of Registrars, in January of 1957—and had been humiliated by them, and yet had tried again. The questions Mrs. Frost had been asked at that January hearing had been difficult, but she felt she had answered them all correctly. The board’s chairman, William “Beel” Stokes, had rejected her application to register, however, telling her she had missed one—and had refused to tell her which one it was, saying only, “You all go home and study a little more.” And despite the humiliation, Mrs. Frost had tried again, rehearsing, over and over, answers to