Thoughts on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

The following is a reflection written by Erin Buckley, one of this year's volunteers living at the North House.

I walk down the street, balancing two Styrofoam cups in my hands—in my left, water, in my right, Diet Coke. The sun glints off the snow, and I am glad to be approaching my destination, the apartment of one of the elders I visit through my work with Little Brothers, Friends of the Elderly. For although on this afternoon, January 13, Chicago is feeling temperatures above freezing for the first time in the new year, the cold creeps into my fingers. I carry a paper bag with an A&P corned beef sandwich on rye bread with mustard, and a wrap for myself. I am pleased to deliver such a specific lunch request to Luretta. (Note: name changed to protect privacy.)

Luretta buzzes me into her building and greets me at her door with a bright green and yellow sunflower sweater and a smile. I unload my goods, strip off my coat, sit beside her, and we catch up about Christmas and New Year’s. As we talk, I admire the display across the room from me—a Michella Obama doll in her glittering white inauguration gown, two smooth-faced dolls, a framed portrait of a uniformed woman holding a miniature space shuttle, presumably the first African American female astronaut. The scene looks similar to many of the shrine-like displays at the apartments I visit on Chicago’s South Side. The prominence of the Obama family among these shrines is rivaled only by portraits of Jesus Christ, and sometimes Mary.

Two bronze busts of Martin Luther King, Jr., nestled amongst the pictures, prompt me to ask Luretta if she had heard Martin Luther King, Jr., speak at Soldier Field in the 1960’s. I had learned of this event the previous day in speaking to an elder. Yes, she nods, she’d been there, and it was a hot day. “And didn’t Martin Luther King, Jr., live in Chicago for a while?” Yes, she confirms this.

Luretta seems a little more relaxed today. Perhaps it is the heavy sandwich which makes her space her thoughts a little more. After an hour or so, I leave Luretta’s with a Styrofoam cup holding an aloe Vera sprout, which she gave me from a plant burgeoning on her windowsill.

This year has been a year of building specific, intentional relationships with particular people in nooks and crannies throughout this city. Today, as I exit Luretta’s building, I think about winter, about warmth, about black and white. Also, I think about blindness. Luretta is 74 years old, has been blind for 5 years, and she lives alone. For Christmas, she was delighted to receive a 9-tape recorded set of the New Testament. I have no doubt that she has also heard the passage from the Old Testament, Isaiah Ch. 42: “I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth. These are the things I will do; I will not forsake them.”

Today, as it was in Martin Luther King, Jr.’s time, Chicago is one of the most segregated major cities in the country. Like many of my roommates, I am grateful for a job that affords me the opportunity to interact with people of different backgrounds and cultures than myself this year. If you were to see us, you might not think that Luretta and I share much in common. I am so fortunate to be able to visit this woman with a strong faith and a joyful spirit, this woman who cannot see me, who allows me to fulfill my job description every time I call her “friend.”