April 5, 2018--My Martin Luther King Story

Fifty yeas ago last night I was a junior faculty member at Queens College in New York City and one of my classes scheduled for that evening was an interdisciplinary seminar in literature and the arts for a carefully selected group of community leaders, mainly adults from the black ghetto of Jamaica, Queens. This meant that all 25 of the students in the class were African American.

We were well into a discussion about Jonathan Swift when a late-arriving student, Alan Jenkins, burst into the classroom.

Struggling to catch his breath, he finally gasped, "He's been shot," as if we knew who the "he" was. Sensing this, he added, "Martin. Martin Luther King. In Memphis."

"Is he . . . ?"

"I don't know. I was driving here and on the radio heard the report about the shooting. But not about his condition."

By then many of the students were quietly sobbing.  From their experience they knew the news would turn out to be devastating. It would not be that he was "just" shot. They had lived too long with violence in their lives to not immediately sense the truth.

A number of the students held hands and, kneeling, prayed. Others, clinging to each other, softly began to sing, including psalms and the civil rights anthem, "We Shall Overcome."

Grieving, supporting myself on the lectern, feeling estranged, denying what was occurring, I tried to convince myself that if I behaved "normally," got us back to Swift, reality itself would revert to where it had been only minutes before when we had talked together, dispassionately, about Gulliver.  

Then slowly it occurred to me I was the only white person in the room. I am not sure from where that feeling originated. It was not quite from feeling danger, but something close to that. Some primal recidivism close to tribalism, some self-protective reflex wired in my DNA. 

"Do you think you might drive me home?" Whispering was the most academically promising of my students, Nellie McKay.

By then Alan had come back from listening to the radio in his car. He trembled as he told us that it was over. King was dead. Shot down on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. The news, he said, was now turning to reports from inner cities across the country. Dozens were already in flames, stores and houses were set on fire by rampaging street gangs crazed with rage and fear.

"I'm afraid," Nellie said, "And about you . . . I don't think it's safe for you . . . to be driving home alone . . . the only . . . person in the area."

She meant white person. She asked me to drive her home not so much because of her fear but because she was concerned about me. White people out and about, well after dark, on the evening Martin Luther King was assassinated, would, she felt, not be safe. Being in the car with me would give me a margin of safety. She knew from inner-city uprisings during the previous few years that some white car and truck drivers had been ripped from their vehicles, beaten and even killed, as the riots spiraled out of control.

Opting to think less about myself I tried to concentrate on how I might provide safety for her--she commuted to the college by local buses. 

By then all the other students in ones and twos had departed. Nellie and I were the only ones remaining and we walked to the parking lot, clinging to each other.

In my car, a conspicuously yellow Opal, we headed south, needing to drive through segregated Jamaica, out toward where she lived in an integrated neighborhood near the bay.

Buildings were on fire all along the way. As I slowed to stop for a red light Nellie told me to ignore it, to keep moving, as it would be unsafe if we stopped.

To distract me from the news crackling on the radio she told me about her dreams--for her teenage son, it meat helping him get though his adolescence intact. By that she meant alive, out of the clutches and demands of violent street gangs. He was very bright, she said, but was already showing signs of succumbing to the allure of street life.

"I'm thinking of sending him to live with my mother, in Mississippi. Believe it or not, it's safer there. Even with Jim Crow."

"And what about you? You're a terrific student. Especially of literature. Are you thinking . . . ? We heard gunshots and saw a car a block ahead of us burst into flames and explode when the fire reached the gas tank.

"Turn that way," Nellie instructed me. "Quickly. Down there," she pointed to a one-way street where we would have to drive into oncoming traffic. "I know it's a one-way against us but it takes us to what I'm sure will be a safer route."

I followed her directions and at the end of one block we came to a cross street of abandoned houses and undeveloped lots where there were no signs of life or disorder. I began to breath more normally. 

"I am thinking about graduate school," Nellie said, resuming her story as if nothing unusual was happening, "Perhaps even working on a PhD. I know I'm a little old for that, but it's my dream. To be like you. A college professor." She smiled.

"We're getting close," she continued. "You are welcome to stay with me. But I know you live in Brooklyn and are married. Your wife will be worried about you."

I almost told her our marriage was on the rocks and that I would prefer to stay with her. But those emotions, if we survived, were perhaps for another day. 

At her house I got out to open her car door and, on the sidewalk, sobbing, we embraced for what felt like not enough time. As if we would not see each other again. That we were saying goodbye forever.

"We'll be all right," she said. "America will recover and be all right. You will be all right. And so will I."

With that she ran to the steps that led to her house and disappeared behind her aluminum front door.

I got home safely and the following week classes resumed. We all knew we were living in a changed America. Two months later Bobby Kennedy was assassinated. Swift and Jane Austen lost some of their importance.

Nellie's son did well, eventually becoming a social worker, and after Queens College, Nellie pursued her dream. She was admitted to graduate school at Harvard where she eventually earned her doctorate. After Harvard, Nellie began a distinguished career as a professor of English and Women's Studies at the University of Wisconsin.

I reencountered her when she approached the Ford Foundation, seeking a grant to support her work. I was happy to be able to assist. 

Nellie McKay, at only 76, died in 2006.