IN REMEMBRANCE OF MARTIN.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (January 15, 1929 - April 4, 1968)
The Assassination
April 4, 1968, I was in the 11th grade, 16 years old, perpetually morose and in what I called "enemy territory" -- attending a fairly affluent, majority White and Jewish school in conservative, white-bread Indianapolis. That evening after school, I sat at home, cross-legged on the floor in front of the television set in our family room as I always did, watching the evening news. I was waiting for some leftist, white schoolmates of mine to come and pick me up. We were in the midst of the Indiana Democratic presidential primary. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., was in town, as well as Sen. Eugene McCarthy, stumping for support. My friends wanted to go hear McCarthy speak, and though I wasn't supporting him, I respected his stand on the Vietnam War. Bobby Kennedy was my candidate, and I had worked on his campaign. (At the end of his campaign in Indiana, I remember standing in a receiving line of campaign workers as Bobby worked his way down the line, dutifully shaking the hands of everyone and personally thanking us for our work. When he reached me, I remember that he was surprisingly short and that the encounter felt somewhat awkward and staged -- which, of course, it was! )
I'd decided I'd go hear what McCarthy had to say.
I watched as the station broadcast footage of the garbage workers' strike in Memphis and then of King's remarks. Just as the story went off the air, I got news that my friends were there to pick me up. I rose, and as I did so, I announced (to no one in particular) somewhat matter-of-factly, "That man's gonna be shot dead." The words escaped my lips almost unconsciously, reflexively, like an involuntary grunt. It wasn't the foreboding in his words -- "I might not get there with you, but I've been to the mountaintop, and I've see-een the Promised Land" -- it was something as close and certain as my own name. And it was disturbing -- but I had somewhere I had to be.
That moment was just one of many of my intermittent moments of precognition, which Mom always seemed to studiously ignore. I guess she figured if she didn't acknowledge them, then they weren't real. I think the notion of clairvoyance challenged her notion of the way things should be; she found the idea of the Unseen generally unsettling, as did, she told me many years later, her father (whom I never met) when deceased relations visited him. In retrospect, I figure my political activism, refusal to go to church, or stand for the flag or pledge allegiance, and my outspokenness, were troublesome enough. ("Best ignore this weird sh*t. Maybe it'll go away.")
It may seem curious, perhaps even self-centered, but I remember that night as much for that flash of future vision as for the tragic event that would turn the streets of the nation's inner cities into raging infernos -- battle zones with National Guardsmen on one side and mostly poor Black folk, venting their rage and despair on the other.
If anyone else in the room heard me, they said nothing in response, and I gave it no further thought. I headed out the door to greet my friends, but my mood had turned dark.
My friends and I drove to the McCarthy rally in one of those old VW hippie vans. If you grew up when I did, you know the kind -- like a cracker box on wheels with bad posture -- slump/round-shouldered and emblazoned with peace signs and plastered with bumper stickers. The radio was on, and somewhere en route, we heard the news that King had been shot. Everyone in the van gasped but me. My friends wanted to know if I wanted to go home, and I answered flatly, "No." We were almost there, and there was nothing to be gained by returning home, so we proceeded to the rally.
We'd heard no news on King's condition, but I knew immediately he was dead. He was only 39 years old.
That Night in Naptown
I don't remember much about what McCarthy had to say in addressing the virtually all-white crowd. I don't even recall where it was -- just a large meeting room, most likely in the community center of a Unitarian church or something similar. By then, the horrifying subject of conversation of the evening was King's death. I remember McCarthy addressed the matter in passing, and then went on with his remarks.
Afterwards, my friends and I decided to head to the Kennedy rally to see what was what. Unlike McCarthy, Kennedy had chosen to visit the heart of Indianapolis' inner city, speaking at an intersection near the projects -- the Naptown equivalent of 14th & U Streets.
By the time we arrived, it was on the downside of dusk. The area was eerily deserted, like an Old West ghost town in a '50s shoot-'em-up -- only instead of tumbleweed, the streets and sidewalks were strewn with broken bottles, shattered windows/windshields and debris. There was silence, but it was an angry silence. There was no quiet, no calm. No peace. The few streetlights that remained intact illuminated the shards of glass littering the asphalt, and they glinted in the semi-darkness. I remember at the time thinking it looked like the streets were blanketed with hard, angry tears. It was the way I felt -- hard and angry. I wanted at that moment nothing to do with my companions. All I wanted was to be in the company of My Own.
I found out after I got home that the reason Naptown hadn't burned like many of the other urban cores across the nation that night, with National Guardsmen, tanks and guns at the ready squaring off against Black folk turning their bitterness and rage and despair inward against their own communities, was that Bobby Kennedy had convinced the outraged and hurting throng to put down their bricks and rocks and return to their homes. He had summoned up the memory of his assassinated brother, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, and pleaded for calm.
Two months later to the day, Bobby Kennedy, at 42, would himself be the victim of an assassin's bullet.
I remember going to school the next day, seething with rage. For the non-Black kids, it was pretty much business as usual, and I had had enough. I stood up and addressed my homeroom, where I was probably the only black student, and chastized them for their apathy in the face of what was for my people a tragic loss. In that time of increasing militancy in The Movement, I told them that King was the last friend White folks had, and that they'd better straighten up and start paying attention to something other than their clothes from preppy Roderick St. Johns and who was going to The Rivvy (the segregated Riveria Country Club). The response was sullen silence.
Later that day, the school administration allowed the Black kids to go home early. I suppose it was Our version of a snow day, or maybe Rosh Hashana, when all the Jewish kids -- usually about a fourth or more of every class I had -- were allowed the rest of the day off. I also recall that a lot of the ass-backward knee-grows who chose to go home early used the time off not as a time of mourning and paying their respects -- but to throw a party.
That was another thing I recall vividly -- and another reason I knew I needed to get the hell on up out of Indiana and get my Black, militant, trouble-making bee-hine to Howard University -- and on the quick.
Principled Nonviolence
Like a lot of Black youth and like many of the students at Howard, apparently, I, too, repudiated nonviolence. But I still respected King, though I would sometimes roll my eyes and shake my head when he would speak of Whites as our "brothers and sisters." I still remember reading King's "Showdown for Nonviolence" that appeared in The Saturday Evening Post shortly before his assassination. Never having been a religious person, I always suspected that King's espousal of nonviolence sprang from some vestigial reluctance to challenge, and feelings of impotence in the face of, White authority. I eventually came to a realization and understanding that King's principled stand for "militant nonviolence," as he called it, was deep-rooted in his religious faith and personal spirituality. The man was fiercely resolute; he was a militant -- in the truest sense of the word. One need only watch the footage of some of his speeches and sermons to see the outrage and tenacity and courage of the man.
I'd like to share with you a link to a video of a John Legend performance dedicated to the memory of King, interspersed with montages of King's life and death. The song is "Pride" ("In the Name of Love"), a piece by U2 (a band fronted by another principled visionary and activist whom I respect, Bono) .
Enjoy. :)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2008/04/03/DI2008040301941.html
A Legacy of Commitment to Righteous Struggle
Every year, from the day after Christmas/first day of Kwanzaa to the end of January, I proudly wear a button issued at the time Martin Luther King's birthday finally became a national holiday. And I take time to read from his collected writings and speeches. These things help remind me of the immeasurable debt of service that I/we owe to King and those who stood with him, and behind him, and to The Ancestors, who, often at great personal risk -- and sometimes mortal sacrifice -- enunciated a Vision, lived a Purpose, and dreamt a Dream to make for us, as the Old Ones used to say, "a way outta no way."
I thank God for Them.
*bowing low in respect*
