Читать книгу The Colored Waiting Room - Kevin Shird - Страница 8

The next morning, I woke up surprisingly rested, and then I remembered that Alabama is in the Central Time Zone, which is an hour behind the East Coast. I had unwittingly gained an extra hour of sleep. As I gathered my thoughts, sunlight was peeking through the window and I could hear birds chirping outside. Eight hours of deep sleep was exactly what I had needed to refuel, and now I was ready to go. I went downstairs to the hotel restaurant to check out the complimentary continental breakfast. The smell of the freshly baked croissants was radiant. I helped myself to some, and soon I was ready to explore the city of Montgomery.

As I headed out, it hit me that before leaving Baltimore, a friend of mine familiar with Montgomery had recommended that I stop by a popular eating house on McDonough Street named the Farmers Market Café, which had been operated by the same family since 1959. My friend said that they had the best golden French toast in Alabama. I’d already eaten, but how could I not stop by for a quick taste? One bite in, I had to agree that my friend was right that they were delicious. And then it happened: One bite of their golden French toast rapidly led to my chowing down on a host of mouthwatering breakfast delicacies. I couldn’t stop; it was like trying to put the cookies back into the cookie jar. But just as the sweet pastries left my mouth watering, I found there was also a scorching fire in my belly. I couldn’t help wondering: was the café segregated in the days when it was illegal for a black person to sit down in a white-owned establishment in the South simply to have breakfast in the morning?

After leaving the Farmers Market Café, I headed into the city to play tourist for a few hours until it was time to meet up with Nelson again. I wanted to walk through Montgomery in the morning hours while everything was still quiet, to taste the soul of the city. I wanted to hear the city’s heartbeat before its streets were filled with busy locals going about their day. I wanted to listen to the cobblestone streets for evidence of their vibrant past.

Montgomery is a small city, so it wasn’t hard to get around, and many of the monuments and historical sites I was curious about were within walking distance of the café. My first stop was the Court Square Fountain, which was in Montgomery’s historical district. According to the locals, the area around the fountain was once the location of the city’s bustling slave trade. A historic plaque standing near the fountain reads: “Slaves of all ages were auctioned, along with land and livestock, standing in line to be inspected. In the 1850s, able field hands brought $1,500; skilled artisans $3,000.” As a black man who had always been free to make my own choices—about where to live, what work to do, who to love, and everything else—it was mindboggling to know that in that very place, men, women, and children were bargained over and sold to the highest bidder, like furniture or vegetables, with no regard for their lives as human beings, simply because of the color of their skin.

After leaving the Court Square Fountain, I walked about six blocks down Dexter Avenue to Bainbridge Street, and then to the large white steps in front of the Alabama State Capitol. This imposing building is where legislators from all over Alabama have convened for more than 150 years to create laws and govern, even before the days of the American Civil War. During the war, in fact, the building served as the first capital of the Confederate States of America.

Ironically, also on Dexter Avenue—just a block from the first capital of a government dedicated to the oppression of black people through slavery—stands the Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church, where King delivered his Sunday sermons during the six years he lived in Montgomery. This was where he developed his skill in mesmerizing listeners with his words. The church, as I walked by it, looked immaculate, as if King might still be inside, lifting minds and hearts toward God and freedom. Montgomery was like one huge virtual museum filled with timeless monuments to the past.

Later that morning, I arrived at Nelson’s house on Wabash Street for my second round of Civil Rights Movement 101. As my Uber driver pulled up in front of Nelson’s two-story house, I couldn’t help but notice that he had the largest home, by far, on the block. His house towered over the others, suggesting to me that the Maldens were standouts and important figures in the community. The quiet, well-manicured neighborhood was mostly filled with single-family ranch homes that lined the streets. There was a car in every driveway, a dog in every yard, and a welcome mat on every doorstop.

“Good afternoon, my friend!” Nelson welcomed me joyfully as he opened the large, solid wooden front door of his home.

As I walked through the living room and then through the kitchen, I was stopped by the smell of freshly baked biscuits. I was reminded of the exquisite baking of my grandmother, who was originally from South Carolina. Cooking, baking, and incredible food are signatures of Southern culture. It’s the great common denominator that connects people from different walks of life.

“Are you hungry? I can throw some fish on the stove real fast.”

“I’ve been eating all morning.”

“Come on. It will be lunchtime soon, and it’ll only take a few minutes. I have some Alabama catfish here and some fresh green beans.”

