Growing Up King

by Dexter Scott King

  Obie Scott was old school, with the ethic of: You work your life through, and if you’re not up doing something, you are wasting time, your life has no purpose. So we didn’t really mind. We wanted to sleep later, don’t get me wrong. And we kind of knew if we wanted to go back to bed, we could just turn the light off and he wasn’t coming back to check. That was Martin’s move, to jump up and say, “Yessir!” and then plop back down after my grandfather left the room.

  My grandmother, Nana, as we called her, wanted us to participate in the process: help her prepare the food, help her do chores, which we didn’t mind, typically. We learned a lot. Like milking cows. Not something on my list to learn how to do, but I did learn. Granddaddy would take Martin to the slaughterhouse. I don’t remember going; Martin never had much to say about it. Grand-daddy owned cows and hogs and chickens and everything; they somehow became cut-up slices and slabs of meat; he’d send us back to Atlanta with what seemed like a whole cow or pig, cut up. We’d have six months’ supply of sirloin, T-bone, ham, and bacon. We never wanted for meat, not as long as he kept livestock. He also ran a hauling business; Martin and I learned to drive a standard shift with him. “Drive, boy,” is all he would say, and I ground gears and killed the engine misapplying the clutch before I got the feel. That was fun. I didn’t have my driver’s license, but on those country dirt roads, I could play around with his pickup or tractor.

  It was a diversion from city life, going to the country to do things not available in the city. Even my mom, even though she was a parent and concerned, would relax the standards. I don’t remember my dad being in that setting as much. When he did go, he almost always disappeared.

  Sometimes my mother’s sister, Edythe Scott Bagley, her husband, Arthur, and their son, Arturo, would visit the farm with us. Uncle Obie, Mother’s brother, was always around to help and support us as well. In later years, his wife, Alberta, became an invaluable member of our family. Arturo is actually probably two years younger than Bernice, and that is the only cousin we had on that side of the family—the only first cousin. Now, we had all kinds of more distant cousins. That was the other special thing about “the country.” My great-grandfather had twenty-five children. We were literally related to most of the county. We would meet new people on a regular basis who would just come up and say, “I’m your third cousin, So and so.” Oh, is that so? My mother or grandmother would say, “Yes, that’s So-and-so’s child.” A lot of times they would embarrass you, and take a little pleasure in it too. You might have met them before, just a quick meeting, and they might say, “You ’member me, don’t you? What’s my name?” How can you remember all these people? So it’s funny on one hand; in the country they all know each other so it doesn’t matter that they are that many times removed. Inevitably they all know each other. There’s some comfort in that.

  It was always like a homecoming, or a reunion; people would find out we were there and they would drive over from their farms, just to come and say hello to the Kings, or the “Kangs,” as some of them pronounced it, and ask, “Is the Rev’un here? Can we shake hands with the Rev’un?” His name preceded him. They appreciated my father. Mother knew them all by name, but I honestly can’t say I could keep track of them all.

  My parents were always very loving. I think the best word for their marriage is partnership. It wasn’t like one parent was dominant over the other. You felt shared responsibility. When we would sit around the table, they both would have input in the drift of the conversation. My mom gave my father respect, as man of the house.

  I never heard them argue. Maybe they were good at keeping it from us, since the married couple doesn’t exist that hasn’t had arguments. My mother was always a concerned parent who would say her piece; if he was going somewhere and wanted to take my brother and me with him and if this was a trip that she thought might be in some way inappropriate, or maybe dangerous, she’d say, “Well, Martin, I don’t know if you should take the boys on this one.”

  And we would say, “But we want to go, we want to go!”

  And he’d say, “Well, I think it would be okay.” And she wouldn’t press it, not in front of us. She would just look at him and lower her head, but not her eyes. Usually, later on, he’d wind up explaining to us why we couldn’t go. We’d gone on just a few trips, like the James Meredith march in Mississippi, and were surprised when in late March of 1968, she allowed us to go with him on a tour around Georgia. Just us fellas. She wasn’t the type that challenged him in front of us, but later, when it was just them, one-on-one, she got her point across. If she had a concern, she would express it, but after being heard she wouldn’t press it. So she respected him as a man, as the father, as the head of the household.

  Christmas and other holidays and birthdays were celebrated in our house regardless of any current situation, campaign, or cause. Gift giving, gift exchange, and reflection on spirituality were what holidays meant. My mom is a big believer in traditional celebrations and ceremonies.

  The last Christmas we all shared was in 1967. At the time, we didn’t know it was the last Christmas we’d all share. It was just another great Christmas. Mother bought my father and me identical bicycles. Mine was just a junior version of his. Same brand, same color, same style. Purple. A new three-speed with the shift knob in the middle on the column. A purple metallic, sparkly color that trans-fixed me; a new model. The “in” thing. Really the coolest thing going.

  Mine had training wheels. His did not. His was also bigger. I remember my father and me riding them together Christmas of 1967, down Sunset; we always felt kindred, there was always a shared sense of closeness between us because we both had January birthdays and our birthdays were close to Christmas, so when it came down to gifts, we knew we had a double hit coming.

