Grant Park

by Leonard Pitts, Jr.

  “So what do make sense to you, youngblood?” asked Sonny. He sounded as if he really wanted to know.

  Malcolm didn’t want to be drawn into this conversation but apparently there was no avoiding it. He turned from the mirror. “We need power,” he said.

  Pop said, “You talkin’ that black power shit, ain’t you?”

  Malcolm shook his head. Sometimes his father could be so obtuse. “We black, ain’t we? So any power we get is going to be black power by definition.”

  “You talk like all the rest of them young fools,” said Pop.

  Malcolm sighed. “Look, Pop,” he said, “ain’t no point fightin’ about this. We ain’t never gon’ see eye to eye. Your whole generation is based on asking white folks to give you what you’re already supposed to have. My generation sees it differently, that’s all.”

  Pop just shook his head. “Foolishness,” he said.

  “It ain’t all foolishness, Mo.”

  Sonny’s words surprised them both. Malcolm and his father looked at him and he shrugged. “It ain’t,” he insisted. “I done listened to them young ones talk and some of what they say make sense to me. They say we need to control our communities, control our own money and like that. We need to take more of our destiny in our own hands. And if you call that black power, fine. I want me some black power, then, ’cause it’s a stone drag, livin’ without power.”

  “Well, to get power,” said Malcolm, “you got to learn to fight back. You got to show ’em you ready to defend yourself.”

  “What you think we been doin’?” said Sonny. “Why you think we out there everyday, marchin’ around and totin’ them signs?”

  “You really think that’s fightin’ back, Sonny? You really think the white man cares about you all singing freedom songs and carrying some signs? That ain’t nothin’ to him.”

  Pop came to his feet. “You think it’s nothin’? Take a lot for us to carry them signs. You might not think so, but it do. ‘I AM A MAN?’ That’s a lot to say, right there.”

  Malcolm faced his father. He had that sense again, like he so often did when they spoke, of the sheer futility of trying to explain concepts and ideas Pop was simply not equipped to understand. His ignorance was not his fault, Malcolm supposed, but that didn’t make it any easier. “I said it ain’t nothin’ to the white man,” he told the older man in a slow, careful voice. “If it was, the strike would be over by now, wouldn’t it?” Pop didn’t answer. Malcolm sighed, giving up. “Look, Pop, you remember what you said to me that time? You fight your revolution and let me fight mine? How about we just do that, huh?”

  He looked from his father to Sonny. Neither man spoke and that was fine with Malcolm. “I got to finish getting ready,” he said. “I’m going to be late for work.”

  Malcolm did not wait for a response. He went back to the tiny chamber where he slept, the room on the back of the house in which he had grown up, the room where he used to furtively watch through the window as his father showered off the grime of another long day in the makeshift stall rigged in the yard. Malcolm lifted his thin mattress and pulled out the pistol hidden beneath.

  He carried the gun everywhere now. He didn’t feel safe without it. Malcolm didn’t quite know what he planned to do with it or even quite why he had bought it. He only knew he would never be caught helpless before a white man again.

  Twice it had happened in just the last month. And that was two times too many.

  He slipped the pistol into the front pocket of his pants. The bulge it made was barely discernible.

  De Lawd came to town the following week.

  Malcolm, reluctant but resigned, rode the bus with his father and Sonny—Sonny’s gas tank was on empty—over to the Mason Temple, a stone fortress of a church on Mason Street. It was not yet 6:00 when they got there, but traffic on the street had already congealed, acres of Detroit steel sitting bumper-to-bumper going nowhere. The meeting was not scheduled to begin for an hour.

  “Good thing I didn’t drive,” said Sonny, surveying the mess.

  But the human traffic jam was hardly less than the steel one. The front of the church was clotted with people making their way inside. Someone was yelling to let the sanitation workers go first so they could sit together down front.

  Pop and Sonny joined a wedge of brittle-eyed men in ill-fitting thrift store suits and work clothes edging toward the entrance. It occurred to Malcolm that once they were inside, he could head back home if he wanted, maybe grab a nap before work, and his father would never know. He was debating this when he heard his name.

