MLK Day: A Ray of Hope in Rochester

Last Monday morning, I brought my daughters to the Dr. Martin Luther King commemorative events in town. I had hoped to get some photos of the events and planned to interview participants to bring back to RVoices for fresh, new content. Naively, I thought I could both help my children make their posters for the march, while doing this layman reporting. More importantly, I was naive to think that I had any idea about what kinds of experiences and stories I would gather.

As a Midwestern-born Caucasian woman, I am beginning to realize that I experience something called "white privilege", meaning that by virtue of the color of my skin, I am afforded thousands of opportunities, preferential treatment and a sort of "carte blanche" that my brothers and sisters of different skin color are not. The more I realize this, the more I feel reluctant to bridge the gap, because I feel as though, regardless of the progress that has been made to reform government and society's views, I continue to reap the ugly fruits of racism. For example, on this day commemorating MLK, who am I, to do a quick, formulated interview, asking persons of a different race what kinds of prejudice, disregard, hopelessness, etc, they experience here in Rochester?

So, I played it safe. I went around the room and looked at the posters of the youth, who quietly expressed themselves in art. I didn't want to interrupt them, but there was a little sadness in their eyes. I wondered why, but dared not ask. Maybe life is hard for our children today, in these war torn times, in a society that divides everything up into pieces, places, times and costs and forgets about the ever present injustices staring at us like sad, Madonna eyes.

I asked the children how they first learned about MLK and they all cited the elementary classroom as their first point of reference to this Civil Rights Leader. In another time, I wonder if our great historical figures were discussed more at home, around the dinner table or if the radio heightened children's awareness to what was happening in the world, because it required a more active form of attention than watching television.

Later, during the poster-making session, I saw some African-American women working together at a large table. I asked one of the women how her experience had been in Rochester. She replied, "I'm not from here. Ask one of them." Then, after helping one of my daughters tape her tagboard to a stick, I noticed some of these women looking at me in anticipation.

A woman with smoothed black hair pulled into a pony tail seemed to have her story almost scripted in her mind. It just flowed. Her name was Elaine. She told me about how her cousin kept telling her to come up here from Chicago because it was a great place to live with equal opportunities and how she could come up here and be what she wanted to be (a Certified Nurse's Assistant.) Elaine wanted to be in a profession where she could care for others and in a town where as her cousin put it, "everybody cares." As Elaine was telling me this, I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. It seems that in the last couple of years, I have had a lot of conversations with people that are dissatisfied here in Rochester. But the shoe didn't drop. Elaine told me that she came up here and applied for two jobs where she could use her skills as a CNA and she got both jobs...one at Madonna Towers and another at Samaritan Bethany. She's been living in SE Rochester for five months and finds Rochester to be a caring community.

Immediately after taking a photo of Elaine, Lori wanted to make sure I got her story. Lori was sitting diagonally across from Elaine. She had a more casual air about her and wore her hair in small, shiny, shoulder-length ringlets. Originally from Springfield, Missouri , Lori had come here 7 months ago from Minneapolis. She said it had been bad, because there, she had gotten involved with a dope dealer. Things had escalated and this dealer killed her "best friend", her "soul mate." She lifted the bottom of her shirt up to the top of her waistline and showed me a dark, reddish purple thick scar, going vertically down the middle of her stomach, at least 10 inches in length. "He did this" she said of the dealer. I didn't really know how to respond. So much tragedy in such a short time that had befallen this woman across from me, who five minutes earlier was a perfect stranger. It seemed that in letting me into the intimate pain of her life, she was befriending me and looking for the support that she knew she would continue to need in the coming months.

But then, I saw her strong closed mouth smile. Lori said that after twelve days of treatment in Minneapolis, she was transferred to Rochester. She has been here for seven months now, on her own and stated that "God is moving in my life." She attends Rochester Community Baptist Church and is currently still looking for a job. She said with assurance in her eyes, "But I do believe."

Meeting these two women, though they represent a small sampling of minorites here in Rochester, brought me hope. If I were to put the day into a book with chapters divided into lessons, it would be in the chapter entitled , "Lessons in Gratitude." When given the opportunity during Keynote Speaker Cleo Silver's speech on "The Struggle of American Youth," Elaine and Lori retold an abridged version of their stories in front of a large audience in the Civic Center's Presentation Hall. By telling their stories, they brought messages of hope to those in the midst of struggle.

Lastly, at the MLK Birthday Party in the auditorium, I had the opportunity to speak briefly with Ms. Silver and ask her advice on a current racial dilemma in Rochester that MPR featured on a recent show. Following her counsel, Ms. Silver told me that I'd been her muse during her speech and thanked me. Imagine that! A Caucasian middle-aged woman had been this reknown Civil Rights Activist's muse in a speech addressed primarily to Rochester's youth minorities. I came home that evening realizing that sometimes it is not for me to bridge the gap: someone else, such as Elaine, Lori or Ms. Cleo Silver, may bridge it and I simply need to walk across.

But I'll never be able to cross, if I don't walk to the gap.