As the crowd anxiously awaits the arrival of the fire truck summoned by one of the hospital staff, they marvel that a quiet, unassuming man like Mr. The hospital's white staff, who have been watching the black spectators from inside the hospital and are relieved that the crowd has not gathered to riot, cautiously venture outside the hospital and begin moving through the crowd, shouting orders and creating confusion. Suddenly, as the crowd scrambles to help the woman's daughters save the rose petals from being trampled in the snow, another woman, wearing an old quilt and a navy-blue knitted cap, starts to sing. Smith perched atop the hospital roof, the pregnant woman drops her basket of red velvet rose petals, which temporarily distracts the spectators from the spectacle of Mr. The group of onlookers includes a stout woman with several children, a gold-toothed man, and a well-dressed pregnant woman - "the dead doctor's daughter" - with her two daughters. On February 18, 1931, about fifty black people have gathered to watch Robert Smith - a black insurance agent who works for the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company - prepare to fly, using homemade blue silk wings, from the roof of Mercy Hospital across Lake Superior.
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