#MLK50 Where Were You on April 4, 1968?

Here’s an excerpt of my book, LITTLE DID I KNOW: The Coming of Age of a Black Boomer. The story stems from my experience moving from an interracial Chicago suburb to a racially-polarized Memphis in the immediate aftermath of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. It a story of politics, social change and shifting paradigms resulting in the unconventional ending to my high school years.

“… All roads were leading our family South. When the phone rang, it was as if a starter’s gun had sounded. The long marathon of my trek to adulthood began with a series of events that commenced that day, shaping my life forever.

As there were only two phones in the house, one in the kitchen and one in my parents’ bedroom, most calls were hardly private. Even though I was in another room, I knew this call was a serious one. My mom answered the telephone and listened carefully, and then she called Dad to the phone. He gave a few instructions and then hung up the phone. There was a brief pause before the two of them began to speak very earnestly. The longer they spoke, the louder my mother’s voice became until her voice was rising an octave with each new sentence. Finally, I got up from my comfortable position on the couch to investigate.

As I walked into the kitchen, I saw a look of panic on my mother’s face. When my parents realized I was there, they stopped talking and looked at me for a long moment, as if they were unsure what to say. I didn’t have to ask anything, they knew I wanted to know what was going on. Dad looked at Mom, and then responded to my silent question. He said, ‘Philip is in jail in Memphis’.

I did a double take. ‘What?’

Then I got the story. There had been a riot in downtown Memphis. Earlier that day, Martin Luther King led a march in support of the sanitation workers there. The workers walked off the job in February after the compactor of a malfunctioning and ill-maintained garbage truck crushed two co-workers to death. The workers had been on strike ever since. They demanded a decent wage, humane work conditions and the ability to organize as a union.

The strike further polarized an already racially divided city and galvanized the black community. At the march, escalating tensions between marchers and the police erupted and the peaceful demonstration disintegrated into pandemonium, and violence. Windows were shattered and stores looted. The police shot a sixteen-year-old boy to death.

News of the clash travelled fast, and the disrupted march served as a call to arms for my brother and his cohorts in the small Mississippi town one hundred miles away. He and two others drove to Memphis. They believed with all their hearts that this was the beginning of the anticipated “revolution”. By the time the young men reached Memphis, they were unaware of a dusk to dawn curfew imposed by the Mayor. As they drove through the very unfamiliar city, they found themselves in a part of town in which three young black men did not belong. It wasn’t long before the police stopped their car. Then I heard the worst of it. The stop resulted in a thorough search of their car. The search uncovered two guns, tucked away in the vehicle’s trunk.

On a day in Memphis such as this one, a day with heightened tensions as sharp as a razor’s edge, the police responded to the discovery of the guns with force. Multiple police units arrived at the scene as reinforcements. Mom’s anxiety reached its peak when she heard that the young men absorbed some rough treatment at the hands of the police officers. One suffered significant injuries during the arrest. My brother’s glasses were deliberately broken. An overzealous cop threatened to shoot all three young men in the back, claiming they were attempting escape. Fortunately, a more level-headed superior arrived on the scene in time to dissuade this officer and thwart that plan. At the time of the call, my brother and his mates were in jail. I’ll never forget the look on my mother’s face. Her first born was in a Southern jail over 500 miles away.

The frantic phone calls began. Dad called his Memphis contacts. A lawyer was needed right away. Mom called Philip’s college to obtain information needed to secure his bail. It was a very tense and frantic evening. The tension extended for nearly a week before my brother gained his release. During the next few days, my mind was spinning with thoughts about this Tennessee place. It seemed only slightly better than a war zone; however, the phone call and subsequent events marked an epiphany. I began to understand that just as my little world was undergoing upheaval and change, so too was the world at large.

I was affected in a very personal way by concerns and events with broad implications. On the cusp of adolescence, I would soon arrive in an unknown, tension-filled cauldron, and there wasn’t a darned thing I could do about any of it.

On the following Thursday evening, April 4, 1968, exactly one week after the fateful phone call, I was playing basketball at the school playground after dinner. A freckled kid with a shock of red hair approached on his bike. He lived in a neighboring community and he had a mean gleam in his eye as pedaled fast to get in front of me,

‘Hey, Donnie. Guess who just got shot? Martin Luther King. It serves him right.’

I looked at him for a long moment. Something snapped. The startling news galvanized me. In that instant, I grew up a bit.

The punch that I threw shocked him as he and his bike tumbled to the asphalt. I stood over him, daring him to get up. I could feel the heat behind my eyes as I stared at the boy on the ground. He didn’t move, but I did. I turned around, and went straight home.

Within ninety days, our family packed, moved and relocated to a hot, steamy city by the Mississippi river. To Memphis — Memphis, Tennessee.”

Order LITTLE DID I KNOW: The Coming of Age of a Black Boomer with FREE SHIPPING https://www.alchemymediapublishing.com/little-did-i-know

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

“The experiences that serve as the foundation for this book, LITTLE DID I KNOW: The Coming of Age of a Black Boomer, have shaped and informed my world view. However, make no mistake, my story is uniquely American.

Only in America, could issues of politics, social change, race, and culture intersect and define a generation. As baby boomers came of age during this period of protest and change, we took our place in the line of Americans who have sought to make our world a better place, while figuring out our place in it.” ~ dbj

Don is the co-founder of Alchemy Media Publishing: a sales and marketing exec, entrepreneur and author. His ventures have been featured on platforms including CNN and Black Enterprise. He attended Brown University, Georgia State University, and Florida State University College of Law and lives in Atlanta.