Kingervsations: Martin
Chicago, Illinois. 2016
“I really don’t know how much more of this I can take, Martin,” Coretta complained as she washed the last of the dishes after breakfast. The hot water heater had been out now the 2nd day and she had only boiled enough water to wash just half the dishes. “I have had more than my share of cold showers. The refrigerator has gone out again — I’m almost positive that’s what made Yolanda sick the other day.” Coretta’s impatience was quickly growing thin with the move to Chicago. Jesse Jackson — one of her and Martin’s dearest friends and closest confidants — had convinced them of the much needed work that was needed in the city. Coretta was reluctant to accompany her husband to the urban slums; She and Martin had built a comfortable life for them and the kids in Atlanta. Their church home was there. Martin’s family was there. She was only a few hours away from her family.
Things were good in Atlanta. There was so much work to still be done there and in the south that Coretta often wondered how she’d ever agreed to come to Chicago in the first place. Here, she’d given up her comfortable life in the heart of the “Southern Black Mecca” for a life in the North Lawndale neighborhood of Chicago — one of the poorest and crime-ridden neighborhoods in the entire city. She’d left behind a comfortable 4-bedroom home with a fenced-in backyard with plenty of room for the children to play. Now, she resided in a 3rd story two-bedroom flat with a small dirt patch on the side of the house that wasn’t even fit for stray dogs to frolic in — let alone the children of The Kings’. Coretta scrubbed feverishly as she thought about life in Atlanta. She knew that there was work to be done here in Chicago, but the lifestyle downgrade was beginning to tug away at her patience. Her home was on the brink of an emotional implosion and she was on the edge.
Yet, such was the life of “The First Lady of Civil Rights,” a title that had over the years both humbled and annoyed her. She stopped washing dishes when she noticed that the room had gotten a little chilly. She walked over to the thermostat. It was on, but no heat was coming out of the vents. She dropped her head in frustration, scanning the room. Her blood boiled at the sight of the missing fan blades in the living room. Her shoulders tightened at the thick pieces of duct tape covering a crack in the window. Her heart raced at the golf ball-sized hole in the corner of the wall that she knew was the work of rats — a thought that made her skin crawl. She set her sight on the window and the lack of play space for her children and the children of the neighborhood. “Martin, we are really going to have a conversation about exactly what it is you are trying to accomplish here in Chicago because there are just some things I cannot handle,” she called out to him. “I can bear a lot of things and I can hope for the children to bare some things as well, but a heat-less house in Chicago in the dead of the winter is an absolute non-negotiable.”
“Martin?!” She called out, “Do you hear me speaking to you?”
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It is with a heavy heart, that I formerly withdraw from the Chicago Campaign and with it, I offer my official resignation as the President of the Southern Leadership Christian Conference and am ceasing all organizing endeavors from here on out.
Martin stared at the words on the computer screen. He’d thought about 100 different ways to say it but, no matter how many times he typed it, and how many times he said it, his spirit echoed the same sentiments:
I am a failure.
I am a failure.
I am a failure.
I am a failure.
Martin had been up since 3AM that morning preparing for a sermon that he was to give later that afternoon in Detroit. He’d been invited by his good friend Clearance Franklin to speak at a special service for the Aiyana Jones Foundation — named in honor of the Detroit youngster murdered by the hands of the Detroit Police Department. He and Coretta would leave Chicago at 11AM to be in Detroit in time for the service. Reverend Franklin invited some heavy hitters to the powerful fundraiser. The event had begun to attract national press coverage as First Lady Michelle Obama confirmed her participation just last week.
I am a failure.
I am a failure.
I am a failure.
I am a failure.
The sentiments grew louder and louder in his head. It was an unshakable mental poison that he could not erase from from his psyche. Chicago weighed him down unlike any place he’d ever been before. He knew that Coretta was struggling with the transition. She’d grown increasingly short with him over the last few weeks and he knew why — the stress of being so far away from home, so far away from everything they knew — was taking its toll on her and as a result, their relationship was taking a serious hit.
Martin sat back in his chair and locked both fingers behind his head. He scanned his desk which was topped with copies of local and national newspapers. His eyes skimmed the headlines of each paper:
Unrest in Chicago After Police Kill Unarmed Teenager
Police Shoot, Kill Disabled Man
Homeless Great-Grandmother Beaten By California Cop
He closed his eyes and inhaled. He opened them slowly and continued to read on:
Cops Shoots Unarmed Man in Back, Claims Self-Defense
Michael Brown and Eric Garner: No Indictment
Martin toggled through the papers. Each headline, each paper, filled with the plight of Black death:
George Zimmerman Found Not Guilty
I am a failure.
I am a failure.
I am a failure.
I am a failure.
With each passing headline, the negative voice in his head grew louder and louder. Martin got up from his chair and walked over to the window. He thought intensely about his time in Chicago and clung fanatically to the positive memories and progress made since he and Coretta had decided to call this place home; his presence alone in the current building attracted enough media attention that the landlord — somewhere nowhere near Chicago — had agreed to replace the stove, patch up some of the holes in the walls, replace the security system, and bring the electricity up to code. Martin viewed these things as small victories as a few landlords in the area, for fear of being exposed for the treacherous living conditions they were overcharging mostly Black residents, made many of these changes in surrounding buildings.
A few aesthetic changes to his own living conditions did very little to alleviate the pervasive, contagious chronic poverty that spread across the neighborhood of North Lawndale. Just across from his apartment, Martin counted nearly a dozen dilapidated buildings — graffiti covering the walls, plywood covering the windows, and overgrown weeds running amok. Empty liquor bottles and cigarette butts covered the ground from block to block. The neighborhood was so crime infested that he had refused to allow Coretta or the kids out of the home when the sun went down — if only for a store run.
He walked back over to his desk and set back down. Staring at his computer screen, the reality of what he was about to write and do begin to set in. It wasn’t a rash decision, he’d thought about it long and hard. Chicago had shown him a side to racism, poverty, and crime he had only read about. The poverty of Chicago was so thick, that it literally covered generations both seen and unseen. After all of these years, all of the sacrifices, all of the death, and threats of death, Martin felt more alone now, more unaccomplished now, than he’d ever felt. His eyes found their way back to the disastrous headlines:
Teenager Shot & Killed in Austin Neighborhood
No Indictment in Tamir Rice Case
The pressure behind his eyes grew as the tears begin to well up.
I am a failure.
I am a failure.
I am a failure.
I am a failure.
I failed.
The pressure behind his eyes gave way as the tears flowed. Quietly at first, Martin could no longer hold back the flood of emotions. He wept for the lost lives of Laquan McDonald, Rekia Boyd, and Oscar Grant. He cried out for Sean Bell, Walter Scott, and The Charleston 9. He cries grew louder for the souls of Aiyana Jones, Eric Garner, and Mike Brown. His tears became so loud, and the “I Am A Failure” cadence became so intense in his psyche, that all he could do was turn on the radio to drown out the sounds of his cries. As Mahalia sang, he wept.
I am a failure.
I am a failure.
I am a failure.
I am a failure.
I failed.
