Journal Gazette from Mattoon, Illinois • Page 10

A10 Monday, April 5, 1999 Hope survived dark day one in April 1968 I -A By Vesta Runole For Mid-Illinois Newspapers It was a brisk April day 31 years ago, in 1968, when my college-teacher husband and I left our home in Charleston to attend a speech convention in Chicago. In addition to the convention, we would meet long-ago college friends. Our spirits lifted as we pushed all the cares arid hectic schedules far behind. As the car pulled up in front of the LaSalle Hotel we heard the newsboys on the curb shouting "Extra, Extra!" The sidewalks were full of people talking and animated. Inside the hotel people were hurrying throughout the lobby.

"What's happening?" my husband, Al, asked the desk clerk as he checked our reservations. "Oh, haven't you heard?" the clerk replied excitedly. "Martin Luther King has been shot!" Mid-Illinois Newspapers The next morning, TV reports documented the night of horror: Nine lives lost. More than 350 arrested. Firemen fought fires under snipers' guns.

A 2-mile stretch of Madison Street was engulfed in flames. Thirty-six major fires reported between 4 and 40 p.m. Three-thousand National Guard patrolled troubled areas. Looting was widespread. Somewhere out there .1 had traveled across the beginnings of this.

We dressed quickly. Even before the elevator doors opened we heard the hub-bub in the hotel lobby. Even then I was struck by the paradox of highly educated people seized by panic. Disorganization reigned. Men were yelling and hammering on the desk, i Aloud roarof demands grew for airplane tickets, for taxis," for limousines, for cars.

People searched the crowd for those fkm their own towns. Word spread rapidly that most of the Saturday meetings had been canceled. One problem pervaded how to get out of the city. We followed a very erratic and revised route out of the city. The bumper-to-bumper traffic moved slowly past an area dotted with old brick buildings and closed taverns.

Sitting along the sidewalks or leaning up against the building were bandaged, clothes-tattered, staring-eyed men looking for all the world like they'd stumbled from a battlefield. Blood oozed through head bandages. Broken glass carpeted the area. One man limped along wincing at two bandaged hands. Again, I remember the faces -r- all smileless and hopeless.

Back home, it was all like an eerie dream. This just couldn't have happened in our America. But it did. And I read of a young woman who was shot and killed in the very same train I rode on that day. Martin Luther King said that "the moral arm of the universe' is long, but it bends it bends toward justice." And that bending fills us with hope.

Even yet we sing of hope. Still we sing of hope. small log-jam of cars seemed caught in the stream of traffic. Then the sound of voices drew my gaze to the intersection less than a block to my right A crowd oozed from the side street, filling the sidewalks and blocking all traffic. Like one expanding body the group surged en masse on the two corner stores a grocery store and shoe store.

Plate glass windows exploded. Fragments of glass showered the crowd. As people tried to get out of the stores, the angry crowd thrust its ugly face against them and spat bricks and bottles, pushing, shoving, screaming, engulfing the area in chaos. The crowd surged, regrouped, and surged again. Stunned and shocked, I turned to my fellow passengers and unthinkingly blurted out, "Did you see that? Did you see it!" Three pair of somber eyes stared at me from three black male faces.

There was not a sound. I don't remember leaving the train or the details of my short trek to the hotel, but I was breathless when I rattled the hotel room doorknob. Instantly it burst open revealing the worried faces of my husband and our two friends who yelled, "Thank God, you're here!" I sank into a chair and learned that they did, indeed, have reason to be concerned. They related their experiences as they'd eaten lunch near the Civic Center. A crowd, seemingly peaceful, had gathered there.

A few isolated teen-agers shoved their fists through a jewelers' window and ran past them with bloody hands. Another group and then another joined the Civic Center crowd. Police cars surrounded the scene. Then a priest joined arms with the leaders of two of the groups and led them off for a memorial service for Dr. King.

The crowd followed peacefully. Back at the hotel they learned that most Chicago schools had been dismissed. A near-riot broke out in front of a school when two groups alternately lowered the school's U.S. flag to half mast and ran it back to the top of the flagpole. A bus driver was beaten when his bus was halted and attacked by a mob.

Photo by Doug Lawhead The murder of Dr. Martin Luther King in Memphis, on April 4, 1 968, set off riots in many parts of the country, including Chicago, where participants of a convention landed in the middle of the confusion. This painting hangs in the Martin Luther King Jr. University Union at Eastern Illinois University. "Oh my God, no," Al murmured.

"How bad?" "He is dead" the clerk replied. "Dead." The rest of the evening seems a blur now. TV reports were still going on at 1 frill. Vesta Rundle Orders had been given for everyone in the city to stay home, to keep off the streets. No one should be out alone as I had been all day completely unaware of the powder keg I'd trav-eled across.

We watched as the life and heartbeat of the city ebbed away. Neon lights and street lights popped on illuminating empty corridors. No buses moved, no taxis screeched around the corners. Stop lights winked at people-less intersections. Eventually a waitress emerged from a restaurant.

She stopped at the curb and looked unbelievably up and down the street. Then she walked into the middle of the street, usually laden with traffic, now barren and silent. Putting her hands on her hips she looked in every direction, then shrugged and stood there immobile for three or four minutes. She saw no one and went back into the restaurant. The exciting, vibrant, pulse-throbbing Chicago we had known was gone.

The whole atmosphere was eerie, haunting, and unreal. My seat companion began telling me about her experiences the previous summer as a social worker in some of the Negro-populated apartment buildings. When she left the train I was grateful for the insight she'd given me about some of the city's problems and I discounted what I'd been told about the imperson-alization of the "big cities" She was friendly, dedicated, and con-cerned. I continued on to Evanston. I was working with a state grant for a fine arts program for gifted children.