  “Dad-day! Wonder what else we’re going to get, Daddy?”

  “Isn’t this enough, Dexter?”

  “It sure is. Until our birthday.”

  He laughed with me. And there we remain forever. It was our last Christmas together.

  I don’t remember our birthdays that followed in January of 1968 very well, for some reason; Dad’s birthday was typically celebrated with staff more than family. The whole Movement family, the Cause—all would do things for him and my mom would kind of incorporate family into that, but our mother would do celebrations for all of us individually at home on our birthdays.

  My father and I did get to ride our bicycles together once or maybe twice more. We rode them up and around the gently undulating red clay hills in Vine City in January of ’68, with the smell of honeysuckle and the sound of music and children playing replaced by winter’s chill and desiccated leaves blowing in the wind between us. I remember chinging my bell, hearing him encouraging me to try and keep up, gently saying, “Careful, Dexter, until you get a feel for it.”

  We rode our bikes on the streets of Vine City, past shotgun houses, Egan Homes, Magnolia Ballroom, Flavor Palace, Pascal’s, the Bonds’, the Davises’, the Halls’, Mrs. Toomer’s, the Ollie Street Y, Washington Park… our world. My father had insisted that we be in an environment where we would be with the people, not be on a mountain talking down to the valley, but in the valley, and perhaps go up the mountain together one day, in a perfect world. I remember biking beside my father, him not going so fast as to leave me behind. Remember how I said some were afraid to go by Egan Homes? When we rode by Egan Homes and my father waved to a few of the people, they waved back and said, “There goes the Reverend King and one of his boys. Spit that boy out. Look just like him.” I ended up making a couple of good friends from Egan Homes… Afterward.

  The couple of months after Daddy’s and my birthdays in January of 1968 felt ominous. Martin, Yolanda, and myself asked Daddy not to go to Memphis. We might have been worried. Not that Daddy would die… just that he might be put in jail again. He went to Memphis two or three times that spring. The first time he went, we didn’t say anything; it was after he came back, and planned to go again, that I recall this nag
ging feeling that something was wrong, something was off. The three of us felt it, Yolanda, Martin, and me. Something bad was going to happen. He knew it better than we did. How we picked up on it, I don’t know. It was a frustrating period for all of us because we felt we had no control. And when it happened, Afterward, you felt death had been hovering over you all along, death seen from a child’s view, and it would always be there, after that. We knew things were changing, and not for the better.

  CHAPTER 3

  Shattered

  Suddenly, he was just—gone. Just like that, his short life like an exploding flashbulb that blinds you momentarily, fixes you in time, reveals you to yourself—then expires forever.

  We were watching television. That’s how I learned. TV told me. Special Bulletin. Yolanda says that until this day every time she sees one, it’s a shock to her system. Now this is part of her imperial conditioning too. If she sees a Special Bulletin— “we interrupt this program for a Special Bulletin from CBS News”—her pulse races, she feels faint, her throat closes, she senses death.

  I, on the other hand, feel nothing but numb.

  Martin and I were sitting on the floor in front of the TV. Yoki was there somewhere, but I’m not seeing her or Bunny in this picture, in the same room with us. Yoki was twelve. We were sitting on the floor watching TV, I don’t remember what—maybe some game show. If it had been on Saturday, earlier in the day, it would’ve been American Bandstand. The Special Bulletin came on, and an unforgettable voice said, “Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., has been shot in Memphis, at 6:01 P.M.”

  Martin and I looked at each other. We said nothing.

  We both jumped up and ran back into our parents’ bedroom.

  Mother sat on their bed, ankles crossed, fingers of her free hand and the phone receiver at her mouth. “Mother? Mommy? Mama? You hear that? What do they mean?”

  Mother held up a finger, telling us to be patient, quiet, to wait; she was being briefed, on the phone to Memphis, with Jesse Jackson, who was the first to call her. She was obviously just getting the news from him. We waited for her to get off the phone—and dreaded her getting off.

  She kept saying, “I understand.” I’ll never forget those words, how I couldn’t understand why she would keep repeating them. I wanted her to get off the phone and make me understand. She replaced the beige receiver back in its cradle and turned to us. Yolanda came in; Mother’s mouth opened, but before she spoke the phone rang again. It was Uncle Andy from Memphis this time. Mother listened again. “I understand.” She hung up. Yolanda pressed her hands over her ears. “Don’t tell me! Don’t tell me!” she screamed. She fled the bedroom. Pain filled Mother’s face. She encircled us boys in her arms and drew in a deep breath, as if about to dive underwater.

  “Your father—there’s been an accident.” From then on our mother was stoic. She made you feel she was in control. No hysterics.

  The phone rang again. Mayor Ivan Allen, offering to escort Mother to the airport. Yolanda composed herself, came back to the bedroom to help Mother pack. As they worked, I asked, “Mommy, when are you coming back? When’s Daddy coming back?” She didn’t seem to hear.

  Soon she’d leave the house with Aunt Christine and Uncle Isaac, in a car with Mayor Allen and his wife to go to the airport. Aunt Christine had been in her kitchen in her Collier Heights home when the Special Bulletin had come. She’d left the house after getting a baby-sitter for Isaac and Angela. While Mother waited for her and Uncle Isaac and the Allens to arrive, Martin said nothing, only sniffled. I turned back to Mother.