There was no way I could say no to the hospitality of my host and elder. There’s something indescribable about the welcoming feeling you get in the South that only a traveler there can fully appreciate.

As I sat in Nelson’s study eating Alabama catfish smothered in garlic and golden butter, along with the best green beans I’ve ever had, he began reminiscing for me again. I already knew that Nelson wasn’t just a casual observer of the civil rights movement, but I now began to understand how deep his involvement was. I also learned more about his relationship with King. It was no simple barber–client relationship.

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Michael Martin King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia, to Baptist minister Michael King Sr. and Alberta Williams King, who was a schoolteacher. Young Michael’s father was so inspired by the German Protestant religious leader Martin Luther that he adopted the same name and became Martin Luther King Sr.; his son’s name was also changed to Martin.

Martin was destined to be a leader and fight for the rights of others. The elder King was an important voice for civil rights in Georgia and became the head of the Atlanta chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). He played a crucial role in helping to rid the state of Georgia of its oppressive Jim Crow laws, which was a priority for the NAACP. Martin Luther King Sr. was also the longtime pastor of the prominent Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where he delivered his sermons to parishioners for decades, until his death in 1984.

Nelson knew there was something special about Martin from the first time he met the reverend. After hearing him preach at Dexter Avenue Baptist, the young barber believed that someday Rev. King would be a powerful voice in America. Over the years, they grew very fond of each other and considered each other close friends. They stayed in touch after King moved from Montgomery to Atlanta, and on King’s frequent trips back to Montgomery after the move, he would visit Nelson in the barbershop, get his usual haircut, and catch up on everything under the sun.

Nelson describes King as a family man with a good heart and one of the smartest men he ever met. The public was familiar with King’s serious side, but Nelson was privileged to see his relaxed personality and good sense of humor, which he would use to joke around with people he knew well. “He could be sarcastic sometimes, but in a funny kind of way.”

Nelson was also friendly with King’s wife, Coretta Scott King, although she never came to the barbershop. He describes her as an elegant and classy woman, a kind and humble person, and also a proud wife who was the backbone and matriarch of the family. Nelson says that Mrs. King spent a considerable amount of time nurturing the King children. He remembers that he often saw their oldest daughter and son at church services, and that they would come into the barbershop with their father periodically.

Martin and Coretta Scott were married on June 18, 1953, in Marion, Alabama, at the home of Coretta’s parents. One year later, in 1954, they moved to Montgomery, and Reverend King became the pastor at Dexter Avenue Baptist. He was only twenty-five years old at the time. Years later, Dexter Avenue Baptist Church would be renamed Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church. Today, it is a National Historic Landmark. The church still conducts services in the location where King preached some of his most riveting sermons.

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Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was beloved by people across America who were unwavering supporters of his method of protest through civil disobedience. They agreed with that practice, and they also agreed that policy changes in favor of civil rights for African Americans were desperately needed. But King also had many detractors and enemies, people who wanted to end his efforts to transform the racial landscape of America. Many people even wanted to see him dead.

It’s common knowledge today that the Federal Bureau of Investigation worked to undermine King and used prohibited means to do so, ranging from illegal wiretapping and unauthorized surveillance to concentrated character assassination. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover stated in a November 18, 1964 news conference that King was, “the most notorious liar in the country.” King’s home, offices, and hotel rooms were frequently wiretapped, and he was constantly harassed by Hoover’s agents and threatened in ways that if used today would probably send a law enforcement official to federal prison. The FBI even sent King a letter that recommended he commit suicide.

In a declassified internal Justice Department memo dated October 7, 1963 and sent to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, J. Edgar Hoover wrote:

In view of the possible communist influence in the racial situation, it is requested that authority be granted to place a technical surveillance on King at his current address or at any future address to which he may move.1

In 2003, that memorandum was declassified by the Justice Department. Its text wasn’t totally shocking, but it was disheartening to know that the federal government had worked in such a vicious way to undermine a leader for social justice. Today, the FBI uses the encroachment on King’s civil liberties by J. Edgar Hoover as part of the bureau’s cultural sensitivity training at the academy in Virginia for its new agents. It’s a shameful reminder of a past injustice, but it’s being used today to help right a wrong and educate others.

