Memories of a King
I posted the following on the "Tell Me More" blog last week and an edited portion was read on-air at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89461082 . Been a long time posting, I know. I'm back now, and will on occasion be posting. And coming back to writing. I'm ready.
On 4/4/68 I was 13 days from my 10th birthday. I'd walked home from school, and let myself in (I was a latch-key kid), fixed a snack and turned on the tv. A newsflash came on that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had been shot, and later, we heard he was dead. My father came home from his mail carrier job, and soon my m other came from her war on poverty job.
We lived in South Central, not far from the epicenter of the 1965 Watts Riots (which I witnessed from the roof of my house). After shock and disbelief, the first reactions I recall (although my father was a Baptist minister) were statements that the city was going to burn.
In fact, that fear seemed to be on everyones minds. I recall the news going from excerpts from his "I have a Dream" speech to tape recordings of his "Mountaintop" speech given in Memphis a few days before the shooting. My parents, and their friends, who were all members of SCLC, the NAACP and involved in local and grass roots politics and "the movement" all felt that he'd predicted his own death.
I remember being angry and confused that he was killed, and fearful that riots would start again. I mean, the burned ruins of all the businesses on Central Avenue from Compton to almost downtown (about 10 miles) still had not been cleared after three years.
Either that night or the next, much community organizing took place. Our phone was constantly ringing. We all (including my older, more militant sister then a sophomore at UCLA) attended a mass meeting of all organizations at 2d Baptist Church, then pastored by Rev. Thomas A. Kilgore, the local president of the SCLC and a mentor of Dr. King from Morehouse (he was the former Chair of its Board of Trustees). He chaired the meeting along with Rev. H.H. Brookins, then a major pastor at an AME church (and an early proponent of what you have been calling Black liberation theology).
My mom's friends from Welfare Rights Organization; Son's of Watts; SCLC; NAACP; WLCAC; Mayor Sam Yorty's office (not silent Sam, himself); Councilmen Tom Bradley; Mervyn Dymally (later Lt. Gov); and Leon Ralph (and other's I don't remember (I don't remember if Yvonne Braithwaite --not yet Congresswoman or a Burke) was there or not. Representatives of Gus Hawkins were there. In sum, just about every
Black politician or community organizer, including most of the "progressive" methodist and baptist ministers and their wives. (how many times have I heard Jeremiah Wright like sermons in my life--oh please).
I'm sure Black actors, radio personalities, and tv newscasters were also present.
But my most vivid memory of that night is the separate entrances through separate doors of Ron Karenga's "US", resplendent in short unisex Daishikis, green army fatigues and combat boots, gleeming shaved heads (the women with short 'fro's), masculine faces adorned with fu manchus, bursting through heavy doors, marching in formation around the pews and standing along the walls, stoic looks on their faces.
A few minutes later, the Panthers entered like a bugle and drum corp, resplendent in Black leather jackets, black berets, and stood along the other walls opposite wall from US.
To this day, I am sure no one knows how many members of COINTELPRO or the FBI were in either formation, or just sitting in the church pews or watching from outside or in the air. But they were there too.
The agenda, of course, was preventing LA from burning like DC did. The most paranoid feeling I recall hearing that night was the if LA exploded again, the Black community would be sequestered after martial law was declared.
I fell asleep about midnight.
I do know that the next big meeting was a prayer meeting at the LA Coliseum.
LA did not burn.
I watched all 9 hours of the funeral on tv. After I matriculated at Spelman and met the King children and Mrs. King, I was amazed at how at ease they seemed with the history and their status. Yoki (and later Dexter) seemed to be the most outgoing. Marty (my classmate) was kind of shy but really sweet. Berniece had not come to Spelman before I graduated.
Later that summer, while watching election returns, I watched the assasination of RFK on live tv.
I watched RFK's funeral on tv.
A week after fall semester of 6th grade began, my mom asked me if I wanted to participate in LA's first busing program to integrate school's. I said yes.
A week later, I up at 6:30 to catch a yellow bus at 7:00 a.m., to attend an all white elementary school in Westchester near LAX. I was one of 3 sixth grade minorities, the other 29 kids were younger.
Our welcoming committee at the new school held signs which said, "Nigger go home".
Forty years later, I recall these early events in my life, and like Marvin Gaye sings, "It makes me wanna holler, hold up both my hands." Then I get up the next morning and return to my position as a deputy public defender (I'm soon entering my 24th year in that position).
I'm fairly sure I'd never become a criminal defense attorney but for my early introduction to what we used to call "the movement". I thank God I can witness to these events, and that they inspired me to my life's path and work.