Tomorrow marks the observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Stools and windows in places like the Post Office and the DMV will be unwarmed as the normal occupants use this opportunity to remember the Civil Rights leader by watching reruns of "Good Times" all day long.
In the picture above, then-President George Bush the First signs a bill that formalizes Federal support for this holiday. Behind him is the non-singing King family which today is now deliciously feuding over the old lady's dough now that she's gone to that great Gospel choir in the sky. I would pay big bucks to see a reality show about how these dumbbells and progenies of the esteemed non-violence advocate are trashing each other for their due share of the pecan pie.
Also note the following factoids. As you see above, the President signing this bill is a Republican. The President who first approved this holiday was Ronald Reagan. A Republican. The political party that is, according to Democrats, supposedly comprised of nothing but card carrying racists.
Your honor, the defense rests.
Okay, I'm dilly dallying here. You're probably wondering what kind of personal memory this nonsense will conjure up. How the hell do the dots connect between my life story and Martin Luther King Jr. Day?
Here's how.
Years before Reagan signed the observance into law, there was constant clamoring for this to happen. And none might have been louder than the goofballs I went to high school with. Mount Vernon High School, now an armed camp that resembles a maximum security prison more than an educational institution, was always a microcosm of the racial divide which enveloped the city itself.
Mount Vernon was and is literally and figuratively divided in half by the commuter railroad line that cut right through the center of the city. The bottom half, or the South Side, was predominantly Black. The top half, or the North Side, was all White---a blend of Jewish and Italian families. I grew up on the cusp of the South Side, but, for the longest time, our neighborhood got a hall pass and we were mostly White and Italian. That didn't last long. As soon as the first Black family moved into the ugly apartment building across the street from our house, we knew it would all change. Grandma immediately got new locks for all the doors.
None of this ever sat comfortably together in Mount Vernon. There were neighborhoods you didn't dare enter after 6PM at night. Anything south of Third Street or Sanford Boulevard required a police escort. And, as I went through elementary and junior high school, I became more and more aware of how guarded I had to be in my hometown. By the time I got to high school, it went all, as they would say deep in the South Side, "off the hook."
Mount Vernon High School was as far away from the deadly South Side as possible. It was situated almost idyllically amid the richest homes of the city. A then-beautiful family neighborhood. Which was rocked to its core every school day as one bus after another pulled up to unload all the Black students from the Sandford Boulevard and beyond.
Indeed, at MVHS, the White kids were the minority. We knew it every day and in every deadly way. You had to hold your bookbag under your arm or it would be ripped off. You held tightly to your brown bag lunch or else Tyrone from shop class might be enjoying your Taylor Ham sandwich. And forget about even entering a bathroom if you had to pee. I held in my urine for three years. My bladder hasn't been the same since. The only White kids who got off easy were the Jewish ones, perceived as sympatico in the persecution department. Those dudes made sure to stay on top of whatever the most hip expressions were. And they always seemed to be totally up on the newest Motown artists. The earliest known form of "Whiggers."
But, for the rest of us Christian White folk, Mount Vernon High School was a treacherous place. We might as well have been going to school on the Mason-Dixon line in 1862.
Almost as soon as drops of blood started to ooze out of the slain Martin Luther King Jr., there were rumblings all over Mount Vernon and other cities that his January birthday needed to be a national holiday. It was positioned as an terrific way to honor this great American leader.
The Black kids in my school thought of it as an ideal way to get a day off in January. After all, you needed a rest break after going to school for two whole weeks after the Christmas vacation. And who wanted to wait all the way to February for the President's Day observance? For the longest while, the merits of this holiday were debated all over the country.
At Mount Vernon High School, the Black kids had their own idea.
One Monday morning, they barricaded themselves into the school cafeteria. And refused to come out till the school system gave them Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday off.
We heard the ruckus down the hall as it was happening. Whoops and hollers. Indians on the warpath? Nope, just most of the Black high schoolers throwing every lunch table available up against the doors. Naturally, even then, I caught this irony. The cafeteria was a natural safe haven. I noted that they certainly didn't barricade themselves into the school library. What fun would that be? Reading a book all day.
This method of holding a lunch line hostage naturally presented a curveball into your school day. If you were like me and brought your lunch from home, you could really eat it anywhere. But, for those craving such normal cafeteria offerings as sloppy joe sandwiches and chicken chow mein, you went hungry till 3PM. Why?
Because the school administration sat back and did nothing.
Maybe it was fear. Maybe it was because the teacher's lounge was still open and there was plenty of salisbury steak for them. But, the silence from the principal's office with regard to the "Taking of the Cafeteria" was deafening.
Since this whole fracas was a big part of my day, I figured this would be nifty news for all the local media.
Nothing. In the local paper. On the radio. On the television. Nothing.
Nothing when the takeover extended to Tuesday.
Nothing when the takeover extended to Wednesday.
Nothing when the takeover extended to Thursday.
I wondered to myself if any of this was really happening.
By Thursday noon, the masterminds behind Cafeteria-gate were getting bored. And perhaps a little stir crazy. Maybe they had run out of Cheetos. They decided to expand their realm of power.
I will never forget what happened next. I was sitting quietly in a class working on a quiz. From outside, we heard more whoops and hollers. And several loud crashes.
The Black kids had stormed the administration offices.
Suddenly, we heard the sound of the public address system being activated. And a piercing voice blasted out of the classroom speakers.
"WEEZE IN CHARGE NOW. NO MORE SCHOOL TODAY!!!"
No one around me uttered a word. Not even the teacher. When the next bell rang, everybody picked up their belongings and quietly left the room. And headed for the exits. To go home.
In the local newspaper the very next day, there was a small item detailing what had happening. Buried in the second section near the want ads.
The very next year, the Mount Vernon School System made a special provision to allow that those who wanted to observe Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday could do so and be excused from school.
I went to my classes as usual.
Dinner last night: Orange chicken and fried rice.
