http://www.spokesman-recorder.com/news/article/article.asp?NewsID=97386&sID=13&ItemSource=L
by Elizabeth Ellis
Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder
Originally posted 7/1/2009
"Fidelity to the human condition means to love the soul and its
potential for beauty and truth."
Julius Lester
--
Malcolm X had a brother, Reginald, who was "the agent of Malcolm's
conversion [to Islam] in prison" (The Death and Life of Malcolm X by
Peter Goldman, U. of Illinois Press, 1979). Muhammad Ali's younger
brother Rudy (a.k.a. Rahman) Clay reportedly converted to Islam first
according to "sportswriters of the early1960s" (www.boxsport.org/muhammad-ali).
The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. had a brother, Alfred Daniel
Williams King, "A.D." According to their father, A.D. was "a little
rough at times" and "let his toughness build a reputation throughout
our neighborhood." A.D. graduated from Morehouse College and became
pastor of Mount Vernon First Baptist Church. His Birmingham house was
bombed in May 1963. He was "mysteriously found dead in his pool," at
his home in the summer of 1969. (Wikipedia.org)
Justice Clarence Thomas had a younger brother, Myers. As little boys,
they were sent to live together with their maternal grandfather. The
day their grandfather died, Myers told Clarence their daddy died.
"C?" Clarence asked, referring to their biologic father. "No," Myers
said; he was referring to their grandfather who, as far as he was
concerned, was the only daddy the two boys ever had. (My
Grandfather's Son: A Memoir, Harper Collins, 2007)
Medgar Evers had an older brother, Charles, who served in the Army
(1941-46) and taught junior high school in Robbins, IL, a Black
suburb south of Chicago. "I bet I was the only bootlegging,
policy-running schoolteacher in Illinois," he said in his memoir Have
No Fear: The Charles Evers Story. "I kept my Robbins life in Robbins
and my Chicago life in Chicago."
When Medgar was assassinated in 1963, (his widow defined lynching as
"terrorism") Charles returned south and became mayor of Fayette,
Mississippi the first Black mayor in that state since Reconstruction.
"White people," Evers is quoted in Evers: A Biography of Charles
Evers (by Grace Halsell, World Publishing Co., 1971) "have got to
understand that they've got to help us not to hate. Because whatever
we are, White people made us that."
Chester Himes (1909-1984) created Harlem detectives Gravedigger Jones
and Coffin Ed Smith, most famous for the book and movie Cotton Comes
to Harlem. Himes and his brother were to present their science
project at school, but the day they were scheduled to do it their
mother kept Chester home. His brother went on alone. The science
project blew up in Chester's brother's face and blinded him for life
(taken from his autobiography, The Quality of Hurt).
Soledad Brother George Jackson's brother Jonathan stormed the
courthouse during George's 1970 court date armed, taking hostages and
demanding the freedom of his brother. Jonathan died in the melee. As
detailed in Angela Davis's autobiography, this incident led to Davis
fleeing charges of conspiracy, kidnapping and murder and being placed
on the FBI 10 Most Wanted List. (She was eventually found not guilty
of all charges.)
"I didn't feel loved; I felt useless," Marvin Gaye was quoted in
Trouble Man: The Life and Death of Marvin Gaye by Steve Turner.
"Feeling inadequate has always been my biggest problem," David Ritz
quotes Marvin in Divided Soul: The Life of Marvin Gaye.
Gaye had a brother, Frankie, who wrote a book, Marvin Gaye, My
Brother (Backbeat Books, 2003) in order, he said, to set the record
straight. "Along the way so many people tried to help Marvin, it was
too difficult watching him destroy himself," Frankie wrote.
"I got what I wanted," Frankie quoted Marvin. "I ran my race. There's
no more left in me." Frankie (who died in 2001) said the two brothers
favored each other so much they were easily mistaken for each other.
When future Tony-Award winner Gregory Hines' older brother Maurice
began tap lessons, Gregory cried when he could not go with him. The
brothers toured together as a tap dance team, The Hines Kids.
Sam Cooke had a younger brother L.C.; Nat "King" Cole's older brother
played music, but Nat was the child prodigy. Phil Guy performs at his
guitar legend brother Buddy's Chicago blues club, Legends.
National Hall of Fame Baseball player Dave Winfield has a brother,
Steve. He works here in Minnesota to make this a better world for all
the brothers.
--
Elizabeth Ellis is the mother of three grown children, a college
graduate, a 10-year veteran of the Foreign Service and a native of
the Twin Cities. She welcomes reader responses to ellisea51@hotmail.com.
.
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