Martin and Me

Memories in recognizing Martin Luther King Day 2026

As a 12-year-old living in the new bedroom community of West Memphis, Arkansas, our family of five had crossed the Mississippi River after two years in Memphis and found a good school from elementary to junior high in the bucolic town 5 mi away yet still in Crittenden County. Entering 5th grade I realized that there was another school for black people a couple of miles away known as Phelix School or the colored school for those who weren’t as interested in knowing the proper name. Generally, blacks and whites as well as many Hispanic migrant farm families were afforded housing, education, and work in that county. But our lives are pretty whitewashed with suburban homes and we did not have interaction with people of color. Then there was that day that the yellow kitchen wall phone rang in an early spring afternoon. I could hear my dad’s voice blaring through the tiny holes in the receiver just past my mother’s ears. He was looking down from his office window onto the downtown Memphis street where the sanitation workers strike after the death of two black employees, Echol Cole and Robert Walker, were crushed in a faulty truck. Demonstrations were organized for better pay conditions in Union recognition, and quickly drew Martin Luther King into the picture. My dad reported on angry crowds, , police squads, and garbage collection trucks on fire, and a few other spicy and embarrassing words. His concern was heartfelt but his reaction was the same as many. I just remember standing stock still in the kitchen between the telephone and the news bulletin on TV in the den. My ears and eyes were throbbing with history and violence and change. And a certain minister that we all got to know. Just a few miles away across the alluvial plain, the Mississippi River, and a few city blocks, Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated at the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis. The photo from that balcony is etched in my mind. As well as photos of the marchers and the brutality they met. It was Dr King’s last march. Now, back to school. By 1970, segregation came to Marion, Arkansas. Black classmates and teachers were part of my 7th and 8th grade experience. Including my lanky, handsome, cardigan sweater wearing pal Henry Martin. We were in two different worlds after we both got off the bus after school, Henry’s house was on a farm and the walls were lined with newspapers, my room was lined with pictures of the Monkees. I would have never gotten to visit the clapboard farmhouse, had I not accompanied my father on many of his business visits as an insurance claims adjuster. The house and yard were filled with children, good food, lines of wash drying in the sun, and playful dogs. The Memphis Commercial Appeal and the West Memphis Evening Times -- front pages, sports news, and comics made for very even and thankfully legible decor and distraction. I tried to make a joke about “wall paper” but I think it failed. Henry and I shared classroom stories about our teachers. I just sat there with my can of Coca-Cola reading the newspapers while my dad and Henry’s dad did State Farm business on the porch. Aside from slowly finding a way to blend into African-American surroundings in Arkansas and beyond, Dr. King was always part of my life after that. I wish I could have met him. And I guess I do meet him every year, on this day. In the air. On the air. In books. In conversations. In hymns. In prayer. Remembering Martin Luther King Jr and never forgetting the good fight.