Tennessee, USA- Martin Luther King Day

 

Martin Luther King Jr.

Today is Martin Luther King Day, and Martin Luther King was born in Georgia. So why am I writing about Tennessee? This is because Tennessee is where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated.

Everyone knows who Martin Luther King Jr. was. Every year we have a day celebrating his accomplishments. From childhood we were told what a good man he was, and how he lead the non-violent movement towards equality  We have all seen video clips of his “I have a dream speech” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UV1fs8lAbg ), and if you haven't, you can play it here.

So why was Martin Luther King in Tennessee? I knew that he was protesting unfair treatment of African American's but was the smaller cause that brought him to that particular place? The answer: Garbage, or be more precise, the unfair treatment of Garbage workers. At the time, garbage workers in Memphis, Tennessee were all African American, and all there supervisors were white. These garbage men worked more than a full time job, yet their pay was so little that many of them still had to be on welfare. Added to this was the fact that they only had 15 minute lunch breaks, unsafe working conditions, and no bathroom breaks. The protests ignited after two workers were killed by being smashed within the compacter of a garbage truck (Bausmam). This protest is what lead Martin Luther King Jr. to Memphis, Tennessee, the place where King was assassinated.

Book:

The book I found was in the Children's section of the Library, "Marching to the Mountain" by Ann Bauman. She does a great job in showing the conditions of the worker, who was involved in the situation, who was involved with trying to change the workers conditions, and how Martin Luther King Junior got involved.

Food:

Today's menu includes soul food and traditional southern food. For breakfast I had a bowl of grits. Dinner is greens, mac and cheese, and black eyed peas.

It is amazing how much of the food that we think of as Southern food has similar African recipe counterpart. Almost every African country has recipes for greens, and beans. In Malawi, they even had grits, called "ngaiwa phala". So far, the only thing that I am making without an African counterpart, is my Mac and Cheese. I have yet to find this when searching for African recipes.

Movie:

One of the movies that I found about Tennessee is “The Blind Side” with Sandra Bullock. It is the story of a poor black boy who finds love and acceptance in the home of a well off white family. The movie shows Michael, the poor black kid, improve in school and in football, which finally leads to his acceptance into college.

The movie has racial themes. Leigh Anne is criticized by her friends for taking in such a large African American youth, who question whether it is safe for her to do so. The NCAA question whether or not the family has Michael’s best interest at heart, claiming that they only took him in to benefit there college football team. In the end the family gets to legally adopt Michael.

Experience:

Last summer I got to spend a few days in Camdem, Tennessee, which was my first visit to the state. We stayed at a small resort, called Birdsong on Kentucky Lake (part of the Tennessee River). In the resort is a freshwater pearl museum, because the lake is the only place in the U.S. where freshwater pearls are cultured. Dotting the sides of the road were historical sites that memorialized significant events that occurred during the civil war.

I road in the car with my stepmother, on the way down there from Michigan I got to hear all these stories about my step mother’s family. My favorite of which was this one:

Story:

My step mother’s great aunt was living by herself, her children having been grown, in a small house that had a crawl space under it. The crawl space was big enough for animals to get under. Her great aunt had noticed that this family of cats had moved in under the house. So she decided to try and get these cats into the house. She fed them outside, but only one of them would come up to the steps to eat. Since it was the biggest, she decided this must be the daddy cat. She called up one of her nephews and told him that she was trying to get this cat family inside. He advised against this saying: “Why do you want to bring feral cats in? They’re not going to make good pets.”

By the nephews next visit she still hadn’t gotten the cats in the house. The great Aunt called her nephew over to the door. “Ssh!” she whispered motioning for him to come to the door, “the daddy cat is right outside.”

He took one look at that “cat” and screamed: “That’s not a cat, that’s a skunk. You have skunks living under your house. You have to get your cataracts taken care of.”

Now the great aunts daughter, my step mother’s aunt laughed when she heard this story, because it was so funny to her: “Mama” she said, “how can you not tell a skunk from a cat?”

Years later this same aunt, that made fun of her own mamma, was living by herself alone.  She knew my stepmother was a librarian, so she called her up and asked her if she knew anything about the duckbill platypus. My step mom told her the little she knew, and then asked “why do you want to know about the platypus?”

“I have one living under my house. I didn’t know what it was when I first saw it, but I looked it up at the library and the only thing that looks like this creature is a platypus. That must be what it is.”

“You mean the famous Tennessean platypus Auntie?” my stepmom teased, know that there was no such creature living in that state.

“Oh, I’m sure it is a platypus. It looks just like the picture in the book.”

My step mother called one of her cousins to check it out and to see if they couldn’t put something up around the house to keep animals out. Her cousin went under the house. He saw two beady eyes. This must be Auntie’s platypus. The creature charged at him, but ended up running past him and out from underneath the house.

“There it is! There it is!” cried my stepmother’s aunt, “There’s the platypus.”

“That’s not a platypus! That’s a skunk!”

Video Clip:

I thought I would end this post with some humor. One of my favorites is from Epic Rap Battles: "Gandhi vs Martin Luther King Jr. Epic Rap Battle.

 

Work Cited:

Bausum, Anne. Marching to the Mountaintop. National Geographic. Copyright 2012.

Bird Song Resort. http://www.birdsong.com/index.php. Copyright: 2014. Retrieved: January 20, 2014.

"Gandhi vs Martin Luther King Jr. Epic Rap Battles" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6G6CZT7h4k . Retrieved: January 19, 2014.

Hancock, John Lee. "The Blind Side". Copyright: 2009.

Harrison, Connie Parker. Personal Conversation: August 2013.

King, Martin Luther, Jr."I Have a Dream". 28 August 1963.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UV1fs8lAbg. Retrieved: January 19, 2014