As many of you know and fewer of you might remember, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was shot as he stood on a balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. The date was April 4, 1968.
In the years since, King’s name has been affixed to many things, most obviously streets. There are nearly 1,000 of these, most in the U.S. with a few sprinkled across the globe.
No one knows more about these streets than Detroit native and filmmaker Earl Hardy.
Okay, maybe a writer named Jonathan Tilove knows a bit. With photographer Michael Falco he visited more than 600 Martin Luther King-named streets across the country for a 2003 book, “Along Martin Luther King: Travels on Black America’s Main Street.”
In that book, he writes: “Map (the streets) and you map a nation within a nation, a place where white America seldom goes and black America can be itself. It is a parallel universe with a different center of gravity and distinctive sensibilities, kinship at two or three degrees of separation, not six. There is no other street like it. … For many whites, a street sign that says Martin Luther King tells them they are lost. For many Blacks, a street sign that says Martin Luther King tells them they are found.”
Hardy begs to disagree. He has been in the business of making a movie about the many King byways and he told me, “In so many ways and so many places, these streets are examples of how King’s dream has turned into a nightmare. His message has been skewed.”
He’s got a point and had been working for two years to make a movie about this. He had, full of hope, expected a feature film to be shot this last year but for reasons we all know too well, that did not happen. Still, he and his team, which includes Chicago attorney-author Michael Wilder as a producer, have kept at it and made a clever and creative 15-minute film that you can see at kingblvdfeaturefilm.com and will be celebrated and discussed Sunday with a virtual block party.
“The stories of these streets are funny, crazy, sad, cool and uplifting and we did not want a dry documentary. This is a drama based on all of our research but based in a narrative format,” says Hardy. “Our virtual party will have activists from Milwaukee and Dallas, some academics, some clips from the film and some music and spoken words artists. A real block party, only virtual. And it will reflect the film we are making.”
A script for a feature length film is complete. The only thing missing is funding.
But Hardy and his team are energetic and hopeful and there is no doubt that Chicago will play a prominent role, since our MLK byway stretches from 22nd Street south to 115th Street.
This was, it often surprises people to learn, the first street in the country to be designated in King’s honor. It was not because of Mayor Richard J. Daley’s admiration for King.
No, no: South Park Way became Martin Luther King Jr. Drive on Aug. 8, 1968, because Daley was attempting to placate the Black community because he was worried about trouble in advance of the Democratic National Convention.
Daley spoke at a ceremony marking the name change. He said, among other things, “Violence accomplishes nothing. Arson accomplishes nothing. Rioting accomplishes nothing. … Only love will overcome our difficulties today.”
rkogan@chicagotribune.com
