Wanting to See MLK

I finished my chores and went to look for momma. I found her on the back porch, hanging clothes out to dry. “Can I go now? I put all my toys away and I made my bed.”

Momma set down the basket of wet clothes and then kneeled to look me in the eyes. She held my shoulders in her strong but soft hands and pulled me close. “Honey, I don’t want you going out there by yourself. I told you that.” She clutched me to her bosom. “Wait until your brother gets home. You two can go together.”

I didn’t want to wait for my brother. I’d been waiting for him my whole life – or at least it seemed like it. I turned five years old that fall. I was old enough for a half day of kindergarten; I should have been old enough to go down to the capitol – especially on such an important day. “Please can I go? Please! Nuthin’s gonna happen to me.”

She stood up and looked down at me, holding up her index finger. “I told you to wait for your brother, and I don’t want to hear any more about it.”

“But I can,” I started to say, but she put on her serious face and I knew I’d better stop. I bowed my head, slithered toward her, and wrapped my arms around her legs. “Could you take me?”

I heard her sigh, and then she snatched me up in her arms and carried me to the sofa. “Honey, you know that I’d love to go with you, but I can’t. I have to finish the Johnson’s laundry and then I have to start on the Dexter’s.”

Mention of the laundry made me mad. We used to do things on the weekend, but ever since daddy went in the hospital, momma would spend every Saturday and Sunday washing everyone in the neighborhood’s clothes. “You’d rather wash clothes than help your own son!” I couldn’t believe I’d said it. I regretted it immediately. Half incensed and half frightened out of my gourd, I jumped off her lap and ran to my room. I sat on my bed and pouted. I heard momma’s wringer washer start up about ten minutes later.

I couldn’t wait for my brother to come home. He attended high school and played football at Sidney Lanier. If he did come home before it got dark, it’d be just before. I decided to slip out and head to the capitol building by myself. Mom would never know. She was too busy playing with her washing machine to miss me.

My escape plan was as sophisticated as I was – wait until the wringer stopped and then slip out the door while momma was hanging wash in back. It worked.

I ran the mile or so to the capitol. A huge crowd had already assembled nearby. Most of the attendees were black, but there were a few white people also. Most kept to themselves and listened to the men speaking on the steps of the capitol. Martin Luther King Jr. was there. So was Jesse Jackson. These names were as common to me as my brother’s or my own and I had to get closer to see, in person, the men behind these names. “I have a dream…,” I heard above the noise as I worked my way through the crowd. I don’t know who said it because at five years old, I was too short to see above all the people. I spied an opening to the left and moved in that direction.

As I got closer, I quickly realized why the crowd was avoiding this corner. A group of “good ole boys,” at least a dozen, stood in the center of the street. They wore white hoods and carried baseball bats. They weren’t there to see Dr. King speak. Hoping they hadn’t yet seen me, I started walking backwards. I began to turn around, but I wasn’t quick enough. “Hey, looks like we got a secret agent,” the hooded man closest to me called out to his friends – he was pointing right at me.

I froze. Two or three of the white hoods advanced on me. I wanted to scream but I couldn’t remember how to open my mouth. I finally remembered but not before one of the white hoods grabbed me by the head and covered my lips. “Unless you likes the taste of bats, I’d keep that little trap of yours shut.”

I closed my eyes and felt myself collapsing. Forceful hands pushed and pulled me up, down, and from side to side. Directionless sounds swirled around me but I could no longer make out individual words. Without warning, I wet myself. The ripe odor of my urine mixed with the stench of sweating bodies, and I knew I was going to die.

A different aroma entered my nostrils. It was clean, antiseptic, but I couldn’t place it – bleach, that’s what it was. I wanted to open my eyes to determine its source, but like my mouth, my eyes did not respond to my wishes.

Then I heard a voice I thought I’d never hear again. “You let that boy go and you let him go now!” The hands that held me tossed me to the ground, and I found the strength to open my eyes. The white hoods kicked at the ground and shook their heads menacingly but they turned and walked away. I rotated my head over my left shoulder and snuck a peek at who stood above me. At the sight of my mom’s face, I leapt to my feet and threw myself around her legs.

My mom didn’t get her client's laundry done on time that weekend. Mr. Johnson refused to pay. I have no idea how much money my little stunt lost our family as momma never brought the subject up, but I never again questioned whether or not she loved me.

Originally written on 9/29/2006