  “Malcolm! Hey, what you doin’ here? This ain’t your scene.” Melvin Cotter was coming up behind him.

  “Came with Pop,” said Malcolm. “Him and Sonny just went inside. I was actually thinking about heading back home. I got to work tonight.”

  “How that goin’ anyway? Ain’t hardly seen you since the day I took you to get the job.”

  This was Melvin’s idea of subtlety. Where you been? Why you been avoiding me? You owe me.

  Malcolm felt a pinch of guilt, because the unspoken accusation was true. He had been avoiding his friend.

  Melvin had come by the house just the previous Saturday. Pop was at some union meeting and the insistent knocking at the door brought Malcolm shambling out to the front room in his underwear. He had moved aside the bed sheet that served as a curtain over the front window and seen Melvin standing out there chatting with Nanny Parker.

  Malcolm had regarded his friend’s profile for a moment, made a decision, and lowered the sheet. He moved away from the window so his shadow could not be seen from outside. After a few seconds Melvin knocked again, emphatically. A minute after that, Malcolm heard the sound of his feet walking away, and then Melvin’s car started. Malcolm lifted the bed sheet again and watched the old Buick pull away from the curb. At the time, he’d told himself he didn’t answer the door because he was tired and didn’t feel like being bothered. Until this very instant, he supposed, he had even believed that.

  Now he shrugged. “Just been busy,” he said. “Workin’. You know, that night shift is a real drag. I’m still gettin’ used to it. I sleep most of the day.”

  “Yeah, I hear you,” said Melvin, but Malcolm could see he was not convinced.

  “So, you come here to pray to De Lawd?”

  But Malcolm’s attempt to change the subject only made Melvin frown. “Man, don’t be like that. I know Shabazz was your man. But this man, he got some good things to say, too.”

  “Yeah, I guess,” said Malcolm, without conviction.

  They fell into an awkward silence then. And that was odd in itself. Junie Wilson and Melvin Cotter had been friends forever. Rapping had been like breathing with them, an easy, unaffected thing that just…happened. Now, all of a sudden, it was work.

  Finally Melvin said, “So, you decided about school?”

  “Yeah,” said Malcolm. “I’m not going back. I’ve had enough.”

  “How Mr. Mozell feel about that?”

  “Ain’t told him yet.”

  Melvin said, “Uh-huh.” Another silence. Then he said, “So I heard what happened with Lynette. She say you saved her.”

  “I just pulled that asshole off her, that’s all.”

  “Good thing you was there. Pruitt, that bastard, need to be ashamed of himself.”

  Malcolm laughed. “Oh, he’s a bastard now?”

  “Always been a bastard,” Melvin said.

  “When you were standing there talking to him, the day you got me my job, the day he pinched Lynette on the ass, did you know then he was a bastard?”

  Malcolm had his own ideas on subtlety.

  Melvin’s eyes flared like a struck match. “You got somethin’ you want to say to me, Junie? I mean, ‘Malcolm?’”

  Malcolm shook his head. “No,” he said. “Just asking a question, is all.”

  But Melvin would not let it go. “It ain’t easy as you think, Junie. You used to know that. Maybe you went away to that whi
te college and forgot. But a man—especially a black man—do what he got to do to survive, even if it ain’t somethin’ he like doin’.”

  “Oh, is that what you call it? You survivin’?”

  Melvin’s hot eyes went cold. “Fuck you, nigger. You think I don’t know you look down on me? Maybe I ain’t been to college, but I ain’t no fool, neither. You done always looked down on me. Especially after I got you your job by talking to that bastard, as you say. But it ain’t just me, is it? Hell, you even look down on this man.” A nod toward the building, indicating Martin Luther King. “That take some balls, you know? I mean, I get why King ain’t your thing. But give the man this much: he put his ass on the line for what he believe. What you ever done, ’cept talk shit and paint ‘Fuck the System’ on some wall?”

  Malcolm was stunned. Who the hell did Melvin Cotter think he was to talk to him like that? Melvin, who had stood there grinning like a bashful child at that racist bastard Rupert Pruitt?

