The Queen, The King & I ~ My Black History Childhood Memory

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It was February 1968.  I was so excited because my mother and stepfather treated my sister and me to an Aretha Franklin concert at Detroit’s Cobo Hall, which opened its doors to rave reviews just 8 years earlier.  It was such a wonderful treat, what with the racial tension and climate of the City being strained due to the riots that occurred the previous summer.  The 1967 riots were particularly frightening for me because my parents were court reporters and were picked up by police squad car to be escorted downtown to work overtime in the unusually high number of riot-related court cases.  Scarier still was the fact that sniper fire whizzed by the black and whites during their drive and my sister and I were separated from them for two weeks as it was safer for them to stay downtown rather than travel back and forth.

So the following winter when momma announced that we were going to see the QUEEN OF SOUL, Ms. Aretha Franklin, in concert, I was beside myself.  You see, in 1968 Aretha was on fire, fresh off the heels of a run of hits in ’67 –  ”Baby I Love You“, “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman“,  ”Chain of Fools” and “Respect”,  the latter netting Ms. Franklin her first two Grammys.  Not only was she a local celebrity, but on the national scope, she had become a household name.  With the Civil Rights Movement gaining political steam, “Respect” had become a movement anthem.  A ticket to this concert was highly sought after… and I had one!

The concert was flawless and was over way too soon for my liking.  I wanted more; more Aretha, more finger snapping, more foot tapping…more SOUL!  But like all good things, it came to an end.  But not so fast… The Queen came back to the stage and this time, not for the obligatory encore song but to announce to the satiated audience that she had a special guest backstage who wanted to come out and greet the crowd.  She explained that he wouldn’t be able to address us because he had laryngitis from his many recent speaking engagements but that she still wanted to bring him on stage so we could all see him.  A cacophonous rumble could be heard throughout the arena.  And then from stage right came a dark brown skinned man, waving to us…waving to ME!  “Ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Martin Luther King”.   The rumble quickly turned into deafeningly thunderous applause.  This was no mere mortal; this was our hope, our savior, our KING!  I could not believe that the man I had heard spoken of in my household and seen in black and white on the TV set was actually in the same room with me.  It was a moment I will NEVER forget… NEVER. Two months later the King was gone, but for a few moments frozen in time, I got to witness Black History in the making.

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