not radioactive...yet

Minnie Broderick was blind.
An ornately framed picture of Martin Luther King Jr. sat on her dresser. It was placed next to one of a black Jesus, and occupied neither an elevated nor less reverential position of protocol.
"My father, he's the one who gave me my pride, my courage. Now, I'm talkin' about a real man. He bought the house in that white neighborhood when I was just a young girl, and child you know how long ago that was."
She laughed when she said this, but then became quiet and dreamy-eyed. She leaned her head back against the lace doily that was draped over the velvet covered chair. She knitted her arthritic and gnarled hands together and rocked a bit, remembering it all.
"They sent a car full of men over one night," she said, her milky eyes searching for me. "Bunch a white men with clubs, overalls, big black car. They stopped in front of the house and started yellin' out, 'Come on out here nigger,' they yelled, 'We got something to discuss with you. And if you don't come out, we'll come in to get y'all'"
We were all hiding in the bedroom, and he was just sitting in the kitchen by himself with a shotgun in his lap. He yelled back at them, as calm as he could be.
"'Well, I got nothin' to discuss with y'all,' he said, 'And if you cross my door, I got sometin' waitin' for you in here.'"
She rocked some more in her velvet chair and smiled.
"It got real quiet outside. Me and my sisters were all holdin' on to one another. Then we heared that big car start up and just drive away. My daddy died in that same house when he was ninety-nine. Praise Jesus."


MLK assassinated on this date, 43 years ago.