  He was about to say this when a third man approached. He wore a denim jacket, a moderate Afro, and dark shades that made his face a stop sign. He had been a few years ahead in school. His name was Eddie.

  “Brothers,” he said.

  “Hey,” said Malcolm.

  “Hey,” said Melvin.

  “You here to see the man?”

  Melvin shot Malcolm a pointed look. “I am,” he said. “Don’t know what he here for.”

  “That’s cool,” said Eddie. There was something indulgent in the way he said it, as though they ought to be pleased to have his approval. “King is all right in his way, but you do know that he fails to comprehend the magnitude, the complexity, and the true nature of the problem he seeks to address.”

  “Is that right?” asked Melvin.

  “Yes it is. The man wants to help our brothers who work the sanitation trucks to achieve recognition for their union, better working conditions, and better wages. But all that does is seek better treatment within the same old system. Even if they get everything they’re asking for, the system remains broken and tilted against the needs of the working man, the black working man in particular. It’s like what they say about rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. You can make the chairs look nice and neat, but the ship is still taking on water.”

  “Yeah?” said Melvin. “So what’s your program?” A challenge edged his voice.

  Eddie smiled. “We believe in black power.”

  Melvin jabbed Malcolm with a look. “Same thing you always goin’ on about, ain’t it?”

  “Same thing every righteous brother is goin’ on about,” retorted Malcolm.

  From his vest pocket, Eddie extracted a folded flier printed on red paper with blocky black letters. “We are having a gathering to discuss what we in the younger generation can do to aid the sanitation workers in their moment of need,” he said, passing it to Melvin. BLACK POWER IS THE KEY, it said at the top.

  “You see,” said Eddie, “we don’t believe you can fix the system. We believe you must tear down the system and build something new in its place. The evils of capitalism cannot be reformed, because whatever reform you create, the fat cats at the top of the power structure will always find some way around it. So you have to remove the fat cats first. Only when power reposes in the people can there be any hope of meaningful change.”

  “Okay,” said Melvin. “Thank you for the speech.”

  Eddie’s eyes might have sparked. The sunglasses made it hard to tell. “I wasn’t trying to give a speech,” he said in a voice stiff as a freshly starched collar. “I leave the speechmaking to the man in there. Me, I was just trying to hip you cats to what’s really going on.”

  He tapped the flier, still in Melvin’s hand. “Hope to see you there,” he said. And with a nod, he walked away.

  “Sound more like your thing than mine,” said Melvin.

  He handed the flier to Malcolm, who studied it for a moment. “Yeah, maybe I’ll go check it out,” he said.

  “You do that. I’m going to go listen to Dr. King.”

  Melvin didn’t wait for Malcolm’s response. He lifted his hand in an indifferent wave and went to join the line of people waiting to enter the building.

  Malcolm stood there alone under the darkening sky. Melvin’s words still stung.

  What you ever done?

  Who the hell was Melvin Cotter to ask him that?

  What you ever done?

  He had protested, that’s what. He had raised his fist. He had shouted defiance.

  What you ever done?

  He had painted “Fuck the System” on a wall.

  And the great Reverend Doctor Lord Almighty Martin Luther King, Jr.? The dreamer of dreams and high apostle of let-whitey-kick-the-shit-out-of-you-but-love-him-anyway?

  He put his ass on the line for what he believe.

  Yeah, right.

  Yet still the people came to see him, wedging into the church. Hundreds of them, thousands of them. Every Negro in Memphis, it seemed. Malcolm watched.

  What you ever done?

  Malcolm folded the red flier and slipped it into the same pocket where his gun slept. He stood there another moment, watching. Then his feet carried him forward without conscious command and he got in line to enter the Mason Temple.

  He was here. Might as well hear what the man had to say.

  It was a long wait before Malcolm finally squeezed through the door into the church sanctuary, a vast room with a low ceiling. Despite its size, there was a closeness to the room—especially now, packed as it was. People sat nearly on top of each other. It was hot and the air carried the indistinct buzz of a thousand conversations all going at once. And still people kept coming, crowding through the door behind Malcolm like ants boiling out of an anthill.

