Return to: Back in the Day - Indiana's Black History

The irony of the dream

Martin Luther King's hope for blacks remains lost along road named for him

CELESTE WILLIAMS

Published: Aug. 31, 1997

Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I have a dream" oratory took only minutes to etch its memory permanently into the Ameri can psyche. It appears to have taken longer for the stirring message to take hold along Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Street in Indianapolis.

In his August 1963 address, King mused that his people lived "on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of prosperity . . . in exile in his own land."

In August 1997, 34 years after he spoke those words in Washington, Indianapolis' Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Street appears to have remained a metaphor for dreams deferred. It is a problem multiplied along dozens of King streets, drives, avenues and parkways in cities across the country.

It took several rancorous years for Indianapolis city lead ers to agree to name 2 1/2 miles of pavement, curb and sidewalk after the slain civil rights leader.

The former Northwestern Avenue, which cuts through neighborhoods that for decades had been a spoke of activity for the city's black community, was finally renamed Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Street in 1985 - six years after the first City-County Council resolution was defeated; 17 years after King's assassination.

That done, the street and the neighborhoods that straddled it continued their spiral under a different name - a name that made the neglect even more shameful.

The civil rights movement pried open doors through which unprecedented numbers of Indianapolis' black residents stepped into the middle class. But for thousands of others left in poor, isolated neighborhoods like those that straddle the Indianapolis street named for King, the dream still appears elusive.

City and neighborhood officials acknowledge the irony.

Carl Lile, president of the United Northwest Area Development Corp. and former employee of the city's Department of Metropolitan Development, says the dream may be deferred, but it's not dead.

Lile said the city is acquiring land, meetings have been held with residents, and plans are being discussed to develop both housing and businesses along the most blighted stretches of MLK.

He predicts 1998 will see results that bring "hope" back.

"Bringing that street back to prominence, something people should be proud of, is important," says Lile. "We can set a trend, an example for other cities to follow."

That's the dream.

For now, though, let's look at the reality.

The southernmost point starts near 10th Street, at Crispus Attucks Middle School, 1140 Dr. Martin Luther King St.

It seems fitting for the two black heroes to share the avenue. (Attucks was one of the first people to die at the Boston Massacre preceding the Revolutionary War).

The school stands on a grassy rise, like a brick sentry, at an intersection that tangles around I-65 like a loose knot.

The convergence of intersections and thoroughfares makes it easy for drivers who are going somewhere else - which seems like most of them, on a midsummer day - to blur past. It's difficult for someone unfamiliar with the area to stop.

Stop at Attucks. Read the sign. You'll find that the stately school was built in 1927, a segregated school for black high schoolers; integrated by court order in 1970; converted to a junior high in 1986 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1989.

When asked what subject she teaches, sixth-grade teacher Georgia Ladd, Room 204, responds like a teacher. With a pop quiz:

"Look around my room. What subject would you say I teach?" she says, quizzically cocking her head.

There's a map of the U.S., there are the presidents, there's a globe at the corner of her desk. ". . . History?"

"Yes!" she says emphatically, with a wide, encouraging smile.

You'd swear she was born a teacher.

Actually, Ladd has taught about 10 years. Before that, she worked 27 years in cardiology research. She shrugs off the contrast. "My forte in life is serving," she says. "That was serving; this is serving.

"I love middle school students. They're babies one day and adults the next. . . . People ask me, `Do you still have the zeal?' I say, `Yes, I do. When I no longer have it, that's when I'll sit down.' "

No sign of that, sixth-graders. She was left standing on a chair, adjusting a poster above the chalkboard.

Down the hall, in Room 201, Olivia McGee-Lockhart surveys the blank canvas that is her room. The reading and math teacher is new to Attucks, from School 86, which closed this year.

The Indianapolis native is a Shortridge graduate, but she considers this new assignment a homecoming, for her mother is a proud Attucks graduate. Class of 1935. McGee-Lockhart found her mother's picture among hundreds hung along a downstairs hallway.

She stands on tiptoes, the tip of her finger touching the glass over her mother's youthful face, and beams.

"Quite a few faithful"

A stone's throw across the street, Fletcher Atwood and his wife, Selena, pull weeds out of two planters framing the entrance to Christ Mission Baptist Church, 1139 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. St.

They are supervised from a tiny plastic chair by their cherubic 3-year-old grandson, Christopher.

It's a small structure. Look behind the built-up facade with a wooden cross in the center and notice that the house of God probably used to be a human home.

Atwood is the assistant pastor to the Rev. T.O. Evans. Ask Atwood how many members the church has, he simply replies with a nod, yanking another weed from the dry dirt: "Well, we've got quite a few faithful."

Striking at Peerless

The pre-noon sun is high, and Pat Kavanaugh wearily paces with his cardboard "On Strike" sign outside Peerless Pump factory, 2005 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. St.

June 7, the day the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers Local 1917 went on strike, seems like an age ago, says Kavanaugh, a machinist who's worked at the plant four years.

"I sure wish they'd get something in the works," he says of the stalled talks. Three lawn chairs sit in the shade of a junction box nearby. Kavanaugh says picket line shift-change conversations usually begin: "Have you heard any news?"

Kavanaugh squints up the length of a flagpole on the other side of the fence and wonders aloud why the company hasn't flown the American flag for several weeks.

