Nothing Like Sunshine: A Story in the Aftermath of the MLK Assassination

“What kind of country was that?”

| 63 MEMPHIS| FRIDAY EVENING, JUNE 2, 2006 I thought about the Jewish holiday of Shavuot while returning to the Marriott that afternoon. The commemoration had begun at sundown the day before, just hours after my arrival in Memphis. The summer festival honors the fiery, spectacular giving of the Ten Commandments (“inscribed with the finger of God”) at Mount Sinai, which, according to the old Scripture, occurred exactly seven weeks after the escape of the Hebrew slaves from Egyptian bondage. Therefore, Shavuot (which means “Weeks”) appears on the Jewish calendar seven weeks following the freedom festival of Passover. By the time I returned to Memphis, after a twenty-two-year absence, and in conjunction with my own search for a lost friend and for the spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Shavuot was no longer exclusively a Jewish holiday for me. The Torah was given to my people at Mt. Sinai, but it belongs to every people—that’s why we are called “a light unto the nations.” We were chosen to 5. “What kind of country was that?” 64| CHAPTER FIVE teach.EvenbackatWoodwardHighSchool,withstrongJewishandIsraeliroots, I felt that MLK would have agreed with me on this understanding of Jewish purpose, which happens to be derived right from the Bible itself. Time and time again, the old Scripture exhorts the Hebrew people to be kind, inclusive, open-hearted, “because you were a stranger in Egypt.” This is the Torah of Woodward—we are all God’s children, and we are strengthened by diversity. I had preached endless sermons at the holiday from pulpits across the continent—from Canada to California. I had blessed countless tenth graders being confirmed, as is the synagogue custom, at the Torah festival. But my formative years at Woodward High School, with its ecumenical harvests and multicultural storms; the social spoilage of the Vietnam War; my singing journeywiththeCincinnatiMen’sGleeClub,withitscrescendoatNewOrleans and its heartache at Veramayne; my creeping inability to regard the Jewish prayer book as necessarily the last word on devotion; and my unquenched thirst for what the Baptist preacher from Atlanta seemed to know about God’s open palm, all served to make this day my Memphis Shavuot. I paused at the doorway of the Marriott, at the trolley crossroads, looked up at the sky glowing with a low sun, and made a prayer for worthiness. Walking into the hotel’s “Trolley Stop,” I immediately met the eyes of the husky, smiling, gregarious Rodney—who offered up my requisite seltzer with lime juice from behind the bar. How many hours had this jocular young black man been working this day? Rodney, though physically dissimilar to my tall and lanky Clifton, brought to mind the upbeat drum major nonetheless. We had agreed to speak this night after our morning encounter, and I felt mutual joy in our reunion. He did not require a lot of prompting to tell his story. He was born in Atlanta, almost two decades after MLK died, and arrived in Memphis at the age of seven. “I was a football star,” he smiled wistfully, “but dropped out of high school in the twelfth grade.” Why, I wondered? “My mama was a crack-ass,” was the straightforward reply. He was clear-eyed and positive about his fate and situation, but seemed to be blinking “WHAT KIND OF COUNTRY WAS THAT?”| 65 regret out of his eyes. His adolescence had been fractured and he had wound up living temporarily with an uncle in Minneapolis. There was no mention of a father. I asked him if he felt any connection to Dr. King, in this pleasant hotel bar just blocks from the Lorraine Motel. “Oh yes, definitely, man. I’ve read all about Dr. King, Malcolm X, Nelson Mandela. You know, I got two little daughters and they come first.” The selfproclaimed “sports analyst” became intense and philosophical. “Life is not going to be given to you. You have to work for what you get.” Like a postmodern disciple of MLK, an unabashed denier of the crackheads , pimps, and victim-ideology minority opportunists of our era, Rodney laid out his Four Basic Rules for My Little Girls: 1. Brush Your Teeth. 2. Wash Your Face 3. Fold Your Clothes 4. Control That TV “Look, I could spend my time feeling sorry for myself, but then what would that do for my daughters? I had them and I love them. So does their mama, even if she and I ain’t together no more. But...