Secondary Break. Marvin Williams
shot him dead.
The city was in an uproar over this incident, mostly because everyone in the neighborhood knew the elderly woman gave the young man permission to work in her basement. The parents of the young man discussed the agreement with the elderly woman and gave their blessing for this young man to work for the elderly woman. The police department was so corrupt, even when the elderly lady came forward and admitted she forgot she gave the young man permission to work in her basement. They tried to simply ignore the situation. For more than a week, there were riots within the city. Buses were overturned, people were getting shot and killed. Emotions were running high while hope for a time of justice for the black community was damn near dead. That was until the Black Panther Party got involved. The Black Panther Party demanded and subsequently succeeded in getting this woman arrested for her part in the killing of an innocent black male. To the elderly woman’s credit, her personal guilt made her admit her wrongdoing. However, without the intervention of the Black Panther Party, this injustice would have been swept under the rug.
There are numerous stories about black people, especially black men, being harassed by police. I wish I could say times have changed since the sixties and seventies, but unfortunately, this is the shit that makes black people and real human beings disgusted with the police and the abuse of power. This is the shit that makes you sick to your stomach but also become hardened to the idea that this reality for so many. This is the shit that makes you shake your head, knowing it ain’t right, but this is the fight every day. The fight against the attack on black communities that continues today. It is like a stain on your favorite shirt. Try as you might, it never seems to go away. The difference today is that there aren’t organizations like the Black Panthers on a national level who, with a unified national mission, step in to find solutions for anyone, experiencing the attacks of injustices we see today.
One of the greatest things I saw the Blank Panther Party organize was the summer lunch program. This program was available in every community around Brooklyn, and I believe they covered almost all of the neighborhoods in and around New York City. This summer lunch program was so important to me because I believe my friend Montgomery would have died without it. Montgomery was one of my close friends who, like Tony, was severely poor. Montgomery used to come to school with an ashy face. He looked like he just took a bath but had no lotion all of the time. Montgomery would go days, wearing the same clothing, and he never had any money. During the summer, we would take lunch breaks and head over to the corner store. My mom gave me money, and I would share it with Montgomery to make sure he could get something with me that he would share with his little brother and sister. When the summer lunch program started with the Black Panthers, Montgomery had the opportunity to feed himself, his brother, and his sister at least once a day.
Being friends with Montgomery became one of my split-second decisions. In fact, it turned out Montgomery was the start of the journey to my passion. I remember being six or seven years old, watching the older kids playing basketball before, during, and after school. It was cool to watch, but at that time, I was a nerd and had more fun competing with my cousin Madeline to see who could get the best grades in school. I loved learning new things, even at six or seven years old. However, one day, Tony asked me why I wasn’t playing basketball with our friends. I told him I wasn’t truly interested in the game even though it looked kind of fun. Tony pushed me to ask Montgomery to teach me how to play because he was really good. Finally, my split-second decision: I agreed to go and learn how to play basketball from Montgomery.
Montgomery was excited to teach me how to play, but how and where he would teach me would be very unique. Montgomery was the oldest child of his mother’s as far as I knew. He had a younger brother and sister that he took care of. At six or seven years old, when school ended for the day, Montgomery had to go straight home to take care of his siblings. Seeing that Montgomery wore the same clothes every day and never had any lotion and barely had enough food to keep himself alive made seeing him go home and take care of two younger kids even worse. There was never any food in the house, so seeing him try to put something, anything together to care for them was just sad. We would practice playing basketball outside his house, close enough to make sure that if his brother and sister needed something, he was there to take care of them. I never saw Montgomery’s mom Monday through Sunday. To this day, I have no idea what his mother even looks like. I used to stay at his house with him to try to help him out. Montgomery saw his situation as normal, just like Tony, because at such a young age, the way they lived was all they knew. All they knew was p-o-v-e-r-t-y!
Montgomery, despite his home situation, was a great basketball teacher. I learned to play basketball because it was fun, playing with him and Tony. He broke down basketball in a kid’s way—the only way to learn is to do it. We would run drills, and I was learning while playing something he made fun. Montgomery and Tony would share the professional basketball teams and players they loved to watch play the game. Tony loved Clyde “the Glide,” Walt Frazier, and the New York Knicks was our team. I’d take any chance I could get to watch them on TV, and I would go play every day after school.
I remember going home after playing all day to my parents’ fighting each other all night. It would get so violent that we would have to go stay at my aunt’s house for days on end. My parents would cut into each other, and both would be so drunk that they didn’t care about us. When they got in their moods to fight, we spent a lot of time, looking out for the police on our street because the neighbors would call them on my parents. Their fights would get so loud and physical.
In 1971, Julius “Dr. J” Erving joined the American Basketball Association (ABA) to become the star player on the Virginia Squires professional basketball team. He couldn’t get into the NBA because they had a rule at that time that in order to be drafted, you had to be out of high school at least four years. I began really focusing on basketball and watching Dr. J. play was like a dream I wanted for myself. Dr. J. was originally from New York, and he did some superhuman amazing things with the basketball. His hands were so big, he could hold a basketball in his hands like it was a tennis ball. This amazing basketball player became my idol, and I would follow his every move and career for the rest of my life.
To this day, I truly think that if it wasn’t for Dr. J, I wouldn’t have survived, coming up in New York. My friends, as they got older, began to get involved in more and more gang activities. There were so many gangs in New York. We had the warlords, the disciples, the young bloods, and the five percenters. There were female versions of each of these gangs as well. I remember walking out of school one day and seeing one girl gang, fighting another girl gang while the boys of one gang were fighting the other boys with chains. It was bloody and violent as hell. That was not the pathway for me. I could have decided to go the path of gang life. I mean, I was already running away from the violence in my own home. I could have easily gone the way of the gangs. Unlike my friends, my destiny and my seconds were happily hitched to basketball.
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