On January 30, 1956, the will and resolve of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was tested in a way that no reasonable husband or father would ever want to be tested, when the lives of his wife and his young daughter came into the crosshairs of murderous white segregationists. The Montgomery Bus Boycott that was then underway—a period of more than a year in which many blacks in Montgomery declined to ride public transportation, following the arrest of Rosa Parks for refusing to give her seat to a white man—was more than just a thorn in the side of city officials and the bus company. It was also a slap in the face to the white oppressors who, before that point, were comfortable with the city ordinances that segregated buses and humiliated African Americans with unreasonable policies. King had recently become the chairman and president of the newly formed Montgomery Improvement Association, and in that position, one of his responsibilities was to work alongside other organizations to mobilize and continue the bus boycott. On the evening of January 30, 1956, King was inside the First Baptist Church on Ripley Street, speaking at a meeting about the bus boycott, when he was told that his house had been bombed. Knowing that his wife, Coretta, and his infant daughter, Yolanda, were there, he franticly rushed home. Coretta and Yolanda were not injured, but somebody could have easily been killed. The bomb blew out the windows of the house and caused significant damage to its front porch.

Standing there in the dark of night on the badly damaged front porch of his home on Jackson Street, he tried to settle the angry mob of black people who had formed. King was quoted that night as saying, “I did not start this boycott. I was asked by you to serve as your spokesman. I want it to be known the length and breadth of this land that if I am stopped, this movement will not stop.”2

Nelson remembers that everyone was very worried for Martin and Coretta, and many people wanted to get their guns and go after the perpetrators. He says there was little doubt as to who had carried out the bombing, as a number of white people in Montgomery had been very vocal about their feelings on the bus boycott.

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Nelson remembers seeing suspicious white figures hanging around the barbershop—a particularly unusual sight in that segregated area of Montgomery—but at the time he didn’t realize that they were FBI agents. While talking with Nelson about the bureau’s harassment of the iconic civil rights leader, I could see that he still felt resentment toward them. Years after their illegal surveillance and the release of the documents confirming what was suspected by many, the mistrust that the government’s behavior created still lingers.

Nelson recalls that one day when King came into the barbershop around midday, two young white men were in a car parked across the street from the barbershop. On that occasion, they were dressed casually, and there appeared to be some type of antenna on the roof of the car. Nelson didn’t think much of it at the time because he thought they were salesmen selling insurance in the black community. Even so, he recalls that “Martin came into the shop and got a haircut, and when he left, so did the two men in the car across the street.”

About a month later, the reverend came back to the barbershop, and this time, two middle-aged white men parked right in front of it. One of the men got out and raised the hood of the car, as though they were having a mechanical problem. But once again, when King left, they immediately closed the hood of the car and drove off. Nelson and his brothers started speculating about whether they were a security detail that had been assigned to King. It wasn’t until years later, after King died, that they found out that they were FBI agents following him.

The FBI and Hoover leveled allegations against King that he was a womanizer and a communist, but these allegations never got much traction among blacks (even though they did have their intended effect on white Southerners), and Nelson found them particularly ridiculous. He knew Martin and the King family well. He had confidence in King’s good character and respected his views on the world.

“It would have taken much more for me to believe anything other than the fact that Martin was a man totally committed to the plight of black people in America,” Nelson says, going on to acknowledge that King had his flaws, but was also completely committed to his cause of advancing the state of his people, and was willing to die for that cause. “There aren’t a lot of people in the world who would give their lives to ensure that a stranger could have a better life. That’s a rare character.”

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There was a lot of tension in Montgomery in the 1960s, but there was also a deep sense of pride in the black community, which kept its members motivated and engaged. Times were hard, but many of them felt they could turn the corner on civil rights issues. Despite the violence, they were hopeful.

“Were you ever concerned about the safety of your family there in Montgomery?” I asked Nelson.

“Every day.”

He continued by explaining that he was often concerned about his own safety and the safety of his family and friends, but it was also a way of life. There was a lot of racial tension all over the South at the time, and blacks were often targets of violence. The Ku Klux Klan, white segregationists, and other hate groups were frequent terrorizers. Some of the violence was random, but much of it was organized. Cross burnings and bombings throughout the South were common. Moreover, Nelson said they happened more often than people realize, because they weren’t always reported in the news or to law enforcement, and that blacks in Montgomery often became aware of incidents of violence because the information was received through a network of black churches throughout the South.

Those type of things happened all the time. This was terrorism before the mainstream media began using the word “terrorism,” and it was always directed at black people. We were the victims of their ire against desegregating the South.

1 Del Quentin Wilber, “Aspiring Agents Learn from Mistakes of FBI ‘Shameful’ Investigation of Martin Luther King Jr.,” Los Angeles Times, August 11, 2016.

2 Clayborne Carson, Editor, The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. (Warner Books, 2001), 80.