He shrugs, then distracted by a short horn-blast from the street, reflexively waves at the passing vehicle. It's a United Parcel Service truck. UPS strikers - Teamsters - ended their walkout a week earlier and returned to work.

Geneva Wright, Peerless storeroom-attendant-on-strike, arrives with a smile for Kavanaugh. "I hope to get back in there," says the 8 1/2-year employee, staring beyond the gate.

"But I heard they said we're not hungry enough yet."

Staving off hunger

There's a line of hungry strikers at Flanner House, 2424 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. St.

There, every Thursday, Gleaners Food Bank of Indiana, with the support of AFL-CIO Community Services and the Central Indiana Labor Council, opens a pantry for striking Peerless workers. A large room is stacked with cases of all kinds of foods and household goods.

The talk in the queue is similar to the picket line conversation. It's a mix of slap-back camaraderie and masked anxiety. The "hungry enough yet" rumor has reached these folks, and they shake their heads and haul boxes of food to their yawning trunks.

The workers are aware that there's no news from the plant. They are also aware of the crude cardboard sign on a post near the front of the line that says there'll be no more food until the middle of September.

Betty Davis, who heads social services for Flanner House, turns away a man who is not a striker, asking him to make an appointment with his social worker. "This is food for the Peerless strikers," she says politely, firmly.

The man is clearly agitated. "Hey, I used to work at Peerless," he says. Later in the parking lot, the man extends his hand and apologizes to Paul Webster, a member of the negotiating committee for the union local. Then he asks Webster, who is smoking, for a cigarette.

"Hey, I'm on strike, man; gotta save every penny," says Webster, dressed in a "God Bless Union People" T-shirt. He flicks an ash and exhales.

The man derisively sucks the back of his teeth with his tongue, then strides away, south down Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Street.

Vets' gathering post

Pass a yellowed "Members Only" sign, maneuver down an ominous flight of cement steps, and open a door with an eye-level knob to get into the club room for Tillman H. Harpole American Legion Post No. 249, 2523 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. St.

Don't mind this World War I-vintage cement-block structure too much, though. The new place is going up right next door. It's about the only new construction going on along Dr. Martin Luther King Street.

A group of older black male veterans gathers here daily at random, trading laughs, jabs and friendly lies under the red-light glow, over cans of beer or something stronger served up by club manager, Charles R. Smith.

Smith is a World War II Navy aviation machinist who served on the USS Enterprise. He lost a leg after sliding during a baseball game in port. "Compound fracture . . . gangrene," he says.

At a nearby table, Kelley Perkins, 83 on this day, sips a Schlitz and nurses a Camel. Perkins served as a staff sergeant and supply sergeant in the Army quartermasters during World War II, sending supplies to the front lines in France, England and Germany.

His first wife died in 1971, his second two years ago. He has a daughter and two grandchildren, but he prefers to spend his afternoons here, among friends who understand without talking.

"This used to be a heck of a street," recalls Smith, conjuring a memory of the Interurban train that ran along then-Northwestern Avenue, a street of busy shops and the Wrigley Theater - now a smattering of struggling businesses, and abandoned blocks.

"We need the younger generation to bring back this area," Smith says. "That's what we need."

Businesses stand alone

"It's really changed," says Rose Baker, surveying the street from a chair outside her shop at 2634 Dr. Martin Luther King St. Baker says the name of her resale shop is B & B, but there's no sign on the yellow storefront.

The 76-year-old business owner has hung some dresses she thinks are attractive outside the doorway; assorted high-heeled shoes line a small table; the sound of a soap opera on a television inside blends with that of passing cars.

Baker says she happened into the business while looking for a place to have a rummage sale. The landlord rented this storefront to her for two days - 15 years ago.

Her beyond-cluttered shop, and a "sports bar" that the 86-year-old landlord just opened next door are the only businesses in this block; the store to the north is abandoned, the one to the south is being bulldozed. The city took over the property after its roof caved in.

Baker says she'll stay, as long as she makes a few dollars every day.

She says she would like to see the street return to the vitality that she remembers - "There was a grocery store, and a Murphy's 5-and-10 . . ." she says, waving her hand in the direction of her memories. "Well, I just hope the Lord lets me live to see it."

Selling at the north end

At the northernmost end of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Street, at 38th Street where it becomes Michigan Road, Nation of Islam member Lee Muhammad hawks The Final Call newspaper from the narrow medians to cars stopped at the traffic signals.

The headline on the tabloid front: "Is Your Gov't Job Safe?"

Muhammad also holds sticks of incense in one fist, and a necklace of small vials of scented body oils, also for sale, drapes around his bow-tied neck. The money, he says, goes to "help rebuild The Nation." It is his only employment.

Some who decline a purchase from the immaculately dressed, clean-shaven 26-year-old receive a free flier advertising the Labor Day Indianapolis appearance of Minister Louis Farrakhan at the Indiana Convention Center. "He's coming!" announces the flier in bold letters.

Two other suited Nation members eventually join Muhammad, along with four casually dressed men hawking peanuts for donations to a Christian church.

"It changed my life completely," says a solemn Muhammad, who is a little over a year into his conversion to Islam. "I was doing all kinds of negative things." He's not specific.

He calls black people in Indianapolis "complacent" - a condition that only "trials and hardship" may alter, he says.

Of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., he says: "Overall, he was a good man. But why give him a street after he's dead? A dead man can't do anything for anybody."

.

Return to: Back in the Day - Indiana's Black History