  “Mommy, when is Daddy coming home?”

  I kept repeating. “I’m going to Memphis to see Daddy, Dexter. When I get there I’ll call and let you know.”

  “Okay.”

  Then they left for the airport. Sooner than expected, she would come back. She arrived at the airport and was informed there was no reason to rush. Dora McDonald, my father’s secretary, met my mother at the airport to accompany her to Memphis; she was the first person to share the bad news. She saw Mother and walked toward her in the terminal. She asked Mother to sit down. She did. Then Mayor Allen received the news on the phone. When he returned, Mother knew without his saying it. But he had to say it anyway. “Mrs. King, I’ve been asked to tell you that Dr. King is dead.” Her husband, our father, was dead.

  Hope went out of many lives. We were not alone in that, and never would be alone in it from then on. Wherever America went, particularly black America, we’d go careening with it.

  Mother came back to 234 Sunset. People were here by then. Mrs. Rachel Ward had come quickly. We had no time to sit and talk or break down or anything else on our own because people had started coming to the house right away. The phone rang. Mrs. Ward answered it. People in Memphis were communicating with our house, not knowing Mother was gone. Mrs. Ward was on the phone one minute, the next minute she screamed and fell straight back, collapsing onto her back as if she had been shot or snatched onto her back by a giant hand. That’s when I knew—when the thought first struck me, never again to leave: “Daddy is dead.”

  Mrs. Ward was catatonic. Then came emotional people gathering at our house, coming to our aid, with best intentions; then their hysterics upon seeing us, the grief uncontrollable.

  I knew what had happened. Then, of course, it was official on the news. But I knew when Mrs. Ward fell back. As a seven-year-old I didn’t have an understanding of death, but I knew it was worse than the first report: he had been shot; he had lived. Now the worst had happened. By the time Mother returned, I was in bed. Bernice was asleep. Every time someone had mentioned my father, she had mimicked Yoki and left the room with her hands over her ears. Sleep came as a blessing to her. Martin and I went to bed; he got up. I couldn’t sleep either.

  Mother had dreaded coming back to the house, dreaded having to tell us the news, not knowing quite how. How do you tell a child, let alone four children, that their father is not only dead but has been murdered? You don’t, in our case. The world let us know. Yolanda and Martin were still up. Yolanda asked my mother, “Mama, should I hate the man who killed Daddy?”

  “No. You shouldn’t.”

  I could see both of their faces, golden in the lamp-shaded light. I stood watching. “Then I’m not going to cry,” Yoki said. “I’m not going to cry because maybe my daddy is dead physically but his spirit is alive and one day I’m going to see him again in Heaven. Oh Mommy, you’re such a brave and strong lady. I don’t know what I’d do if I was in your shoes.”

  With a wrenching exclamation, Mother pulled my sister to her and they hugged tightly. Mother said, “Your father would be so proud of you.” Mother wiped her face and they sat holding each other’s hands. Finally Yolanda got up, strong and ladylike, and left the room.

  Soon, Mother came back to our room.

  “Dexter… do you know your father was shot?”

  “Yes.”

  “He was hurt badly.”

  “But why?”

  “Dexter, why don’t you go to sleep now and I will tell you all about it in the morning. Sleep.”

  “All right, Mother… Mother! Are you going to sleep here? Where will you be?”

  The next morning, there was this great droning hubbub around our house—and unbeknownst to us, chaos was now reigning in a horribly destructive way all across America in neighborhoods like Vine City. Vine City itself was quiet, morose, calm, but our house wasn’t.

  My mother was taking calls; family, friends, and people who worked with our father were descending on the house. Mother didn’t know how she was going to get to Memphis. Then a call came in. It was a Kennedy—the second time a Kennedy had called 234 Sunset. This time, it was Bobby. He offered to send a chartered plane for her, to take her to Memphis to get the body. He offered to put phone lines in the house, telling my mother she would need extra phones now; by daybreak it was done. Uncle Ralph and Uncle Andy were there. They were quiet around Mother but whispered of ramifications on RFK’s campaign for the presiden
cy, in its primary season. Uncle Andy was back from Memphis and had come to the house—when, exactly, I don’t know. Could’ve been the morning of that Friday. It could have been Saturday. There was no sense of time. Uncle Andy talked to us, kept calm. I could see hurt in him. It was Uncle Andy who actually told us my father was dead. He told us, and said we’d talk more about it later, but that we would have to look after our mother now, because that’s what our father would’ve wanted. I don’t know how much time had passed. I don’t know if I slept, or how. At some point we had a conversation, Uncle Andy, my brother, Martin, and me, in our bedroom. He told us our father did not die in pain, and that he would not want us to mourn in vain, or stand still in bereavement, but to move on, live, prosper, take advantage of the world he dreamed of, remember what he said at the Lincoln Memorial, that he wanted his four children to one day be judged by the content of their character, not the color of their skin—it was us he was talking about. Please don’t let him die in vain.