Cliff Brunt: Calling timeout to thank Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
By CLIFF BRUNT
ISL Editor
Note: This story was written on Jan. 15, the anniversary of King’s birth. Cliff Brunt, 1/21/13.
As I prepare to head to Bloomington to cover a basketball game between Indiana and Wisconsin for Sports XChange/Reuters and Indy Sports Legends, I have paused to consider how fortunate I am to write about sports for a living.
I will do so because this is the anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birth.
King wasn’t the only civil rights leader. Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Ralph Abernathy were among the other prominent voices of that era. But King embodied the movement more than anyone else. He was the voice above all voices, and he resonated with masses of diverse people in a way few leaders ever have.
Because of what he did, I can take care of my family by watching people bounce a ball. I can go where I want to go, do what I want to do. It’s not something to take lightly. I have living relatives who didn’t have those kinds of freedoms and opportunities early in life. I’m not dwelling and I’m not angry. I’m just pointing it out to shed light on King’s influence.
As a sports writer, I have covered the Olympics, the Final Four and the Super Bowl. My wife, Christina, is a professor for Indiana University on the IUPUI campus. No way do those things happen without Dr. King and those who fought the battles with him. Those kinds of opportunities weren’t available to black people before he came along.
It goes deeper than that, though. Because my wife and I have done those things, now my kids view being a writer as normal instead of a dream. Now, they see that being a professor at a major university is an attainable goal.
In that way, King’s dream has been realized.
My grandfather, Elias Cooper, worked in Omaha’s packing houses in the 1940s. From all accounts, the man was as gifted as they come. He built his church and preached there. Seriously, he designed the church and helped build it. New Bethel Church of God in Christ still stands today. He was twice the man I’ll ever be.
As amazing as my grandfather was, I sometimes wonder what Elias Cooper would have become had he been born after King led the movement. We’ll find out, because Elias Brunt was born in 2006, and he, too, is gifted.
It goes even further than that. My wife is from Tanzania in East Africa. Her dad came to the United States in the 1970s to get an education. If not for Dr. King, Dr. Mushi probably never comes here. What black man would cross the ocean for what the U.S. was before the movement?
In much of the South before the Civil War in the 1860s, it was illegal to teach slaves to read or write. No matter how much brain power you had, the ability to develop it was muted. I don’t take for granted that I write this message today to a large audience of people from various races.
A war was fought with guns to free the slaves, and another war was fought with marches and speeches to make that freedom real. Now, most of our battles as black people are internal. We fight against the fact many of the images of us out there are harmful and keep our young people from aspiring to truly fly. We fight against low expectations and the lure of seemingly easy, but dangerous paths to wealth. I don’t like those battles, but I’ll take those over the old ones.
King wasn’t just a freedom fighter, he was an artist. As a writer, I am awed by King’s pinpoint use of words to drive a point home. I am amazed by his skillful use of tone to further drive home a point that words alone might not have done as effectively. I am mesmerized by his understanding of the camera and his ability to work the crowd. That he successfully used language and words to fight the battle, the very things his ancestors were forbidden to learn, resonates with me and bears special consideration.
I am humbled by King’s humility, his willingness to die for a cause that at times must have seemed hopeless. I am humbled by his maturity – he reached prominence in his mid-20s and died at 39 years old – just a year older than me. I am impressed with the way people old enough to remember living through the movement revere him to this day.
I could sit here and say that I’ve done little with my life, that people like King were the real warriors. But King’s generation fought the toughest of battles so those that followed wouldn’t have to. He wanted black people to have the chance to work at all kinds of jobs – to be journalists and doctors and lawyers and teachers and any other professional jobs anyone else could do, anywhere, not just in the black community. He wanted this nation to simply rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed.
No handouts. No reparations. Just a chance.
All these years after he died, circumstances make you wonder how much progress has been made. Purdue’s Darrell Hazell is the first black football coach in the Big Ten in nearly a decade. Even in the world of sports, certain kinds of progress have come slowly. And many times when I cover events, mine is the only black face among the journalists.
I know change takes time. There are no quick fixes. But today, I’m thankful for the progress that has been made. I’m thankful that I have written for some of the best news organizations in the world – most prominently the Omaha World-Herald and The Associated Press. I’m thankful that I had the ability to get an education from Creighton University and that the degree has mattered so much in my life.
I spend a lot of times writing about heroes, and in this world of sports, there are people who take their fame and use it for the greater good. Former IUPUI basketball coach Ron Hunter, who collects shoes to send to underprivileged kids all over the world, is a perfect example. But usually, I’m writing about heroic shots or tackles. That stuff matters, and writing about it matters, but it needs to be put into context. I’m excited about tonight’s game. There will be heroes, and I will enjoy writing about them. But I get to do it on a national stage because of the most clutch performer of all time – Dr. King.
