In The Name of Love

Early morning, April four
Shot rings out in the Memphis sky
Free at last, they took your life
They could not take your pride

Forty years ago today, the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated outside his hotel room in Memphis. I learned about it on the news, like everybody else. There weren't many blacks living in the town outside Cincinnati where I grew up, and we all got along for the most part. It wouldn't have mattered at the time, though. I had bigger things to worry about.

A few days earlier, for reasons even now unknown, I came down with appendicitis. There is some debate to this day, as to whether it had already burst. It happened on a Monday, whatever it was. I was doubled over in considerable pain all week. By Friday, Mom thought the better of it, and took me to the doctor. Seems I had something to complain about after all. I was dying.

I was rushed to Cincinnati Children's Hospital, in the heart of the medical district. Now, the hospital was just northeast of the University of Cincinnati, and just southwest of the predominantly-black neighborhood of Avondale. The University was having its share of unrest by then, over things like the War, too much homework, the price of food in the student union, whatever. With the assassination of Dr King, Avondale was a powder keg that was ready to go off. And it did. The governor called in the National Guard, and barricades were set up around the neighborhood, and near the hospital.

I was still quite naive when it came to the opposite sex, but I fell for one of the student nurses. In fact, I rather took to all of them. Even after my condition didn't require assistance with a sponge bath, I insisted on being helped anyway, especially by That Special One, who didn't mind a bit, thank you very much. After all, a guy has to make the best of a bad situation. I suspect if my motives were less than innocent, they would have, uh, noticed. Know what I mean?

After about ten days and the loss of eleven pounds, I got out and returned home. For about a week, I didn't have a care in the world. After returning to school, I got jumped by some kid in the playground. I had not even recovered from the surgery. I tried a self-defense move I learned reading Popular Science, and after turning the tables, proceeded to beat the crap out of him.

Meanwhile, here in DC, the area that was devastated by the riots was once a thriving center of Afro-American civic and social life. Blacks and whites together would go to the clubs on U Street and hear Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Lena Horne, and the other legends of jazz and swing. Then forty years ago, a people on the crest of a dream saw it shattered, and a community imploded on itself. It would be years before there were signs of recovery. In the last decade, the neighborhood has known a renaissance. Just last year, "Sal" and I went to the famous Bohemian Caverns to hear a jazz trio. It was Valentine's Day, and Sal likes all jazz.

But back then, it was only months later that I learned just how serious things were in the area surrounding the hospital. My mother came to visit every day, braving the barricades and the civil unrest. She was a heroine to a lonely and despondent little boy. And for what it's worth, today is her birthday. I called her yesterday, to tell her I wouldn't call her today and remind her. She appreciated that. Sort of.

She and my sisters still take care of Dad at the house...

In the name of love
One more in the name of love
In the name of love
One more in the name of love

[Photo of Martin Luther King Jr from the Associated Press. Lyrics to "Pride (In The Name of Love)" from the U2 album "The Unforgettable Fire." Both used without permission or shame.]
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