Growing Up King Read Free

be trouble, some might not be. Some might help you out.
    Egan Homes is long gone now. Razed, and replaced by a new mixed-income development, part of urban renewal.
    My father would take us down to the Ollie Street YMCA all the time. Everything in Atlanta is renamed by people who live near
     it. “Booker T.” was Booker T. Washington High School, where Dad went. It’s right over there. Everything in Atlanta was “right
     over there.” We stayed in our communities. The Ollie Street Y was where my father took us for recreation. I learned to swim
     there. He taught me. He was good at it and enjoyed it. And the YMCA is still there today.
    At Washington Park, we had cookouts. As children, we didn’t know we were “Negroes,” or if we did, we didn’t know exactly what
     that meant. We didn’t realize we lived in “segregation,” didn’t know there were better pools than the one we crowded into
     at the Y, or that we and our friends would be considered “have-nots” if our father wasn’t the co-pastor of Ebenezer Baptist
     Church. We weren’t aware that we could and would be turned away from public accommodations, educational institutions, or turned
     away from desirable living spaces by the real estate restrictive covenants. We weren’t aware that we were shunned by society,
     murdered over mere glances, made to feel less than human. We were children, and children are more than human; we were blessed,
     but sooner or later we’d grow up and have to face this prison of segregation, unless Daddy won his struggle. There was this
     great social upheaval, this “great getting-up morning” going on that would redefine our lives and existences, and those of
     the people around us.
    Like I said. We were rehearsing Yoki’s play as the alley and our friends beckoned to us. In a nearby house, Lou Rawls’s “St.
     James Infirmary” wafted up from a “record player.” Yoki also had a “record player,” on which spun large-mouthed 45s filled
     by yellow prong adapters; “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg” by the Temptations, Otis Redding’s “Try a Little Tenderness.” My father
     preferred Mahalia Jackson singing “Amazing Grace,” or Aretha Franklin singing “O Mary Don’t You Weep.” He often tapped his
     foot and bobbed his head to secular music, and he didn’t deny it to us—he couldn’t, not in Vine City. Music was everywhere.
     Like Yoki.
    Yoki was five years older than me and forever putting on plays and musicals. We were her troupe. It was not often that anyone
     else got a starring role with Yoki around. At my shoulder was Martin III, Marty then; he was restless, sighing heavily, looking
     away, mumbling. Yoki was telling me what I must do to make things right before we could leave.
    “You’re supposed to lean over and kiss her. On the lips.”
    My face continued to betray me, and my lack of enthusiasm.
    Bernice was lying with lips chapped, eyelids closed, then fluttering. She was pleased to be Sleeping Beauty. Usually her role
     was Yoki’s handmaiden, subject to taunting. Yoki was a stern taskmaster, particularly for Bunny. We often teased Bernice,
     saying she’d been left on our doorstep by mistake, or was adopted. Now I was in Yoki’s sights, subject to her derision—but
     it wasn’t enough to make me kiss a girl, particularly my little sister, for no good reason at all.
    “Why do you want me?” I whined.
    “Why?” Yoki repeated. “Why do you always ask why? Because I said so, that’s why. Because that’s the way the play goes. You’re
     supposed to kiss Sleeping Beauty; that will break the spell cast by an evil witch and everyone will live happily ever after.
     Don’t you want to live happily ever afterward, you stupid boy? Don’t you know anything?”
    “But she isn’t Sleeping Beauty. She’s Bunny.”
    “Not right now. She’s Sleeping Beauty right now,” Yoki countered.
    “Well… why can’t Martin kiss her? Why does it have to be me?”
    Yoki’s voice dripped with