The Evanston principal had told me the high school would be closed for spring vacation but, even though I would not be able to observe classes, he would explain their fine arts program to me, and share materials. During my time at Evanston High School, I was completely away from radio, television or any other contact with the "outside" world. And so it was with no apprehension that I left the high school around 3:30 to start my trip back into "the Loop." I saw absolutely no one as I walked to the station. Soon, I boarded the train. As we passed the passenger platforms each seemed more crowded than the next.

All were waiting for trains leaving the city. No one boarded the train I was on, headed downtown. In fact, there were only three other people in my car. One, a graying, well-dressed black man, was reading a newspaper. His face seemed weighted with sadness.

Headlines leaped out at me "King's Death Stuns Chicago." "Bobby Tells Crowd of Slaying." "Negro ViolenceHits U.S. Cities." "Hit in Neck Bullet." "LBJ Appeals for Calm." "Daley Pays Tribute." "Sniper Fells Him at Memphis Motel." We sped past the people-filled platforms. It seemed nearly everyone carried a newspaper. The message of the train wheels seemed to echo the big, black headlines that stretched elasticlike, past the train windows, "King is dead. King is dead.

Martin Luther King is dead. King is dead. King is dead. Martin Luther King is dead. But it was the weary, worn faces that I remember even now.

It was a kaleidoscope of faces creviced, lined, white, old, sallow, sagging, work-worn, crinkled, black, brown, young, smooth, yellow, sad, distraught. It was a collage of sorrow, of quiet anger, of gnawing grief. Now the train was moving along above apartment buildings. Looking down I realized there was no one in sight. The back porches, the streets, the yards were completely empty; For blocks I could see no one.

Nothing moved. A feeling of apprehension en-veloped me. Soon, to my right, I began seeing small knots of people and this, erroneously, calmed me. First, I noticed a group of four or five young adults standing in a small circle on a back porch. They seemed to be talking quietly.

About a block and a half on further was a similar knot of people on a front porch. As the train sped along I noted a number of these small, quiet groups dotting mostly the back porches about every block. The train slowed. We were barely creeping along. Streets running diagonally below us now were filled with stores and small businesses.

Directly below us a 33 3 3 00 1L That's how many newspapers have been supplied to our area schools through the Times Courier I Journal Gazette's Newspaper in Education (ME) Program, These newspapers are being distributed thanks to the generosity of the following businesses and organizations! Thani You! near midnight when our friends from South Dakota arrived. Over breakfast the next morning we expressed our shock, our sorrow and our dismay that this assassination had happened in our great America. Although none of us had met Martin Luther King we had supported his causes and shared his concerns, and, now, we sensed a deep per-sonal loss. Finally we got around to making our plans for the day. The men, of course, would attend the convention.

My friend planned to spend the day shopping and I had made an appointment with the principal at Evanston High School. We agreed that I should not try to drive in unfamiliar surroundings. Instead I would use the city rail line to go to Evanston. To me this seemed a great adventure since I'd never been on a Chicago subway or bus and had only once before been on the elevated train. I was on my own in the big city.

I was settled comfortably next to a window when the rhythmical cl ickety clack of the wheels began. The car had a number of empty seats but at each successive stop more people poured onto the train. An almost carnival atmosphere pervaded. "We've got the day off." "The boss is sending us A young girl took her place next to me. "Everyone in our office is being sent home while it's still safe to get out of the city," she explained.

"Safe?" I questioned. "I don't understand." "Well, groups have been congregating in front of City Hall, and at the Civic Center to protest the death of King, and, really, everyone in my building is afraid afraid of what can happen. I am afraid, too," she said, "only I don't really know why. But I'm glad, really glad, to be getting out of the city." At each platform there were many people also trying to get out of the city. Many boarded.

No one got off. 1 4 TheBank ii First National Bank of Lerna Greenup National Bank House of Wu Hunan Restaurant Papa Johns 'Mattoon Pap'R-Products ThePharmacie Shoppe Bennett brain Co. Carl Sandburg RT.O. Charleston Carruther's IGA Casey National Bank Central Illinois Physical Therapy Illinois Consolidated Telephone Co. Donnelley Sons JCPenney8 Charleston Federal Savings Jefferson Elementary RT.O.

Charleston ReMax Premier Inc. Rennels TV Appliance Rowe Foundry Sarah Bush Lincoln Health Center KalKan Ken Diepholz Chevrolet, Cadillac Geo viuxiua iiauuiiat uaiuimg vwitu of Charleston Oakland The Checkley Agency Community Banks of Shelby County' Windsor Facility Community Bank Trust Stix Restaurant, Bar Banquet Sylvan Learning Institute Trailmobile, Inc. Vesuvius USA Mattoon Chamber of Commerce McCrocklin Realty NEED -0 Corn Belt Shrine Club Mercer's Pharmacy C.R. Neff Plumbing Heating Mooney Ford of Charleston Oce Imaging Supplies EXTRA CASH FOR SPRING EXPENSES Walker's Super Saver Foods -Charleston Warren Grain Inc. What's Cookin' -ftr First Mid-Illinois Bank Trust Papa Johns -Charleston $50 $300 Applications By Phone Fixed Income WELCOME! BANNER FINANCE V.A Because of these donations many area students are able 1117 Broadway, Mattoon 61 938 235-0599 1.U IIUVL.

WIIV WJ UK. IHL'Jk IUIIUH IbJL'M'ILCJ UVlUlUllCi I So please accept this heartfelt "Thank You" from the Times CourierJournal Qazette and from the thousands of students who benefit from your commitment to education If your business or organization would like to become a sponsor of the Times CourierJournal Qazette's Newspaper in Education Program, 1 ItaMo iiiiNitfiiHflNliMtlii 0 i contact Teresa Brust at 345'7085 ir 5.