  Malcolm fought his way back out to the lobby and took the stairs up to the balcony, where he claimed some of the rapidly diminishing space against the back wall just as the singing began below.

  The audience sang “We Shall Not Be Moved,” the same song the men had sung on the plaza in front of City Hall, except that this time, the untutored reediness of their voices was swallowed by thousands more, a woman’s roughhewn contralto leading the way and calling out verses, thousands of hands trip-hammering in time.

  Then there was more singing.

  They sang “We Shall Overcome.”

  They sang “God Bless America.”

  They passed a metal garbage can for donations to the strike fund. They passed a petition for the recall of Mayor Loeb.

  A white man with horn-rimmed glasses, some national union leader whose name Malcolm didn’t catch, stood at the lectern beneath banners proclaiming church programs and slogans and recounted how Echol Cole and Robert Walker had been crushed in that faulty garbage truck.

  “These men tell us that all their lives they’ve been wanting to be men,” he shouted. “As men, they’ve been struggling to be dignified. And they tell us that this may be their only chance. And we’re not giving up!”

  “Tell it like it is!” someone shouted.

  “Say that!” cried another voice.

  A black preacher spoke. He had white hair and a dignified bearing.

  “I see God’s hand moving in this business,” he said, and his voice was filled with warning. “Mayor Loeb, you need to get on the right side of this thing, for the Lord will not be mocked. Right there in the book of First Timothy, it says, ‘The laborer is worthy of his reward.’

  “These men have labored for you, Mayor Loeb.” He slapped the podium and repeated it. “These men have labored for you, sir. They have toted your tubs and driven your trucks and handled that garbage and they are not asking you for anything but what they have coming. They have labored and they are worthy of their wages.”

  He paused and something puckish came into his eyes. “Where’s that brother who was on the TV the other night?” he asked, abandoning for a moment the studied formality of his preacher’s cadence. “Did any of you see him? TV reporter asked him what he
thought Martin Luther King could do for the sanitation men. And he said, King can’t do nothin’ for the men, ’cause if you are a man, you got to do for yourself. But he said Dr. King can help this city and this mayor to understand that you are men and you will no longer stand for being treated as if you are not.”

  The preacher shaded his eyes. “Is that brother here? Let that brother stand.”

  Far below, a tiny figure came hesitantly to his feet. The crowd erupted. “There he is!” the preacher roared. “That brother spoke the truth! That brother told it like it is!” Malcolm felt odd watching them cheer his father.

  Another preacher spoke. There was more singing. There was still more speaking. Anticipation hummed through the crowd. Any moment now. Martin Luther King was coming to see about Memphis.

  The man was coming.

  And all at once, the man was there.

  He entered Mason Temple by a side door, came into a room where there was no more room, people sitting on stairs and standing in doorways and crowding the aisles. It was shortly after nine when he came, walking in the center of a wedge of men linked arm by arm to get him to the podium. The crowd was on its feet, their cheers booming like thunder, people shouting at him, some of the women lifting steepled hands beneath glittering eyes, some of the men holding clenched fists aloft.

  He seemed small in the belly of the tumult.

  Slowly, the man made his way up the stairs, pausing to shake hands with other dignitaries on the rostrum. He was introduced and then he stood before them, silent for a moment, waiting, in no hurry, and the pandemonium, which had never quite crested, refreshed itself and rose anew. Malcolm thought he had understood the power the great man held over his people, the reverence and awe with which they beheld him. But he’d had no idea.

  King began slowly. His voice heavy and solemn, he congratulated Memphis for what he called its “great movement.” He praised the black community for its unity. He assured the sanitation workers, those men people called tub toters, that they had value and meaning.

  “So often,” he said, “we overlook the worth and the significance of those who are not in professional jobs or those who are not in the so-called big jobs. But let me say to you tonight that whenever you are engaged in work that serves humanity and is for the building of humanity, it has dignity and it has worth. One day our society must come to see this.”