January 15, 2007

Remembering Dr. King

By Bob Weir

"I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood."
-From MLK'a speech at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC 8/28/63

For those who don't remember or choose to forget, April 4, 1968 was another day that will live in infamy. I was working the 4 to midnight shift with my partner, Leroy Spivey, in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn. We were on radio motor patrol during an unusually warm spring evening in the predominantly African-American neighborhood. It would get a lot warmer before the night was over.

We had been working together for about a year as the first black and white (referred to as "salt-and-pepper") team in our precinct, and one of the first in the city. The tour of duty in the high crime area had been pretty much a routine affair during the first half of our shift: burglaries, robberies, vehicle accidents, family disputes, etc. Then, about 8pm, a tragedy occurred that would change the course of history.

It began for us when someone yelled over the police radio, "Martin Luther King was just shot in Memphis." Leroy, an African-American who had often spoken proudly of the man who for many years had led the civil rights movement toward equality in America, sat in stunned silence. As I steered the car along the darkness on Sumner Avenue, I looked toward my partner and said, "Aw, don't believe that. It's some jerk with a depraved sense of humor." But a few minutes later, a voice said, "King is DOA. A sniper got him."

Leroy covered his face with his hands and shook his head slowly as if trying to block out the truth of the message.

Then, over the radio, came a few comments from the less-than-human segment of the department. "Whoopee!" one voice said. "It's about time!" said another.

The pain on Leroy's face intensified with each racist remark from the faceless cowards, secure in their anonymity but bereft of humanity. It was only moments later that the dreaded news swept the country and the riots began. Calls for police response flooded the airwaves, as a segment of the population took to the streets, burning and looting in a mad frenzy of outrage and frustration.

We spent the next 12 hours racing from one riot to another, chasing down looters, handcuffing them and taking them to a central booking location so other officers could process them, allowing us to return to the street. I don't remember how many arrests we made during that long, tumultuous night, but we worked continuously until 8 the next morning.

Although the violence, bitterness, and hatred I witnessed during that 16 hour tour would be long remembered, the most unforgettable sight was the intermittent tears that filled my partner's eyes as he struggled with his emotions but did his job with a profound courage and dignity. He berated those we caught looting and condemned them for besmirching the memory of Dr. King.

Several times during the night, when we collared someone who had just crashed through a store window and was running away with stolen property, my partner would grab them by the throat and push them up against a wall.

"This is how you honor the memory of Dr. King?" he shouted menacingly in the person's face. "You think this is what Dr. King would have wanted?" he hissed, struggling to keep from pummeling those who used the death of an icon as an excuse for criminal activity.

I don't pretend to understand the emotional roller coaster he and millions of other blacks had to deal with as they faced an uncertain future without their beloved leader. Dr. King represented more than the civil rights movement in America. He was the conscience of a nation that needed to be continuously reminded of its sins against those who were being judged, "by the color of their skin, rather than by the content of their character."

Dr. King, a believer in non-violence, lost his life in a violent act, but left behind a legacy that could not be tarnished by a racist's bullet. Thanks to him, millions of people were able to break the invisible chains that kept them in bondage more than a hundred years after they were proclaimed to be "emancipated." Because of his courage, his foresight and his eloquent oratory, those who had been blinded by the malignant disease of bigotry were able to see a clear picture of the obscenity that masqueraded as justice for blacks in America. Dr. King was a giant, the likes of which we'll probably never see again.