Wednesday, October 21, 1998 (2:00 am)
"Roseland... Roseland? I've got to see about that." I was staying at the Novotel at 52nd and Broadway in Manhattan. Walking back to my room at about midnight I saw it just across and a little down the street from the front door of the hotel. I walked a down few doors toward it, past a storefront called Gallaghers which was filled with rack upon rack of aging red meat. I crossed over to check it out and there were people loading rental equipment into a commercial truck. The front door to the ballroom was open and I walked in. Someone who looked like security was just opposite an enormous column from me and as he walked back toward the front door, I kept a similar relative position so as to avoid catching his eye.
Inside, I looked around for stairs. Was it upstairs or downstairs? I took a large flight of well-worn stairs going down and looked around. Mostly open floor space. I noticed someone else walking down another flight of stairs. I didn't want to be noticed as out of place, so I walked meaningfully into the men's room and approached a urinal. So did he. Oh, well, I figured. As long as I was there...
I took a look around and tried to envision the scene 40 years before and guess precisely where someone would be shining shoes. I think it must have been right there near the entrance. Just about enough open space and that would have been the best place to take advantage of the high traffic of a crowded dance.
It had been about three weeks since I finished reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X. It was September 29, to be exact. That was the night I lead Kol Nidre services for a large congregation in Southern California. There are many who spend the period leading up to Rosh Hashana, the Jewish new year, and especially the 10 days between that and the day of atonement, mending relationships and injuries they've caused to others, and meditating on what's important in their lives. The Kol Nidre service is so called after the first two words of a medieval prayer that is sung three times on the evening that begins Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement traditionally observed by prayer and fasting. How fitting that I should finally complete that book at that time.
It took me almost a month, though that's more due to my lack of free time than the material. Also due to the fact that I'd been saving it for the many plane flights I was taking between Oakland and Burbank. But that pace allowed me to let the narrative sink deeper than it might have otherwise. I would try from time to time to hear the actual voice behind the words, and I found it amazingly easy to do. I don't know Malcolm's voice well, but the cadence comes through the content, thanks in part to the writing skill of Alex Hailey, but also the methodology by which they worked. There was the astounding intellect; the wonderful command of language; and of course, the meaning and the growth that was behind Malcolm's words and actions.
At one point I had sat all alone in a hotel restaurant that aspired with all its might to be wonderfully high class, carefully turning pages to avoid getting any of my fettuccini with salmon cream sauce on the book, and thinking to myself how ironic the scene was. By almost any definition one could choose, I was precisely the devil whose description I was reading at that moment. But it's not a very comforting thing to look in the mirror and see yourself as someone's devil, even if not your own. Not comforting at all.
Of course, a real devil wouldn't even be reading it. Or at least wouldn't be paying such close attention and hearing it so clearly. But why not? A devil isn't necessarily stupid or devoid of understanding. And that makes it even more challenging.
The possibility must exist, then, that I am that devil. Maybe that's the first step (of twelve?) to dealing with the situation. I have racist thoughts and prejudices, and I can even recall (embarrassingly) instances when those thoughts found their way into word or deed. But is that the point?
Maybe what my generation needs is for some of us (most of us) to stand up and just be less of the problem and more of the solution than there were in our parents' generation. It's not about marches or rallies or sit-ins in our time. It's about setting an example and establishing expectations for our own children.
It's about saying, "Yes, that sounds about right." When my child tells of a student who was suspended for using a racial slur, and simply affirming once again the lesson that's already in place from family and society, "That's just not acceptable."
At other times in reading the book I was filled with the question of whether, if he were alive today, Malcolm and I might have been able to meet and share something in common. Even if it were nothing more than that we both loved our children, I have to believe that it would have been possible. Maybe even our music would have served as a link and bridge.
I'm convinced that there's something that changes in an individual once they have experienced the act of making a musical phrase. I don't mean playing a set of notes in their proper order and time. I mean expressing an artistic thought. Of course, the same change can come through graphic art, dance, dramatics, plumbing, teaching, athletics, woodwork, software development, construction, parenting, preaching, or what might be the highest form of art, comedy.
But once a person possesses, even for a single moment, a mastery of what they're doing and uses it to express themselves truly and honestly (therein creating a true expression of humanity in general), in that moment the person can be changed. And I think that individuals who have experienced that always have something in common upon which they can forge a relationship - even if it lasts only as long as a single conversation.
Toward the book's end, as I learned more about Malcolm's experiences during and after his international travels (especially during the hajj), I was encouraged that it might have been possible indeed for us to have built a relationship of at least a conversation, and quite possibly more, if circumstances would have allowed it.
As I looked, on my way out, at the Roseland's display of distinguished shoes that had danced on that famous floor, I wondered if there might be a pair from Malcolm Little, who went from being a rookie shoe-shine downstairs to high stepping zoot-suited Detroit Red on the main floor, through personal trials and finally on to much greater things. I was disappointed, and honestly a little surprised that the only black face I saw in the small hall of fame was that of Gregory Hines. Not at all surprised that he was there, of course, but that no one else was.
The show they were cleaning up after had featured Isaac Hayes and Meat Loaf. An odd combination maybe, but one that the Comedy Channel obviously thought would work. Hayes, whose voice is now much better known as "Chef" from the animated South Park, apparently played around with the juxtaposition of his old and new rounds of fame.
But I wasn't there to see a show. I was there to see a place somewhere in the men's rest room where a teacher of mine once stood.
Friday, October 23, 1998 (2:00 am)
After completing a day of consultations with an agency of the Michigan state government, my partner and I were driving down what is now called Martin Luther King Boulevard on our way to a post-meeting meeting. Just as unexpectedly as he had done only a day and a half before, Malcolm found his way into my life once again. There at the corner of Martin Luther King Blvd. and Vincent Ct. was a large plaque, placed by a division of the Michigan Department of State, identifying the location of Malcolm X's home site. Nothing remains of the home itself, of course, but written on the two sides of the monument is a brief synopsis of his life.
I know much better than to think it is for no reason that I received Malcolm's autobiography as a gift when I did; that I was called to go to New York and randomly booked to stay in a hotel just across the street from the Roseland Ballroom; that I was then unexpectedly called away to attend meetings in Lansing, Michigan before my business in New York was scheduled to be complete (even though that same New York business was cut short after only two days, so I missed nothing); and then for the meetings in Lansing to take place right down the street from Malcolm's childhood home.
It's as if I've traveled backward through his life during the course of my own life in the past month. First (last), the meditation and seeking a depth of understanding and meaning as did he in his last days, then back to the site of his most notorious days as a hustler, and finally back to the place where an intelligent and motivated young boy was told that he should forget his dreams of becoming a lawyer just because of his race.
As has been the case in the past, I am confident that this lesson will be made clear in its own time. But for now, I marvel once again that whether by the name of Adonai or Allah (or any other), God truly works in mysterious ways.
©1998 Stephen Saxon