David McElroy

As I sat for hours in the gridlock of traffic last week while Birmingham dealt with an unexpected ice storm, I had one question on my mind: Why haven’t I already moved to the Caribbean?

It sounds like a joke, but I was half serious. I’ve thought for a long time that I’d like to move to a Caribbean island. I have nothing except history tying me to Birmingham (or any other place). I’m tired of the cold that I experience for a few months in the winter. I’m tired of the humid southern summers. I’ve visited a dozen or so islands and I keep finding myself wanting to go back and stay.

So why was I creeping along — and getting trapped on — highways covered with enough ice to be skating rinks last week instead of living on a tropical island?

I could probably give you a dozen reasons. The cost of living is high. The opportunities to make money are more limited. There would be new cultures to learn, maybe even a new language in some places. I’d be leaving friends and familiar places behind. And on and on.

But the bottom line is far simpler. I simply haven’t been willing to commit to doing whatever it takes to make it happen. I’ve accepted the status quo because inertia was easier than committing to change.

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A couple of months ago, Thanksgiving day started out with some unexpected drama on my street. At about 12:30 a.m., I heard emergency vehicles screaming down the street. They stopped right next door to my house. I had no idea at the time that a man was dying just a few feet away from me.

As I watched, emergency crews went in and out of the house for at least half an hour, hurrying to get things from their vehicles. I took pictures of the bright red scene — as you see above — but I never knew what was going on. I finally went back inside and the trucks and ambulances left. I assumed someone might have been taken to a hospital. Maybe it was a fall. Or a heart attack. I just didn’t know.

It wasn’t until the next afternoon that I talked with another neighbor who told me what happened. I don’t know the woman who lives in the place where the emergency crews were working. I’ve seen her a few times, but we’ve never talked. I just knew she lived alone with her young daughter, who I’ve spoken to briefly a few times

What I didn’t know is that the woman’s brother had come to stay with them. I don’t know how long he had been there or why he had come, but it was apparently more than just a brief visit. Even if I had known he was there, though, I would have had no way to know that he was dying of a heroin overdose that night.

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I’m not celebrating Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday today, but it has nothing to do with disagreeing with the man or his stated goals. I simply have no use for the political agenda of the people who claim to be carrying on his legacy.

If you listen to mainstream media accounts of the day, all decent people are joining together to celebrate civil rights and freedom. Here in Birmingham, the local newspaper has its coverage headed with these words: “Alabamians join together in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. — From Huntsville to Mobile, people are stopping to remember the civil rights icon with charity projects, speeches and marches.”

That’s a simplistic and sanitized version of what this day means. The implication of much of what you read today seems to be that anyone who doesn’t celebrate King’s birthday must be racist. The truth is more complicated and we need to admit that.

I live in the heart of where the Civil Rights Movement took place. Some of the worst abuses of white political power were on display in Birmingham as black men and women such as King (and some of their white allies) demanded change. There’s a Birmingham Civil Rights Institute if you need documentation of some of the evils of the day.

Black men and women didn’t have the same rights under state and local laws in many places, mostly in the South. It was difficult or impossible for blacks to vote. The law required black children to attend inferior schools and denied them access to schools for white children. Jim Crow laws required the segregation of races in various public facilities, such as waiting rooms, restrooms and even water fountains. Black people had to be afraid of how they were going to be treated by police and other public officials.

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